The alarm vibrated at 5:27 a.m. Wen Zhaonan was already awake. He wasn't the kind to wake with sound — he sensed time, as if he carried an invisible clock inside his chest. He lay there for a few minutes, eyes open, contemplating the ceiling. Morning light had not yet seeped through the curtain's edges, but the world was already beginning to turn outside.
He rose in silence, as usual. The house was immersed in that blue penumbra only the dawn knows. The cold floor welcomed his feet with familiarity. He walked to the kitchen, turned on the electric kettle, and measured the coffee grounds with near-ritualistic precision — two flat spoons, no sugar.
While the coffee brewed, he opened the window. The air in Suzhou at that hour was light, humid, with the timid scent of street trees and a distant echo of bicycles. The sky was still pale gray, but there was a promise of light on the horizon.
He drank the coffee leaning against the counter, both hands around the white mug — a gift from his students. He sipped slowly, as if reading his own silence in small gulps.
On the living room table, three piles of papers awaited correction. Articles, tests, reports. But there was also a brown-covered notebook, where he wrote things no one ever saw: short verses, scattered ideas, questions that had yet to take shape. That was where the other Wen lived — the one who felt more than he said, who collected phrases and memories like someone tending flowers in the dark.
He dressed with sobriety: white shirt, charcoal blazer, dull shoes. He combed his hair in a single gesture and packed the laptop into his leather backpack, already worn at the straps.
He left at 6:40. On the street, the cold crept up his collar like an old whisper. He took a deep breath. The university campus wasn't far. He walked every day — not out of economy, but necessity. It was during the walk that he organized his thoughts, found metaphors, and sometimes, new questions for his students.
Upon crossing the gates of Suzhou University, he greeted the security guard with a slight nod. He was already known, even if not intimate. There was something about Wen Zhaonan that commanded respect without demanding words.
In the Biological Sciences building, the corridors were still dozing. Room 203 was already open. He entered, turned on the projector, and laid his material on the desk. Adjusted the slides, tested the microphone, and scribbled with a whiteboard marker a sentence in the corner:
"Biochemistry studies life. But it is in life where invisible science dwells."
When the students started to arrive, he was already seated, reading a paper excerpt with half-closed eyes. But he noticed everything — hesitant steps, stifled yawns, hushed conversations. He didn't need to raise his voice to command attention. A single look was enough.
Class began at exactly 7:15.
There was no theatrics in Wen's gestures. But there was intensity. His voice was firm, measured, as if each word carried its own specific weight. When he explained cellular mechanisms, he used metaphors of rivers and invisible gears. When he spoke of genetics, he invoked the image of trees whispering inheritances. And when he addressed mutations and the silent errors in DNA, his eyes would take on a grave, almost sorrowful glow.
There was something in the air. Something that said he was born for that. Unlike other professors, Wen didn't just teach — he surrendered. Like a solitary actor on a stage, he made the most complex subjects seem simple. Because there, unlike in the rest of life, he knew what came after every line. In science, at least, everything had logic. Everything made sense.
The students leaned forward without realizing it. They scribbled feverishly, even without being asked. And some, the more perceptive ones, knew: there was more than science in that room.
There was poetry disguised as molecular structure.
Wen walked slowly between the rows, posing open-ended questions:
— What happens when a cell fails... yet still insists on existing?
Silence was part of the answer. He waited, let the air mature, and then continued:
— Maybe life, sometimes, is exactly that: persistence amidst failure. A deviation that reinvents itself.
Someone in the back murmured a quiet "wow." He heard it, but didn't react. He only smiled inwardly, like someone who recognizes an echo that doesn't need applause.
When the class ended, a few students came forward with questions. He answered each of them attentively — without rush, without easy praise. Just presence.
But as he packed away his laptop, the transformation was visible. That inspired, illuminated version of himself seemed to dissipate little by little. He returned to being the usual Wen — reserved, serious, almost cold to unknowing eyes. Almost as if, upon leaving the room, he donned once more the armor of silence.
