"Wangji, would you please escort him to the bathroom?"

"Yes."

Sure, Masozi can get up and go with him, bringing his precious new clothes to change into.

This is not decreasing the number of questions she has!

(Obviously she's not going to ask. That would be rude. If Lan Xichen is acting like this is all perfectly normal then it's all perfectly normal. That doesn't mean she isn't full of question marks.)

"He grew up in Africa and got to the Scholomance having never learned a spell from anyone else."

Meanwhile--

Lan Wangji is perfectly silent on the way to the bathroom.

"....I no longer have questions." 

"It's remarkable to me how many people judge someone by their clothes."

Silence is fine with Masozi! He’s focused on scanning for mals, though he only finds one teensy worm thing for Bichen to kill.

In the bathroom, he strips and dunks under the shower and uses his old clothes to dry himself a little before carefully putting on the new outfit. It doesn’t, in fact, fit very well - Masozi is taller than the other student whose name he’s forgotten, and also much scrawnier, so the pants show some ankle and also badly call for a belt, and the shirt hangs off his shoulders like he’s a human coat hanger. But they’re clean and comfortable and don’t reek. 

He’s so pleased! He stuffs his abandoned garbage clothes in the very bottom of his backpack, spare fabric seems handy even if it stinks, and then he can follow Lan Wangji back to the cafeteria.

"Appalling," Nie Huaisang says to Wei Wuxian on Masozi's way back, "that's appalling, I am going to fix up his outfit for free. Do you think he'd like embroidered birds?" 

"Probably not."

"I can dream."

"Much better," Lan Xichen says when he returns. "You want to know about radicals?"

“Yes! If there’s time to explain it before class starts?”

"Most characters are formed by combining radical and phonetic. This character"-- he points-- "means 'flower,' which is pronounced huā. Phonetic"-- he points-- "is character for huà, 'change', which gives hint to pronunciation. Radical is character for cǎo, 'grass.' So it's word that sounds like huà and means something like 'grass.' Huā. Flower. The characters themselves are pictures. You see how cǎo looks like grass? And huà is person standing upright and another person upside down. Change."

(Julian does not want to assume he has an invitation to sit at the Shanghai table, but he also doesn't want to look like he's neglecting his bodyguard duties. So, after scarfing down his breakfast with Naima, he's – hovering. And mildly hating himself for looking like such an obvious lackey. Which he needs to get over, stat, because obvious lackeys who have upperclassmen doing their wards at night can't afford to be picky.) 

Masozi is going to be utterly captivated by his lesson on Mandarin radicals for the rest of the breakfast period! (Though not quite so captivated that he stops relentlessly scanning the room for mals.) 

"There's space for you to sit," he says to Julian, "here or down by Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian. Depending on how fascinated you are by introductory Mandarin lessons."

"...not especially, thanks." He'll sit with the two freshmen, then. 

Well, there's no accounting for taste.

(His sworn brother is so cute.)

"Hello!" Jiang Yanli says as soon as he sits down. "I'm Jiang Yanli, these are my brothers Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian. And this is Nie Huaisang. Would you like some seasoning for your food?"

"How am I supposed to sell it if you keep giving it away for free?"

"I believe in your abilities."

People should stop TAKING ADVANTAGE of his sister's KINDNESS.

Mei looks over at Yanli with interest. "What kind of seasoning?"