#all my xiǎo shāshǒu are really just chaos gremlins

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I am determined to make a clip of every single instance of Zhang Linghe doing math on The Truth S2. Like this one from ep 3-2 where everyone acknowledges after the last ep he's definitely their math guy.

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The Truth subtitle files

The Truth/Let's Start Reasoning season 2 is an amazing show, but I think we can all agree the English subtitles are a mess?

Because I wanted them for myself, and I'm always happy to share, here are some very slightly cleaned up subtitle files. You're welcome to download and use these files or edit them yourself as you see fit. (And I'll continue to add new ones as the eps air.)

For clarity, I'm no translator. My Mandarin is barely above toddler level. All I've done here, for the most part, is fix names. There's several places where names are translated literally causing confusion. king for Wang, shellfish/shellpot/scallop for Bei Guo, minibus for Xiao Ba, and so on. Plus the many variations of push for any instance of 推 Tuī.

I did take liberties in a few places. In ep 8 there's two NPCs called Tui AI and Tui Ai (推AI and 推爱) and for English reading clarity I rendered Tui Ai as Tui Mou since there's several instances where they seem to be saying 推某 (Tuī mǒu) so I just went with it.

In a very few rare instances I slightly restructured a sentence. So definitely not fixing for accuracy here, just clarity for following along if you don't understand any Mandarin or simply find the machine translated subtitles in the chaos that is this show even more confusing.

There's a text file in with the subtitle file downloads explaining how to use them if you don't already know. I'm in the US and watching via YouTube, so these files are for those specific videos. If you want to further edit the files, any text editor should do (but I recommend Notepad++).

Again I pretty much only fixed names, and left most the wild weird artifacts of machine translation. Because honestly I find it adds an enjoyable surreal quality to the show. I only wanted to be able to follow who was being referred in the show without having to rewind and listen to what they were saying when the subtitles failed at their job. ETA - there are now two folders at the link, one with files with mostly just fixed names, and one where I've fully edited some files in an attempt to make all of it more coherent. But again I'm not translator (still I think it's better than Tencent gave us on Youtube).

But really sometimes the subtitles are so good they are bad, right?

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Zhang Linghe posts "very happy" about being reunited with my beloved cast from The Truth S2 at the Tencent Starlight awards.

Comments are basically Zhang Linghe to Jin Jing: The group photo will be added next time, Purple Tsk ('purple tsk' is an internet slang homophone of 'sister').

Zhang Linghe to Jin Jing: Should I transfer the money directly to you or not? ☺️ Jin Jing: Purple Tsk is too busy today (maybe a baby emoji?) I hope 2025 belongs to you. Then I will take your photo and sign and sell it for money.

Zhou Keyu: Wei is handsome again ❤️

Zhang Linghe: Be normal [puzzled emoji]

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The lights go out in The Truth and well...

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Once again I present you with a clip of The Truth S2 in attempt to get you to watch. Even despite the terrible YouTube caption (or because of them) this show continues to be an absolute delight. Sure they mysteries are fun, but the most important parts are when they are all making fun of each other (well that and trying to catalog how many snacks they eat).

Please enjoy this clip from ep 6-1 I saved as 'handcuff and butt pain.'

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This tiny bit from ep 7 of the The Truth S2 is a fine example of how every time the lights go out on that show Liu Yuning gloms on to someone, but very specifically how in almost every single episode he ends up holding Zhang Linghe's hand.

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I don't even have words for goth Dilraba. Back in the day we used to get goth magazines from europe and this is somehow the pure distillation of everything we used to dream about.

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I am so over the moon about the styling for ep 8 of The Truth S2. Look what they did to my beautiful princess, Dilraba! Glorious queen of space! Fantastic, campy, scifi at it's absolute best.

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The Truth S2, this show is just chaos gremlins from beginning to end, and I love every minute of it. But really Dilraba torturing Zhang Linghe when they are all in the dark is for sure one of the high points.

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A tiny spoiler for one the many complicated reveals in ep 4-1 of S2 of The Truth, but out of context it's just very cute. Also I truly feel the writers where just entertaining themselves with the possibilities of things like this.

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This line in S2 of The Truth ep 4-2 could easily be translated as protect me, daddy and I've seen it that way in some clips. I like it that way but I've stuck with the more likely translation here in the context of the show. Sigh. It's still cute as all get out. Literally this show has me thinking kinds of, uh, interesting thoughts about LYN and ZLH. 🤷

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I know I keep begging you all to watch S2 of The Truth. But look, I haven't even seen this episode yet and I can already tell you it's going to be so worth your time. LOOK AT THESE GREMLINS.