Looking out the window, he saw the courtyard flooded with oblique, warm light. The leaves of the trees danced, and the glass's reflection cast soft shadows on the ground.
For a moment, he stood there, motionless.
And he thought that teaching was more than transferring knowledge.
It was about touching without invading. Igniting without burning.
Like the sun that morning.
Like a glance in the middle of the hallway — one he didn't yet know was about to reach him.
After the class, Wen Zhaonan headed toward the main laboratory. The hallway was busier now — youthful voices, hurried steps, the typical rush between lectures. He walked slowly, unconcerned with matching anyone's pace. Over time, he had learned that haste is the enemy of listening — and he needed to listen in order to teach.
The door to his office, at the far end of the lab, had a discreet plaque with his name and a notice:
"Open to questions. And to silences as well."
Inside, the lighting was soft, diffuse, coming from a desk lamp and a skylight above the shelves. Biochemistry books and literature were mixed together on the shelves, separated by colorful bookmarks and forgotten mugs. It was a workspace, yes — but also a refuge. A place where he allowed himself to exist fully, even if no one knew.
He sat down in his chair and opened the laptop. There were still graphs to review and a meeting scheduled with the department coordinator later that afternoon. But before he could concentrate, someone knocked gently on the half-open door.
— Professor Wen... may we come in?
He looked up. They were two second-year students — Xiaoming and Lili, both enrolled in applied biochemistry. He knew their names, their faces, even the little details: Lili always highlighted her notes in green; Xiaoming bit his nails when nervous.
— Of course. Come in — he said, setting the laptop aside.
They entered slowly. They didn't carry notebooks. Nor laptops. Only what they held inside their chests.
— Sorry to bother you, professor… — Lili began, her voice hesitant. — But we... needed someone to talk to.
Wen simply nodded. He didn't ask why. He didn't rush. He just gestured calmly to the chairs in front of his desk.
Then Wen walked to the corner of the room and prepared three cups of coffee. Slow movements, almost ceremonial. It was his way of saying: "Stay."
— I... I'm thinking about dropping out of the program. My dad was laid off, and the pressure here is unbearable. I've been feeling like a walking mistake, you know? And, well... I know you usually listen to us, even when it doesn't seem like you're listening.
Lili looked at her classmate and then at the professor.
— And I... I've been trying to deal with an anxiety crisis. I've seen the university psychologist, but... sometimes I just wish someone would tell me it's going to pass. Even if they're not sure.
Wen listened to them in silence.
But it wasn't an empty silence — it was the kind of silence that holds space.
His eyes were fixed on theirs, but without judgment. Only presence.
He waited a few seconds before speaking. When he did, his voice was low, firm, and unhurried:
— No cell survives on its own. Even the most autonomous one needs another to exist. Science tells us this every day, but we pretend to forget.
They watched him, attentive.
— Dropping out can be a decision. But running away from yourself is not. And knowing your own limits... isn't weakness. It's wisdom. But we were taught the opposite. That being strong means bearing everything in silence. But true strength... is knowing when to ask for help.
He set the cup down on the table, the steam rising between them as if warming the air around them, too.
— As for the anxiety... — he turned slightly toward Lili — …it's not your enemy. It just wants attention. It's the body screaming what the soul hasn't yet found words to say.
Lili lowered her gaze, and a single tear slid down quietly. He continued, more gently:
— You don't need to be perfect to deserve being here. And even less to carry the world on your own. Science demands discipline, yes. But it also demands humanity. And you... you are still human. And that is enough.
Xiaoming took a deep breath, as if the air had started circulating again.
— But sometimes it feels like... if I stop, I'll be left behind.
— Everyone thinks that — Wen replied calmly. — But stopping is also movement. Sometimes you have to pause so you don't get lost. And don't worry about running — time is a more patient teacher than we imagine.
