Chapter 534: The Witch Trials

"Phoebe." The Pope bowed his head, his gaze obscure Buming, "You are our best nun, this battle with the witch, you must do well to act as a spiritual symbol, do not let the people believe blindly Quan Baola, her power to compel the mind is extraordinary, you must win her."

"Afterwards, I shall allow you to go to the island."

"But I'm not of age, can I?" Phoebe, with an innocent expression, asked in a puzzled tone, "Isn't the Sky City only for nuns who are of age?"

Looking at Phoebe's pure and beautiful appearance, the Pope's eyes smiled meaningfully: "There are exceptions."

"The last Queen Extraordinary has left the island for the time being, and a place has just opened up for you to take over from him and continue your duties as a nun on the island, purifying the foul desires of everyone who comes to the island, which you seem to have the potential to do, so I am giving you permission to come to the island early."

Phoebe winked and she smiled, "So I thank His Holiness in advance?"

Not catching Phoebe's questioning tone, the Pope nodded rather smugly, then waved his hand: "Go down, I will give the details to the Bishop who is leading you, for now I will discuss other matters with him."

Phoebe bowed nicely and withdrew.

After Phoebe left, the Pope's face quickly clouded over: "Has the continued output of male eels improved?"

"No." The bishop shook his head with a somewhat fearful expression, "At first, the female eels that we stole were consistently producing female eels, but then gradually, one or two male eels began to come out of the ten thousand, and we were happy at first, because then these male eels could mate with all the female eels, unlike before, when only one male eel could mate, and so the production The rate would be faster, and we had all the women then turn in the eels they could not digest, the male eels, to the Holy See, saying we would take care of them, but in reality we were putting them out into the waters everywhere."

"Soon we had the great eel explosion, a time when the eel production was actually getting out of hand, so much so that some homes would turn on the tap and eels would come out. Not only were the eel bones collected every day, which the families themselves were digesting and handing over, but the popularity and income were increasing by the day, so the Pope at the time acquiesced in the continuation of the eel project."

The bishop swallowed: "But by the time the first witch appeared at a later stage, the Pope was also frightened and he really moved to try to suspend the plan, but then Quan Baola appeared."

"She appealed to the people not to blindly allow women to swallow eels, but to find other solutions, and was willing to come forward to solve people's problems first, and she soon formed the Patrol of the Holy Virgin, which was then a spontaneous organisation independent of the Holy See, quick to solve problems, and the leader Quan Baola The Holy Patrol was a spontaneous organisation, independent of the Holy See, quick to solve problems and the leader, Quan Baola, was so quick and friendly that people gradually preferred to go to Quan Baola to solve their problems rather than the Holy See, whose authority was weakening, and after hinting twice to Quan Baola that she wanted to collect her Holy Patrol and being refused, this made the then Pope angry and increased the deployment of the male eels."

"Under these circumstances, witches began to appear in droves and the Papacy pulled off the witch trials, which Quan Baola did not approve of and stood in opposition to the Papacy by flagrantly opposing them."

"But at a later stage, when both eels and witches were growing in number, the population, which had been under the protection of the patrols of the Holy Virgin, finally lost control and they fell to the Holy See, and at this time you seized this opportune moment and succeeded in trying Quan Baola, and after Quan Baola was tried for defection, the country finally came completely under the control of the Holy See, even the Holy Virgin The patrols were integrated into the Holy See."

"We've finally stopped the eel project, but, but ......"

The Pope finished the second half of the sentence in a sombre tone, "But the output of the male eels is completely out of control."

The Bishop shuddered and nodded, "Yes! There are now enough male eels collected from all over the country that the prep witches can't digest to fill the pool under the Sky City prison, and the amount is still climbing, we have no idea how many wild male eels are out there in the wild ......"

"This male eel but, but ......" the bishop stifled a shudder and broke down and cried out, "but it takes our intestinal fluids to dissolve it, O Pope!"

"Shut up!" The Pope viciously interrupted the Bishop's miserable cry, "Don't I know?! Why else would I hide these male eels on the Island in the Sky to isolate them from these female eels?!"

The bishop shuddered at the yell, paused for a moment and quickly spoke again in a whisper, "Why are there more and more male eels, weren't the ones that had been producing before always female eels?"

The Pope also fell into an eerie silence.

Yes, didn't all the eels start out as female eels? Why did they suddenly start producing male eels in large numbers?

