The email from the Dean of International Affairs had sat in my inbox for three days, glowing like a low-grade fever.
Lin Xuan,as the top-ranked student in the Computer Science department, your participation in the Peer Cultural Ambassador program is not merely requested; it is expected.
I knew what "expected" meant in my world. It meant that my father had likely made a donation to the new research wing, and in exchange, I was to be the polished face of the university for some high-priority foreigner. I had looked at the attachment: Allie Reed. University of Chicago. I didn't care about the photo – a girl with a messy ponytail and a smile that looked far too bright for the humidity of a Shanghai July. I cared about my thesis. I cared about the internship at my father's firm. I didn't have room for a "variable." Especially not one who, according to her transcript, had only four years of classroom Mandarin. Looking at her file, I didn't see a "dream-eyed girl from Chicago. I saw a disruption. I saw a sensory overload of questions I didn't want to answer and a lingering, sunny optimism that had no place in my lab or my life. I had planned for a tourist. I had calculated for a headache.
I had not calculated for the airport.
Standing at the airport, the air felt like a physical weight. I had purposefully arrived ten minutes late. It was a small rebellion, a way to set the tone: I am busy. You are a detour.
Then I saw her.
She was standing on the curb, looking up at the sky as if she'd never seen a horizon before. She looked small, overwhelmed, and entirely too hopeful. When she spoke my name, tripping over the tones with that soft, American lilt, a spark of irritation flared in my chest. It wasn't that she was bad at the language; it was that she was trying so hard. Effort was messy. Effort was vulnerable.
I've lived my life avoiding both.
"You're late," I had told her, not because I cared about the time, but because I needed to build the wall immediately. If I let her see even a crack of hospitality, she would lean on it. And I couldn't afford to be anyone's crutch.
I have always lived my life by a strict set of equations. If I study X number of hours, I receive Y results. If I maintain a distance of exactly five feet away from my peers, I am spared the mess of their emotional expectations. My life in Shanghai was a perfectly rendered map – clean lines, predictable routes, and a climate that I kept intentionally frozen.
The silence in the car on the way back from the airport was the only thing I had control over.
Beside me, Allie Reed was a literal radiator of energy. I could feel her glancing at me, her curiosity almost a physical heat in the sedan. I kept my eyes on the road, my hands at ten and two, gripped with the tension I refused to acknowledge.
I had spent years mastering the art of "void" – the ability to sit in a room and be utterly unreachable. But she was breathing too loudly, shifting in her seat, and smelling faintly of a Chicago spring that didn't belong in my Shanghai summer.
I saw her press her face against the glass. I heard the tiny, sharp intake of breath when the skyline of the Bund came into view. Most people gawk at the neon; they find it impressive. To me, it was just light pollution. But the way she looked at it – as if she were seeing the heart of the world beat for the first time – made me tighten my jaw.
Don't look at her, I told myself. She is a guest. She is a credit hour. She is nothing.
When I told her not to mistake obligation for hospitality, I saw her flinch. Good. A flinch meant distance. Distance meant safety.
When I pulled up to the dormitory, I saw the usual vultures circling.
Chen Lu and her clique were draped over the entrance like expensive ornaments. I knew exactly why they were there. They weren't interested in the new exchange student; they were interested in the fact that I had been forced to leave my laboratory to fetch her. To them, my proximity was a prize.
"Lin Xuan! You're back early," Chen Lu chirped. Her voice had always reminded me of a bird trapped in a glass jar – shrill and desperate to be noticed.
I didn't look at her. I didn't look at any of them. I moved with the mechanical efficiency I used to solve complex algorithms. I popped the trunk, my movements sharp. When Chen Lu's hand reached out towards my arm, I stepped back with a precision that was just short of a shove.
"I'm busy," I said. It was my mantra.
Then Allie spoke. "Wǒ shì měiguó lái de jiāohuàn shēng."
Her Mandarin was soft, cautious, and surprisingly accurate. The girls went silent, their judgmental gazes sharpening. They hated her instantly. Not because she was a "headache," but because she had a sincerity they couldn't fake. I felt a strange, unwelcome surge of protectiveness, which I immediately smothered with a layer of frost.
