Instructor Jie was waiting outside of his classroom.

The man was the very opposite of intimidating— he looked like a mortal academic, still bundled up in warm clothes despite summer being just around the corner. Hunched up beside the door, he looked even less threatening than usual— if anything, he looked like he was trying to avoid attention. In almost every respect, he was utterly dismissable.

Every aspect, that was, except for the fact that he was there in the first place.

Mingtian narrowed his eyes slightly, casting out his domain almost instinctively to check for traps that obviously didn’t exist. It was just so incongruous

— there was a course to his teaching days. A way things went… and none of those, never did it involve anyone waiting for him outside of his classroom. Usually the ambushes from annoying people were reserved for the staff meetings where it would be most politically relevant for people to annoy him. That, and he didn’t consider Jie one of the annoyances. Actually, his company was rather quite tolerable.

Which only further added onto how weird it was that he was there in the first place. “What’s wrong?”

Jie flinched, glancing up at him— paused, for just a second— then sighed. “You’re always so perceptive. I told them that it wouldn’t help…” he shook his head. “Yuxan wants to see you in his office. There’s something he wants to discuss.”

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“And he sent you?”

“They thought that it would be for the best that—”

“I see.” Mingtian crossed his arms, frowning. “I see.” He really didn’t, but presenting at least a facade of effortless understanding was important in these sorts of matters. His entire hidden master persona depended on it! “Very well. I’ll come.”

Jie’s gaze tracked down for a long moment, holding still— and it was only after the man shook himself and started hurrying down the hall that he realized that he’d been staring at the giant block of iron he’d been effortlessly handling. Well… it was probably good that he didn’t know he’d enchanted it to be heavy. That would’ve been… bad.

He opened the door to his classroom, stepping inside only for a second as he disappeared the block of lunar cold iron into his spatial ring. He’d have to deal with it later— but for now, before Jie noticed, he hurried down the hall after him, folding his arms behind his back and making sure that he appeared nothing less than perfect— and upset. It wasn’t that hard. Using one of the few non-insufferable people in the entire academy to call him to a sketchy meeting? The emotion was already there— all he had to do was channel it. A careful coal, stoked within him, chained back rabid dog not unleashed, kept from its potential for destruction. Kept from his potential for destruction, always there but never unveiled. A quiet reminder that he could, even if he did not.

The veils held… but if the sunlight streaming through the windows had become just a slight bit, intangibly sharper, if the crystal brightness of the late spring near-summer had not crystalized just that little fraction further— nobody would ever know.