Autumn in Oxford was like a painting with its saturation dialed down. Lin Xiaoyang stood on the small balcony of his flat, watching the sycamore tree in the courtyard slowly shed its green for edges of gold. His and Shen Qinghe's "long-distance protocol" had been running stably for three months—if you could call weekly video calls, daily asynchronous message updates, and one physical meeting per month "stable."
Their communication remained almost unnervingly efficient for a romantic relationship. The Sunday 9:00 PM video call initiated without fail, Shen Qinghe's backdrop always the impeccably organized desk in her doctoral dorm.
"Research progress this week: completed cluster analysis of metaphorical structures in 18th-century French love letters," her voice was calm and clear. "Found the correlation coefficient between 'moon' imagery and themes of 'waiting' to be 0.87, disproving my advisor's hypothesis regarding 'rose' as the dominant symbol."
"Work progress: patched an edge-case vulnerability in the Nexus Analytics recommendation algorithm," Lin Xiaoyang responded, sipping the calming tea Qinghe had remotely recommended. "The political ecosystem in the London office is more complex than the code. My direct manager and the product lead have an ongoing divergence on the weight distribution between 'user privacy' and 'data value extraction.'"
"Noted: workplace interpersonal friction coefficient increased by 15%. Recommendation: maintain technical output neutrality, avoid narrative entanglements." Shen Qinghe made notes on her tablet. "Next weekend's meeting itinerary has been optimized: you take the early train Saturday, arrival 10:47. I have reserved a restaurant for 13:30, followed by the Ashmolean Museum's special exhibition 'The Material Carriers of Emotion: 1600-1900,' with evening data synchronization and physical contact at my dormitory."
"Sounds efficient," Xiaoyang smiled. Their date itineraries read like project plans, but he found he loved this precision—loved someone who calculated the optimal angle and duration for a hug.
Yet, no amount of protocol optimization could entirely eliminate the subtle distortions introduced by latency. During video calls, her expressions had a 0.3-second transmission lag; text messages lost all intonation; even their monthly hugs became overly intense due to the tension between anticipation and reunion, requiring time to recalibrate.
"It feels like we're transmitting with lossy compression," he said during one call. "Losing a lot of... metadata."
Shen Qinghe thought for 2.4 seconds. "You refer to non-verbal signals, environmental context, synchronous shared experience. Yes, long-distance relationships are inherently high-latency, low-bandwidth connections. But our compensation algorithm's efficiency rating is 86.7%, above average."
"It's not about efficiency," he tried to explain, the old frustration of translating emotion into logic bubbling up. "It's about... signal degradation. The feeling that I'm receiving a processed version of you, not the raw data stream."
"The 'raw data stream' would be neurologically overwhelming and socially impractical," she replied logically. "Processing is necessary. The goal is to minimize informative loss, not eliminate processing itself." She paused, and her gaze on the screen seemed to sharpen. "Your feedback suggests perceived loss is exceeding acceptable thresholds. We should schedule a dedicated session to audit our communication protocol."
And so, their relationship had become another system to debug, another set of parameters to optimize. Xiaoyang should have found it exhausting. Part of him did. But a larger part—the part that was no longer the energy-saver—found a strange comfort in it. Here was a problem he could solve, with the most brilliant co-programmer imaginable.
This fragile, carefully managed equilibrium was shattered on a random Wednesday by an incoming data packet he had completely failed to model.
He was in London, midway through his second "office day," wrestling with a particularly stubborn API integration, when his phone buzzed with a call from an unknown UK number. Frowning, he answered.
"Xiaoyang! Can you hear me? The audio quality in this airport is atrocious! It's like they're piping in pure chaos through the speakers!"
His blood ran cold. That voice. That particular frequency of dramatic energy.
"Yuexi?" he stammered, pushing back from his desk and lowering his voice. "Airport? What airport?"
"Heathrow, you silly! Where else would I be? Surprise! My game got nominated for a 'Best Innovative Narrative' award at this indie games fest in London! I'm here for the ceremony tomorrow! And obviously, I had to see my favorite former project manager turned transcontinental romantic!"
Chen Yuexi. In London. The human embodiment of a noisy, high-energy variable had just inserted herself directly into his carefully balanced, two-node system.
