已读乱回yǐ dú luàn huí

Read, replied at random

shōu dào, míng tiān xià yǔ.收到，明天下雨。Got it. It’ll rain tomorrow.

已读乱回 means “read it, replied at random”. You do answer the message, but your answer has little to do with the question.

Took off: 2026
Started in: Chat replies
Today: Current

What it means

It plays on 已读不回, “read, no reply”, the label for someone who saw your message and ignored it. 已读乱回 swaps 不, “not”, for 乱, “at random”.

People use it to dodge a question without being rude, to end an awkward chat, or just for fun. Some reply with a random picture from their phone.

How people use it

It is current, mostly in chats with friends and family. SmartShanghai’s 2026 slang guide calls it possibly worse than no reply at all.

灯灯

你明天几点到？
nǐ míng tiān jǐ diǎn dào?
What time are you getting here tomorrow?
今天的晚霞好漂亮
jīn tiān de wǎn xiá hǎo piào liang
The sunset is so pretty today.
已读乱回是吧？
yǐ dú luàn huí shì ba?
Read it and replied with nonsense, huh?
好吧，十点到
hǎo ba, shí diǎn dào
Fine. Ten o’clock.

More examples

他问我几点到，我回了一个猫的表情，已读乱回。
tā wèn wǒ jǐ diǎn dào, wǒ huí le yí gè māo de biǎo qíng, yǐ dú luàn huí.
He asked when I’d arrive. I sent a cat sticker. Read, replied at random.
你别已读乱回，好好回答我！
nǐ bié yǐ dú luàn huí, hǎo hǎo huí dá wǒ!
Don’t reply with nonsense. Answer me properly!

Where it came from

The phrase is older: a 2024 article already listed it as a way to avoid a topic. It took off at the start of 2026 with a wave of nonsense replies.

One was an old answer on a shopping site: asked about the fit of a pair of trousers, a buyer said “no idea” and praised their own figure. Users copied the shape: 不知道，我的睡眠很重要, “no idea, my sleep is important”.

Around the Spring Festival in February 2026, young people shared answers to relatives’ questions. Asked when they got back, how long they were staying and when they would leave, they said “a couple of days ago”, “a couple of days” and “in a couple of days”.

The original. There is no single image. Posts show chat screenshots in which the answer ignores the question. Huxiu wrote about the shopping-site reply in January 2026. Huxiu (in Chinese)