The air outside the JFK terminal smelled sharp and sterile, like disinfectant mixed with jet fuel. Beneath it lingered the scent of fast food—fries, grease, and the syrupy sweetness of spilled soda. Above, the humming chorus of idling taxis, grumbling engines, rolling suitcases, and overhead announcements clashed into a disorienting wall of sound. Li Feng stood still for a second too long, earning a muttered curse from the driver behind him as he shuffled his single rolling suitcase out of the way.
He had made it. America.
But even as the late summer breeze tugged at his hoodie sleeves, Li Feng felt nothing triumphant. Only a dull throb in his legs from the fourteen-hour flight, and the weight of two crisp dollar bills folded precisely in his left pocket. His eyes darted around, adjusting to the constant movement—a rushing tide of people with places to be. No one here knew him. No one cared who he had been in Nanjing, where his name had held some fleeting academic recognition. Here, he was a foreigner. A nobody.
He watched the Uber app load slowly over airport WiFi, then tapped the cheapest option with clinical precision. $52.90 from JFK to the rental address. He'd calculated that before boarding. His rent was paid for the month. Tuition had been wired. The math left no room for indulgence.
Exactly $2.00 remained.
The car ride took over an hour. Manhattan glimmered like something out of a dream at a distance, but they didn't stop there. Instead, the car drifted past glittering towers and into the worn-out edges of Queens, then deeper into an older neighborhood. Brick apartment buildings stood in mismatched rows, paint chipping, windows fogged. His building was three floors tall with rusted railings and a faded blue door that wheezed when opened.
The room was small. Spartan. A single window faced a wall of another building. The floor creaked with every step, and the only light flickered overhead with a low buzz. He placed his suitcase in the corner, took off his shoes, and sat on the mattress. There was no frame. No desk. Just this rectangle of fabric atop compressed springs. A light layer of dust covered the windowsill. He didn't touch it.
He opened his phone and re-read the tuition confirmation email. Not to reassure himself, but to reset his mind. It was done. The debt was real. This was not a dream.
Tomorrow, orientation.
Day One
The morning was cold and still. Li Feng woke at 5:47 AM. His alarm was set for 6:00, but years of habit betrayed it. He sat up, quietly unzipping his suitcase and removing a lined notebook: Budget and Study Log. Page one already had ink.
"Balance: $2.00 USD."
"Food: 1 pack of instant noodles."
"Utilities: Included for September."
"Goal: Survive one semester. Rank in top 25%."
He laced his running shoes. They were knockoff Adidas with slightly worn soles. Outside, the streets were empty, save for early commuters and street sweepers. The houses looked different here: two-story structures with front lawns and porches, each oddly individual. Mailboxes leaned at odd angles. Squirrels darted from bush to bush. No fences. No honking horns.
He got lost twice.
Jogging was not about fitness. It was reconnaissance. Mapping the area. Locating convenience stores, bus routes, shortcuts. The sun rose slow and golden, and he stood briefly outside the gates of the university, staring in.
It looked like a postcard.
Endless green quads, meticulously trimmed. Ivy crawling up red-brick halls that looked older than his grandparents. The new IT building jutted from the center like a glass-and-steel monolith—angular, modern, glowing with LED signage and QR code panels. The contrast was jarring.
At 8:00 AM, orientation began. He took a seat near the back of the hall, notebook in hand, posture rigid. Around him: laughter, chatter, handshakes. Someone played Drake quietly from their phone. He caught fragments of conversation.
"Yeah, I got into the summer program at Meta."
"My dad works at Google, so I kinda grew up around this stuff."
"Anya Sharma? She built a working GAN in high school, right?"
Li Feng kept quiet.
Lecture: IT Infrastructure 101
The lecture hall was tiered, with long desks and built-in outlets. The professor, Dr. Rachel Whitmore, wore jeans, sneakers, and a gray MIT hoodie. Her voice was casual but clipped.
"Today we'll be looking at Docker containers, Kubernetes orchestration, and an intro to the CI/CD pipeline..."
It hit him like a brick. Words he had memorized in textbooks but never applied. Diagrams on the board blurred. When she asked, "Who here has deployed a project using Kubernetes before?" half the room raised their hands.
He felt his throat tighten.
He was not a genius here.
Evening
The library smelled like old books and fresh carpet. He claimed a corner seat, opened his laptop, and launched LeetCode. He began with Easy. Solved three. Failed two.
At 9:00 PM, he returned to his room. Heated the instant noodles. Ate slowly. Logged the day.
"Solved: 3/5 Easy. Lecture comprehension: 45%. Social interactions: 0. Business idea: pending. Savings: $2.00."
"Target tomorrow: Solve 3 Mediums. Attend AI club interest meeting. Map campus."
He lay in the dark, listening to the faint music from the neighbor's apartment. His eyes stayed open long after the light finally stopped flickering.
[To be continued...]