The other end.

The night was silent, all curled up on the ground in a deep sleep, the full moon hanging in the sky but half obscured by a huge island.

Bai Liu sits on the top floor as he looks out over the island, his eyes narrowing for a moment.

"You came up alone, are you going to talk to Jiayi about something?" Tang Erda was still awake, he and Bai Liu were used to keeping watch for the others, and on the first night of the game they usually stayed up while the others slept, so when he saw Bai Liu coming up, he followed him.

Tang Erda sat down propped up next to Bai Liu and looked at him with a tilt of her head, "You're still worried about Jiayi, aren't you?"

After all, it was the first time I had taken over the authority of a tactician and it was such a crucial game.

"No, she's more thoughtful and stable than I am." Bai Liu shook his head as he looked up at the island, his tone calm, "I was thinking about something else."

"What is it?" Tang Erda asked.

"Jiayi just told me that the witch side told her that the eels that were heavily contaminated were female eels, that male eels were indigestible to the witch, but that male eels were rare." Bai Liu pondered, "Any creature has a tendency to overpopulate, and it is rare to see so many females outnumbering males in a species that has already overpopulated, usually more males than females."

"A creature that is on a mission to reproduce will indeed produce females in large numbers in the early days, but when the number of females reaches a certain amount, it will be the other way around and the creature will start producing males in large numbers again. This is the way to achieve an overproduction."

Tang Erda, somewhat puzzled, asked hesitantly in return, "You mean to tell me that ...... actually has a large number of male eels present that the witches can't digest, don't you?"

"Well, that's my personal guess." Bai Liu paused, "Any kind of monster has its corresponding weakness and way of elimination, it's the setting of this game, I was actually thinking that if the witch's digestive juices can't destroy the male eel, then by the symmetrical setting of this game, the one that can digest the male eel would be ...... "

Tang Erda eased out, "Male digestive juices."

Bai Liu smiles: "Bingo, that's what I was thinking, and I was thinking a bit worse, I thought it might be intestinal fluid."

A chill ran down Tang Erda's spine as he looked at Bai Liu's mischievous smile and held his forehead helplessly, "I can finally see why you led me up here to talk to me about this, Mu Sicheng would have jumped up and down covering his butt when he heard your speculation about the setting."

"Why do you guess it's intestinal fluid?"

"Because if the liquid in which males can digest eels is also saliva, then there's no way it would have gone undetected in this case." Bai Liu rested his cheeks and spoke in a lazy tone, "Now the eels have become so excessive that they need to go abroad to smuggle women over to fix them, but ordinary civilian families can't afford to pay the price for the services of a prepared witch, and because of the mass witch trials, many families no longer have a single female in their household."

"In such extreme and desperate situations, there are also males who go on to imitate the behaviour of witches by swallowing eels and trying to digest each other."

"At least two men in the pile we rescued from downstairs had done that, and they had strange scratches on the corners of their mouths, still fresh."

"If this speculation that male digestive juices can digest eels is assumed to be true, then at least the upper digestive tract, which is easy for ordinary people to experiment with, is unlikely, otherwise the situation with the witches would not be so lopsided, then I think the lower digestive tract, which is relatively more difficult to experiment with, or rarely thought of, is more likely."

"That is, the intestines."

" Jiayi and I are in agreement with our suspicions, but there is no suitable candidate for the experiment on her side at the moment, so there is no way to draw the most accurate conclusion, and to avoid baiting, so she is not informing the witches of her deduced conclusion for now." Bai Liu scanned Tang Erda for a moment, "So we have a mission tomorrow other than saving the witch on trial."

Bai Liu smiled and said, "-that is to catch a priest from the Pontifical Jury and give Jiayi an experiment."

Tang Erda, who was sweating profusely, let out a long breath, "This is no problem!"

He was scared to death! When Bai Liu had just given him a glance, he thought Bai Liu was going to say that since there was a shortage of people, why don't you go and experiment on Jiayi?

At the other end, the papal palace.

The smile on Phoebe's face as she emerged from the main hall faded for a moment into a bemused expression as she walked briskly across the gardens, her eyes pausing motionlessly as she looked to the staircase on her right that led straight up to the island before reaching the nun's hall.

The ladder was shrouded in a silver-blue light, and she had tried twice to get up it on the way in, with nothing to show for it but the loss of seventeen points of blood - as that pope had said, it was indeed impossible for anyone to get up there without the key.

