The primary law of Thermodynamics states that entropy always increases in an isolated system. My life was supposed to be that system – Isolated, orderly, and resistant to decay. But since Allie Reed arrived, the disorder hasn't just increased; it has become a localized storm.
I arrived at the Quantitative Analysis lecture early. I always do. It allows me to claim the center left seat in the fourth row – the optimal vantage point for acoustics and sightlines. I watched the room fill with the usual suspects: the elite students smelling of expensive cologne and the scholarship students smelling of desperation.
Then she walked in.
She was late – barely – but in a room this disciplined, thirty seconds is a scream. She looked frayed, her eyes darting around the amphitheater like a trapped bird. When she saw that the only empty seat was next to me, she hesitated. I didn't look up from my tablet, but I could feel the displacement of air as she sat down. She smelled like the dorm's cheap soap and a hint of the panic she was trying to hide.
I felt the entire room shift. To them, she was a curiosity. To Chen Lu, who was watching from three rows up, she was a target.
Then Professor Zhang began his hunt.
When we called on her, I felt a microscopic twitch in my own hand. I kept my gaze locked on the board. I heard her stumble. I heard the fractured Mandarin, the "American Grace" dissolving into a series of broken tones.
"Wǒ... wǒ rènwéi..."
She was failing. It was a logical outcome. She hadn't been prepared for Zhang's pedagogical style, which is less about teaching and more about culling. I could have helped. I could have whispered the term. But a part of me – the part that still resented the Dean for saddling me with a 'headache' – wanted to see if she would break. If she broke now, perhaps she would go home early. The system would return to equilibrium.
Then Huashu intervened.
I watched out of the corner of my eye as my friend leaned forward, offering her the bridge I had refused to build. Huashu is an artist; he lives for the "spirit," for the rescue, for the drama. He gave her the term. He gave her the dignity.
As she finished her answer, I felt a strange, cold pressure in my chest. It wasn't guilt. I don't do guilt. It was…inefficiency. I had been assigned to guide her, yet I had allowed an artist to do my job.
"The Special Collections library," I said as soon as the bell rang, my voice harsher than intended because I was annoyed at my own inaction. "Don't be late."
I stood outside the library, leaning against the damp stone of the archway. I was four minutes early, which meant she was already late by my standards.
Then I saw them.
They weren't walking; they were drifting. Huashu was laughing, his hands moving wide, expressive gestures that always seemed to take up too much space. Allie was looking at him – not just looking but observing. I recognized that look. It was the way she looked at the skyline. Like she was trying to memorize the light.
Then, the inevitable happened. She tripped.
It was a simple mechanical failure – a foot catching on an uneven pavement stone. But the way Huashu caught her wasn't mechanical. He pulled her in, his arm wrapping around her waist, steadying her in a way that lasted three seconds longer than necessary for stability.
They looked like a still from one of the dramas Chen Lu watches. The sunlight hit them both, and for a heartbeat, they were the only two people on campus who seemed to be made of something other than marble.
"Are you finished?" I asked.
I didn't feel the need to be "unbothered." I was unbothered. Or so I told myself. What I felt was the irritation of watching a chaotic variable (Huashu) interfere with a volatile one (Allie).
"You're four minutes late," I told her, my eyes moving over the way her hair had fallen out of its clip.
I didn't acknowledge the touch I'd just witnessed. To acknowledge it was to give it data points. I simply turned and led her into the shadows of the library.
The tutoring session was a disaster of focus. She was distracted, her stomach was audible, and her brain was clearly shutting down.
Taking her to the noodle shop was a tactical decision. A starving student is a useless student. I chose the shop my grandfather liked because it was quiet, and the logic of the alleyway was predictable.
I rolled up my sleeves – the humidity in the shop was high – and watched her. She looked smaller here, surrounded by steam and old wood. Then she started with the questions.
When she asked why I chose Computer Science, I gave her the truth. Systems. Order. The fortress. She talked about manga – stories for children, or so I thought. But the way she described it…a 'bridge' for people who feel out of place…it was a concept that didn't fit into my compliers.
Then she asked about the "dream."
"Do you actually believe that a dream can survive reality?"
I didn't answer her. Not really. Because the truth is, I've spent twenty years building this Ice Prince image to protect myself from the very dreams she was talking about.
The walk back was quiet. I felt the weight of her presence beside me – a strange, rhythmic pulse that didn't match my own.
