Chapter 693: Philosophy

Heimu twitched the corner of the mouth.

Heimu walked around behind the laurel tree, intending to view Feng Jin's expression from the side.

A pink‑haired girl sat on the bench, her back perfectly straight, legs together beneath white tights, and a pair of black loafers pressed onto the white stone‑gravel ground beneath the bench.

Those cyan pupils were intently watching the girls in front of them.

In a setting of performing surgery or healing patients, that's called professionalism.

In a setting of discussing existentialism with a group of seven‑ or eight‑year‑old children, that's...

Feng Jin looked at the several pale little faces before her and let out a soft sigh.

The sigh was not disappointment, but like a sage looking at a group of hamsters circling a maze, eyes full of pity.

"Ignorance is not frightening."

Feng Jin's voice was still soft: "It's just like we are a big intestine wrapping a small intestine."

The entire garden fell silent for a full three seconds.

The blue‑haired girl's chin dropped completely.

The older girl finally spoke, her voice tiny, as if muttering to herself: "Big…big intestine? Wrap small intestine?"

Feng Jin nodded, her expression terrifyingly serious.

Another two seconds of silence.

Then the blue‑haired girl sprang up from the bench, grabbed the wrist of the girl with curled hair, and shouted in a high, rapid voice: "Ah— I forgot my mother asked me to go help at the bathhouse!"

The curled‑hair girl staggered from the pull, but, driven by survival instinct, quickly recovered: "Right, right, me too!"

The older girl was the last to leave.

When she stood, her foot had already stepped forward; she turned back to glance at Feng Jin, her lips moving several times, finally managing only one sentence: "Sister Feng Jin, I'll think over what you said today when I get back."

Then she ran off without looking back.

After the three small figures vanished behind the laurel tree, the garden fell quiet again.

Feng Jin didn't chase, nor did she show any sign of disappointment.

She sat on the bench, hands clasped on her knees, head lowered as she stared at the white stone‑gravel at her feet.

The cyan pupils reflected the tiny flickers of light among the stones, and her lips moved slightly.

"If—"

And then there was no continuation.

Heimu stood for about a minute.

During that minute, many possibilities ran through her mind: being possessed, afflicted by some Cognition interference, secretly receiving a strange buff from the joyous Star God, or simply having slept poorly today.

Heimu slipped around one side of the bench and silently moved to the front.

From this angle the face beneath the hat brim was clear: a petite visage, skin pale with a faint pink hue, long curled lashes, and naturally water‑red lips.

The expression was indeed one she had never seen—not optimistic and bright, nor a gentle smile, but a kind of focus immersed in her own mental universe.

Staring at the ground, as if reading a philosophical tome invisible to others.

Heimu's mouth twitched.

Seeing that focused gaze, she felt the girl would spring from the bench the next second, raising her arms to proclaim, "I have uncovered the world's truth!"

She decided to stop hiding.

Purple‑black specks of light began to fade from her feet, like a thin veil being lifted.

First the boots, then the lace at the hem of the skirt, then the gray‑white hair tips.

The whole figure gradually solidified under the sunlight.

Feng Jin had been staring at the ground, deep in thought.

A pair of black boots suddenly appeared within her line of sight, standing on the very white stone‑gravel she had just been examining.

Feng Jin was startled for a moment.

Then she lifted her head.

Pink twin‑tails swayed gently with the upward tilt, and the wing ornament on the hat brim glimmered a pale gold in the sunlight.

The cyan pupils reflected a figure with long gray‑white hair, purple‑black eyes, cold white skin, and an asymmetrical dark dress.

She had never seen that face.

But she did not panic.

She only blinked.

Heimu stood before her, looking down from above at the up‑turned little face.

Seen up close, she was even cuter; the skin unbelievably flawless, pale with a peach‑like faint pink, cyan eyes like freshly washed grapes, dewy.

A few strands of broken hair peeking from beneath the beret stuck to the cheek, pink and curly.

So cute. Xiao Feng Jin.

Heimu gave her a perfect score in her mind, then waited.

Waiting for the cute pink‑haired girl to show a surprised expression, or to scramble up in panic, or at least to shrink back a little.

According to the data, Feng Jin's temperament is gentle but not recklessly bold; when faced with a suddenly appearing stranger, the normal reaction would be for Feng Jin to speak.

"If the scepter is your power."

That soft voice rang out steadily, cyan eyes unblinking as they looked at her: "Then—without it, what are you?"

Heimu tilted her head.

She was silent for a moment.

Then, without saying a word, she lifted her right hand and drew a line in front of her.

A translucent purple‑black panel sprang from the air, with various Data Stream Light flowing rapidly across its surface.

She tapped the panel a few times, brought up Ao He Ma's local NPC management directory, flipped to the Golden Lineage Classification, and found Feng Jin's data page.

The whole process was smooth as flowing clouds, and she barely even raised an eyelid.

Feng Jin watched her series of actions without confusion, without asking what she was doing, but tilted her head slightly in the opposite direction, the cyan pupils reflecting the panel's violet light, expression thoughtful.

A few seconds later she spoke again.

"—So, how are male and female distinguished?"

"If gender is a social construct, what remains of gender once society is stripped away? If gender is a biological attribute, what can the body prove when it can be reshaped by power?"

She used about three or four rhetorical questions, each building on the last, the logical chain so clear it could serve as a final paper topic for the Divine Insight Tree Court's philosophy department.

Heimu ignored it.

Feng Jin kept going.

Extending from ontology to ethics, then from ethics to Cognition, each question was logical and phrased plainly, like a particularly patient university teacher repeatedly explaining the same concept to a slower‑reacting student, yet Heimu wasn't listening at all.

The data on the panel kept scrolling down.

Heimu's finger slid through the search results, checking each item: physiological data, normal.

Psychological state, marked as "Deepseek" — that was quite fitting.

Cognition pattern, activity level slightly high, but still within normal range.

Emotional fluctuation curve, eerily steady, nothing like the reaction one would expect from someone suddenly revealed from invisibility by a stranger.

Then it scrolled to the abnormal status column.

An entry glaringly appeared at the top.

"Socratic Thought."

Heimu's finger hovered above the entry.

She stared at the line for a full second, then slowly shifted her gaze to the column on the right of the entry, the type label.

It read, "Support her model."

Heimu's pupils focused on that entry, then tilted back slightly.

Ash‑gray long hair slipped down from the shoulders with the backward tilt.

What the heck.

She reached out and clicked the entry's detailed information.

The panel popped up a translucent tooltip, the text set in a garish font with flickering edges, a style that instantly revealed whose hand wrote it.

A delightfully fun point.

Others have them too; keep digging.

Bring her in.

(-v-)

Heimu choked.

A breath got stuck in the throat, unable to go up or down, their hand still poised over the entry, the violet‑black pupils trembling slightly in the sockets.

Joy.