1️⃣ . Shortly after meeting Zhao Yunlan for the very first second time.

Zhao Yunlan had extended the treat to him, and Shen Wei, dazed by how much his grin reminded him of _Kunlun_, had taken it with an absent mind. Somehow, it must have ended up in Shen Wei's pocket. He only found it much later, when dressing down for the evening: an orange flavoured lollipop, stem broken from the fighting Shen Wei had done.

Shen Wei lights incense and offers it to the black stone he keeps for lost ones.

2️⃣ In the North Face coat pocket, before he puts it in the cleaners bag.

There's 3 empty sticks, chewed on once the candy had all melted, and 2 crumbled wrappers. There is also one folded receipt for gaz; a note with coordinates written in small, neat handwriting; and a smooth pebble.

Two uneaten lollipops had remained, but they had been crushed during one fall or another, leaving candy dust to stick along a stray streak of rank smelling blood.

3️⃣ Out of his HPS outfit

A Dixing event had him leave for a week. It was shortly after Zhao Yunlan got confirmation of his identity, and their relationship had blossomed.

Shen Wei got permission to take a short leave of absence as his two most hardy TA took over classes. The Chief of the SID had a lot of paperwork to fill for the upcoming visit of a different city's officially unoficial paranormal branch.

Shen Wei got assigned a room in the palace, decadently full of wooden furniture older than Dragon City's university campus.

Without neighbours, birds, the constant hum of electronic appliances, the soft steps of Da Qing's cushioned paws, and the constant loud presense that is Zhao Yunlan's aura as background noises, Dixing palace felt _silent_.

Shen Wei made himself remove and hang his Envoy uniform instead of vanishing it, for the soothing sake of routine and because he had no other plans for the evening.

The fishskin pouch hanging from his belt was weighted. He remembered then how Zhao Yunlan had made him store his cellular phone in it, with instructions to text him to let him know whether the Regeant made it out of negotiations alive or not.

"So I would know whether to celebrate," he said with a teasing smile in his eyes. "And our lab guy has been begging me to ask you to test the cell range from Dixing."

Shen Wei upended his pouch to catch the phone, and a lollipop fell along, rolling in his hand.

Shen Wei contemplated it for a long time in the candlelight, smiling faintly.

Then he put it near his bed, and sat on it to contemplate the complicated task of figuring out _what to write_.

[I have arrived.] He managed at last.

[Everybody is well.]

The _unfortunately_ went unsaid.

Content, he put the phone next to the lollipop and got into his sleeping clothes.

Maybe he would do some reflexion. His evenings routine had been severely altered (for the better) ever since he moved next to Zhao Yunlan's apartment, with no proper space and tranquil time to medidate. Here in Dixing, with every magma rivers pulsing with dark energy, surrounded by wood older than himself, Shen Wei could refresh his own flow. It would help him keep his temper for tomorrow's debates.

(The next day, he had no reply, and felt self-concious about the pang of disappointment. This probably meant the signal could not reach, as Lin Jing had of course explained to Zhao Yunlan many times.

He put the cordless phone back in his fishskin pouch, along with the lollipop.

When he next came back to the rooms after long, long hours of diplomatically not flipping tables, he took out the cellular phone and wrote, [Four more days.] )

(On the third day, a few notches after dinner time, he gladly took up a bureaucrat's very tired offer of taking a break from discussions. He did not head to the debate room's washrooms, where policy discussions would no doubt continue except with less restrained swearing.

Instead, he fled down staff corridors and stairs, with one undignified ducking behind a carved partition to avoid being seen, and made his way out a discreet side palace door.

There, he followed the smell to a walking food marchand, and purchased braided bread from him. The marchand was also selling maplesap hard candy, a delicacy Shen Wei hadn't had in a long time.

Thinking of the conforting slight weight of his fishskin pouch, Shen Wei purchased 3. If he got through the day without grinding his teeth to dust, he could eat one. The other two, he would bring home. )

It was as he prepared for bed that evening that he saw the note. He was lining up the cellular phone, the lollipop and the hard candies on his desk. This small row of objects brought him great comfort.

There was writing on the stick of the lollipop. He had mistaken the characters for printed advertisment. But at the right angle he realised it was Zhao Yunlan's handwriting. The scrawl was slightly smudged from Shen Wei's handling but still legible to him, used to students's awful calligraphy.

"Add oil! Bring back souvenirs."

Shen Wei laughed before he could stop himself. His heart swelled with fondness. The lollipop had encouraged him from the start, but seeing the words in this handwriting just made the last few days's accumulated weariness lighter.

Not only that, but he already had souvenirs of sorts to bring back. Not enough for the whole SID team, though. Or Li Qian and Jiajia, holding the metaphorical fort of his class load. Hm.

Pondering what to bring back for each person supporting him back home made for a wonderful distraction for the new couple days's barely lacquered ego fights.

Going about Dixing in search of trinklets, rocks, small carvings and fossils made for an actual lovely outings, allowing him to meander down the creative street and walk the southern cavern slope. He even
acquired an embroidered bag to store these insignificant yet meaningful objects, itself a gift for Wang Zheng.

It was good.

4️⃣ In class

It was inevitable. He and Zhao Yunlan shared a few clothes, now. They were hung at the intersection of both their sides of their closet. The North Side coat, a trenchcoat, some sport casual clothing, and a few sweaters that were in fact Shen Wei's but that Zhao Yunlan kept wearing and made him look even better. Shen Wei did not mind at all how Zhao Yunlan's scent persisted on them.

And today had been cold with the first few fresh breezes of autumn picking up leaves.

Shen Wei had picked the warm brown knit sweater to keep the wind at bay. It had neat zipped pockets and Zhao Yunlan's smell lingered in the high collar. Shen Wei discreetly burrowed his nose in it as he walked to his first class, feet soundless across the fallen leaves. It was to warm his nose, of course.

If his ears were red, it was due to the cold wind.

The pockets proved useful to store his chalks, once he got the lesson going.

He was explaining the difference between two protein transferance rates, and coloured chalks made it easier to depict the back and forth flow of molecules between various receptors.

He switched from white to green, then to red, back to green, back to white, and was going his own stick of yellow, deep into his explanation.

Except the yellow chalk didn't write. He glanced at his hand and realised he had attempted to write using a lollipop.