"- Isla can you go ask Paige if we're okay with Shanghai now," says Ennis. Isla ducks into the reading room; the other two boys of the freshman pack go with her.

Okay, confusing things are happening in the language he doesn't really speak.

He's going to-- not look at the cute boy's cheekbones, that would be embarrassing. He's not going to look at the cute boy's mouth either. He's going to stare directly at the wall behind the cute boy's left shoulder, how about that.

Isla reports after a moment that they're tentatively okay with Shanghai and Ennis and Gail can go down to the lab to make concealer for a favor.

He's going to follow along then and… not say anything? He guesses?

Why don't people speak Mandarin. They should speak Mandarin.

Well, Gail does. "You want concealer for the zits?" she asks him. "Do you want it magic, Ennis's concealer also does painkilling a little bit and he's experimenting with making it also hide you from mals."

"Is that more expensive?"

"Yeah, he can do a non-magic kind faster with fewer ingredients."

So on the one hand spending mana on magic concealer is even more stupid than spending it on concealer at all. On the other hand, if he has magic concealer, he has a good reason to wear it that isn't going to make people laugh at him. 

"Hiding from mals is good," he says, "I'm not sure my face gets hurt very much?"

"The zits don't hurt? Huh, mine do."

"Not really?" Maybe he's just used to it.

"I can tell him nonmagical is fine."

"Yeah, okay." Now the decision is made for him so it's fine. Fine.

"Nonmagical," Gail relays to Ennis.

"Is he sure? I can sell the rest of the batch more easily if it's magic."

She translates that.

"Hiding from mals is useful, pain relief isn't."

Ennis nods.

When they reach the lab he says, "I have some of the things I'll need already stashed in my project locker, but if you'd care to check a few cabinets I can try to get as close as possible to your skin tone." And he goes to his locker and takes out ingredients, hmming thoughtfully about them.

Right. He will go check cabinets.

...

What is he even looking for.

Ennis watches from a ways back. "That powder, top left, I want that, and the white stuff there."

Once this is translated, he brings it to Ennis.

Ennis sets up. Takes a close look at the least blemished part of Jiang Cheng's face. Wants to know if he used to get much sun, outside the Scholomance.

"My enclave had sunlamps?"

"Are you likely to get much lighter here or did you spend about the same amount of time under those as you will in the cafeteria?"

"I think I'll get lighter," he says, more miserably than the sentence really warrants.

(They had a garden, and animals...)

With this in mind Ennis mixes up some concealer, a decently large batch. "Pay Gail the mana before I pigment it for you," he says, and Gail translates that and holds her hand out.

"Say when," he says.

He's going to feel like an idiot if Gail is the maleficer.

Gail doesn't malefice him, just takes a chunk. Ennis finishes the concealer, tests it on the back of his own hand for texture, adds a little of something. "Do you want me to put it on you and you'll owe me a favor?" he asks Jiang Cheng. "You can hold my compact mirror so you can see how I do it."