The Taipei reading room contains two seniors talking quietly about a joint project they're working on, Zhou Taiyang looking over their shoulder and being very impressed, a sophomore who (the consensus is) is probably going to flake out going over the same page of his math textbook over and over again, and Cai Xian, rereading a few chapters of Romance of the Three Kingdoms because he wants to double-check he isn't confusing anything with the Records for the essay he needs to write. He still gives Huang a warm smile when she comes over, as if he was hoping she'd drop by.

Ah, she recognizes him from class, though she doesn't attend the whole thing most of the time since there's no lecture to miss and she just needs to pick up her homework. She bows. "I was referred here by Hua Gao, who suggests there are trades you have to offer."

Xian closes the book, rises, bows. "Of course." This buys him time to frantically scan his memory for Hua Gao, he drilled all the known enclave children so not an enclaver... not one of Taipei's maintenance kids, he knows those... which means she's one of Jinye's homework customers or (more likely) part of her spy network but didn't pass on which Taipei kid was running it...

He wishes he'd had the chance to refresh his Farley file on her but the bow brought him time to bring up the image as best he could and by his vague memory and her style Huang is somewhat traditionalist so he'll downplay the anti-Confucianism... "Trade is the blood of society, and Taipei has never shunned it." Which is of course anti-Confucian but so are spy networks, and if she's going to be scared off by "Taipei likes trade" it's a very good idea to scare her off before they start trusting that she'll report in regularly.

(None of his calculation shows on his face.)

"My name is Yushi Huang. I do not have much to offer but Hua Gao thought it would be worthwhile to visit here even for me."

"I have no doubt that you are wrong about this, Yushi Huang," he says pleasantly. "Every person in the Scholomance has a great deal to offer, or they would not have made it here. Would you take a seat?" He has a spare water-bottle he can lend her (not, in fact, snacks; Taipei is not New York, but comfy chairs and water-bottles would do to make her feel more comfortable.) And everyone else can give them space, and let them talk quietly.

"Thank you." She sits. She drinks water.

His eyes rest for a moment on the book he was reading. "I believe I've seen you in the Three Kingdoms class," he says with a quick smile, "Briefly. Is that going well for you?"

"Better than some of my others. And you?"

"Reasonably well. I enjoy it, I admit." He smiles slightly ruefully. "I can't help but enjoy stories of brilliant tacticians and brave heroes, scheming up perfect, masterful plans to save China." He raises an eyebrow. "It's not as if we get much of that here." His gesture takes in the Scholomance, in all its desperation, a wave of the hand to the door - out at all the people, desperate and afraid and struggling to survive, looking one step ahead at a time because thinking about the future just isn't a Scholomance privilege.

"Sometimes Hua Gao and I take turns reading it to one another while we're cleaning."

"The power of the classics." He pauses. "We can learn a great deal from it. Whether Xuande* or Mengde**, success comes from strategy. But strategy must be founded on wisdom. Kongming*** may be able to see the truth in the stars, but - there are very few stars, in the Scholomance. What, then, is to be done?"

(*: The courtesy name of Liu Bei, the hero of the novel.)

(**: The courtesy name of Cao Cao, the villain of the novel.)

(***: The courtesy name of Zhuge Liang, Liu Bei's top advisor and total Mary Sue.)

"Is divination an interest of yours?"

"No, that would be the problem. Taipei has no diviners to speak of, this year." He smiles. "So we must make do without. You remember all of the difficulties with New York, back at the start of the year?"

"It was hard to miss."

"While it was happening," he corrects gently. "It was very easy to miss before it happened."

He pauses.

"Taipei doesn't like missing that sort of thing. Taipei doesn't like other people missing it, either, but we can tell them if they do, if we know ourselves. If we're blind... what can we do?" He shrugs. "All of it was over a misunderstanding." (He's backing Lan Xichen's line on this; a misunderstanding, not Lan Xichen thinking maleficers are hot.) "But since New York was missing information, they made mistakes. And since their friends were missing information, they didn't help them. And so we nearly went to war."

"You think it would have been possible to know in advance?"

"Yes, of course." He smiles. "If we'd known how New York had misunderstood the situation with Masozi, we could have sat down with them and explained before it became nearly as bad as it did; it was because our information about New York was so bad that some unfortunate incidents fanned the flames of their fear. New York had sincere worries; they hadn't heard that Masozi hadn't known what maleficing did, or that he'd agreed to give it up. All it would have required was that someone know a little more about how they thought and felt and we could have prevented the entire conflict without scaring anybody."