"She's a headache," I announced to the group, loud enough to bruise her confidence. "And she's my shadow for the semester. Don't get in the way."
If I made her an outcast now, she'd stay away from the campus drama. I told myself I was doing her a favor. I didn't want to admit that seeing her stand there, looking so small against Chen Lu's polished malice, made me want to pull her behind me.
I found Lu Feng and Gu Huashu waiting by the doors. They were the only two people on this campus who didn't look at me like a bank account or a trophy.
"The Prince is performing manual labor," Lu Feng mocked, his grin wide and annoying.
I ignored the jab, shoving Allie's suitcase towards them. "She's your problem too," I muttered.
I watched as Gu Huashu – the ever observant artist, looking at Allie with a look of genuine intrigue. He saw what I was trying so hard to ignore: that she wasn't just a student. She was a spark.
"Nice to meet you," she whispered to them.
I didn't like the way the three of them looked together – a circle of warmth that I stood outside of. I turned towards the stairs, my heart doing a strange, frantic double-beat.
"We have three levels of stairs," I snapped, my voice harsher than intended. "And I'm not carrying your luggage past the lobby."
I needed to get away from her. I needed to return to the library, to my equations, to the ice. Because for the first time in my life, the summer heat wasn't staying outside the car. It was getting in.
I stood at the base of the stairs, adjusting my cuffs for the tenth time. I hated the Welcome Assembly. It was a parade of vanity, a room full of people pretending to care about "global exchange" while secretly tallying up the net worth of everyone in the room.
"One exchange student, safe and sound," Gu Huashu's voice rang out. "And significantly better dressed than you, Xuan."
I turned, ready with a sharp retort about Huashu's lack of professional decorum, but the words died in my throat. Allie was standing there, the harsh glow of the lanterns softening against the emerald silk of her dress. The "messy tourist" from the airport was gone. In her place was something radiant – something that made the air in my lungs feel suddenly thin. Her hair was different, polished into waves that caught the light, and her eyes held a shimmer that matched the river outside.
I felt a microscopic crack in my composure. My eyes didn't just scan her; they anchored. For a heartbeat, I forgot the Dean, I forgot my thesis, and I forgot the crowd. I just saw her.
"You're on time," I said, my voice sounding foreign even to me. I offered my arm. It was a scripted move, a duty, but as she moved closer, the scent of jasmine and something like rain-cooled stone rolled over me. "Don't trip on the stairs. Everyone is already looking."
"Are they?" she whispered.
"Of course they are," I muttered. Because I can't look away, and if I can't, no one else has a chance. "You're standing next to me."
Inside, the heat was suffocating. I navigated her through the room like a chess piece, keeping my hand a hair's breadth from her back. I told myself I was marking her as "University Property" to keep the scavengers away, but the truth was more primal. I didn't want the space between us to grow.
The Dean's speech was a drone of white noise. I felt Allie sway beside me – a tiny, rhythmic tilt that signaled her exhaustion. Without thinking, I reached out. My hand clamped onto her elbow, firm and steady. She felt so fragile under the lace cardigan, like a bird made of glass.
"Breathe," I commanded. I needed her to be okay because if she collapsed, I would have to carry her, and I wasn't about to circulate gossip and be caught in rumors with this girl.
At the table, I watched her struggle with sea bass. I placed greens on her plate, performing the role of the perfect host, but my mind was a chaotic mess of data points. She was shy, yes, but she was also observant. She looked at the food with a reverence that made the wealthy students around us look spoiled. I found myself leaning in, physically blocking Chen Lu's narrowed eyes from Allie's view. It was a defensive formation I hadn't authorized my body to take.
Then came the music. And then came Zhao.
Zhao was the worst kind of variable – predictable, yet dangerous. When he asked her to dance, I felt a surge of cold fury that had nothing to do with the "International Affairs Board." It was an insult to my competence.
"She's exhausted," I snapped.
But then she touched my arm. Her fingers were light, but the contact felt like a high-voltage wire. "It's okay," she said.
She chose the shark over the cage.
I sat back, my jaw locked so tight it ached. Watching her move to the center of the floor with him was like watching someone walk into a fire. I saw Zhao lean in, his mouth close to her ear, and I felt a sudden, violent urge to shatter my champagne glass.