But the [sceptre], which is the key, is held by the Pope for a moment.

This Pope must have some special monster setting or buff on him if he can lock Hearts in a prison, and she'd better not do anything rash until she knows for sure.

But that doesn't mean she can't move either.

" Qi Yifang, the Bishop will issue me with an assignment later to take charge of some witch trials, remember, wherever he tells me to go, you and Liu Ji will apply to go to whichever court." Phoebe gave her orders to Qi Yifang in a cold tone.

Qi Yifang asked suspiciously, "What is it to do?"

Phoebe looked up at him, no emotion in her turquoise pupils, but a pure smile on her face as she folded her hands and prayed in a reverent tone, "What else could I go and do? To send the Inquisitor to hell, of course."

"-isn't that the essential work of a nun?"

The Pope can't move, so let's start with the priests at the bottom and see what level of the Papacy the monsters she can kill with her hands are on.

Qi Yifang was creeped out by Phoebe's laugh, but as a league-quality player, he knew the moment he learned Phoebe had taken tactician privileges that the only word he could say to Phoebe was, "Yes."

"Tomorrow is a tough day, so get some rest tonight." Phoebe smiled and waved her little hand at Qi Yifang, "Remember to pray before you go to bed so that the Lord will bless you with a good night's sleep."

Qi Yifang: "...... Good, good QAQ."

Oooh, Queen, miss you!

Phoebe returned to the nun's hall and stood beside her white lace bed, a silvery white moonlight spilling over the edge of it, she slowly lifted her head and looked out at the incredibly bright moon, its light glistening on her long golden curls, her look indifferent and holy, her turquoise eyes like emeralds on a laurel crown, a misty glow, she closed her eyes and folded her hands against her chest Prayer.

She always stood and prayed; she never knelt to anyone, not even in prayer, and there was no one on earth who could make her kneel, not even God.

"May the Lord protect ......" Phoebe opened her mouth and said this, suddenly stalling, then she shrugged her shoulders indifferently, "Of course you don't have to protect them, I'll make them go to hell myself. "

She finished lying down on the bed, her head impartially in the very centre of the pillow, not a crease in the coverlet, and she folded her arms across her chest in a very disciplined way of sleeping - the way her devoutly religious mother had taught her to sleep, as if in prayer.

All things she once did not understand and found troublesome, but she was used to them.

She has been noticed by her father for as long as she can remember.

Her father looked at her incredulously and, in a rare move, held her over his knee in a pile of boys, removed the gun she was clutching in her death grip and asked her, "Why are you holding a gun on your brother? And you loaded it? Who taught you that?"

What was her answer? Something like, "Kill him so I can get the bear he's holding, it's mine and I've warned him three times and he hasn't given it back to me."

"No one taught me that, but I've seen you use it."

Her father asked the creature who was supposedly her brother to give her back the bear, but all the other did was cry and bite the dust and wipe his own tears with the bear, so without hesitation she grabbed her gun and shot the bear in the little boy's hand, the huge recoil of the gun dislocated her arm straight away and everyone stood up, including her father.

"What are you doing Phoebe ?!" Her father looked at her in amazement.

The stupid boy who had originally grabbed her bear grabbed the gun-shattered remains of the bear's Muppet and sat on the floor in fear, pissing all over the floor, as she looked at her father but smiled bizarrely, "He touched the bear and got it dirty, I don't want it, but he can't have it either."

Her father looked into her eyes as if he had seen a monster and a genius, and he asked her in awe, "What do you feel like now, Phoebe ?"

Phoebe arched her eyebrows and smiled, "I feel very happy."

-a pure harnessing of power and the joy that comes from threatening an opponent.

Since then, no one in the Hinchmani family has dared to take what belongs to her, and her father has married her biological mother, a woman of Buming origin, in order to give her a legitimate claim to the heirship.

The first moment the woman saw her, she was stunned in place.

She stood next to her father, dressed exactly like a little boy, in little boy riding boots, a small jacket, her blonde hair cut just a few centimetres short and tucked into a cap, and simply curtsied courteously to her own mother, whom she had never met: " The Hinchmani family welcomes you, Mother."

--she looks almost exactly like her father.

That night her mother sat on her knees at the foot of her bed and prayed all night, and with tears in her eyes she said, "I'm sorry I came so late, they made you this way."

"You look just like your cold-blooded and cruel father ......"