And really even the show knows what it's doing. The caption this from the official show weibo:

#Zhang Linghe acts like a spoiled child to Liu Yuning# #Zhang Linghe makes Liu Yuning unable to do anything# The smart butler robot Xiao He [Zhang Linghe], after receiving the command from Xiao Ning [Liu Yuning], turned on the "melancholy male god" mode, and the words "Master, you can go to eat" directly melted Ning's heart

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I'm sure I've talked too much about how The Truth S2 made me ship ZLH and LYN, but I certainly have talked enough about Zhou Keyu's insane 'notice me senpai' energy with Bai Yu. Like here in ep 3-2.

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Learn The Truth 😂

Please enjoy my completely unhinged thoughts on The Truth S2, in which I use the word 'fun' way too many times.

So I'm kind of obsessed with this show (my mini recap of the ep 0 pilot here). I described it to non-drama watching friend as like being at a murder mystery house party but with some of your fave Chinese celebrities instead of your friends. It's just fun. The Truth S2 (aka 开始推理吧 第二季, aka Start Reasoning 2) is a Chinese comedy variety show about investigating murders.  An overview on how it works:

Each set of episodes is set in certain time period. The six cast members are given details about their character in that time period (but the other cast seem to only know the info about their own character and are surprised by everyone else's reveals), a preset story plays out and an NPC is murdered. Then two characters deemed free of suspicion (I'm actually not sure how this is determined) become investigators and the other four are the suspects.

The investigators check the scene and body for clues, then all six sit in a room while those clues are presented, and then each suspect has a box of gathered clues about each other. Like Suspect A will say 'here is what was found in Suspect C's room' and then  show the incriminating evidence, while Suspect C tries to explain using their backstory notes and everyone else teases and mocks them. Then there's a some sort of mysterious test and if the murderer passes it then they can make one of the investigators an 'X' meaning the investigator will help them escape discovery. Then once they've all shared their evidence and backstories, they go out into the sets (a huge building of different rooms) and try and solve the mystery by finding more clues.

This season stars Bai Yu (yes from Guardian), Liu Yuning, Dilraba Dilmurat, Zhang Linghe, Zhou Keyu (who is apparently American???), and Wang Xun (who has more credentials than the rest of the cast combined). It's an interesting mix of ages and backgrounds that seems to be working, mostly because they are all eventually revealed to be chaos gremlins. Also LYN, BY, and ZKY were on The Truth S1, so they are the 'seniors' here.

Episodes 1 & 2 are set in the 1920s in a cabaret club. Same characters, location, etc. but a different murder in each ep, with an over arcing separate (non-murder) mystery with its own clues going on simultaneously. Episodes 3 & 4 are in 1988 in trading company office.  I've seen some incredible costumes that might or might not be from ep 4. They don't seem to fit what I've seen so far (through ep 3) but ep 2 goes so far off the rails from where it starts that I'm willing to accept anything might fit in these bonkers storylines.

We're only 3 eps in and am unable to count the number of times I've shouted "wait, what!?" at the screen. To be fair some of this is because it's only available to me (in the US) with terrible machine translated subtitles. It's almost like a whole separate game just to parse these out. And some of it is nonsensical and confusing, and some is utterly delightful, like Liu Yuning telling a story that starts "when I was young girl..." But mostly there's a lot of weird direct translation of names that is simply so confusing that you have to just guess what they are saying in context.

Despite that it's a joy to watch. To see who is really picking up clues, to watch them all constantly eat snacks (seriously so many snacks in this show), to see how they play the story lines they are given,  and to see them interact with each other. Things I didn't know I needed to see, like how pleased with himself ZLH is Every time he solves a problem but especially a math problem (he was an engineering student before he was an actor). And LYN's ability to instantly solve puzzle boxes (maybe because he does magic tricks sometimes?) Dilraba's incredible ability to spot clues in weird places that no one else seems to notice.

So I've said this is fun and it is, all on its own. But I am absolutely obsessed with this show so far because the actors keep making it gay when they really don't have to. Like just for fun. Even if none of the actors are queer (unlikely) at least two of the actors have been in bl drama adaptations, and at least two more have been in shows with Gong Jun, so I assume they all at least know from gay, you know?  Some of it feels like the good old days of TV in my youth (in the last century) when we had to ship folks to make our own gay, which the restrictions of Chinese are making increasingly necessary. Some of it is probably just like my own wishful thinking. And because of the terrible subtitles a lot of it is me just saying "wait did that just actually happen, or did I just think it did?" (Nothing says fun like gaslighting yourself about whether something is gay, lol.)

