Beneath the Ordinary Sky
Never knew what to do
author
Well, hello guys! I honestly didn’t think I’d be back so soon, but here we are 😅
author
So, what happened was — I was checking my old folders and found this novel I’d created a while ago.
author
I Was about to delete it, but then thought… why not just upload it here instead
author
It’s still kinda incomplete, so maybe I’ll finish it someday — who knows!
author
Anyway, it’s actually a novel, but I decided to upload it in chat-story format because, well… why not? (✿^‿^)
author
So ...just a heads-up — there will definitely be fewer dialogues in this one. I’ll be honest with you all, this is a novel after all ಠ_ಠ. But I’ll try to include some dialogue whenever possible!(ب_ب)
author
So let's start!(≧▽≦)
The alarm chimed once, soft and precise, before Ruien’s hand found the button.
The room settled back into silence.
Pale light spilled through the thin curtains.
It caught on the rim of his glasses lying beside the pillow, on the edges of books stacked perfectly square at the desk.
Nothing was out of place.
He liked it that way—tidy, quiet, easy to breathe in.
He sat up slowly, running a hand through hair that never quite stayed flat.
The mirror opposite the bed returned a face too calm for morning: pale skin against dark hair, eyes a clear blue that looked colder than they felt.
People sometimes told him his eyes were striking.
He never knew what to do with comments like that, so he would just nod.
He dressed in his usual way—soft cotton shirt, light sweater, clean jeans.
Clothes chosen for comfort, not to stand out. Even so, he always did.
Downstairs, the house was already awake in fragments: the clink of porcelain from the dining room, the low voice of his father on the phone, the faint sound of the news.
He paused a moment on the last step, listening, then entered quietly.
His mother noticed him first.
shen ruien mother ( lin huifen)
“Morning, Ruien. Toast’s on the table.”
No one looked up after that; they were all busy, moving inside their own mornings.
He buttered a slice of toast carefully, half-listening to his father’s conversation about clients and deadlines.
His sister’s laughter floated down from upstairs—she was talking to someone on video call, bright and clear.
His brother’s name appeared once in the news ticker; their father commented proudly, “That’s your brother’s firm.”
Ruien nodded, swallowing his toast.
When his mother finally turned back, she said,
shen ruien mother ( lin huifen)
“You have class today, right? Don’t forget your coat, the weather report said it might rain.”
The words were warm enough, but they drifted away the moment they were spoken, like the steam rising from the tea cup between his hands.
He finished eating, gathered his bag, and stepped toward the door.
No one stopped him; no one needed to.
They all loved him in their own quiet, efficient ways—checking, reminding, never really seeing.
Outside, the air was cool.
He breathed in, deeper than before.
Across the street the sun touched the rooftops, turning them gold.
For a second it caught the lenses of his glasses, a quick flash of light—then he lowered his head and started walking, the sound of his footsteps soft against the empty pavement.
author
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he never said no
The garage smelled faintly of fuel and metal polish.
His car waited where it always did, silver paint catching the morning light.
Shen Ruien slid behind the wheel, careful, methodical—the way he did everything.
He started the engine, the low hum filling the silence that followed him from the house.
Outside, the street looked almost empty, only the thin movement of trees reflected in the windshield.
He liked this part of the day: no voices, no eyes on him, just the mechanical rhythm of driving.
Halfway through the intersection his phone buzzed against the console.
He checked it at the next red light.
[Zhang Wei]
“Ruien ah, can you send me 10,000 yuan? I’ll pay you back later, promise.”
He stared at the screen for a few seconds, expression unchanged.
The words I’ll pay you back didn’t even register as a possibility.
He already knew the pattern—the friendly greetings that only came
When someone needed something, the small, polite traps that came disguised as kindness.
He also remembered the last time he said no.
Back in high school, when he refused to lend money to a classmate, the whispers started within a day.
Ungrateful, they said, stingy, thinks he’s better than everyone.
He hadn’t argued.
The noise had lasted weeks, and even now the echo of it still made his stomach tighten.
He pressed the accelerator.
Another message came—three dots, then a sticker, then “You’re the best!”
He exhaled quietly, thumb hovering above the keypad, then typed back a single line:
shen ruien
“Okay. I’ll transfer it later.”
He didn’t feel anger. He didn’t even feel tired.
Just a small, practiced relief: it was easier this way.
Easier to let the world take little pieces of him than to explain why he didn’t want to.
Traffic blurred past the window—shops, bicycles, people rushing.
His reflection drifted over the glass, faint and pale.
For a moment he wondered what he looked like to them: the quiet, generous boy everyone liked because he never said no.
Then the thought folded away, neat as always, and he drove on.
help me with this question
The university parking lot was half full, rows of cars gleaming under the late-morning light.
Shen Ruien eased his into a corner space, locked it, and crossed the pavement toward the science building.
Students streamed past in clusters, voices overlapping—plans for lunch, project deadlines, laughter that rose and broke like waves.
He slipped his earphones in before stepping through the glass doors.
Music wasn’t really for listening; it was a wall of sound thin enough to hide behind.
Classroom 2-314 smelled faintly of chalk and coffee.
The blinds were half drawn, light falling in thin bars across the desks.
He chose his usual seat near the window, set his bag down, and opened his notebook.
Outside, a group of students were sitting on the lawn, eating breakfast rolls and laughing so easily that their laughter looked like sunlight itself.
He watched them for a moment, the corner of his mouth tilting—not quite a smile.
shen ruien
What’s it like to laugh like that,
shen ruien
Without anyone expecting anything from you?
He let the thought dissolve.
shen ruien
It must be nice.
The pen in his hand moved almost automatically.
He’d been reviewing an old set of questions from the math section of their integrated science curriculum:
if f(x) = x³ - 3x² + 2x, find the local maxima and minima.
Derivative, stationary points, second-derivative test—his handwriting flowed across the margin with mechanical neatness.
On the next page, a more abstract problem:
Solve for a + b + c in a + b + c = 6, a² + b²+ c² = 14, ab + bc + ca = 11.
He worked through it quickly, the numbers sliding into place like puzzle pieces.
The answers came easily; satisfaction didn’t.
Halfway through another line of calculations, the light shifted. A shadow fell across his desk.
Someone was standing in front of him.
A girl from his class, hair tied back, textbook hugged against her chest.
She was saying something—he pulled one earbud free.
🗣️“Shen Ruien, right? Could you… help me with this question? The one the professor gave last week.”
Her voice was hesitant but friendly, the way people spoke to someone they didn’t really know yet expected would say yes.
Ruien’s pen paused above the page.
He blinked once, quietly, and the small polite smile returned before the words did.
author
Well 👉👈 as you probably noticed, there’s some math stuff going on in the story, right?( ╹▽╹ )
author
Don’t be surprised — the thing is, when I was creating this novel, I was also studying math and chemistry at the time… so uhhh yeahಥ╭╮ಥಥ╭╮ಥ
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