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that about you." She placed her hand over her heart and prayed reverently for her, "The Lord will protect us."

"Mum." Phoebe who was lying on the bed spoke very coldly, " The Hinchmani's do not believe in gods, we only believe in ourselves, I respect your beliefs but if you want to pray you can go to your room, if that is not enough I will have the servants build you a special prayer room, if you can, please go back to bed, I have gunsmithing lessons in the morning. "

Her mother knelt at her bedside in silence for a long time and left, lost in thought.

There was a brief ripple in her days after she received back her mother, who was really a strange woman, always with unrealistic expectations and wishes, always with incomprehensible tears and prayers, always with delusional yearnings for freedom, talking to herself all day long, saying that she hoped the Lord would bring about the destruction of the dark family so that she and her children could be free again.

She was surrounded by people who whispered in her ear that her mother was in fact crazy.

But Phoebe felt otherwise, she felt that her mother should have been a normal person, but in the Hinchmani family, normal people don't survive.

Just a poor, helpless, normal person.

As her mother prayed again with tears in her eyes for Phoebe to pray with her, Phoebe looked at her mother with downcast eyes and very rarely agreed to this waste of her time to work on her fighting skills and firearms.

"It's only five minutes." She said calmly, "I can pray with you for five minutes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Sundays."

Her mother cried tears of joy and said, "Enough is enough child.

She was dressed for service as a nun, and when her mother said she would kneel down to pray Phoebe coldly refused, and her mother had no choice but to kneel beside her in prayer.

"Pray that my Phoebe may escape here as a bird to a free paradise."

Phoebe indifferently read along, "Pray that all those idiots in training today will fly gun themselves to a boundless hell."

Phoebe's mother: "......"

After her mother cried and laughed and corrected Phoebe's prayers three or four times to no avail, Phoebe finally fell in love with this prayer of verbal hell before bedtime (?). Her mother, a normal person who had always felt weak and incompetent in the Hinchmani household, condoned her cursed prayers.

Wasn't this a stain on her devout faith? Why not accuse her of doing wrong, but just cover her face and laugh helplessly beside her every time she finished cursing?

Finally, at one point, she asked, and her mother looked at her with a smile and stroked her forehead: "One's unrealistic faith in the gods is an escape from one's own weakness and incompetence, and you are right, prayer is indeed a very weak act, and no matter how much I pray, there is nothing I can do to take you away from the Hinchmani house, and under these premises I have no way of accuse you, for you are right in your opinion."

She asked, "Then why pray?"

"I am not praying at God Xiang." Her mother answered her very softly, "I am praying to my soul, to your soul, and I am trying to tell them that even if they are going to be trapped here for the rest of their lives, to keep their hearts filled with love and hope, both yours and mine, and to keep our souls as they were, waiting for the day to come when they will fly away from here as little birds."

"Even if that day is the moment when death comes."

"It's just a reminder."

Her mother, dressed in the garb of a nun, knelt reverently before her, clasping her hands in the moonlight with her eyes closed and whispering, "My child Phoebe and I will one day have the freedom we want."

She looked at her mother's reverent, almost holy face in the moonlight and realised for the first time that this woman possessed a strength she had always ignored.

-a power very different from holding a gun, a sense of conviction that cannot be destroyed by firearms or external forces.

She believed in something, even if it would not come to pass, and Phoebe saw for the first time such a strange faith - a faith so weak, so pliable, yet so indestructible that she dared to say that even if her father had held a gun to her mother's head, she would not have stopped to pray for it.

Phoebe had always been taught by her father that the weak could be broken, but she felt at the moment that no one in the Hinchmani family could break her mother who was praying.

But she deserves to be weak, but she is clearly weak.

Phoebe doesn't like the underdog.

But she extended her daily prayer time with her mother to fifteen minutes.

Gradually, as she grew up, her dominance among the heirs became more and more apparent, and her father's subordinates' attitude towards her changed from disapproval to admiration for her excellence, only to be followed each time by "It's a pity Phoebe is a girl."

Phoebe is so calloused by this phrase that she is completely uncomfortable with it.

It's just that her father would always lament, "Yeah, if only she was a boy like Daniel."

Daniel was her father's other child, three years older than her, another heir to her father's throne, with a similar history to hers - married to Daniel's mother as his rightful wife - and who, like her, resembled their father.