As we entered the lobby, I saw the elevator doors. I felt a brief, sharp pang of something I couldn't categorize. On the day she arrived, I had told her that the elevators were out of service. I had made her carry that heavy, overstuffed suitcase up four flights of stairs.
Why? Because I wanted her to feel the weight of this city. I wanted her to know Shanghai wasn't a "dream" – it was a climb. I wanted her to be tired, so she would stop looking at me with those wide, inquisitive eyes.
But as the elevator doors closed on her tonight, leaving her with the venom of Chen Lu, I realized the lie had been a mistake. Not because it was cruel – cruelty is just another tool – but because it was petty. And I am not a petty man.
I watched the floor numbers climb. 1…2…3…4.
I knew what Chen Lu was doing. I knew why she requested to be Allie's roommate. She wanted my proximity to me. She wanted to use Allie as a tether. It was a calculated move, one I had seen a dozen times before.
I walked into my own apartment and went straight to my desk. I opened my laptop, but the code felt flat. I reached into my drawer and pulled out the small velvet tray. The emerald thread was still there.
I thought about her in that room with Chen Lu. I thought about her climbing those stairs because of a lie I told.
"Entropy," I whispered to the empty room.
I tried to freeze the system. But the girl from Chicago was melting the edges, and I was starting to realize that once the ice begins to crack, you can't just code it back together.
The Computer Science laboratory was a subterranean sanctuary of humming servers and the sterile scent of ionized air. Blue LED light bled from the cooling towers, casting long, geometric shadows across the workstations. This was my world – a place where every problem had a syntax, and every error could be debugged.
Lu Feng was hunched over the terminal next to me, his brow furrowed as he stared at a cascade of scrolling text. We were deep into the optimization phase of our collaborative project: a neural-network-driven traffic simulation designed to predict congestion in the Pudong district before it even happened.
"The logic gate in the second cluster is hanging," Feng muttered, his fingers tapping a restless rhythm on the desk. "It's not processing the pedestrian density variables correctly. It keeps defaulting to a static state."
"Check the weight of the social behavior parameters," I said, my voice steady as I navigate through a sea of C++ code. "You're treating people like predictable particles. You have to account for the erratic movements – the sudden stops, the deviations."
"People are a pain in the data set," Feng sighed, leaning back until his chair creaked. "Speaking of erratic variables, how is the 'Chicago Spark' doing? Did she survive the first night in the lion's den with Chen Lu?"
I didn't answer immediately. I was busy adjusting a line of code, my cursor blinking like a heartbeat on the screen. "She is…resilient. Though her grasp of quantitative terminology is currently sub-optimal."
Feng spun his chair around, a mischievous glint in his eye that usually signaled a conversation I wanted no part of. "Well, you'd better sharpen her up quickly. My father's foundation just sent out the final itinerary for the Mid-Autumn Charity Ball. The university is making it a mandatory showcase for the international program."
I felt a familiar tension tighten in my shoulders. The Charity Ball was a sprawling, high-stakes masquerade of old money and new technology.
It was where my family expected me to perform – to be the perfect heir, the perfect scholar, and the perfect Ice Prince.
"I am aware of the schedule, Feng," I said coldly.
"The Dean mentioned he expects the 'Lead Ambassadors' to escort their charges," Feng continued, his voice dropping into a conspiratorial whisper. "He basically told my dad that you'd be bringing Allie Reed as your plus one. A formal debut into Shanghai society. Are you going to dress her in silk again and watch the vulture's circle?"
"I am not 'bringing' her," I snapped, the keys clacking under my fingers with unnecessary force. "I am required to attend as a representative of the department. Allie Reed is a student, not a social accessory. Putting her in that ballroom would be like throwing a lamb into a pit of vipers. She doesn't belong there, and I don't have the bandwidth to protect her from the gossip mills."
"Or maybe," Feng teased, "You don't want to see her in a gown again. Last time it seemed to crash your system."
"My system is fine," I lied.
I turned back to the monitor, but the lines of code suddenly looked like meaningless scratches. Static state. That's what Feng had called the hang-up in our program.
My mind drifted from the traffic simulation to the third floor of the Art Building. It was 10:45 AM. Allie would be there by now, in the sun-drenched studio with Gu Huashu. I knew how Haushu worked – he would be playing soft music, the windows would be open to let in the humid breeze, and he would be encouraging her to "find the soul" of the canvas.
I imagined her hands, stained with charcoal or paint, moving with the "enthusiasm" she had mentioned at the noodle shop. I imagined Huashu leaning over her shoulder, his hand guiding her brush, his laughter filling the space that I only knew how to fill with silence.
