The nicest thing about graduation, Bea thinks, is that in the brief window after breakfast and before the flames burn through, most of the mals are migrating down to the graduation hall. So it's possible to let one's guard down slightly more than usual and not feel too bad about it. And if you go two to a room instead of separately to wait for the cleansing to finish... it's not like curfew's being enforced.
She definitely has a bunch in the younger years - and might in their year... Oh, some of their assorted hangers-on - or the freshmen in their work period - might have relatives in senior year.
They're able to get a couple of bites, mostly from the sophomores - the kinds of losers who need their protection most don't tend to have family here, though.
They get more off of Shinta, and although she isn't really close to anyone, she's got a pretty solid professional reputation.
Among their hangers on? Pretty good, especially in the freshmen and sophomores - they're used to hanging around each other anyways, and they're nervous about what will happen when Lu and El leave.
There's time to sort that out before it matters. (And El has her own preferred candidate already.)
Jialin's enthusiastic about the role (and has already been elbowing her way to more influence over the others, anyways; the only potential problems would be the current juniors who don't like listening to a younger kid, and they're a small minority of the hangers on).
And it might be best to leave Shinta's contacts to her, at least at first.
She'll start on that after lunch, but it might take a bit to talk to people.
"We're starting a new project, to protect the kids who come here without being in an enclave."
"You've already been doing something like that. But... we don't want this to turn into something else enclavers can hold over the indies' heads."
"I can promise not to do that while I'm here, and I can impress that on the person who'll succeed me, but - I can't really promise you about how future Shanghai students will behave."