Wen Ning is dropped off at his room by Ayako and Mei, but he stands near the door instead of opening it because he's kind of enjoying being outside his room and not around people, and his next-door neighbor's door is open? So probably she'll handle any mal-related situations that come up.

Is this the kid who drew the Buddhist inscriptions on the wall last time? It'd be so awkward if he is and she doesn't recognize him! Well, she can just invite him to do more inscriptions, that works whether it was him or not. "I found Chloe some really nice paint supplies so she gave me a bunch more gold paint for the Buddhist inscriptions on my wall!" she says brightly. "Come on in and have some lemonade and help me figure out how the additional ones should go - I was thinking that there's a way to do it asymmetrically where it doesn't look accidental, it just looks like it's working with the chakras of the room!'

Um? Okay? 

Is he supposed to know who Chloe is? What's lemonade? He's pretty sure Buddhists don't believe in chakras but on the other hand, like most of Shanghai enclave, Wen Ning has always had a practical attitude towards religion. As long as the supernatural entities in question are doing their jobs, then he sees no reason to worry about minor details like what religion they technically belong to or whether they exist.

He also doesn't know whether rooms have chakras? Maybe they do in Hinduism. 

Wen Ning obediently goes inside.

She beams at him and keeps talking. "So, I'm thinking the left side of the room is a little busy? It has my Zen rock garden, my bookshelf which is admittedly bare now but which I am intending to fill up with books, and I brought in tiny enchanted bead-lights so the books will stick around so probably by senior year the bookshelf will be full of them and also glowing. And I'm thinking adding anything more on that side of the room just gets you something unbalanced? Also I've heard it's specifically bad to have a lot of stuff going on on the side of the room where you rest your head while you sleep, because it'll weigh you down. And make you feel claustrophobic. So I'm thinking we want to do the calligraphy on the right, way up high above my desk. Where'd the paintbrush get to -" 

She hands it to him. 

He is going to... do calligraphy? This seems to be the expected behavior right now?

At least his neighbor is paying attention to feng shui even if she thinks it's a kind of Buddhism or possibly Hinduism?

He looks around for a chair or something to stand on.

Her room has a nice ergonomic desk chair that some senior clearly built in shop years ago and that has been patched and handed down ever since, with a sheet thrown over it because it is ugly. She's going to get the sheet embroidered in a Buddhist way. 

He is going to very carefully use the desk chair to climb onto the desk so he can paint the walls as instructed.

He waits for her to say what he's supposed to be drawing on the walls. If not he can... write out the first few lines of the Diamond Sutra? That's Buddhist.

She has gone back to putting her rock garden together, singing along to Legally Blonde as she does.

"Here you'll become what you're supposed to be

Supposed to be

You think you can't, but you can

Yes, you can

Think of the guy you want most to be
Here's your chance to make it

So take it like a man"

Wen Ning weighs whether he's going to get in more trouble for waiting for instructions or for painting something he's not supposed to, and decides to wait for instructions. This is more fixable.

He's not sure if he likes this song but it's better than BTS, which Nie Huaisang won't stop listening to.

"- are you low on creative inspiration?" she asks after a couple of minutes. "Come have some lemonade. It's good for creative inspiration."

He has some lemonade! It is unpleasantly sour.

He smiles and bows in thanks.

"Do you have ideas about what'd go best there? I don't actually know that much about Buddhism, I just got the rug on Thursday. I asked for a Buddhist spellbook and it gave me some stuff but it's in English, because I don't have any Chinese, and I can't switch to English halfway down my wall. It's got sutras and stuff, you could look at those if you want?"

Oh, good! She wants a sutra! He can do that!

He gets back up on the desk and begins to carefully write the first sentence of the Diamond Sutra on the wall. Fortunately, he knows it by heart, and calligraphy wound up in the "can do it even if his hands are trembling with fear" category instead of the "nope, impossible, he is going to die" category like speech.

"Looks amazing," she says cheerfully, and, being out of inspiration for the rock garden - it needs moss or something - starts doing yoga. 

AAAAAAAAAA he is being OBSERVED

He immediately drops the paintbrush on his foot.

Downward dog!

Okay. So. She's in downward dog, she can't possibly be looking at him. If he doesn't look at her, for all he knows, she's going to stay in downward dog until he leaves.

He gingerly picks up the paintbrush and continues to work.

She switches yoga positions periodically but does not offer further commentary aside from singing along to the Legally Blonde soundtrack.