Li Tianyu is nothing special—not in the way most people define it. He is not a genius, not a hidden martial arts prodigy, hidden heir to a trillion-dollar corporation, nor the reincarnation of some ancient dragon emperor sealed away under the moon for ten thousand years. He's just… Li Tianyu. A college student. A First-year undergraduate majoring in Environmental Engineering. Living on the edge of shangai city in a rented dormitory room no bigger than a jail cell, paid for by the sweat on his back from weekend shifts cooking Dumplings dishes at the Dumplings restaurant.
The first light of the morning filtered through the dusty, half-cracked blinds, casting awkward lines across his wall like some kind of poor man's barcode. The alarm ring. It was already at exactly 6:45 AM. His eyes opened on the dot, staring at the cracked ceiling where a small brown spot.
He didn't sigh. What's the point? Instead, he blinked twice, sat up, and reached for the electric kettle on the crate he used as a table. The cord sparked when he plugged it in, but it did its job. Boil water, pour over instant coffee, mix with powdered milk and one spoon of sugar from a jar that hadn't been filled since mid-April. He took a sip. Not good. Never was. But it was warm, and that was enough.
After brushing his teeth over a plastic bucket (his dorm had no private bathroom), and splashing water on his face with the grace of a startled raccoon, Li Tianyu pulled on his usual outfit: a black hoodie two years old, jeans that were once blue but had now faded to the color of old pavement, and sneakers with a suspicious hole near the toe. He slung his backpack over one shoulder and checked his phone.
No messages. No notifications. Just the same Mainland China weather app reminding him it might rain in the afternoon. A slight drizzle icon glared at him like a warning label.
"Of course let it rain a lot in the University and let a Flood happen Please God 🙏," he muttered under his breath, stuffing a cheap umbrella into the side pocket of his backpack
The campus was already half-awake by the time he stepped outside. A group of freshmen were jogging past in matching blue-and-white tracksuits, laughter echoing off the courtyard tiles. Some guys were trying to ride a skateboard over a bench and failing in a way that would probably go viral if anyone cared enough to film it. Li Tianyu walked past it all, invisible. Just another normal day in the crowd.
His first class was Environmental Chemistry in Building D-6. A cursed building by all student accounts, with its flickering lights, eternally jammed elevator, and one unexplainable room that always smelled like boiled cabbage no matter what time of year it was. He walked the five flights up because the elevator was, unsurprisingly, still out of order. The steps were slightly uneven, and someone had written a weird poem into the wall with a key:
"Lost my shoe today Haha / Pigeon watched me walk alone / He judged me harder then my ex...."
Li Tianyu wasn't a poet, but he prayed to the one who did written the Poem for his mental health to heal.
The lecture was the usual: Professor Liu Yapping in half-English-half-chemical-speak while scrolling through slides with so much text. Li Tianyu sat in the third row from the back, middle seat. He liked it there—close enough to see the screen but far enough that he wouldn't be called on. He copied everything word for word, even the typos. Not because he didn't understand, but because later writing once helped him remember. writing twice made him remember for real. That was his trick.
By the time class ended, his left hand was cramping, his right eye twitching from the lights, and he get up from his seat and then he left the building like a man escaping a sinking ship and checked the time. 10:10 AM. Still had another class at noon. Not enough time to go home. Just enough to grab breakfast-turned-lunch.
He walked toward the back of the library, where Auntie Qiao ran a little breakfast stall out of a rusty blue van. She recognized him immediately and handed him two tea eggs and a scallion pancake without asking.
"Still no girlfriend?" she asked, her voice like a sizzle of hot oil on an iron plate.
"I am a Poor guy, a Girlfriend not in my Lifetime," Li Tianyu answered, biting into the pancake.
"Good. Girlfriends are expensive. Eat more. Your face is too thin."
"My face is thin because my wallet is thin," Li said, taking another bite. "It's all connected."
Auntie Qiao "...."
He found his usual spot under the old tree behind the Economics Building. It had a stone bench, enough shade to survive a UV rating of 'kill me now,' and just far enough from the student union that no one came here unless they were trying to hide from someone. He wasn't hiding. Just resting.
Halfway through the second egg, his phone buzzed. Unknown number. He stared at it. Didn't pick up. If it was important, they'd leave a message.
They didn't.
At 11:50, he stood up, dusted off the crumbs, and walked to his next class. Hydrology Basics with Assistant Professor Fang, who was showing more excitement about water flow than most people were about life itself. The lecture was actually interesting, and for once, Li Tianyu felt like maybe he chose the right major.
That thought lasted until 1:30 PM, when his part-time job manager texted:
"Come early today. or You would be fired and Bring your ID."
No explanation. No negotiation. He texted back a simple "ok", and by 2:10 PM, he was already in the back kitchen of the Dumplings Restaurant, tying his apron and slapping his timecard against the sensor.
The job was brutal. Hot. Loud. Greasy. Crazy Customers. But it paid. Barely.
He worked until 9 PM, with a half-hour break where he ate a leftover of Dumplings in the alley behind the restaurant, staring up at the stars barely visible through the smog.
When he got back to his dorm, his legs were dead, and his arms smelled like soy sauce no matter how many times he scrubbed them. He changed clothes, sat on his thin mattress, and opened his laptop, and read a novel, before the memory faded. he started reading a novel called The Reincarnated Chicken. It was the same genre as always — reincarnation. He didn't hate them but he was honestly tired of the usual.
"Damn, why are all light novels about the same thing?" he muttered. "I get reincarnated as a spider-man, I get reincarnated as a machine, the noodle champion in another world, the shy kid at school who's secretly an evil overlord, the overpowered cultivator hiding his identity at the academy… I swear, I've read them all. Can't they write something new for once?"
At 11:42 PM, he shut the light and slept.
Another day done.
No drama. No beauty falling into his arms. No system. No cheat. No miraculous lottery win. Just tea eggs, chemical formulas, and a bench under a old tree.
But as Li Tianyu pulled his blanket over himself and stared at the ceiling, he found himself smiling faintly. It wasn't much. But it was enough.
Tomorrow, he'd wake up at 6:45 again.