I couldn't stay. The "Calculated Disturbance" had become a total system failure. If I stayed, I would do something that didn't fit the script. I would pull her off that floor. I would make a scene. I would prove that the Ice Prince could burn.
I signaled Huashu and Lu Feng. "Watch her," I told them, my voice a jagged edge. "I'm done."
I walked out of that hall and into a humid night, the sound of the waltz mocking me. I had successfully fulfilled my duty of the day. I had delivered her to the gala. I had kept her safe. But as I walked toward my quiet, empty apartment, I didn't feel successful.
I felt like I was retreating from a battlefield I had already lost.
The silence of Lin Xuan's apartment was usually his sanctuary. It was a minimalist space – concrete floors, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Bund, and a desk organized with the mathematical precision of a circuit board. There were no photos on the walls, no clutter on the counters.
Just the hum of his high-end server and the distant, muffled pulse of the city below.
He sat at his desk, the charcoal suit jacket tossed over a chair, his tie loosened but not removed. He opened his laptop, the blue light reflecting off the sharp planes of his face.
It was just a reaction to the silk, he told himself, his fingers flying across the keyboard as he opened his Advanced Data Structures project. A biological response to a change in the environment. Nothing more.
He tried to focus on the code. He was building an algorithm to optimize urban traffic flow, something that required his absolute concentration. But every time a line of code failed to compile, he didn't see a syntax error. He saw the way Allie had looked at the sea bass. He saw the green of her dress against the white marble of the stairs.
With a frustrated click, he closed the coding window. He grabbed a physical notebook – the only way he could truly think – and began sketching out his schedule for tomorrow.
08:00: Macroeconomics Lecture. 10:30: Quantitative Analysis.13:00: Lab Supervision.
He stared at the blank space in the afternoon. He usually spent that time in the library, in total isolation.
Ping.
An email notification appeared in the corner of his screen.
The sender: Dean Zheng.
Lin Xuan felt a cold knot tighten in his stomach as he read the subject line: Revised Ambassador Responsibilities – Allie Reed.
Lin Xuan,
After reviewing the American exchange student's placement exams, we've decided to move her into your Quantitative Analysis and Contemporary China seminars. Her academic background is strong, but her technical Mandarin terminology needs intensive support. Given your position as the top scholar in these fields, the university is officially assigning you as her dedicated tutor.
You are required to meet with her for two hours every Tuesday and Thursday in the Special Collections room. Additionally, please ensure she is integrated into your study group for the midterm project.
We trust your excellence will be a positive influence on her.
"Excellence," Lin Xuan muttered, his voice echoing in the empty room. "Or a convenient babysitter."
He leaned back, rubbing his temples. The Dean wasn't just asking him to show her the campus anymore. He was weaving her into the very fabric of his academic life. Quantitative Analysis was his hardest class – a room full of cutthroat elites where Allie would be eaten alive if she didn't have a shield.
And the study group. That meant bringing her into his inner circle. It meant Lu Feng's teasing and Gu Huashu's constant sketching. It meant he couldn't escape the "Calculated Distance."
He pulled his schedule back up and began dragging blocks of time around, his movements aggressive. He forced himself to look at her name in the email one last time.
Allie Reed.
She was a variable that refused to be solved. He closed the laptop with a definitive snap, the sound echoing like a gunshot in the sterile apartment. He would do it. He would tutor her, he would sit beside her in class, and he would maintain his icy image. He would be so efficient, so clinical, that she would eventually realize that the "Ice Prince" wasn't just a nickname – it was a warning.
He stood up and walked to the window, watching the lights of Shanghai flicker. He looked at his own reflection in the glass – stoic, unreadable, and completely alone.
"Two hours," he whispered to the glass. "Two hours, twice a week. I can survive that."
But as he turned away, he noticed a small, emerald green thread caught on the cuff of his shirt. A stray piece of silk from the gala. He reached for it to throw it away, but his hand hesitated. Instead, he placed it on his desk, a tiny, vibrant spark against the cold, gray surface.
The sun didn't so much rise over Shanghai as it burned through the smog, turning the sky the color of tarnished silver. By 5:30 AM, I was already awake. I didn't need an alarm; my internal clock was as disciplined as my ledger.
