What is happening here.

"I – I don't expect you to speak ill of your enclavemates with an outsider." Especially not a random indie freshman who just bit your head off. "I still think this is such an obviously terrible idea that Lan Xichen has to be playing some kind of deeper game? And obviously you have to defend him, so – " 

Julian thought this was going to be easier! Normally when you pull aside enclave juniors and insult their judgment, leadership, and basic morality, they fire you and that is the end of it!! He hopes she's not going to drag this out, because he's not sure he has the strength. 

"I'd suggest that Lan Xichen, who became head of Shanghai enclave when he was barely a sophomore by sheer force of personality, is somewhat better at his job than you are."

See that sounds like a very strong argument for Lan Xichen having considered that breaking the decades-old taboo about enclaves consorting with maleficers is going to freak everyone the fuck out and calculated that he can win any resulting conflict. Because he has a maleficer. And winning fights against other wizards without spending down irreplaceably scarce resources is the whole thing maleficers do. 

"Right. Um. I certainly agree he has reason to believe that Shanghai will benefit from his decisions." 

"If you'd prefer not to work with Shanghai given these circumstances, I understand." She pauses to consider her next statement. She'd like to preserve good working relationships with Julian, particularly given Lab Xichen's desire to give Meng Yao an enclave; she doesn't want to burn a bridge this early. And conspicuously taking no offense at the criticism seems correct; Shanghai knows this looks bad and can hardly fault anyone for being too opposed to enclaves allying with maleficers. They can eat the mana cost this early in the year, especially with Nie Huaisang's perfectionist tendencies with his art.

"You can keep the wards until they wear out, as a gesture of gratitude for you bringing this issue to my attention. If you'd like to work with Shanghai in the future, I would of course be happy to talk about arrangements."

Okay. That's a good deal. That's a better deal than he was expecting, really. Obviously the offer to keep working with Shanghai is not real – Wen Qing could easily find ten more qualified bodyguards who didn't just insult her enclave leader. But the fact that she's willing to extend the polite fiction means he probably hasn't made an enemy, and that matters. Shanghai still has the power to make his life a lot more difficult. 

"I'll keep that in mind. ...your brother is safe, by the way, I did get him back to his room before I came here. In case you were worried about that." Since it's really the most conscionable part of this situation. He also has siblings he desperately wants to keep alive. "Thank you for your understanding. I'll be going now." 

"Thank you for making sure he's safe."

When Julian gets back to his bedroom, he screams into his pillow for a solid five minutes. He's an idiot and he's going to die and those wards could have gotten him from field day to New Years and now he won't have them for no good reason other than that the idea of Shanghai lording it over the school with their pet maleficer makes him sick to his stomach. When he's done with that, he forces himself to picture every last one of his brothers and sisters in his mind and think very hard about how he'll feel when they get eaten alive by monsters because he didn't survive to get them slots. He thinks about his Group, and how he absolutely can never tell them what he's just done, because they'd quite rightly kick him out as a hopeless prospect. 

And when he's done with that, and feels a little calmer, he pulls out his walkman and lets himself listen to three minutes of music and pets it and tells it how good and important it is. He makes a note for himself to ask Malak about her warding spell tomorrow. He does push-ups until his arms are screaming, and crunches until he can barely move, and when he crawls into bed, he promises himself he will never ever ever again do the right thing – at least until he turns nineteen.