As always, Sizhui almost immediately regrets joining Jingyi in his magical adventures. Usually, they're pretty harmless, but today is something different; he couldn't quite put his finger on it at first, aside from something feeling off, and that's shortly around the time after his hand was cut on accident and when the bright flash of light had blinded him.

He remembers shouting ‘Jingyi!’ recalls the pain across his palm surging into something almost unbearable, little white lights popping off behind his eyelids and his ears ringing, then silence.

Once he can finally bring himself to open his eyes, he's fallen to his knees, bent with his forehead in the dirt, clutching the wrist of his bleeding limb. It hurts, it hurts so much, yet Lan Sizhui fights through the ache, draws himself upright then tentatively spares a glance around them. His fellow disciple is (fortunately) nearby, even if he can't see him right away, but the person he does see is someone foreign. A man (?) of some kind, large in stature, shirtless and covered in bizarre markings he can't quite make out from this far away. He opens his mouth to say something, though all that comes out is another pained hiss from the throbbing in his palm.