Someone comes around the corner and says, "What the fuck."

Oh great. More of an audience. What he needed.

The boy kneels and starts to help Meng Yao up.

?!

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine-- I've survived worse--"

The boy doesn't look impressed by this. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" he says.

Meng Yao flinches.

But he's not yelling at Meng Yao. "You understand that kicking someone down the stairs is a murder attempt?"

"He's--"

"If it's something worth kicking him down the stairs for, you should call a fucking tribunal. Either you're deliberately not informing everyone of someone who's a risk to everyone so you can instead kick them down the stairs, or you're bullying someone because you can, and either way I'm incredibly unimpressed." 

The kids don't seem to have a response to this.

"I'm Nie Mingjue."

"Meng Yao."

"Come with me."

"I don't have anything I can trade--"

"Yelling at assholes is its own reward."

Meng Yao is being escorted to... the Shanghai reading room?

What. 

"This is Meng Yao. Some assholes were bothering him. Wen Qing, can you take a look?"

A delicate-featured girl looks up, walks over to Meng Yao, and puts her hand on his head. She mutters something in some language Meng Yao doesn't know. "No concussion." She mutters something else. "Your head should feel better now."

?!

"What happened?"

"Some assholes kicked him down the stairs, I figured he could sit in here for a bit and they'd think twice before doing it again."

"You're too noble."

"I think you shouldn't kick people down stairs."