Dolly raised her eyebrows, she knew she was powerful but not to the extent that she could combat all four of them at the same time and not emerge horribly injured.
“I’ll take your silence as agreement, first question. Have you ever studied any philosophy, ways of life or religions other than what your father taught you?”
“No.”
“You don’t find that distressing?”
“No.”
Feng Zhiming sat up and stopped reclining in his chair.
“Yet, you seemed to be interested in what it means to be human.”
“Yes.”
“And to you that thing is obeying rules?”
“Yes.”
“Because that's what your father told you.”
“Yes.”
Feng Zhiming tilted his head and half smiled before asking her another question.
“Why?”
“Why what?” she replied, clearly confused.
“Why do you obey your father?”
“Because obeying rules is what it means to be human.”
Feng Zhiming looked at her with a pitiful expression, while slowly shaking his head.
She furrowed her eyebrows as she looked at him.
“Don’t look at me like a fool.” she said, an undertone of anger in her voice.
Feng Zhiming held his hands out in front of him.
“My apologies, I was just disturbed by how indoctrinated you are.”
The moment he said that he felt a thread dig into his neck, just a few millimetres away from cutting his jugular vein.
“Never speak ill of my father.”
“Have you ever considered….what you think?”
Her expression blanked for a split second.
“Of course I have.”
“But do you? You think like your father because he tells you to think like him, be like him, do as he says, act as he wishes.”
Feng Zhiming looked at her with a serious gaze.
“That would make you a machine of his design not a human.”
Dolly’s expression fell.
“N-no, I, I choose to obey him.”
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The thread in his neck vibrated before vanishing.
“Choose? Where’s the choice? If you do not obey him you are not human, is that not an ultimatum instead of a choice?”
She fell silent for a moment and the ship stopped moving.
Suddenly without warning her hand shot out and grabbed Feng Zhiming by the neck.
“You’re a liar!”
Her eyes had gone blank in terms of emotion, she was clearly in the middle of a crisis.
Feng Zhiming did not try to resist nor did he try to fight back.
“Calling me a liar conveniently helps you hide under your fathers shade. The other day I told you a story of a crow yearning to see the world, you came to understand the crow was just and the farmer was a selfish man.”
Her grip tightened around his neck and her second hand penetrated his abdomen, grabbing on to his core.
“SHUT UP!”
Anissa who always had her eye on Feng Zhiming at this point was about to smash through the ship's floor to fly up to the crows nest.
“Halt.” Feng Zhiming sent her a mental transmission.
Anissa stood still with her sword at the ready, her hand shaking from the tense situation.
Ellia and Lyra looked up to Feng Zhiming, they also had a duty to protect him.
“Wait, Anissa isn’t moving, that means the kid asked her to stop.” Lyra told Ellia who had almost finished donning his armor.
Ellia sighed before removing his helmet.
“We really are spectators instead of bodyguards.”
“This little bastard just loves to put on shows.” she replied.
Atop the crows nest despite her expressionless eyes, Feng Zhiming could tell that Dolly was having a great internal conflict.
“If you are unable to question your beliefs, can you even be sure they are your beliefs to question?”
Dolly’s grip loosened as she opened her mouth to speak.
As she tried to form words to say something, she realized she was speechless.
“I have no more questions, captain. Now it's up to you, can your beliefs withstand the scrutiny of your own questioning?"
She dropped him back onto the floor.
“If I stop here, If I disobey my father. What do I have left?”
A helpless expression appeared on her face.
“That I cannot tell you. Because I too am not yet free.”
Feng Zhiming rubbed his neck.
“Now you form your own definition of human, be who you want to be.”
A golden needle he had up his sleeve returned to his storage ring.
“Who do I want to be?”
“There are those who seek to be heroes, those who seek only power, those who seek wealth, those who seek the crown and even those who seek eternity. As long as they seek, they are content.”
She sat back down and exhaled deeply.
“Earlier you said I value strength only because I possess it. What is it that you value?”
Feng Zhiming stood up and walked to the edge of the Crows nest, in the distance he could feel traces of aggression and conflict.
“Before I tell you that, consider life, the ringed moon in the sky, consider the religion of the maiden, consider the cultists which worship goat headed abominations and trees, consider the orthodoxy and the unorthodox. Consider the world, what do they all have in common?”
She hesitated for a moment.
“I do not know.”
Feng Zhiming nodded, he had expected such a response.
“Then think, think until you have an answer, think until you can no longer think. True death can occur long before you actually draw your final breath.”
Feng Zhiming inwardly smiled as he felt his plans coming together.
“It is the greatest mistake of any living being to stop thinking, the moment you stop, that is the moment you stagnate and stagnation means death.”
He turned around to face her.
“You asked me what I value, I’m not so different from you, I also value what I have, Captain Dolly. The two things I have in abundance, fear and faith.”
…
The sky above the cave entrance shook violently.
Space trembled and recoiled to reveal several figures floating before one another.
Madam Hua, and the grand elder of the Celestial Haven Sect were the first to appear.
“If it isn’t the esteemed Silver Songbird of Elysium, Madam Hua, what brings you to such a desolate place?”
“I could ask the same of the respected Grand Elder of the Celestial Haven Sect, Sir Claris, are you not far from your territory?”