Masozi freezes midstep. 

- he can pull mana from his dung beetles from here, the DOOR is OPEN. Who is this person and what are they doing to his room and why do they look so angry aaaaaaaah–

He considers, briefly, running and getting Lan Xichen, but he doesn't actually know where Lan Xichen is, and besides he isn't helpless. 

"What are you doing," he says, very calmly. 

"Setting up your wards."

"- What?" Masozi says blankly. "Um. Why? I don't - I can't trade anything for them?" Is this some sort of extortion scheme where he'll be in trouble with Shanghai if he doesn't frantically figure out how to pay for wards he didn't even ask for - no one would believe he didn't, though, if the other kid wants to lie about it... 

"--They didn't tell you? Fucking typical."

This is just making less and less sense and it's very stressful! "Who didn't tell me?" 

"Lan Xichen! That you have wards now. Because he doesn't want you to get eaten."

The man's tone of voice implies that he personally is indifferent to the question.

"Oh." This is really confusing! "Does...he want me to trade something for them? I don't have anything except for helping spot mals and I'm already doing that for the clothes." 

"I assume in two weeks he's going to ask for either your eternal loyalty and devotion or a blowjob."

"- Oh." That explains it, then. Sort of? Maybe Lan Xichen is just waiting to see if he can learn Mandarin in two weeks and he'll decide then whether he wants Masozi to keep helping Shanghai? He'll just have to work very very extra hard. 

(Masozi is not a native English speaker and does not have the slightest idea what a 'blowjob' is.) 

"I fucking hate this enclave," Jin Zixun says, mostly to the door.

Masozi really doesn't want this kid to be mad at him! It's honestly sort of terrifying! 

"Do you want mana for it?" he says, slightly frantic. (He is NOT going to use his dung beetles for it, he WON'T, but he's got a decent reserve of mana from his exhausting day, and apparently he doesn't need to try to cast his own protection spell tonight?) 

"No," he says, "because then Lan Xichen will be like 'where did this mana come from, Zixun, did you do a bunch of pushups' and I'll be like 'Masozi gave it to me in exchange for doing his wards' and then he'll be like 'go give it back, we're giving him wards because of the benefit to Shanghai.' What fucking benefit to Shanghai."

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Masozi also doesn't know what benefit to Shanghai! Which probably means that someone is going to spring it on him out of nowhere and he needs to try to figure out what it is first! 

Instead of trying for any more interaction, he scurries into his room and sits down and is very quiet. 

Jin Zixun is going to take this as an opportunity to complain at a captive audience.

"What the fuck is wrong with Lan Xichen," he says. "You know, I've had to do wards for four fucking people this week. Wen Qing wants the nurse to stay alive! Wen Qing wants her useless goddamn brother to have bodyguards! And now we've known you for two days, don't even know your family, and we want to ward you to keep you safe. And then one of the fucking bodyguards quits because he thinks you're Lan Xichen's pet maleficer, like, that's a laugh, I wish he had the balls to get a maleficer to keep us safe."

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. 

Is that why Shanghai wants him??? It makes a really scary amount of sense! They did make him promise he wouldn't use malia again, but - of course they don't want him to have the maleficer aura, or go crazy and murderous from it too soon. But they know about his affinity, and they know he can pull malia from rats without it hurting him, and - of COURSE that would be a useful weapon for them to have in reserve, not to use right away, but to display and show that they could, if they wanted... 

He's so scared. 

"I'm glad that Wen Qing wants to save her useless goddamn brother and Nie Mingjue wants to save his useless goddamn brother and everyone wants to save fucking Yanli, really I am. It's sweet. But every bit of mana we're putting into trying to cure Yanli's fibro or paying bodyguards for Wen Ning is mana we don't have for graduation, and I don't fancy dying because some people are too sentimental to cut the fucking deadweight."

"....Is Wen Qing's brother going to be okay?" Masozi manages finally. "I - maybe Lan Xichen wants me to take over for that - I, I didn't know I - made his bodyguard quit..." It's very upsetting. 

"He'll be fine, Wen Qing won't let him die. At least until we all get fucking eaten by Patience at graduation."

"I'm sorry!" 

Why is this random person he doesn't even know so mad at him personally for things he didn't ask for! It's really unpleasant and stressful and it's making it hard to think through the considerations on how likely it is that Lan Xichen wants him in reserve to do maleficing again if it's necessary to save Shanghai kids. 

"And, you know, we gotta save the minions too, except you can't call them minions, they're allies now. Gotta make sure all the maintenance track kids pass their classes. 'They're part of Shanghai enclave too' no they fucking aren't. They didn't grow up around us, they're not us, and they're never going to be us, and if we keep defending people who aren't us all of us are going to die." 

Masozi is just going to be very quiet and try to look non-threatening and wait for this to be over. 

"You know, I'm starting to think the Anglos are right about all this shit. No sex in the Scholomance. Lan Xichen might not get a baby from you or Meng Yao but both of you sure are making him an idiot."

That makes SO LITTLE SENSE and somehow manages to be really scary anyway! 

With that statement, Jin Zixun stomps off muttering under his breath.