The next morning, Li Feng noticed the flicker.
Not from his room's tired bulb, but from himself. A slip in focus. During his jog, he missed a step on a curb and stumbled—just slightly—but enough for a passing cyclist to shoot him a wary glance. Back in Nanjing, he'd have calculated the angle of the curb, adjusted his pace accordingly. Here, his thoughts were too loud.
He pushed harder.
Back at the apartment, he took a cold shower to stay alert. The water pressure was inconsistent, sputtering like it resented him. He didn't complain. He logged it in his notebook: "Plumbing: Unreliable."
His morning meal was hot water. No noodles today. Not yet.
He packed his notebook, laptop, and the two-dollar bill. Left the room by 7:40 AM. A bus stop map was taped to a nearby wall, but he'd already memorized it. Bus 12 to campus. 18 minutes. He stood while others sat, mentally reviewing lecture terms from yesterday.
When he arrived, a girl bumped into him on the sidewalk.
"Oh! Sorry," she said quickly, brushing her hair back. She had a box of fliers and earbuds in.
"No problem," he replied automatically.
She paused. "Are you going to the AI club meeting later?"
Li Feng blinked. "Yes."
"Cool! I'm Dani. You new?"
He nodded, then regretted not asking her something in return. But Dani had already walked off, moving faster than he could follow. Still, a name. His first real interaction.
He logged it later: "Social: +1. Dani – AI Club."
Midday: Signals and Systems
The course was dry. Equations on a digital whiteboard. Frequency domains, signal flow graphs. Most students took notes on iPads. Li Feng used his pen.
At one point, Dr. Toller paused and asked, "Anyone know what the Nyquist theorem implies about sampling audio?"
Li Feng's hand moved before his doubt caught up. "That the sampling rate must be at least twice the highest frequency component to reconstruct the signal without aliasing."
Dr. Toller smiled. "Correct. And the practical implication?"
Li hesitated. "Most audio is sampled at 44.1 kHz… to capture up to 20 kHz, just above the upper limit of human hearing."
The professor nodded. "Nice."
No one clapped, but a few turned to look. Li didn't smile, but he marked the moment.
Afternoon: AI Club
The room was fuller than he expected. Rows of folding chairs. A projector hummed faintly. Dani waved at him from the third row. He hesitated, then took the seat beside her.
"We're doing a mini hackathon next week," she whispered. "Wanna team up?"
He hesitated again.
"I'm okay at frontend. I need someone with backend or ML skills."
Backend. Machine Learning. He wasn't an expert, but he'd built a decision tree model back home for a math competition. It hadn't won.
"…Okay," he said.
Dani grinned. "Awesome."
Later, as they left the building together, she asked, "Where you from, anyway?"
"Nanjing," he said.
She looked at him for a second. "That's in China, right?"
He gave a single nod.
"Well. Welcome to Queens."
He walked home alone, stomach aching, mind alert.
Night
His phone lit up. A message from Dani:
"I'll send you the GitHub link for our repo tonight. Let's brainstorm ideas. You cool with Discord?"
Li Feng stared at the message longer than he meant to.
He logged the day.
"Lecture response: 1 correct answer. AI club joined. Team formed. Social: +2. Savings: $2.00. Hunger: manageable."
Then, in smaller print:
"New variable: possibility of friendship."
He lay in bed, hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling like it might offer guidance.
The light flickered again.
But this time, it felt different.