Closer Relations Between Races (or, character lore dump in twenty steps) (слэш)

“So, uh, does your character have a sword?” he asks, looking at the waistband of the costume for a weapon of some kind.
“It was taken from me,” Tianlang-jun says, his voice holding a bitter note to it.
“Oh,” Shen Yuan says, “You should have read the entry rules, it probably had metal in it and they’ll confiscate those..."
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Shen Yuan meets an intriguing character at a convention.