For a few moments, no one said a word.
The sound of the wall clock filled the space with its quiet cadence. And there, in that room full of books and silence, something began to dissolve. As if the weight on the students' shoulders had lightened simply by being shared.
— Thank you, professor... — said Xiaoming, his voice now steadier.
— Yeah... thank you so much. I didn't know I needed to hear that until now — added Lili, discreetly wiping her eyes.
Wen just nodded. And before they left, he said:
— When everything feels like too much, come back here. Even if it's just for a cup of coffee. Sometimes, a listened cup is worth more than a dissertation.
They smiled — not with their lips, but with their eyes.
After they left, Wen remained there, watching the door sway gently. He sighed, leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes for a moment.
He knew what it meant to carry an entire world inside without knowing how to ask for help.
Perhaps that's why the students sought him out.
Because even in silence, he seemed to say:
"I understand."
After the students left, Wen stayed still.
The ticking of the clock filled the room like it was marking not time, but the pauses between one pain and another. The kind of pain that doesn't show in screams — but in silences that last decades.
He closed his eyes.
And then, as happens with memories that never quite heal, it returned.
Not as a scene. But as atmosphere.
A stifled cry. A damp blanket. A nearly detached piece of tape on a note.
He had been left. Just like that. As if disposable.
A newborn, wrapped in cloth too thin for the dawn's cold.
Abandoned on the steps of an orphanage in the interior of Zhejiang.
On the note: only a name — Zhaonan — "man of the south."
But there was no south. No north. Only emptiness.
He never knew what it felt like to be awaited.
Never heard the word "son" spoken with affection.
He grew up in crowded dormitories, among creaking beds and shared blankets.
The food was scarce, the touch nearly nonexistent.
No bedtime stories. No hand on the forehead.
He learned to pretend he didn't need it.
Sometimes he'd fake a fever just to see if someone would touch his forehead.
No one ever did.
While the other boys played soccer and fought over toys, Wen hid among donated books.
Some had no covers, others were scribbled over.
Books nobody wanted.
But to him, they were portals.
Escaping reality was the only way to survive it.
The caregivers called him "weird."
He spoke little, slept little, asked too many questions.
His pain was invisible — that's why no one saw it.
Until one day, a volunteer appeared.
Madam Qiu. Hair white like rinsed rice, eyes deep with sorrow long witnessed.
She was the first to call him "boy."
Not a number. Not a nickname.
Boy.
— If the world doesn't hear you, write. Writing is also a way to exist — she told him, handing him an old red-covered notebook.
That was when Wen Zhaonan began to exist.
By nine, he solved equations faster than the monitors.
By twelve, he read academic articles in English with a dictionary by his side.
At fifteen, he received a scholarship in Hangzhou.
Packed alone.
No one came to the gate.
When he won his first science olympiad, he stood still on the podium, holding the certificate with trembling hands.
The auditorium applauded.
But no one in the audience smiled for him.
At seventeen, he was accepted into one of the country's top universities.
He slept in a narrow bed, shared a room with two seniors, and read late into the night, always with the desk light turned inward, into his heart.
But it was there he learned another cruel truth:
Being noticed isn't the same as being loved.
The professors praised him.
The classmates respected him.
But no one truly got close.
Until Yiran came.
A smile like fresh lemon, eyes that always seemed to know more than they said.
She asked for help studying.
And he… offered everything: time, words, trust.
he laughed at the metaphors he created. Touched his arm. Said he made biochemistry sound like poetry.
And he believed it.
But then, one random afternoon, while walking through the dorm hallway, he overheard:
— Of course I'm with him. He's brilliant. Helps me with everything. But fall in love? With that type? No way.
— But he's kind...
— Exactly. The kind ones are the easiest to manipulate.
It felt like being torn out of his own body.
Wen didn't cry. Didn't say a word. He just went back to his room and sat for hours staring at the blank screen of his computer.