"I doubt that Tianjin had any similar ambitions for mediation."

"Well, Taipei has never been afraid of ambition." 

"I am not very well versed in the enclaves of the world, even the Sinosphere."

"That's quite understandable of you," he says. "Taipei is a very young enclave. A hundred years ago there was war in China - like the war in the Three Kingdoms, the fall of an old dynasty and the rise of a new - war between mundanes, but serious enough to threaten the enclaves. Most of them shut their doors and went into seclusion, saving their lives but giving up contact with the outside and so the prospect of progress in magic, but from seven of them came young scholars willing to brave the danger of the war to advance the learning of mankind. So they traveled through the warring lands to Taiwan, off the coast and free of warfare and with many more connections to the west, to found an enclave that could remain secure against war without surrendering progress in magic."

He smiles, recounting it. "So Taipei has always been very open to progress, very eager to learn more about the world and about other enclaves, so we can have all the knowledge we need to make the best decisions."

... (Has he done a sufficient amount of hinting that he's willing to pay for information about whoever she does maintenance for that she gets it?)

Nope. Not at all. She looks like she is going to tell Hua Gao that this was not a good use of her time.

... Then he's just going to have to say it.

"If you are willing to pass on to us useful information about other enclaves as you learn it, we are prepared to pay for it with mana, to help us make better decisions."

Maybe Jinye is better at hinting? Honestly Xian is not the specialist at this!

"Information like whether they're consorting with maleficers?"

"Oh, more general than that. It didn't look like anyone was consorting with maleficers, when the trouble started. It was just people having uneasy feelings about a boy, and that boy talking to Orion and not wanting to be sent away, and then a girl he'd been talking to fell sick, and none of these things by themselves would have been news, but if you had all of them you could have predicted all the trouble. Even little information like an enclaver's favorite color or that a failing student has more snack tokens than you'd expect can turn out to be a part of something important."

... (This is the first time he's corrupted someone who didn't come pre-corrupted, isn't it. He can't say he likes it? It's an important skill but he feels kind of dirty.)

"Sui Mei from Beijing's socks are all purple." She's friends with a Tianjin girl and they combine laundry and dump it on Huang sometimes.

"And if I see someone with purple socks, which are quite rare in the Scholomance, I'll have good reason to think they're Sui Mei's friend or that they stole them from her. Thank you."

He pauses. "Mostly my cousin Zhang Jinye is the one who keeps track of all the information that Taipei pays for. She's not a very gifted warrior, but neither was Kongming. I can introduce you to her, if you'd like."

"It would be my pleasure to be introduced."

He glances at Taiyang. "Have you seen Jin-mei?"

She'll look up from the upperclassmen she's been flattering.

"I think she's in the cafeteria, Xian-ge!"

Then he will rise, collect his notes, and walk down to the cafeteria with Huang, making small talk as he does!

"So, while we walk - may I ask your affinity?"

"Weather magic."

"... You have my sympathies." Eighteen hundred years ago that would have been an extremely powerful affinity. He doesn't think saying that would do anything other than rub it in. The cost/benefit calculation to recruiting Huang to Taipei has just shrunk significantly, and he suspects Huang knows it.

"If I get out it will be useful back home."

"I expect so."

If she gets out.

Yes, well. "What is yours?"

"Lightning," he says.

And there's the cafeteria!

Jinye is at her table next to the cafeteria, arranging her homework for sale! It is very impressive homework. There is also a list of spells she is prepared to sell with prices written on it, and she is scribbling away at the next little bit of Avicenna, and she is out there in public where it would be extremely difficult to assassinate her without anybody noticing, especially since there are Taipei seniors in earshot who would disapprove of anyone taking a shot at a Taipei frosh, just on general principles. She looks up when Xian and Huang arrive, gives them a perfectly friendly smile, and quietly shuffles through a few papers in front of her without really looking at them.

Huang bows to her.

Xian bows to her!

Jinye also rises and bows back to them!

(There are times when bowing is very silly and Taipei does not mess around because handshakes and nods are simpler, and there are times when you do not lose the enclave face in front of people from Tianjin.)