There are also a lot of good running jokes developing. At some point in Ep 1 Bai Yu called everyone 'little killers' (xiao shashou) and it really caught on. And now every time a suspect is defending themself against evidence someone will say, laden with sarcasm, the equivalent of "sure you're innocent, little killer."  Everyone keeps calling Zhang Linghe "Handsome He" and I literally cannot figure out if this is in the script or just them teasing him (because there seems to be a lot of teasing of ZLH). In addition to this the cast is making a lot of gay jokes and it's lovely because it's clearly not mean-spirited or cruel. Some seem to be just obvious and fun. But others I can easily interpret as the cast simply being like "hey, there is no gay here, let's put some gay here! It's fun!" In ep two there's a conversation that went something like this (I'm paraphrasing the subtitles)

ZKY *in character reading from I think another character's journal?*: Young Marshal He [ZLH's character] lifted his head and looked towards Young Marshal Ning [LYN's character] with a complicated emotion in his eyes. ZKY *out of character*: "What emotion?" Dilraba: What type of story is this? (omg the look on her face, she knows) ZLH *starts laughing and looking shy* LYN: *singing to ZLH* I've finally learned how to love… ❣️‼️ Dilraba *looking overjoyed*: This is so messy! (ZLH's character is supposed to be in love with her character, and LYN's character is her character's brother) ZLH (continues to laugh while simultaneously looking pleased and shy)

Then as they go on around the sets looking for clues and solving thing they just keep referencing this joke of ZLH's character and LYN's character being the ones in a romance in the story. But like I guess subtly enough that it gets past censorship? But like obvious enough I got it even with the terrible subtitles. And after this it's like all I can not to analyze every scene for good gay joke content.

There's several scenes while they are searching for clues and the lights go out and something scary happens. These presumably leave the cast unable to see in pitch black, but are filmed with some kind of night vision (nice to see who is dying their hair by how it comes out weird in the night scope, lol). So I'm bopping along wondering if I'm feeling creepy for how I'm kind of starting to ship LYN and ZLH and then the lights go out and I'm forced to frantically text by friend: "OMG the lights just went off on The Truth and LYN plastered himself, chest to back, on ZLH, then they grabbed Dilraba and pulled her in and now this is some kind of perfect bisexual triad that I didn't know I wanted?" And I'm sitting there, having watched it three times, asking myself if that's what really happened. Then the show's official Weibo posts it with the caption "After the lights go out, Liu Yuning became Zhang Linghe’s backpack." I mean, c'mon!!

the subtitles here are something like- LYN "let's sing to make ourselves brave" ZKY *sings the alphabet song and everyone joins in* LYN "what no, not this song."

And the scene carries on, the new bisexual triad of my dreams with arms linked and everyone being so cute that I can't stop thinking about for days. And then later the show decided to get a certain clue ZLH and LYN had to stand face to face and get wrapped like a mummy. Because why not? 😅😂 I was already being ridiculous about this, why not just SPOON FEED IT TO ME? And then. And then... Remember in ep 2 when LYN starts singing "I finally learned how to love" to ZLH? Welp then LYN posts the most theater kid emo gay boy video imaginable with song on his Weibo. A video that just screams, "I'm so deep, and cannot ever share my deep, meaningful conflicted feelings." And which point I'm forced to text my friend, "OMG is THIS the show that's finally going to turn me in to a delusional shipper? Of LYN and ZLH? This was not on my bingo card. Like totally out of left field." And yet here we are. I'm not proud of what this show has done to me. But obviously I'm not embarrassed enough to not post about either.🤡

Now I've written this entire rambling mess just so I could share that with you all my unhinged obsession with the gay subtext and gay jokes in this show. Like eagerly watching with popcorn looking for that next little single line or physical touch that I can make something huge out of. A week later and I'm still thinking about a moment when ZLH casually called LYN 'ge' while touching his shoulder because it felt so real and out of character for the scene. Because seriously, what is even happening in this show? Is this all happening, is it actually on screen, or am I finally really having a reality break? I think the point of this post was to convince you to watch this beautifully bonkers show, but I got really distracted by the gay. But like maybe that too will convince you to watch these absolute chaos gremlins?

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No spoilers for the final episode of The Truth S2, just this very important clip, once more in an attempt to compel everyone to watch this bonkers show.

If you're not watching you're missing the opportunity to see Dilraba be both clever and a chaos gremlin. To see Liu Yuning, sing and be charming and ridiculously scared of the dark. To see Zhou Keyu plan an insane game of 'notice me, senpai' with Bai Yu. To see Zhang Linghe solve complex math problems. And most importantly, to see Zhang Linghe in this clip.