His stomach twisted, but it wasn't hunger.
It was as if something inside him had shattered — without a crack, without a sound, only absence.
After that, he locked his chest with padlocks no one else ever dared to touch.
He completed his master's. His doctorate. Received awards. Wrote papers cited in international conferences.
But inside... he was empty.
Like a spotless lab with no reaction at all.
Until the day he received an email from the University of Suzhou.
"Dear Wen Zhaonan, we would like to invite you..."
He read it three times. Then lowered his head and cried for the first time in years.
But not in sobs — in silence.
The tears fell slowly, as if they had been waiting for that moment to exist.
Not because of the position.
But because of the feeling — so new — of being called. Not out of obligation. But out of choice.
On his first day as a professor, he arrived before everyone else. Sat in the empty classroom and let the morning sun touch his face.
There, he murmured to himself:
— Maybe I didn't come from anywhere. But now... I'm here.
And for the first time, the silence inside him felt... whole.
The sound of a car on the street brought him back to the present.
Wen opened his eyes.
The coffee was cold.
The room was empty.
But something inside him — for the first time in a long time — felt a little less alone.
He picked up the brown-covered notebook and wrote, almost without thinking:
"Some are born to be loved. Others... to love in silence."
He closed the notebook.
Got up slowly.
The afternoon passed among reagent flasks, spectrophotometers, and handwritten notes.
Wen Zhaonan worked in the lab with the same focus some people have when composing music.
Pipettes were extensions of his fingers.
The graphs, a second language.
There, everything made sense.
Everything had a name, a measure, control.
At 5:42 p.m., his phone vibrated gently on the bench.
It was a notification from the clinical program coordinator:
"Professor Wen, could you attend a brief meeting tomorrow at 10 a.m. in the geriatrics wing regarding our applied biochemistry data? Thank you."
Wen replied with a simple:
"I'll be there."
That night, already at home, the city breathed slowly outside.
Inside, Wen swapped his blazer for a sweatshirt, washed his face, and went straight to the kitchen.
Cooking was one of his forms of silence.
He chopped vegetables with almost mathematical precision.
Cooked handmade noodles with miso sauce and shimeji mushrooms.
Steam rose from the pots like invisible music.
He didn't speak.
He didn't listen.
He just felt — the heat, the aroma, time passing at the exact rhythm of boiling water.
He ate alone.
Under the soft light of the kitchen lamp.
No rush.
No distractions.
Like someone who respects every small ritual of daily life.
Then he washed the dishes, dried his hands, and walked to the corner of the living room.
There rested his other refuge:
a black piano, worn at the edges, inherited from a teacher who was long gone.
He sat on the bench naturally.
Played a few loose notes.
Then the theme of "River Flows in You" by Yiruma.
The music came out light, but heavy.
As if each key pressed a place in his chest.
He closed his eyes.
And he let his hands go.
It was only there that he felt whole. As if each note drew a part of what he didn't know how to say. As if sound were the only way to scream without making noise.
Where no one judged him for being too intense, too solitary, too silent.
It was there, between the spaces of the notes, that he most remembered he was still alive.
It was past 11 p.m. when he turned off the piano and went to his room.
The silence was dense, but it didn't bother him.
He had already made peace with solitude — or almost.
He sat at his desk.
Opened his laptop.
And, on impulse, clicked on a tab he rarely visited:
independent author platforms.
He scrolled with little interest. Some titles were generic. Others, pretentious.
Until something stopped him.
"Silent Bloom"
Title: The Words No One Sees
Category: lyrical romance.
He clicked.
The first paragraph felt like a breath.
"Maybe the world will never know my name. But someone, one day, will know how to recognize me. Even without seeing."
Wen read the passage three times.
A shiver ran down his spine.
He felt, as he rarely did, that it wasn't just a text.
It was a confession.
It was as if someone had turned his own silent language into visible words.