The resemblance is as much in personality as it is in appearance; they are both standard blondes, and when Phoebe cut her hair short and wore men's clothes, the two stood together like twins, with the same haughty, aloof and powerful look.

Of course they never stand together.

Just as the offspring of lions compete for the food that is thrown at them before they even open their eyes, the other person's status in relation to theirs is [competitor] before they realise they are [brother and sister].

"It's almost time for the heir selection." Her father patted her on the shoulder, " Phoebe has always had the best grades and apart from her gender, she is the perfect heir."

"I've been thinking about it all night, and if she manages to win the heir selection, then I'll basically be able to identify her, and as far as the gender hassle goes, I'm going to let her show herself to the public in male attire all the time."

"Always in male attire?" A subordinate joked, "What a cruel father, Phoebe hasn't developed yet, how are you going to get her to pretend to be a man at a later stage?"

"What's that?" Her father said gently, "Just corset her breasts and she won't develop any more."

" Phoebe is cruel as a man, strong as a man, the only downside is not really being a man, but the good thing is that she is not weak at all and won't be able to take even this pain of a breast corset."

So that night, Phoebe was subjected to a tight corset and her mother was beside herself, her expression falling into a complete trance as she held up the corset: "What is your father up to?!"

"Such a tight corset, you're only ten years old! It'll deform your chest!"

"It's not like we're going to start wearing them today." Phoebe lay impassively on her bed as she yawned, "I'll wear it when I start to develop."

"No!" Her mother got serious in a rare moment, "You can't wear that! You're a child, you have to develop as you should, and no one can disrupt your normal growing up process!"

"I'm not obsessed with breasts." Phoebe turned her head lazily to her mother who was lying on the edge of the bed, "It's just an organ, size doesn't matter, if you have to corset your breasts to win the heirship, then so be it."

"That's not the problem!" Her mother retorted sternly, "The problem is that you can obviously win without a breast corset! Why do you need a girdle!"

"Can you win without corseting your breasts?" Phoebe asked suspiciously in return, "The group of subordinates said that too much boob would keep jiggling and affect the speed of the draw, didn't they?"

"Go to hell dog men!" Her mother exploded in front of her for the first time ever, explaining to Phoebe in all seriousness, "Didn't anyone tell you that too much noise affects how fast a man can run?"

Phoebe thought back for a moment and she rubbed her chin, "That's not true."

Daniel should have developed, right? I didn't see a crotch jam when he was speed running either.

Her mother asked, "So why would breasts affect the speed of putting the gun away?"

"Why not let the tools adapt to the organs that humans already have, and let the organs adapt to the tools that humans have invented? Humans can invent different underwear for their gender, why not different guns?"

Phoebe paused for a subtle moment as she looked at her mother, who was suddenly seething, "Calm down."

"But my father will not be satisfied without this corset." Phoebe spread her hands in a flat tone, "He's not dead yet, so at least I can't disobey him explicitly, let alone you, of course."

Her mother wilted quickly, looking tearfully at Phoebe.

After a moment, her eyes lit up, "I can alter this corset for you so that you can wear it, but not squeeze it."

"Try it on?" Her mother handed it to her nervously after altering it, "Is it still tight?"

Phoebe took the modest-looking corset, paused for a moment, then put it on, "It doesn't strangle anymore."

She would have been suffocating even to catch her breath in it before, but now she had a gap to catch her breath.

Watching her mother stay up all night altering and sewing corsets next to her, Phoebe's feeling ...... was amazing.

She didn't really care much about it, things like her underdeveloped breasts just seemed inconsequential to her, and her seemingly gentle and soft mother would get so angry over this insignificant matter and then go out of her way to get her clothes altered just to give her a gap where she could breathe.

There was only so much leeway she could give in the Hinchmani household, given her weakness.

Her mother let out a long breath, "That's good."

Phoebe looked at her and was tempted to tell her that in the Hinchmani family it was pointless for the weak to struggle for this gap, but swallowed the words as she watched her mother begin to pray on her knees again.

Her mother knelt at the foot of her bed and prayed reverently, "May both my child and I grow up and die free."

After her mother had prayed and left, Phoebe looked out the skylight at the moon and wondered, "What is freedom?

Phoebe reached out and touched the corset that had been loosened a little under the pillow so that she could continue to develop normally, and she stroked the fine stitching on it and thought - is this freedom?

What a fragile freedom.

