A/N: This story was previously posted on Wandex System, my old acc, three years ago. Now I'm bringing it back to life. Revised grammar, slightly altered plot. Enjoy!


Chapter 1.

Starting school.

Sima Yi knew he would be sent to such a school some day, since all his brothers had been sent there, and he wasn't really surprised to find himself on the way to the seemingly Hogwarts-inspired school building. He had of course seen pictures of the school before, and it did look like a castle. Not the worst option, for sure, but Yi was a bit fed up with all the brothers' school experience stories already, so he wasn't excited or anything, unlike most of the other kids on the train. Most of them were discussing which faculty they would most likely be sorted to, and he didn't feel like joining the discussion. His father was Wei, all his brothers were Wei, everyone he knew was or had been Wei, with the only exception for his mom, who was, well, illiterate. And deceased. Sima Yi sighed, realizing he didn't have much of a choice.

If he were to choose, he'd most definitely be Shu. The Shuists were considered the friendliest and the most talented by far, not to mention the most popular. Besides, green and gold was the prettiest color combination for a banner one could think of, while blue and silver were, well, sort of boring, though quite noble.

Sima Yi sat beside Ma Chao and Zhao Yun, who were later joined by another boy in a green shirt ("possible Shuist," Yi thought.) and a red-haired girl.

He didn't feel like talking to anybody, since the long way he had made from He Nei to the Chang'an train station wore him out, but he knew he had to make a nice impression.

"Hey."

"Oh hi!" the girl smiled. "Wait, you're from He Nei too, right? I guess I've seen you before."

"At the He Nei cross-school festival," he suggested, "I'm Sima Yi."

"Yue Ying."

She clearly intended to sit near him and continue the conversation, but was stopped by the green-shirted boy's jealous glare.

"What, do you seriously want to share a seat with a Weion?.." he looked at Sima Yi in a somewhat condescending manner, which literally pissed the latter off.

"How in the world do you know whether I'm a Weion or not. We haven't even arrived yet."

"Look at your robes. Did you get them straight from your grandma or what? I mean, seriously. Have-nots don't go to Shu." he smirked.

Sima Yi's ears felt hot all of a sudden. So what if his parents - parent, actually, - couldn't afford to buy new clothes. What's so wrong with borrowing stuff from elder brothers? Is that really a thing of importance at a school which provides students with a school uniform? His remark was absolutely pointless, though offensive.

"I thought Shu was all about friendliness, justice and benevolence." he tried to handle the anger that started building up inside him.

"Am I not just?" the boy raised his eyebrows in fake astonishment. "I treat bad people the way they have to be treated. That is, badly."

Sima Yi stood up angrily.

"Oh come on. How do you know I'm bad? What have I done?!"

"You're a Sima. They're no good. Your father went to jail for planning a revolt, and your mother meanwhile..."

"Stop it, Zhuge Liang!" Yue Ying pulled him by the sleeve. "It really is enough!"

Sima Yi stared at him in amazement. Did this boy just call his mom a slut all out of the blue?..

The boy kept grinning.

"You're an imbecile, Zhuge." Yi hardly managed not to slap him, because that would lead to some serious shit if Zhuge Liang turned out to be some important official's kid.

Sima Yi didn't want to stay with them any longer, so he just left. Okay, fine, he just made an enemy. So predictable. Being a Sima sucks. He sighed. Now he had to find another place to sit.

He ended up spending the rest of the time with a thin boy, or, more probably, a girl in a pink scarf, a sly kid who tried to steal something from him and some other girls he didn't really care about. At least they weren't snobbish. Sima Yi pressed his cheek against the cold glass of the window and blankly stared at the fields and rivers the train was passing by. So much for the "nice impression".


Unsurprisingly, Sima Yi was sorted to Wei, and Zhuge Liang together with Ma Chao, Zhao Yun and a whole bunch of other smiling ten-year-olds became Shuists. "Good luck and farewell," Sima Yi thought. There was no way for him to ever become friends with them.

He had hoped so much for Yue Ying to be Wei, since she managed to tell him both of her parents were Weions while Zhuge wasn't around. However, he didn't catch luck here either, and to Shu she went.

Cao Angxing, the head of the Wei faculty, a rather arrogant long-haired young man, rolled his eyes as the whole Shu table clapped their hands to welcome the newcomers. The Weions let out a few faint claps as Sima Yi, the sly kid, three girls and some other guys he had never seen before approached the blue table. Nice try.

Yi picked at some food on a silver plate standing before him as he listened to the introductory speech. What he managed to find out was that they were supposed to do nothing ("get used to the school," headmaster Huang Zhong said) for two days to later start studying various pretty weird subjects, such as Taoism, Confucianism, History of Han and Defence against the Dark Arts, which was a subject just about as useful as Ethical Issues of Political Eunuchism, which was a Sunday elective.

Sima Yi also received a whole cardboard box of semi-ancient yellow-paged books he didn't even bother to unpack. Why read textbooks if the year hasn't even started? He decided to explore the school territory instead.

The Wei dorm was huge and not cozy at all. Like, at all. Sima Yi pushed the book box under his bed and quickly changed his own purple-ish robe to the standard Wei uniform so that he wouldn't stand out too much, and wrapped the signature Wei black-and-blue striped scarf around his neck. Okay, fine. Now he should have felt like a member of the school society or something. But he felt nothing. There were a few other boys in the dorm, but they didn't converse or anything, so he just left to see more of the school until the sun went down.

He pushed the heavy brass-studded door that led outside and found himself on the school yard. It was enormous. Despite it was September, grass was green, and the flowers on the huge peach trees all around the garden were blooming. This was probably maintained by some sort of Taoist magic, although Sima Yi personally considered it a waste to use magic for such purposes.

"If flowers bloom all the time, it would be totally wrong to celebrate Christmas like that." a first-year Otherist said confidently. "Christmas is all about fluffy snow, and coldness, and, you know, presents."

Sima Yi turned around to see whom the boy was addressing, but he didn't see anyone.

"Why do you tell me that? I'm not even your faculty." he shrugged. Otherists were said to be snobbish, and they usually came from well-to-do families. They weren't exactly Sima Yi's circle, as it turned out.

"Uh..." the boy hesitated, "I just thought, like, the lessons haven't started yet and..."

The boy was of a rather small stature, and the Otherist grey-and-yellow striped scarf was tied over his head instead of his neck.

"It's ok. I was just wondering. I have nothing to do either," Sima Yi sighed. He was actually lonely, not just bored. But do people really tell that to random boys in the garden?..

"I don't even know why I was sorted to Other."

He didn't resemble an Otherist. Like, at all.

"Which faculty do you like then?"

"I like Shu," the boy smiled. "They're friendly, and cool, and kind... And stuff."

"Oh well." Sima Yi rolled his eyes. Yeah, sure. Sure. "Everybody likes Shu. It's so overrated. I actually wanted to be Shu too, but they made me Wei. And from my experience, the benevolence myth is bullshit. Shu is no good."

"Oh."

You can't really answer much to that. Sima Yi felt like the conversation was going nowhere.

"Um, well, I'm Sima Yi. You?"

"Zhang Jiao." the Otherist smiled. He always smiled in a sort of weird manner, a bit crazy maybe.

"See you on the lessons then... I guess."

"Sure."

Since Jiao didn't intend to leave, Sima Yi just turned around and went back inside.

Awkward.