The thought was a physical irritation, like a splinter under the skin.
Was she telling him about her manga stories? Was she showing him the "colors in her head" that she hadn't shared with me? I had given her three questions and a bowl of noodles. Huashu was giving her a world where she didn't have to be "adequate."
"Xuan? You're looping," Feng said, pointing at my screen.
I blinked. I had typed the same variable name – Resistance_Coefficient – four times in a row. It didn't even belong in this section of code.
I deleted the lines with a sharp strike of the backspace key.
"I'm going to the library," I said, standing up and grabbing my bag.
"The library? We haven't finished the pedestrian cluster!" Feng called out behind me.
"The data is corrupted," I tossed back over my shoulder as I pushed through the heavy lab doors.
I wasn't going to the library. I was going to the Art Building. I told myself it was to check on the "progress" of the international students' integration. I told myself it was my duty as a guide.
But as I walked across the courtyard, my heart was doing something no algorithm could predict. It was accelerating.
The Art Building was the antithesis of the lab. Here, the air was heavy with the scent of linseed oil and the earthy tang of wet clay. The silence wasn't sterile; it was thick, punctuated by the soft, rhythmic scratching of pencils and the distant chime of a wind bell.
I stopped at the threshold of Studio 4B. The door was slightly ajar, a sliver of warm, golden light spilling into the hallway. I stayed in the shadows, my back against the cool plaster wall. I told myself I was observing – gathering data on the "host environment" of the international student.
"It's too tight, Allie," Gu Huashu's voice drifted out, sounding more patient than I had ever been. "You're drawing like you're afraid the paper is going to break. Let the lines breathe."
"It's hard," I heard her reply. Her voice sounded different here – softer, less guarded. "Everything in this city feels so…precise. I feel like if I make one wrong move, I'll ruin the whole composition.
"Is that how you feel in the dorm? Or just when you're with Xuan?"
I stiffened. My name out of his mouth, sounded like a diagnosis.
"He's just…intense," Allie said. I heard the stool creak as she shifted. "But it's not just him. Everything here is so high-stakes. Back in Chicago, I knew my place. Here, I feel like I'm a character in a story I haven't finished reading."
"Then let's talk about the story," Haushu murmured. I could hear him moving closer to her. "Forget the assignments. Forget the Dean. What do you actually desire, Allie? If you could paint your life five years from now, without the 'duty' of the exchange program, where would you be? Who would be standing next to you?"
The silence that followed was long. I found myself holding my breath, my fingers digging into the strap of my laptop bag.
"I'd be in a studio in the heart of this city," she said finally, her voice wistful. "Not a fancy one. Just one with enough light to see the colors clearly. I'd be finishing my first series – the one about the girl who traveled across the world to find her own voice. And as far as who's standing next to me…" She paused, and I felt a sudden, sharp pang of anticipation. "Someone who sees me. Not as a project, or a headache, or a credit hour. Someone who looks at me the way you look at a blank canvas – with possibility."
"And has anyone here looked at you like that yet?" Huashu's voice had dropped to a low, intimate register.
"I think…I think some people are too afraid of the mess of possibility," she whispered.
I stared at the opposite wall, the blue LED light from my watch blinking at me – a reminder of the world of logic I belonged to. A girl who traveled across the world to find her voice. I realized then that I had been looking at her as an equation to be balanced, while Huashu was looking at her like a masterpiece to be discovered. The "possibility" she spoke of was something I spent my entire life coding out of existence.
I didn't want possibility; I wanted predictability. I didn't want a "mess"; I wanted a result. But hearing her say it – hearing the quiet ache in her voice for something more than "adequate" made the air in the hallway feel thin.
"You deserve that, you know," Huashu said. I heard the soft thud of a sketchbook closing. "The city, the light, and the person. Don't let anything make you forget that."
"I'm trying not to," she said.
I turned away from the door, my footsteps silent on the linoleum floor. I didn't walk in. I couldn't. To walk in would be to acknowledge that I had heard her, and to acknowledge that I had heard her would be to admit that I was part of the problem she was trying to survive in this foreign country for her.
As I walked back to the library, the Charity Ball invitation in my pocket felt heavier than ever. Feng wanted me to bring her. Dean expected it. But as I thought about her studio in the city, and her colors, I knew I couldn't bring her into my world.
Not because she wasn't ready. But because I wasn't ready for her to see the person I was when the ice finally melted.
I found Lu Feng at our usual table, buried under a mountain of printed schematics.