Soon it was time for the Heir Apprenticeship, and after all the children had been given the content of tomorrow's exercise, they all crouched down and bawled, the only ones who managed to keep their manners and say goodbye to their father before leaving were her and Daniel.

But she saw Daniel's open hand spin twice, his hand shaking so much, his apple-green eyes hollow and cloudy - the servant who was to top the apple had been left to him by his mother, one of his most loyal servants and playmates.

It was she who finally reached out and swung the door open for Daniel.

As she left, she could hear her father's grumbling behind her, "This batch of kids is so spoiled, they should have been weaned off their intimacy earlier."

"How can they inherit the Hinchmani family if they don't have the courage to raise a gun to someone they are close to, when they can be betrayed at any time in the future."

The subordinate next to him exclaimed, "Yes, back then, when you discovered your wife's betrayal, you killed her with hardly any hesitation, you could say it was very thunderous."

"My heir should have that kind of manners." Her father returned lazily, with a note of regret, " Daniel is a cold-hearted boy, but he's actually very accepting, not as much as Phoebe, who fell out with me for a while after I killed his mother."

"I hope this time he doesn't let me down again and can muster the courage to pull a gun on his own mother tomorrow, just like Phoebe did."

There was a pause in Daniel's back as he walked ahead, and Phoebe could clearly see his fists clench and then leave.

Phoebe turned her head indifferently and went back to her room, she also opened the door twice this time before opening it, not because her hands were shaking but because her palms were sweaty - why they were sweaty Phoebe couldn't figure it out, she knew she wasn't one to have sweaty hands or she wouldn't be able to hold the gun.

But why?

"You're back." Her mother opened the door and carefully and worriedly inquired, "You look so pale, what was the heir trial about?"

Phoebe looked into her eyes, that feeling of sweaty palms coming back, and she took a deep breath and told her all about it.

But to Phoebe's surprise, her mother was very calm about it, saying, "You are free and able to fight for the heir, so if you want to shoot me, shoot me."

"In every way, you're the best kid I've ever seen and I'm sure you won't miss a beat."

Phoebe sat on the edge of the bed, her hands only beginning to tremble at this point: "What if I miss?"

"Then I might have died." Her mother's voice was as calm as a windless lake under the moon, and she actually smiled demurely as she said it, "But death at your hands is better than death at the hands of the rest of the Hinchmani family, isn't it?"

"You will see my soul turn into a little bird and fly away from here."

"Mum." Phoebe interrupted coldly, "I don't believe in fairy tales."

Her mother sighed regretfully, "All right."

That night at prayer time, her mother prayed those same prayers as always, and very rarely did she stand, but instead and sat up at the head of the bed, looked out the window at the moon, closed her eyes, and for the first time truly prayed in her heart.

"God ...... hope you bless me not to miss tomorrow."

"Of course it's okay if you don't bless it." Phoebe opened her eyes and she looked at her mother's face with her eyes closed and still praying, her gaze blazing as she took a deep breath, "I will not miss the shot."

Next day.

After everyone had fired the first shot, the whole scene was in chaos and Phoebe's mother crouched down in a suspicious half-crouch, her mind blank for a moment - she knew exactly that she had hit the apple, so why was she down?

Soon someone came up to inform us, "Some bullets from other children came flying over the barrier we had erected and grazed Madame's arm."

"Do you want to pause for a moment?" His father asked her in a seemingly gentle manner, "I'll let her continue topping the apple in a different position."

Her expression was cold and unforgiving, but her chest rose and fell violently in that corset - she was grateful at the moment for the gap that allowed her to breathe properly in this situation, otherwise she would surely have suffocated from lack of oxygen.

"Temporarily ......" she was just about to lower the gun and open her mouth when she saw her mother's muzzle through the scope.

Her mother, who was half on her knees, in a prayer position, with apples placed on her head, looked at her, with tears in her eyes but no fear in her expression, and said-[Shoot.

[You'll win, you can win, you're a genius.]

[You won't miss.]

"No pause." Phoebe said calmly, "Just keep mum steady in place and keep changing apples, it'll be over soon."

She pulled the trigger.

-- As she had done before, ten shots, and she didn't miss a single one.

Her father looked at her with awe, as if he were looking at a formed leader, and said tersely, "You're perfect as a boy, Phoebe."

"That's not really a compliment, Father." Phoebe put the gun down with a cold expression, she shook off her shaken hand and looked around the room, "I'm a lot better than those other boys you call boys."