"Yuexi, that's... amazing about the award," he managed, his brain scrambling to reallocate processing power. "But I'm... at work. In London. Right now."
"Perfect! What are the coordinates? I'll grab a cab! I need a tour guide! A local liaison! My dramatic entrance needs a supporting character!"
"Yuexi, I can't just—"
"Don't you dare say 'it's inefficient'! This is a narrative goldmine! The old comrade reunites on foreign soil! I'll be at the main arrivals hall, near the giant... bronze clock thingy? I'm wearing a red hat so you can't miss me. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, begins in one hour!" The line went dead.
Lin Xiaoyang stared at his phone, a sense of impending system overload washing over him. Chen Yuexi's arrival was more than a social obligation; it was a stress test. A noise injection into his quiet, optimized life with Qinghe. How would the "long-distance protocol" handle this? Qinghe's models certainly didn't have a parameter for "unannounced, theatrical best friend from university."
He sent a quick, panicked text to Qinghe, summarizing the situation in three bullet points.
Her reply came two minutes later, characteristically calm.
Qinghe: Variable 'Chen' introduced to local environment. Unplanned but not hostile. Your after-work schedule tonight was allocated for independent study (ML algorithms). That time block can be reallocated. Probability of 'Chen' requesting to meet me during her visit: 92%. Advise initiating a three-way meetup tomorrow to control narrative and gather data. Do not let her dictate all terms.
He read the message, a wave of relief and new anxiety mixing. She wasn't upset. She was strategizing. She was already modeling the interaction.
That evening, after extricating himself from an overjoyed, jet-lagged, and hyper-caffeinated Chen Yuexi (who had indeed been wearing a large, crimson beret), Xiaoyang collapsed onto his Oxford bed. The video call with Qinghe that night felt different.
"Her energy signature is... intense," Qinghe observed after hearing his report. "Even through second-hand description. My audio analysis of your voice suggests a 40% increase in stress harmonics post-interaction."
"She's a lot," Xiaoyang sighed. "But she's also... our friend. She's part of the dataset."
"Correct. Which is why the proposed three-way meeting is logical. I have compiled a list of neutral, moderately stimulating venues in Oxford suitable for high-energy social interactions. I will transmit it. You will present it to 'Chen' as options."
He smiled tiredly. "You're not worried? About meeting her... in person? In your space?"
On the screen, Shen Qinghe's expression was one of pure, analytical focus. "Worry is an inefficient anticipatory emotion. This is a data-gathering opportunity. I have extensive models on 'Chen,' but they are built on remote observations and your self-reported data. Direct observation will increase model accuracy by an estimated 60%. It is a necessary system update."
Of course. She was approaching this like a fieldwork expedition.
The next day, as he stood on the Oxford platform waiting for Chen Yuexi's train, Xiaoyang felt like a man awaiting the results of a major integration test. Two of the most powerful, conflicting operating systems in his life were about to attempt a handshake on his home turf.
The train doors hissed open. Chen Yuexi emerged, not in her dramatic beret, but in a stylish coat, her eyes wide with genuine awe as she took in the ancient spires.
"Wow," she breathed, the theatricality momentarily muted by real wonder. "It's like stepping into a history book." Then she saw him, and the grin returned. "Xiaoyang! Lead the way! I need to see everything before I meet the legendary Human Database!"
As they walked towards the cafe Qinghe had selected—one with good sightlines, moderate acoustics, and a menu she had pre-vetted—Yuexi chattered nonstop about the award ceremony, the London games scene, and her theories about Xiaoyang's "Oxford transformation."
He barely processed it. His mind was already ahead, in the quiet cafe, where Shen Qinghe would be waiting, a cup of tea already cooling to the optimal drinking temperature, her mind a vault of prepared data and silent observations.
The long-distance protocol was about to face its first real-world, multi-variable noise test. And Lin Xiaoyang, the once-energy-saver, found his heart pounding not with dread, but with a curious, electrifying anticipation. He was about to witness two different kinds of brilliance collide, and he had no idea what the output would be.
All he knew was that the quiet, two-node system was forever changed. The distributed network was live, and the data flow was about to get a lot more interesting.