"Back so soon? Since I couldn't find you here, I figured you went to find Chicago." He asked, not looking up.
"I went for a walk," I said, sitting down next to him, grabbing one of the books, and skimming through it. "Let's go. I need to eat something that isn't made of steam and metaphors."
We met Gu Huashu at the faculty-student canteen. He arrived late, as usual, with a smear of cerulean blue paint on his jaw and a look of smug contentment that made my jaw tighten.
"Where's your shadow?" Feng asked, sliding a tray of braised pork belly toward the center of the table.
"She's napping," I said, my voice clinical. "Apparently, 'spirit resonance' is exhausting. She'll likely skip lunch and repeat the malnutrition cycle she started yesterday. It's a highly inefficient way to maintain a biological system."
Huashu laughed, pulling a pair of chopsticks apart. "She's adjusting, Xuan. Not everyone is a cyborg who runs on caffeine and spite. She's actually human."
"Which brings us back to the Charity Ball," Feng said, his eyes darting between us. "The Dean sent a follow-up. He's pushing for the international exchange showcase. He wants the 'face' of the department to lead the way."
I looked at the pork belly, but I didn't have an appetite. I kept thinking about the hallway – how she sounded when she said she wanted someone to look at her with possibility. I knew how the people at that ball would look at her. They would look at her like a curiosity, a temporary guest, or worse – a tool for social climbing.
I couldn't do it. I couldn't be the one to stand next to her in a room full of glass and wait for her to realize I was part of the cold.
"I've made a decision," I said, my voice dropping into that flat, final tone that brooked no argument.
Feng and Huashu both paused.
"I'm not taking her," I said, looking directly at Huashu. "The Dean wants her integrated. He wanted her to feel the 'culture' of the elite. You've already made yourself her self-appointed protector. You're the one she talks to. You take her."
Huashu's expression shifted from amusement to genuine surprise. He set his chopsticks down. "You're giving her to me? For the Charity Ball? Xuan, you're the Lead Ambassador. It's your duty."
"My duty is to ensure she succeeds academically," I countered. "The social aspects are…secondary. You're the artist. You're the one who sees 'possibility' in everything. You'll be much better at escorting the girl who wants to draw manga and live in this city than I ever will."
Feng let out a low whistle. "Are you sure, Xuan? The Dean is going to have a heart attack if his star pupil isn't the one walking the American down the red carpet."
"Let him have it," I said, standing up. "I have a thesis to finish. And Huashu? Don't let her trip. I'm tired of seeing her fall into people."
I walked away before I could see the look on Huashu's face. I told myself I was being logical. I was delegating a task to a more suitable department. I was removing a distraction from my system for the time being.
But as I walked across the quad, the heat of the afternoon sun felt strangely cold. I had just handed over the "Lead" position to the one person who actually knew how to make her smile. It was the most efficient move I had ever made.
So why did it feel like a catastrophic system failure?
I didn't head back to the lab immediately. I needed the open air to clear the lingering scent of linseed oil and the echo of her voice from my head. But on this campus, privacy is a luxury I am rarely afforded.
I was crossing the stone bridge toward the Administration Building when I was intercepted.
"Xuan!"
I stopped. It was Zhang Mina, a third year in the finance track. She was perfectly put together – hair in a sleek ponytail, a designer briefcase in hand. She had been "conveniently" appearing in my path for three semesters. Today, however, there was a tremor in her hands.
"I heard about the Charity Ball," she said, her voice strained. "I know you haven't selected a partner. My father's company is sponsoring the gala's tech wing. It would make sense…logically…for us to go together."
I looked at her, my internal processor already drafting a polite, clinical rejection. "Mina, the logic of a merger doesn't dictate a social –"
"It's not just logic, Xuan," she interrupted, her face flushing. "I've respected your space for years. But I've always…I've always admired your focus. I want to be the person standing beside you when you build that fortress, you're always talking about."
It was a confession. Raw, structured, and entirely inconvenient.
I opened my mouth to respond, but movement across the quad caught my eye.
A small group of students was walking toward the library. In the center was Allie. She looked different than she had an hour ago – the gray pallor of exhaustion was gone. She was holding a steaming cup of tea and a takeout container, laughing at something a girl beside her was saying.
I felt a strange spark of data-driven relief. The girl was Meiling, a quiet but brilliant student from the Art History lecture. Allie had finally found a friend. She wasn't just a satellite orbiting Huashu and me anymore; she was forming her own constellations.
Then, Allie's eyes met mine.