I moved through my morning ritual with silent, practiced movements. Grind the beans. Steam the milk.
Exactly 185 degrees.
I ran four miles on the treadmill while watching the global markets flicker across the wall-mounted screen. Nikkei up. S&P down. Everything was in its place.
I dressed in a crisp, white button-down and charcoal slacks. As I checked my reflection, I saw the emerald thread still sitting on my desk. For a moment, I considered the trash bin. Instead, I tucked it into a small velvet tray in my drawer. It was evidence – a reminder of a variable that needed to be accounted for.
The university's faculty lounge was quiet when I arrived to pick up my teaching assistant materials. I expected a morning of solitude. Instead, I found Lu Feng and Gu Huashu already staked out at our usual corner table in the student union.
Lu Feng was aggressively attacking a bowl of congee, his basketball bag slumped on the floor beside him. Gu Huashu, however, was hunched over his sketchbook, his charcoal pencil moving with a frantic, rhythmic scratching sound.
"You look like you didn't sleep," I said, setting my laptop case down with a definitive thud.
Huashu didn't look up. "Inspiration doesn't care about my circadian rhythm, Xuan."
"He's been like that since we dropped the American off," Lu Feng said, grinning through a mouthful of rice. "I think the 'Chicago Spark' gave him a jolt. He hasn't stopped drawing since the gala."
I pulled my chair up, the metal legs scrapping against the floor – a sound that usually didn't bother me, but today felt like a serrated blade. "She's an exchange student, Huashu. Not a masterpiece."
"Are you sure?" Huashu finally looked up, his fingers stained black with charcoal. He flipped the sketchbook around.
I felt my breath catch in the back of my throat. It wasn't a finished portrait; it was a series of gestures. The curve of her neck as she looked at the sky. The way her hand had hovered nervously over the sea bass.
The flow of that emerald silk. But the most striking one was a close-up of her eyes – wide, searching, and brimming with a terrifying amount of hope.
"She has this quality," Huashu whispered, his eyes distant. "Everything else in this city is so…curated. Everyone is wearing a mask, especially in our circle. But her? She's a 'Slow Bloom.' I've decided. She's my muse for the Advanced Portraiture project."
A flare of heat – something far too close to anger- surged in my chest.
"She's a student here for art and culture exchange," I said, my voice dropping that low, dangerous tone that usually silenced my peers. "Not your personal model. She has a heavy course load. She doesn't have time to sit for you."
Lu Feng leaned back, spinning his phone on the table. "Oho. Listen to the protector. You sound like you're claiming territory, Xuan. I thought she was just a 'headache'?"
"She is a responsibility," I snapped, opening my laptop and staring at a spreadsheet until the numbers blurred. "And the Dean just made it worse. She's been placed in my Quantitative Analysis seminar. And I have to tutor her."
The table went silent. Lu Feng let out a low whistle.
"Quant?" Lu Feng laughed. "With Professor Zhang? He'll skin her alive. That class is a bloodbath."
"Which is why I'll be there," I said, my fingers flying across the keys. "To ensure she doesn't embarrass the program. Or me."
As the morning progressed, I tried to submerge myself in the familiar comfort of logic. I sat through Macroeconomics, taking notes that were more detailed than the professor's own slides. But my eyes kept drifting toward the door of the lecture hall.
Every time it opened, I expected to see a flash of emerald or a messy ponytail.
I found myself analyzing the room's topography. If she sat in the front, she'd be targeted for questions. If she sat in the back, she'd get lost. I caught myself mentally reserving the seat to my left – the one I usually kept empty to maintain my personal space.
"You're doing it again," Huashu whispered from the seat behind me. He had followed me to the lecture, still sketching.
"Doing what?"
"Looking for her. You've checked the entrance seventeen times in forty minutes."
I slammed my notebook shut. "I am checking the time, Huashu. Some of us actually value efficiency."
But as the bell rang, signaling the end of the morning block, I felt a strange, restless energy under my skin. I had to go to the department office to pick up her updated syllabus.
I told myself it was just another task on the list. But as I walked through the crowded courtyard, past the weeping willows and the stone bridges, I realized I wasn't just walking to an appointment.
I was walking towards the calculated disturbance. And for the first time in my life, I wasn't sure I wanted to stop it.