Okay, so, technically. Technically. Masozi was supposed to stay in his room and study Mandarin, and definitely under no circumstances was he allowed to go to Monday morning shop where people might try to assassinate him.
But Wei Wuxian is very good at fighting and there are a lot of very heavy objects in shop and they can sit in the Sinosphere part of the workshop, far the fuck away from any Anglos with ideas, so he thinks this is about as safe as you can get.
Masozi is INCREDIBLY HAPPY about this! ...Also stressed. But nonetheless incredibly happy! And he's very good at finding mals and even better at noticing people sneaking up on them, so with Wei Wuxian's help they can probably dodge any threats?
He reads the instruction sheet. "All right, wax casting! I've been doing this since I was seven years old."
"I don't know what that is," Masozi confesses. He doesn't know what almost any of the things in the shop are, actually! It all looks incredibly complicated and he's now kind of intimidated.
"Don't worry about it! A seven-year-old can do it." He considers. "Well, they're not supposed to do it, but I kept all my fingers and a medical spell fixed it right up."
This is not a reassuring fact about the safety of this project at all!!!! Masozi gives Wei Wuxian an alarmed look!!!
"And we're twice as old as that so we'll be twice as careful!"
"Okay." Masozi will be so careful. And try to make sure Wei Wuxian is also careful, because probably he won't be.
His instruction sheet is in English. He reads through it very carefully. That....mostly sounds like things he can do?
"Can I see your instructions too?" he asks Wei Wuxian. "For practicing Mandarin."
"Sure thing."
He takes the opportunity to scan for mals. There is so much stuff in here he can cheat with.
Masozi recognizes a lot of the characters on Wei Wuxian's sheet! (Well, for a definition of 'recognizes' that includes hunting through his notes.) He aaaaalmost knows enough of them to figure out the rest from the process of elimination and the English instructions plus what they sort of look like pictures of. He can't quite manage this, though, and has to ask Wei Wuxian what about half of them mean so he can add them to his notebook.
And then he's willing to actually start the assignment! ...The instructions are actually still kind of confusing, for someone who has never done any kind of shop work before. So maybe he'll watch what Wei Wuxian does and then do the same things after him?
Can they please please go to the shop cabinet carefully? With Masozi checking for mals? Inconveniently, if he has to keep a lookout for Wei Wuxian during the whole shop period then this is going to end up taking most of the mana he accumulated via breakfast being terrifying.
"I think we need - wood to make a frame, and sand or plastic, and wax, and - I guess something to carve wax with? And then bronze. How do we melt the bronze?"
Wei Ying is not capable of reading minds so he goes without looking where he's going at ALL and almost runs into a New Yorker.
"This thingie," Wei Wuxian says. "--ooh, some of this stuff is cool."
Aaaaaaaaaaah did the New York student notice him? Masozi tried to dive behind Wei Wuxian but he's not sure he did it in time!
"Be careful!" he hisses, since apparently Wei Wuxian is, in fact, not going to think of that on his own. "The - the thing that looks like rope isn't a rope. Can you kill it."
Other than whatever kind of mal that is, the cabinet seems clear, and it is in fact full of so much stuff. There are, like, eight different kinds of string, from fine silk thread on a spool to a braided cord. There's a spool of barbed wire for some reason. There's a corrugated plastic signboard bigger than Masozi is tall. There's a box of small flat pieces of wood, which Wei Wuxian might recognize as popsicle sticks. There are a number of ball bearings. There's a bunch of wire mesh and three brass doorknobs and a bag of cotton fluff.
"Yeah, sure." He explodes it, leaving little bits of mal guts over half the shop.
(Behind him, someone yells 'fuck' as half their knife inexplicably disintegrates.)
Oh wow. Masozi wishes he had an exploding-mals spell. The void seems incredibly reluctant to give him that, though.
"Think it's safe now," he says. "Wei Wuxian, please wait for me to check for mals before you touch things, okay?"
"Okay, I will." He grabs some ball bearings and wire mesh. "I bet I could make something really cool with this."
Masozi pockets the thread - Nie Huaisang probably wants nice thread? - and considers the corrugated plastic thing. "We slept under one of those," he says thoughtfully. "In Lilongwe. It was waterproof. I guess that's not as useful here, since it doesn't rain inside."
"I bet we could use something waterproof at some point." He collects it.
"I think we need to look in more cabinets. None of this is actually the stuff we need, unless the doorknobs are bronze? I don't actually know what bronze is."
"I don't think so, they're brass. --You should open the cabinets."
Masozi lowers his voice. "...Can I have some mana from your power sharer? I promise I won't take any more than what I put in this morning, I just want to be able to use my spell that paralyzes mals."
It's still weird how casual Wei Wuxian is about this, but Masozi isn't going to complain. He pulls just enough mana for the spell and gives the power-sharer back.
...The next cabinet seems to be clear of mals, though. It's also clearly already been gone over by New York. It is inexplicably full of pinecones, and everything else is gone.
He picks up a pinecone. "Do you think we could do something cool with this?"
"We could...use it to light a fire? I don't know what sort of magic thing you could do with it."
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