125 is a cube, so naturally I wrote three articles today and published one on each of the three platforms where I regularly appear. Feel free to hunt for the Easter egg!
Bilibili
Ah, yes. Today is my birthday. I am celebrating in American time, so this post may appear a little late. But wait: China Standard Time and Central Standard Time are fourteen hours apart. If I count both time zones, I get a glorious thirty-eight-hour birthday! Brilliant as always.
This Bilibili piece is being published at midnight where I am, making it the first of my three January 3 articles. (The real reason is that fewer people here know me personally, so no one will complain that I stayed up late.) Most of what I might want to review about Bilibili already appeared in my annual retrospective a few days ago. The progress was plain and unadorned: I passed one hundred followers. To quote myself from then: next year I will keep working hard and strive to kill every viewer with increasingly deranged projects. (
What else is there to say? After thinking it over, all I have is: “I survived another year.” My birthday comes only two days after New Year’s Day. You cannot seriously expect me to invent brand-new material in that interval. Much of what I wanted to say also appeared in the annual Puzzle Hunt video I released recently. If you have not watched it, go now!
Still, a birthday should leave behind a wish. In this new year of being one year older, I hope I can keep making videos and let more people see them!
(By the way, Bilibili, did you reuse the exact same birthday greeting video as last year?)
In the blink of an eye, I have reached that milestone called twenty. As one close friend whose birthday was a few days ago put it, I am now heading toward thirty. When I was little, I would wake on my birthday feeling as though some tremendous transformation had occurred within me. That sensation has faded as I have grown older.
I was still awake when the clock in America passed midnight. Should my birthday follow Chinese time or American time? After some thought, I decided both should count, allowing me to enjoy a glorious thirty-eight-hour birthday, haha.
Where did I spend last year’s birthday? Chengde, I think. I can almost still taste the cake my brother and I made. This year, the lineup is once again my brother plus two people from the grandparent generation. Two people have been absent for two years, but I will not name names. ()
All right, Mom, I received the cake you bought. Delicious 😋
Looking at all the greetings on my phone, I could genuinely feel those wishes crossing the Pacific—or Europe and the Atlantic—as though everyone were right beside me.
It is probably fortunate that I am not on the LETU campus. Who knows which group would drive over, grab me, and throw me into a pond? (
Still, a birthday should leave behind a wish. In this new year of being one year older, I hope I can finally complete the things I once wanted to do but never did!
Website
There have been no Hunts lately, and I did not prepare a puzzle to celebrate my birthday. Having completed every Puzzle Hunt task of 2025 and finished the annual retrospective, I may as well enjoy a birthday with my brain switched off!
What, you still have not watched my annual retrospective? Here is the link. Go immediately! One Year! What Did I Learn from Puzzle Hunts?!! — TPAPWRAPA Special
I recorded a long section recalling my hazy childhood encounters with things that might be called “puzzles,” but it never made the final cut. I do not know why I began talking about them at the time. Later, I saw how long the video had become and applied the principle “this is not a segment I like, therefore it goes.” Looking back now, I realize that the enthusiasm I had even then carried me all the way here—and will continue carrying me forward.
This article was not finished until after the website itself was built. I hope nobody saw the very specific number “three,” searched every platform, and found nothing. Did… did anyone? It is actually March already. (Procrastination noises.)
Still, a birthday should leave behind a wish. In this new year of being one year older, I hope I can return to the reason I first fell in love with puzzles and simply enjoy all the puzzles life has to offer!
Oh, how did you know that one friend gave me Animal Well, which I had wanted for ages, while another gave me 14 Minesweeper Variants for my birthday?
According to a completely unreliable rumor, Zhuge Tianyao found a lantern on his birthday. Something like the Rinascita Data Bank would do nicely. Inside was, naturally, a genie capable of granting three wishes. After hearing the different wishes made by the three Zhuge Tianyaos of WeChat, Bilibili, and the personal website, the genie decided to grant all three at once.
And in the end, our classmate Tianyao received…
Comments