He's in his room, with a sign out front about what he's selling.

"I promise there are some people working on the English translation of Romance of the Jade Princess," he says when he sees Connie. "I'm not doing it myself because it trades off against new chapters."

That is not any of the ways Connie thought this conversation might start and it throws her badly.

"I, uh-"

"Thank you-"  in Mandarin, which is stupid, he's just addressed her in English, but it takes a few more cycles to spit out,

"English is okay, then?"

"Of course, why limit who I can trade with?" His accent is light and manages to land on 'sexily exotic.'

"Cool, cool cool.  Thank you.  I can speak Mandarin but my accent is embarrassing."  Also embarrassing: speaking her native language in stock phrases and freezing up in between, but that sure does seem to be what's happening.  Breathe.  

"I.  Wasn't here to ask about the jade princess."

"Cool! What do you want to buy and what do you have to trade?"

Okay, she has canned answers for those, she can do this.  "I've got laundry detergent, three pounds of pennyroyal and half a pound of ginger, math homework to order up through second year calculus, a handful of pretty good utility spells in English and Spanish and your basic tripwire ward in Mandarin, and a compass-protractor set that hasn't gone bad yet.

What would you charge for.  Um.  Advice on selling things."

"For free I can tell you I sell things on commission. I take ten percent, you get to keep the rest."

"Okay.  Cool.

And, um.  If it was something private?"

"Then my commission will depend on what I'm selling."

Connie kicks the door closed behind her and perches on the end of the bed, biting her lip.  "Would you be up for- payment to keep quiet now, I tell you what's up, and if it's not something you want to handle we both walk away?"  She doesn't actually have any way to hold him to that agreement if he makes it, if it comes down to her word against his she's just fucked, but if she was going to just take no risks at all here she could have just shoved the mice into her ceiling to begin with.

She seems too nervous to deliberately low ball him; better to let her show her hand.

"What have you got?"

What's enough to say she's taking this seriously, but low enough to not look like it's actively dangerous just from the fact of asking, and also she doesn't have a ton of trade goods yet...

"Um.  The... ginger, or a pound of the pennyroyal?  Or three math homeworks, if you give me a few days' notice?"

Oooh, ginger's nice, there's always a demand for it in the Sinosphere to get food that tastes like home. 

"Pound and a half of ginger?"

"I've only got the half-pound now, and it's from the alchemy cabinets, I don't, like, have a supplier.  The ginger and two math homeworks?"

He is so ripping her off.

He snaps his fan open. "What have you got?" 

Honestly he guesses he's going to wind up doing a line in pimping, which he's not against. Lan Xichen would complain it's against the dignity of Shanghai enclave but Lan Xichen doesn't have to know, now does he.

Is he really okay with just passing along whatever, is this not technically an agreement... probably best to do the short spiel anyway, less risk of freezing up in the middle.

"So I have this friend, right?"  The most obvious agony-aunt lie possible, but the point isn't to actually get him to believe it, it's to make it obvious she knows he knows she's not telling the whole truth, and if he thinks he's caught the obvious lie he won't be looking for another one.  "Who was kiiiind of an idiot and agreed to owe a senior a favor without saying what it was first, and now he's called it in to get her to move some mice for him."

Oh hello baby maleficer who thought better of it. 

"Oh, no, I can't move mice."

Calm, calm, neutral face, this isn't her this is some kid she probably doesn't even like all that much...

"Figures.  Know anyone who might?"

"Oh, no, I'm from Shanghai, I wouldn't know people who deal in-- that kind of thing."

Connie... is not sure what to do with that.  Does he think she didn't notice Shanghai has a maleficer on side, does he think he'll actually be able to get clean, can he just not admit in public that he might not?  Maybe Huiwen was right about him not being that bright, maybe she should've waited until after Field Day when having the insurance would be more obviously valuable, maybe she should've gone straight to Masozai from Mozambique in the first place...she's here now. Focus.  Flattery probably can't hurt?

"Even though half the school knows you're the guy with the cool shop?  Pisa never comes by for fancy soap?"

"Oh, they're terrifying! I don't want to deal with them."

"Mm, no argument here.  ...girl in our year's cute though," Connie adds, for lack of anything more sensible to say.  Maybe Masozai came in with rats in his backpack after all and she's just digging herself deeper.  Maybe it's time to figure out how to gracefully exit the conversation without freaking him out any more than he already is.  (How is an enclaver this fluttery two months into the term.  Boston would never.)

"Oh, she is." This girl looks terrified and if he keeps saying 'no' he's going to get to not move the mice at all, which is not at all the goal of this particular interaction. "It's too bad. I hate to see a girl in a tight spot."