He kept reading.
Chapter after chapter.
Nurse Xinyi.
The blind patient who recognized her by the sound of her steps.
Silence as a bond.
Care as a language.
He didn't know who that author was.
But he knew — someone like her existed.
Someone who wrote as if she felt the world the same way he did.
In delicate pieces.
In between the lines.
Almost without noticing, he clicked the message button.
Typed.
Deleted.
Typed again.
Hesitated.
But finally, let it flow.
From: Invisible Universe
Time: 03:21
I read your story. All the chapters.
I don't usually write messages, but this time... it would be cowardice to remain silent.
Some phrases pierce deeper than logic allows.
I don't know who you are, and maybe it doesn't matter.
But something in what you wrote reminded me what it feels like to be touched — without being touched.
I just wanted to say it was real.
Thank you.
He sent it.
And there, in front of the screen, he sat still.
The cursor kept blinking, like a metronome.
He felt his heart beat faster — not from expectation, but from fear.
Fear of having revealed too much, even with so few words.
But also hope.
Hope that, on the other side, someone would understand.
ven if it was from the other side of the world.
Even if anonymously.
Even if it was just a page written in the middle of the night.
He closed the laptop slowly.
Lay down, but didn't fall asleep right away.
He stared at the ceiling for long minutes.
With a question suspended in the air:
"What if…?"
But the rest of the sentence he didn't say.
Because fate, sometimes, only needs a single touch.
And a touch was already on its way.
The next morning, the alarm vibrated at 5:00 a.m.
Wen was already awake.
He didn't need an alarm. He woke early by choice — or by necessity. He had learned, over the years, that some things can only be felt in the absence of voices, before the world wakes up and begins to demand.
He got up slowly and walked to the glass balcony that stretched across the entire living room.
He lived on the top floor of a newly built building in the eastern part of Suzhou. An investment he had made quietly, after years of stability. He hadn't chosen that apartment for its luxury, but for the view. From up there, it was possible to see the world breathe. The sky was whole. The sunrise, a daily spectacle. And at night, if the clouds allowed, he could even see the stars that almost no one else could anymore.
That morning, the sky was still in transition — a soft violet dissolving into blue, while golden streaks began to rise behind the distant buildings.
Wen stood still, a ceramic mug in his hands and his gaze fixed on the horizon.
He liked that exact moment — when the city was still dozing and the light, timid, began to touch the buildings like fingers awakening a sleeping body.
Sunrise was his refuge.
His way of remembering that time passes, even when it seems still.
After a few minutes, he went back inside.
Brewed black coffee.
Drank in silence, leaning against the dark marble kitchen counter, watching the steam rise like a wandering thought.
He dressed calmly: blue shirt, dark blazer, unpolished shoes. Ran his hand through his hair absentmindedly and grabbed his backpack. Before leaving, he cast one last glance out the window: the sky was already bright, but the silence still lingered inside him in pieces.
The air outside was fresh, humid, and carried the discreet scent of trees and earth dampened by the dawn.
Wen walked with steady steps toward the university hospital.
He wasn't in a hurry — but he didn't hesitate either.
He knew it was just another ordinary day.
What he didn't know was that, in some corridor, between footsteps and IV bottles,
a silent encounter awaited him — and that moment would change everything he thought he had mastered.
Because there are mornings that begin like all others.
But within them, they carry the beginning of something that has no name — only feeling.
The university hospital was already breathing with its usual rhythm: hurried footsteps, murmurs between nurses, the constant beeping from the inner wards. Wen Zhaonan passed through reception with a short nod and was directed to the geriatric wing, where he had a brief meeting scheduled with the clinical director.
The hallway was long, lit by natural light.
The pale walls reflected movement in silence.
There was something slow about that place — as if time itself aged in that wing.
Wen walked with composure. In his hands, a clipboard with biochemical reports, but his mind wandered between images of sunrise and the deep sound of his own footsteps.
