"I think this is discussion we have after you have sleep and several days of good meals and no one trying to kill you."

“- I think people might keep trying to kill me. Whoever that other enclave was, they seemed mad.”

"You stay in room and study Mandarin, which you need more immediately than shop class anyway. Meng Yao tell Wei Wuxian 'oh, if only you could do both Masozi's and your own homework, I don't think you're able to do it, we have to trade someone for it, is your English even good enough to do classes in English' and he says 'how DARE you' and now I don't think you can keep him from doing your homework if you try. It is good for Shanghai. Keeps him out of trouble."

That sounds costly and this is, again, very upsetting. Masozi doesn’t even really understand why he’s so upset about this! It should feel good and reassuring that Lan Xichen is still committed to helping him even after everything. 

It doesn’t. For some reason, it feels cold and lonely instead, even though that doesn’t make sense. 

He doesn’t have words for what he’s feeling, but some of it does show up on his face.

"--I haven't ever really seen the stars," Lan Xichen says quietly.

"....How? I didn't know there were any places where you couldn't see stars." 

"If there's too much light at night in city it drowns out the stars. It's just black. And I spend most of childhood in enclave which has no sky at all."

Masozi closes his eyes. 

"...I wish you could see the sky by Lake Malawi. It's so dark - if you go swim out in the water it feels like there's not even a world. Just stars." 

"You show me someday maybe."

"....Maybe. I - I have to get better at things. If I want to not die. I have to - not be a sort of person who New York wouldn't trust to - to know that I won't ever think killing people is okay? I - I had the wrong thoughts and said the wrong things and I don't know what was wrong about it but I have to be different." 

"It is useful to be able to make promises people know you will keep."

"The girl from New York. ...She wanted me to promise I wouldn't use malia again no matter what, right? Even if it were - if I could trade one rat to get Wen Ning and Nie Huaisang out at graduation. I - don't know if that's a promise that would be a good idea to make. And - part of making promises you keep is thinking about it, and checking if it's a good idea or if it'll just..." 

He trails off.

"I think if you are indie and use one rat to get Wen Ning and Nie Huaisang out because they are your friends and allies, that is right thing to do. But Shanghai is powerful. If we have maleficer, no one believes we stop at one rat and only when it is important."

"But a war would be bad for you too! It's not - you don't have reasons to - not stop at one rat one time in the only in the graduation hall? It wouldn't help, it would just kill a lot of people." 

"But if we have maleficer, then New York might lose war. Maleficers are powerful. And if Shanghai wins war it is good for Shanghai maybe. Less competition. And certainly war is less costly if you are more powerful and take fewer casualties. And so New York has to get its own maleficer so they don't lose to us, and then Beijing and Kyoto and Mumbai and London want maleficer too. It is stable if no one has maleficer and stable if everyone has maleficer, not in between. And if we say 'we have maleficer but only for special situation' then New York asks itself 'is this true, or is Shanghai just trying to trick us so we don't get maleficer and it can win war,' and you see today that New York does not give Shanghai benefit of doubt. So even if no one wants maleficer everyone can wind up with maleficer because they can't communicate in credible way."

That way of laying it out...does make something click, that didn't before. 

"Oh! So - there's two different ways it can be stable, with Shanghai and New York both being - about the same amount of powerful? And - it's hard for people to believe promises that someone will use malia from mice very carefully but not murder anyone? Because of the thing where it causes brain damage and makes you think murder is fine? And so you have to just...not. Even if making that promise would be a bad plan if New York and Shanghai could just trust each other to both not want a war, but - they don't - so that makes it the only plan that makes things be stable this way?"

He feels like he's doing a bad job of explaining his thoughts, but there's a kernel there that makes SENSE, it holds together, and he really wishes Annaka could have just SAID that before. Except he might not have been able to see it under truth potion. It's too big. 

"Yes, exactly!" He's so proud. "And-- thing that matters is predictability. Pisa is all maleficers and is okay because everyone knows what Pisa does and that they don't start wars and don't kill people. But no one knows what Shanghai does with maleficer, so it changes balance." 

Masozi frowns, thinking hard. 

"- That makes sense? I - it didn't before, because - I think you need everyone to know that the important people keep their promises? ...I don't think anyone really thinks that important people in Malawi keep their promises. Or that it's going to be - predictable, what they hurt you for. I..." A breath, almost of awe. "...It's beautiful? That there can be anywhere in the world where people do think that?" 

"Confucius says-- first you put your own mind right, then you put your family right, then you put your enclave right, then you put country right." It's a loose translation. "It grows." He traces an expanding circle on the back of Masozi's hand. "You make small place where people are predictable in right way and keep promises, where inferiors obey superiors and superiors are generous to inferiors, and it has many effects you cannot see. Like stone dropped into pond. And if enough people set their own place right, whole world becomes right."

That’s beautiful as well.

“Is that what you’re trying to do here? With Shanghai, and…being good…?” That’s not quite the right word but he can’t find a better one.

"Yes."

It’s the first time that the thing someone else is trying to accomplish has made sense to Masozi - not just in an acting-strategically way, but - someone actually trying to make there be fewer stupid horrible problems in the world. And it…fits, now. That it would have to be in this odd indirect way that means keeping your promises and being predictable to others and sometimes NOT using every resource at your disposal to solve the problems near you right now.

Even putting your family and your enclave first, it’s - it’s not that the other people don’t matter, it’s that the world is huge and strange (and beautiful and broken and so many contradictory things at once) and if you try to fix everything in sight, then it frightens people, and - then you're not in the stable place anymore - and because everything is so big, you can just do the math, and see that obviously it matters more for New York and Shanghai not to start escalating to the worse equilibrium where everyone has a maleficer, than the single question of whether Nie Huaisang and Wen Ning survive and whether trading their lives for one rat is worth it in isolation.

And...it matters that he be able to make that promise now, even knowing so little about the details to judge whether or not maleficing would be worth it in isolation. Because....he's not in isolation. Not anymore.  

“I want to help you.”

...And - he wants Lan Xichen to touch him again? His skin still tingles where Lan Xichen drew the expanding circle. 

(This is a weird and puzzling thing to want?) 

He reaches out, though, and takes Lan Xichen's hand, because that feels appropriate for declaring alliance. 

"We stay alive now. Later, we fix things. Shanghai already sponsors new enclaves in Sinosphere so more people can grow up safe. Maybe we build new Scholomance, so there are more spots, so more indies can get a place-- Sinos and Indians and Middle Easterners and Africans--"

"That makes sense." Masozi leans his head on Lan Xichen's shoulder. He's not sure what he's feeling, right now, except that it's the most hopeful he's ever felt in his life. "...And I go back for my sister first? If I - survive graduation. Because - you take care of yourself first and then your family, before you take care of the world, that's - the way to make a stable good thing close to you, and you have to do that before you can make a stable good thing everywhere?" 

"Yes. Family is important. Older sibling takes care of younger sibling, it is one of five fundamental relationships of society."