"My name is Yushi Huang. It is a pleasure to meet you."

"I am Zhang Jinye, and I'm pleased to meet you as well." Xian, what's all this about?

"Yushi Huang has heard that some of her fellow maintenance workers were receiving assistance from Taipei, and came to me, and I explained." The expression he is giving (turning his head so Huang cannot quite his face) is 'she is an adorable snowflake too good for this world and has no idea spying is wrong.'

Xian, did you forget that I am not actually telepathic. I can tell you're saying either 'go easy on her' or 'she is a soft touch' but there are fifty different stories you could have told her about why spying is totally morally fine and I need to know which one.

"We certainly value staying informed," Jinye says. Hopefully that won't mess with whatever story he's using?

"I was surprised to find out it might matter what color people's socks are."

"Almost anything can matter," says Jinye. "Most things don't, but it's hard to tell the difference in advance."

Xian, information update?

"The Masozi business didn't turn on anything obviously important until it was already too late," he agrees.

Does that tell you what you need to know, Jin-mei?

Yep, thanks.

"So I told Cai Xian that Beijing's Sui Mei has all purple socks. I don't know what else I know that might be helpful."

"If you'd be willing to come talk to me once a week, or more often if you notice an emergency, and tell me everything you noticed in that week, I'd be willing to offer -" Mana! Not a lot, but some! Or discounts on spells worth that much mana; she's willing to do either and has a fairly impressive selection of low-mana utility spells. There isn't higher pay for more useful information (Jinye decided the incentives balanced better that way) but there also isn't less pay if you happen not to pick up anything useful. "If you notice someone dating someone new, or breaking up with someone, or quarreling, or if anyone has more mana than you'd expect - or less - or if anyone's in poor health, or hasn't been coming to classes..." Jinye is prepared to list the kind of information they're buying in fairly exhaustive detail! It is pretty exhaustive information! "The costs to not knowing that purple socks mean an association with Sui Mei are usually nothing, but might matter."

This seems like a good deal to Huang! When shall she meet Jingye?

Here! Jinye maintains a store for homework and spells and usually hangs out in the cafeteria when she isn't clutching her head and cowering behind wards exercising or in class, so you can drop in any time she isn't actively with a customer.

"There's just one thing that you should understand before you commit." She pauses. Xian hopefully explained this but if he chickened out -

It was a strategic consideration of comparative advantage.

(Yeah I bet.)

- "People might not be happy that you're telling us things; a lot of people don't like being gossiped about, or having other people know about their private business or talking about who they're dating. If you don't want to work with us given that that's fine, but we really do think it's worth trying to know everything, even things people might think were inappropriate, so we can make plans for how to avert catastrophes like the war that almost happened over Masozi."

"That makes sense," agrees Huang. "Is the deal still good if I keep back things that might be especially private? Anyone can see Sui Mei's socks when she rolls up her pant cuffs."

Slightly less mana if she does that, since she's providing slightly less service, but otherwise, sure. "That's perfectly reasonable as long as you tell us that you might in advance, so we don't end up confident nothing's happening if you don't report anything interesting." 

"I would not want to poorly recompense Tianjin for my slot."

"That's very pious of you," she says, with a good deal of sincerity. (All she can muster.) "Whatever you're comfortable with, we'll pay for."

"Thank you very much."

Jinye smiles. "First week's report, anything you can tell us," and she will pay for the socks and anything with mana! Unless Yushi Huang exhibits a preference for something else. But otherwise, mana!

Mana's good! They probably don't have a bunch of carrots hiding somewhere! So-and-so tried to preposterously overcharge her for sword polish. Thus-and-such-a-person has been assigned the same repair request in the gym several times and traded it away each time and all of the people who tried it have been grievously injured, one later died. The Australians' sophomore maintenance minion is down with a nasty cold and they're borrowing a minion from Hong Kong. Chengdu has changed minions from this-one to that-one, and that-one used to work for Shenyang, and this-one does not seem to have new employment, and Shenyang has been assigning their chores to an enclaver freshman who doesn't seem to be keeping up well with the more advanced rotations.

INFORMATION. Information is now HERS.

(They did not bring carrots, no. Taipei's only trade goods are mana, homework, spells, and whatever random stuff the seniors left, most of which the juniors grabbed.)

Jinye is happy.

Huang, once she has been paid, is also happy!