She slowed down, her laughter dying away as she took in the scene: the secluded bridge, the beautiful girl standing far too close to me, the unmistakable air of a private moment. I saw her grip her tea a little tighter. For a second, her expression was a mirror of the one I'd had in the hallway – that of an outsider looking in.
She didn't wave. She didn't smile. She simply looked away and kept walking, her conversation with Meiling resuming with a forced brightness that reached me even across the grass.
"Xuan?" Mina promoted, her voice hopeful.
"I'll think about it," I said, my gaze still fixed on the back of Allie's head as she disappeared into the shade of the willow trees. "I'm sorry, Mina. My focus is…elsewhere this semester."
Ten minutes later, I was standing in the Dean's office. The room smelled of old wood and expensive tobacco. Dean Chen sat behind a desk made of solid teak, looking at me over his spectacles.
"The Charity Ball, Xuan." He said, tapping a finger on a gold-embossed invitation. "The American girl. It's a delicate matter. We need her to see the best of us. I trust you have the arrangements in hand?"
"I do," I said, my voice projecting a confidence I didn't entirely feel. "However, I am recommending a change in protocol. I believe it would be most beneficial for the university if Gu Huashu acted as her primary escort for this event."
The Dean paused, his eyebrow climbing toward his hairline. "Huashu? He's a talent, certainly, but he's…unconventional. You are the Lead Ambassador, Xuan. The board expects you."
"The board expects a successful exchange," I countered, leaning forward slightly. "Allie Reed is an artist. She is currently collaborating with Huashu on a major project. She is comfortable with him. Given the…intense pressure of Shanghai society, her comfort is the variable that will determine her long-term success here. If she's overwhelmed, she shuts down. Huashu provides the necessary 'resonance' to keep her engaged."
I wasn't lying; I was optimizing. If I took her, I would spend the night analyzing her every move, worrying about the frost. If Huashu took her, she could be the girl who wanted to live in this city she glamorizes so much.
The Dean studied me for a long time, looking for a crack in my logic. Finding none, he sighed and nodded. "Very well. If you believe her comfort is paramount, I will authorize the change. But you will still be there, Xuan. You are the face of this department. You will simply just be…unattached for the evening."
"Understood," I said.
I left the office and walked down the marble corridor. I did it. I had successfully removed myself from the equation. I had ensured her "comfort."
So why, as I looked out the window at the sprawling, beautiful city, did I feel like I just deleted the most important line of code I had ever written?
I stopped at the end of the corridor, my hand resting on the heavy brass handle of the exit door. The silence of the administrative wing pressed in on me, but my mind was stuck on the image of Allie walking away with her new friend – the way she hadn't even tried to interrupt, as if she already assumed I belonged in a world she couldn't touch.
I pulled my phone from my pocket. My thumb hovered over Zhang Mina's contact.
Logic dictated that an ambassador must have a partner. To arrive alone after publicly handing off the guest of honor to a subordinate – which is exactly how the faculty would view my delegation to Huashu – would raise questions. It would look like a retreat. I needed a counter-balance. I needed someone who understood the architecture of a fortress.
I pressed call. She answered on the second ring.
"Xuan?" Her voice was breathless, guarded.
"Mina. Regarding your earlier proposal for the Charity Ball," I said, my voice slipping back into the cold, professional cadence that was my armor. "I have reviewed my schedule. I will attend with you."
I heard a sharp intake of breath on the other end, but I didn't let her speak.
"However," I continued, "we must be clear on the parameters. This is a departmental obligation. You are polished, you understand the protocols of the foundation, and you fit the standard expected of my family's standing. It is a functional partnership for a single evening. Nothing more. Nothing less."
There was a pause. I expected her to be insulted, but Mina was a product of this city just as much as I was. She knew the value of a high-level transaction.
"I understand, Xuan," she said, her voice regaining its composure. "A functional partnership. I'll coordinate the color of my gown with your tie."
"Fine. I'll send the car for you at seven on the day of the event."
I hung up and stared at the dark screen of the phone. Mina was the "correct" choice. She wouldn't trip on the pavement. She wouldn't ask me poetic questions about my happiness. She wouldn't make me feel like the air was thinning in my lungs. She was a known quantity.
I walked out into the sunlight, my jaw set. I had fixed the problem. I had a partner who fit the frame, and I had placed Allie in the hands of someone who could handle her "possibility." The system was back in order.
I ignored the hollow feeling in my chest as I headed toward the lab. I had a ballroom to survive, a fortress to maintain, and a girl from Chicago to forget for the time being.