Every student of House Mandrake is assigned a study partner, a counterpart from House Valerian. Lan Wangji suspects, with some outrage, that he's been given the troublemaker.

There was another boy there at the base of the balcony outside of Meng Shi's window, where Meng Yao liked to sit: a boy few years older than him, taller, in finely made clothing that would normally make Meng Yao itch all over in futile envy, but the other boy’s eyes were white around the edges in a way that was immediately, painfully familiar. “Someone’s chasing you?” Meng Yao asked, and the boy’s eyes widened even further, surprised, but he nodded in confirmation. “There’s a trellis around the left side – can you climb up? I'll hide you.” "Thanks," the boy said, later, once the man he called Wen Ruohan had left. "My name is Nie Mingjue. What's yours?"

A generous allowance from his parents or Wei Wuxian in his life: Jiang Cheng would make the same choice a thousand times over, but his grad school stipend is barely enough to support himself, let alone the two of them. An arrangement with an older man might keep his head above water—if he doesn't wade in too deep.

Alex is giving him a confused look, and Sid realizes that he has failed to ask a pretty basic question. “Alex? Have you done this before? Not heat, obviously, just—been a guide, had a guide, whatever.” Alex smiles – a sardonic, twisting thing. “Don’t you know, Sidney Crosby? I’m bad, terrible captain, most selfish alpha, won’t be heat-guide like good Canadian captain.” He laughs, and it sounds more like a cough. “I’m think everybody know, they talk about so much.”

It was hot, and Sid felt kind of weird about thinking it was hot. This guy was screwing himself on camera for money. That wasn’t really Sid’s scene. He closed the browser window. Fine for other people, but not his thing.

Sidney is not living out a Hellish version of The Little Mermaid, except for the parts where he kind of is.