He doesn't see anyone who obviously meets all of those criteria.

He does, however, see Masozi himself, navigating through the cafeteria headed toward the Shanghai table, with his shoulders hunched under the weight of his backpack and his arms wrapped around his borrowed container, now emptied of mal grubs and cleaned. He looks visibly shaken, even scared. 

Lan Xichen rushes over-- doesn't recite a charm for calm-calm-everything's-all-right-calm, it scared Masozi before--

"What's wrong?" he says, fully prepared to unleash the wrath of Shanghai on whoever is responsible for this.

"I'm sorry," Masozi says, barely above a whisper. "I - need to tell you something, I, I -" making excuses is not going to help, begging is also not going to help it just makes him look desperate and thus less useful...

He lifts his chin. "I didn't know the rules and I was really rude to New York by accident, and a senior got mad and yelled at me. My friend said I needed to tell you that right away because it was politics and your enclaves are rivals or something." 

Fuck. 

He glances back at the table. Wen Qing is handling the lunch table fine, he's not needed. "We discuss this privately in my room," he says. "Do you like spell to help you calm down?"

Masozi doesn't love the idea but he is, in fact, also kind of panicking too hard to think straight. 

"Okay. Yeah." 

Lan Xichen recites a rhyme in some language Masozi doesn't know and suddenly Masozi feels-- better. Not calm, precisely. It's like someone whisked away the panic and left nothing at all in its place.

“Thank you.”

He takes a deep breath.

”…Okay, we can go to your room. If you want.”

He’s - not not nervous about this - it would be a convenient way for Lan Xichen to get him out of the way, if he wanted, if he’d decided Masozi was too damaging to his enclave’s reputation…

But he told Lan Xichen under a truth spell that he wanted to help, and he meant it, and this is the only way to help mitigate it now. 

Masozi follows him, looking calm and grim and focused and on guard. 

Lan Xichen takes him to his room and then immediately stumbles into issues expressing a complicated time-related sentiment in English. "--I was wanting to bring you here as a gift," he eventually settles on. "Because it's safest place you are since you are probably five years old."

"Oh. Thank you. I appreciate it." Masozi isn't good enough at studying wards to assess for himself how true that is, but it's definitely plausible. He was never very safe, not even when he was five years old. 

He takes a deep breath. "So - should I tell you all of the things that happened?" 

"Yes, please."

He closes his eyes, trying to focus on remembering; he trusts Lan Xichen to keep a lookout. 

"I - it was right at the start on the first day. I had tried to memorize the map and wanted a chance to walk around the school, and some freshman were going down to the senior dorm level to get supplies? It was people from New York - I didn't really follow that until later, though - and also some from Chicago, the ones who didn't know magic was real until they got inducted. They were - it looked to me like no one had any idea how to properly watch for mals. I thought it was a good opportunity to see more of the school, with it being less dangerous, and I was scared one of the Chicago kids would get stupidly killed, so I tried to go be a lookout. I...this girl sort of told me to go away, but in a way that was confusing, and then I pointed out a mal to Orion, and then she said fine I could come along if I stayed ten feet away from her and didn't go in the room – and that she'd get me new clothes if I was useful for three weeks...? I think she said something like that but I don't remember all of it exactly." 

They have got to teach this kid etiquette. 

"All right. And then what happen?"

"....We got down to the dorms and it was pretty much fine on the way? There were only a few small mals and Orion got them. But then everyone went in the room and I wasn't allowed in and there were some mals in the ceiling grate. I - was burning a lot of mana to convince them to stay there and I was worried how long people would take and whether it was better to interrupt and ask Orion to fight them– um, I don't have many good spells for killing mals that don't take a stupid amount of mana, and I didn't want to do anything that took lots of mana because I was trying to avoid needing to drain it from my beetles so early on...... Anyway. A senior came out and yelled at me to go away? I told him there were mals in the ceiling vent and he killed them, but then he still told me to leave and said it in a really scary way."

Shrug. "So I left. I was sort of confused, but it - right then wasn't more confusing than how people would pick fights with you in Malawi City if they thought they could take you? I didn't know New York was important. Lucy said it's rude to - even talk to them like you would to a normal person?" 

"I don't like that rule. Shanghai ignores it while I'm in charge. If someone wastes my time they can be banned from table on case by case basis."

"....Oh, that would maybe explain why Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji weren't mad at me or rude when I asked if they wanted me to help them find Wei Wuxian's room. I was confused about that too. But....um....it seems like there was a rule on how to be polite to New York specifically, and I - didn't know it - and I probably offended them and made them mad at me. I'm sorry."

Masozi hugs himself a little. He's still mostly-calm, but he's definitely feeling very overwhelmed and too small and slow and stupid to keep up with this bafflingly complicated school. Which would be a lot less frustrating if it were the CLASSES that were hard, rather than the....people.

"I would say I won't do it again but I still don't get all of what I did wrong so I, um..." 

"Wei Wuxian hears of rule and immediately breaks it. Even if he is from New York he never objects to someone helping him find his room. It's just not way Wei Wuxian is. --I'm not angry at you."

"Oh." Masozi takes a slow breath. ".....I might've broken a rule again, after that? I was in homeroom and people were talking about shop class times and I heard maybe Monday morning had better supplies, so I went to the closest homeroom to ask about it? And a boy there said he had it but that it was dangerous and I would die. I said I'm good at spotting mals and that if he was good at fighting them maybe we could be a team? ....I didn't know he was from New York but someone came in later and talked to him and mentioned something about New York and classes, so he might've been? And I was really stressed for a bit. But - then he did say it was fine if I wanted to take Monday shop, so I thought it was all right. Maybe it wasn't though?" 

"--I don't think there's any reason to object to you taking Monday morning shop? Other than that you might die. I'm confused too."

"The other boy said he was taking it, so I figured he had a plan, and I - it's sort of a gamble but I don't have almost anything, I don't even have mana storage, I know I have to do a lot of catching up and getting the best supplies might matter a lot? ....The New York senior told me to never talk to anyone from New York again, though, that's the rule I thought I might've broken, except I didn't know. And I guess the other kid didn't either." 

"I should send Meng Yao to talk to New York and get their side of the story. You don't understand rules well enough to know which ones you broke."

"I'm sorry! I can try really hard to learn them, just - it's so different and it's so much and it's.....hard to learn that AND learn math and Mandarin writing AND look for mals all the time."

...Oops now it sounds like he's making excuses. Masozi forces himself to straighten. "I'm not trying to make excuses. I'll figure it out." 

"I'm really not mad at you. I don't think you did anything wrong. Anyone do what you did in your situation. I want to solve problem."

Masozi actually feels like he did MULTIPLE things wrong, which are now obvious after ONE DAY of acclimatizing to this place. But it's generous of Lan Xichen to give him the benefit of doubt, and believe him that he wasn't trying to cause problems on purpose. 

"Okay. ...What should I do now." 

"You should try not to cause more diplomatic crises. I say 'stay on Sino side, I explain the situation to Sinos' but you don't speak Mandarin and many of us don't have good English..."

Okay. Deep breaths. The situation has suddenly gone from 'bizarrely and overwhelmingly good' to 'abruptly and incomprehensibly terrifying' but it's not HELPING to, additionally, be wondering if Lan Xichen is just trying to get him to let down his guard so that he can decide later whether murdering Masozi will solve his problems more effectively. 

"I can just - go to my classes and not talk to anyone?" he offers. "....Although if someone needs help with math then not being able to help them is frustrating. But I can not talk to anyone anyway. And then I can - practice Mandarin and do lookout for Shanghai in the library and not do anything else?"