"And they can survive everything. Wei Wuxian kept threatening to bring tardigrades."

"If I know that word I don't know it in Mandarin."

"They're cute. You can't see them without a microscope, they live in pond water and have lots of legs. They can survive anything-- the Arctic, volcanoes, starvation, dehydration, the vacuum of space."

(He is noticeably less pissed off when talking about animals.)

"Oh, them! They're great. Much cuter than cockroaches, I think - I could give cockroaches another look, if they're someone's pets and they're clean but..."

"I don't know if they're clean? They haven't gotten dirty."

He snaps his fan closed. "See! You guys are getting along great. Bye!"

"Well, I mean, if they're not running around getting into trash and who knows what else, then they're not really vermin, are they? So I can take a look, if you want to show me."

"Sure, I guess, it's not like I have anything else to do," he says angrily.

"Sorry, did I say something wrong?"

"No. It's fine."

"Okay. What are they like, anyway?"

"They're mostly pretty quiet. They like to bury themselves in the soil most of the time."

"Huh! Like ants?"

"Yeah, but ants are more intelligent. Cockroaches are less likely to be stepped on, so they're better for the Scholomance, but they're really quite stupid." (Is that sentence affectionate?)

"Huh! Even though they have more room to fit brains in?"

"Actually, the size of an animal's brain scales up with the size of its body, so if you're estimating intelligence the ratio of brain size to body size is more important than the brain size itself."

"What? Wow. How can that work?"

"A lot of the brain is actually for coordinating motor behavior, which is more complicated if you're larger."

"It is? I thought, like - even if your limbs are bigger, shouldn't it be about how many of them you have?"

"I think so? I don't know how to look it up."

She almost suggests they go check the library. She catches herself. "I mean, I trust you, I just wouldn't have guessed."

"You can come look at them if you want, they're in my brother's room."

"Yeah, that sounds good!"

"What's your affinity?"

"Might be sound, or something like that. Never saw a diviner but going by what's easiest."