The first time the shi-ren came to Yin Xi, it found him picking lettuces in the eastern greenhouse dome. He was engrossed in his task and it was several moments before he noticed the other standing expectantly a few feet away.

Remaining seated on his stool, Yin Xi spun himself around to face it, brushing dirty hands on his apron before he flicked the translator patch on his collar.

The shi-ren was a runt of its kind, barely four feet high to the top of the protuberance that passed for its head. Its cylindrical torso rested on several dozen locomotive toes, which investigated the bare stone floor like a nest of fat worms. Six spindly, multi-jointed arms were tucked neatly into its sides while its four eyestalks scanned the greenhouse, following the movements of other human workers along the aisles between the planter troughs.

The shi-ren's low stature and its variegated blue-and-purple carapace--most locals were coppery or bronze-green in colour--led Yin Xi to guess that it was a foreigner or recent immigrant.

Technically, 'it' was a 'he', Yin Xi knew, but he could never quite manage to think of the mindless, coral-like flower pods that the shi-ren tended in their rock-pool gardens as 'females'.

"Hello rock," he said.

The two nearest eyestalks focused on him. The shi-ren replied in its own language, grating and clicking like a radiation counter. Yin Xi's collar patch burbled a translation. "Am other-self Yintzu?"

Yin Xi winced at the translator's mangled syntax. The patches were supposedly state-of-the-art, but he always felt they made the shi-ren sound like primitive AIs from those execrable historical adventure sims the children were always playing.

He was surprised to be named. Personal names were a concept that the shi-ren struggled with, since they didn't use them among themselves.

"I am Yin Xi," he said, "I do not presume to claim the title of 'master'."

The shi-ren rustled its arms quizzically. "Why not, when other human-selves apply label to other-self?"

"While I accept the choice of others to label me as they will, a label cannot set me above others. One cannot truly aspire to enlightenment if one sets one's self apart so."

Yin Xi knew that he was being perverse, but at his age and after so many decades of bullying students into thinking for themselves, perversity was habitual. In any case, he enjoyed seeing what shi-ren made of his cryptic responses. Having never seen a non-human sapient until he left Wangwei, he remained fascinated by the shi-ren to an extent that most of his compatriots on Hai found mildly eccentric.

"Hypothesis that one cannot acquire knowledge so long as one accepts separateness of identity appears flawed," the shi-ren clacked.

So, Yin Xi thought, a philosopher. "Enlightenment is not the same as knowledge," he countered. "Knowledge is a phenomenological map of the universe. Enlightenment transcends phenomena."

The shi-ren made a rapid chittering noise that the patch was unable to translate. Yin Xi guessed the sound equated somewhat to a harrumph of dissatisfaction. Watching it wriggle its toes and jiggle its arms, he surmised that it was working its way along the probable trajectory of their discussion: foreseeing, as he did, the mutual befuddlement that so often resulted when humans and shi-ren attempted philosophical discourse.

With another 'harrumph' and a shiver of its arms, the shi-ren changed tack.

"One-self curious," it said, "One-self heard that other-self a great teacher of the Way. One-self wishes to acquire knowledge."

Yin Xi's interest pricked. This was not a line of inquiry he had encountered before from shi-ren. "How do you propose to acquire such knowledge?"

"Other-self will tell self."

Yin Xi suppressed a smile. "Ah, but the Way that can be spoken is not the true Way."

The shi-ren's toes froze.

Its eyestalks slowly extended to their full length and went rigid. It raised its arms, then banged them loudly against its sides. At the same time, it emitted a rude blattering sound. It was as close to a display of anger as Yin Xi had ever seen a shi-ren come.

It picked itself up on its toes and scuttled away. Yin Xi scratched his goatee as he watched it go, then shrugged and returned to his lettuces.