Doors are for fools who want to explain what exactly they were doing that meant they were out in the middle of the night (trying to solve a murder, naturally), or who did not have the lightness skill to have other options. Windows were the gentleman's entrance.
Though this window seems to... not be working correctly. Which is not a problem he has encountered with windows before! Every other time, this one has lead into his rooms, and not a... foreign building?
A foreign building with a bar across one side, exploding stars out the window, and a... person?... sitting at the table. The person was wearing trousers like a barbarian, but made of some weird material Jing Yi had never seen before, and their hair was bright purple.
Are the exploding stars dangerous? ...better question: if they were, could he do anything about that?
The best course of action for the ?magical? ?foreign? building in the middle of Chang'an is to investigate.
First step: talk to the purple haired stranger. Can people have purple hair? No one he's ever heard of from Samarkand to Silla has had purple hair, but who knows what the hell is happening out west. Maybe they have a fashion for incredibly expensive wigs. He should probably treat them as if they were the sort of the person who could afford a wig of Tyrian purple and who can afford fabric so exotic he has literally never seen it.
"It appears to be run by mysterious extradimensional entities represented by a sentient bar," says Fortitude, who is having a great time.
...he understood the first half of the sentence, but then it just rapidly devolved.
"But not by you?" Because at this point he will take any scrap of confirmation he can get in the face of 'mysterious extradimensional entities.'
"No, I came through a door, same way that you did. --Well, you came in through a window. I didn't even know that Milliways came in Window."
"Thank you for letting me know." Interacting with the bar is probably the next logical step on this fact finding mission.
He goes up to it.
Hello! the bar napkins.
Does he talk to the bar or write to it? He's going to try talking first. "I hear the first drink is free?" What would be the most informative drink... "I'd like to try something from where your other guest is from."
Certainly!
He blinks, and suddenly a cup made of ? glass ? appears on the countertop. It comes with a straw.
...He has fallen through a window into a magical drinking establishment. Which he already knew, of course, but the additional confirmation does not make it any less weird.
He sits at the table the purple haired stranger is sitting at. "Do you recognise this?"
"Ah, tea. Some things do stay the same, at least." They are definitely a foreigner, if the purple hadn't proved it. Cheese. In tea. Why? "I'm Jing Yi, by the way."
"I do too. --I like that you look human, the last guy I talked to here I had a very confusing conversation with because he was an octopus and many ideas I thought were obvious are apparently not obvious to octopuses."
"...I could see how that would happen. It's all just been humans and octopuses?"
"Well, I'm glad to be easier to talk to than an octopus." He takes a sip of his drink. It is incredibly rich and sweet and it's definitely an affront to tea, but he can't bring himself to complain about it. "This is a good invention."
"Thank you! --My deal, in the space of all possible deals, is that I like to recreationally go off into the woods and hunt and fish and forage for food, and to climb mountains and go into caves, and to acquire various obscure and archaic skills."
"Oh, I know the type, even if I am too much of a city slicker for that. I just work for the government."
"I work for the government too! I approve applications for quiet cards."
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