"Would that even help much?"

"No idea, we haven't gotten to phalanxes yet."

"You'll have to tell me when you get to them!"

"Aw, you have a pretty smile."

"Thank you?" Aaaaaaaaaa, why does he have to be dangerously charming? She made PROMISES.

"Awww, you're all flustered. I'm going to have to compliment you more so you get used to it."

"If you want to???"

"Si-mei knows so many interesting horrifying facts, and is very good at adjusting to the Scholomance for a mundie, and has an adorable nose, and caught on to magical theory stuff quickly, and would probably be very nice to my pet cockroaches."

...She picks the one thread she is qualified to comment on (and could also say things without dying of embarassment with her face in her hands). "I can't be mean to the cockroaches, that would be unfair."

"Some people think they're gross."

"Whether they're gross or not, you shouldn't be mean to things. --Not that I think they're that gross."

"Zaizai has dung beetles! They're cool too even though they make his room smell like shit."

"I'm surprised the smell came with the beetles."

"It's because he feeds them his own shit. Very efficient."

"That would also work. --And would be pretty efficient. He wouldn't need to save any of his food."

The logistics of raising dung beetles in a closed system: not something she ever thought she'd need to think about.

"And his neighbors don't hate him because we're never going to throw a party in his room!"

"That'd help."

"So si-mei how are your classes going?"

"Not too bad? But my history class is... odd."

"How so?"

"I'm taking a modern Chinese history class, because it would have some useful spells--" Mostly about being subtle and hard to detect and hidden "--and because it would cover some material I already knew. But it definitely expects, mmm, different answers than my old school did."

"Well, yeah, your old school is full of blatant fascist propaganda."

"--We're communist???"

"They're basically the same thing."

(Comparative politics was not a strong point in Wei Ying's education.)

"--No?" (...not exactly a strong point of hers either.)