He was immersed in that vacuum between routine and thought when a sound startled him.
Metal. Bottles. A light stumble.
He turned instinctively.
A tray was tipping in the air, about to fall.
He stepped forward with precision and reached out his hand.
He caught the edge of the tray at the exact moment.
No words. No hesitation.
And then he saw her.
Her.
A young nurse, wearing a light-colored coat and dark hair simply tied back.
But what made him stop — what truly silenced him — was her gaze.
Soft brown. Deep.
As if an ancient stillness lived within her.
A polite sorrow.
A kind of gentleness one doesn't learn — one simply is.
— Did you get hurt? — he asked, his voice coming out lower than he intended.
She lifted her eyes, slightly surprised.
— N-no, thank you — she replied, a faint blush rising to her cheeks. Her head bowed, almost in reverence.
He nodded.
— It was nothing.
But when he turned to continue walking, something inside him didn't move along.
As if a part of him had stayed behind, right there, in front of her.
From afar, the director called out:
— Professor Wen, may we speak for a moment?
Wen nodded again and stepped away.
But within, a subtle noise remained.
Around him, everything went on: doors opening, voices exchanging instructions, footsteps crossing hallways.
But for him, something had shifted.
The nurse remained.
Tray in hand.
Her eyes still lowered to the floor, but her presence… lingered in the air.
As he walked beside the director, listening to words about protocols and funding, Wen took longer than usual to respond.
His mind was no longer on the spreadsheets.
It was on her.
On that voice that barely said thank you.
On that calm and slightly startled expression.
On the way someone could carry the world in silence, and still not let it weigh on others.
It was just an encounter.
A brief gesture.
A touch between a prevented fall and a hesitant glance.
But something inside him whispered:
It wasn't coincidence.
Wen Zhaonan didn't believe in coincidences.
He believed in rare frequencies.
In people who vibrate in the same silence.
And that morning —
without knowing her name, without knowing anything at all — he knew.
He had found one of them.
It was 12:42 when Wen sat down in the university hospital cafeteria.
He chose a more secluded table, facing the window, where the sunlight filtered through the leaves of the trees.
In front of him, a plate of rice, tofu, and sautéed vegetables cooled slowly.
But he barely touched his chopsticks.
The image of that nurse still wandered through the spaces between his thoughts.
It wasn't just the face — it was the feeling.
The strange familiarity.
The sense that, even without ever having seen her, he already recognized her.
He took a deep breath.
Laid his chopsticks on the napkin.
He needed to return to that voice.
Even if he didn't know who she was.
Even if it was just to remember that it was still possible to feel something without needing to protect himself.
He opened his laptop.
The hospital's connection was slow, but sufficient.
He clicked, almost without thinking, on the favorites tab.
The reading platform was still there, open on the last chapter from the early morning.
"Silent Bloom."
The name blinked in the upper corner of the screen.
Simple. Discreet.
But to him, there was something in that silent presence that echoed from within.
New chapter published.
He read in silence.
Without haste.
Each sentence as if it had been handpicked.
"Some people pass through our lives without announcing their arrival.
And still, they leave footprints in places no one else can reach."
He read it again.
Once, twice.
That sentence felt as if it had been written from inside him, not to him.
He clicked the heart almost without noticing.
Like someone who touches something too fragile to call their own, but too precious to let slip by.
The icon turned red.
"You liked this chapter."
The notification disappeared.
But the gesture remained.
Remained like the smell of rain in clothing.
Like a memory before it becomes a memory.
He closed the laptop gently.
Looked at the sky outside.
And thought:
She writes as if she hears me.
And today… someone looked at me the same way.
He didn't know yet that they were the same person.
But he already felt it.
Because there are stories that intertwine before they even begin.
Like invisible threads stitching two strangers from within.
And hearts that recognize each other…
even when the world still calls it coincidence.