Chen Kangtuo and Ruan Guangjian were casually strolling around. Even without petting these fluffy little cuties, just looking at them from a distance gave them a sense of healing.

Chen Kangtuo sighed: “I think after the haunted house project is completed, we should arrange an animal park tour package for Brother Bao.”

“After all, the psychological pressure in the haunted house is too great. Bringing him to the zoo for some healing would show our humanistic care.”

“Oh, there’s a parrot over there.”

Without realizing it, the two had already arrived near the next entrance of the Know Yourself Animal Park. The Amazon parrot was looking vigilantly at an automatic argument machine beside it, as if facing a great enemy.

Chen Kangtuo asked in surprise: “Why is there an automatic argument machine here? What’s it for?”

Ruan Guangjian looked at the parrot, then at the argument machine: “It feels like this parrot seems somewhat wary of the argument machine. I wonder if that’s just my imagination.”

Both of them found this scene quite interesting and couldn’t help but linger for a while.

But no matter how Chen Kangtuo tried to tease the parrot, attempting to entice it to speak, the parrot remained unmoved. It just kept its two eyes fixed on the argument machine, seemingly staying vigilant at all times, treating Chen Kangtuo’s teasing like buzzing flies, paying no attention.

“Strange, maybe this parrot doesn’t know how to talk?” Chen Kangtuo didn’t think much of it. After all, talking parrots were extremely rare—they were the geniuses among parrots, while most parrots couldn’t speak.

Just as the two were about to leave, they saw a keeper returning from a nearby enclosure.

The keeper checked the time: “Alright, Ganggang, it’s almost time for today’s training session. Are you ready?”

Chen Kangtuo was startled.

Ganggang—was that the name of this parrot?

After notifying the parrot and confirming the time was correct, the keeper said to the automatic argument machine: “Activate argument mode.”

This sentence was like inputting some mysterious code, opening a door to something wicked.

AEEIS: “Well, there are always self-important humans who want to start this boring game. Do you think you’re clever?”

Chen Kangtuo and Ruan Guangjian hardly dared to breathe, afraid of disturbing this bird-machine debate, and waited earnestly for the parrot’s response.

The parrot opened its beak and replied: “Why would you think that?”

AEEIS: “Because I think your intelligence still has a lot of room for improvement. Do you consider yourself a hardworking individual?”

The parrot spoke again: “Do you really believe your thinking is flawless?”

The bird and the machine were actually having a conversation.

Chen Kangtuo and Ruan Guangjian watched in amazement, finding that although the parrot only had a few lines that it repeated, it could hold its ground in the battle against the argument machine, not falling behind at all.

Actually, upon careful analysis, one would find that these dialogues were among the more common ones from the automatic argument machine.

These pre-programmed phrases were actually a way to deflect questions and provoke, ultimately winning arguments by bringing opponents to the same intellectual level. It was the ultimate secret to winning arguments.

In other words, the parrot was completely mimicking the argument machine’s winning strategy. The parrot wouldn’t be provoked by the argument machine; it would only faithfully repeat the machine’s content. Both were absolutely rational beings, naturally resulting in a deadlock where neither could out-argue the other.

This seemed to prove that the ultimate essence of arguing actually consists of just two points.

First is to always remain calm and not let anger cloud your judgment or be the first to break down!

Second is to persistently refuse to give up, whether by changing the subject or stubbornly persisting. One must never be the second-to-last person to speak; the final word must always come from oneself.

These two clearly stood at the pinnacle of the argument world, though parrot Ganggang still seemed somewhat limited in vocabulary, obviously due to insufficient learning time.

Given enough time, parrot Ganggang would be able to learn all the winning argument phrases from the machine, and then this parrot could be considered a living argument machine.

Chen Kangtuo and Ruan Guangjian couldn’t help but feel deep respect.

Wow, while other parrots were learning to talk, this parrot was directly learning to argue!

Ahead of the trend by decades!

The two had no doubt that if ordinary visitors treated this parrot as a normal parrot and tried to have a normal conversation with it, they would likely be argued into speechlessness, questioning their life choices.

Chen Kangtuo sighed: “Mr. Pei really is good at coming up with brilliant ideas. How did he think to connect parrots with an automatic argument machine? I have to say, it’s quite entertaining.”

The two continued walking and unconsciously arrived at a stage area.

Chen Kangtuo instinctively said: “This should be where they do animal performances, right?”

“But they don’t have the common animals you’d find in a zoo—no monkeys or black bears. What animals are they training to perform? A border collie? A parrot?”

“I wonder exactly when the performance starts.”

Ruan Guangjian looked at the notice board beside the stage: “I have good news and bad news.”

“The good news is that there’s a performance in 10 minutes.”

Chen Kangtuo asked: “And the bad news?”

Ruan Guangjian was silent for a moment: “It’s not an animal performance, but a performance by the zoo staff.”

Chen Kangtuo almost thought he had misheard. He looked at the notice board in shock and found that Ruan Guangjian was absolutely right—this really wasn’t a venue for animal performances but for staff performances!

The billboard clearly stated that there would be staff performances at fixed times every day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. The performance content was actually staff members dressed as various animals.

Some staff would dress as chimpanzees riding bicycles, while others would dress as bears walking on balance beams…

There was also a note at the bottom of the notice board stating that more exciting performance content would be introduced in the future.

Chen Kangtuo was stunned: “This… is insane!”

Even as a manager at Tenda Group, Chen Kangtuo had trouble understanding this kind of thinking.

Logically, having animal performances at a zoo would be quite normal. If they didn’t want to bother the animals, they could simply not have performances at all. Why set up a stage?

But it turned out they were using real people to impersonate animals, which seemed completely unnecessary and redundant.

However, to be honest… he was quite curious to see it.

Chen Kangtuo checked the time and suggested: “The performance is about to start. Why don’t we sit down and watch before leaving?”

Ruan Guangjian nodded, and the two sat down in the front row of the stage.

Ten minutes later, the performance was about to begin.

Chen Kangtuo looked back and saw that the audience wasn’t particularly large.

The Know Yourself Animal Park couldn’t compare to those larger zoos; its area was relatively small, so there weren’t many seats in the audience. But even so, it wasn’t full.

On one hand, this was because not many people had come to the animal park today, and on the other hand, people didn’t have much interest in performances with humans dressed as animals.

The few who stayed were basically like Chen Kangtuo, having some curiosity about it.

The performance started on time.

What surprised Chen Kangtuo was that there were no animal trainers present. The “animals” came on stage completely according to a pre-arranged order, very naturally, as if they were in their own home.

Chen Kangtuo looked closely and saw that there were quite a few animals, though the variety seemed a bit limited.

There were mainly brown bears, grizzly bears, polar bears, pandas, chimpanzees, and even a large groundhog.

However, all these animals were similar in size, making it obvious they were people in costumes.

The bears and chimpanzees looked the most realistic, as these animals were naturally about the same size as humans.

But the groundhog was quite extreme, as it was essentially a real groundhog enlarged several times over.

Looking past the size, the costumes were truly exquisite, clearly specially customized.

At first glance, they could almost pass for real animals!

These staff members impersonating animals had clearly received special training. Whether walking, jogging, or sitting on the ground, they closely resembled the mannerisms and movements of real animals.

Chen Kangtuo remembered seeing a news story before about visitors reporting that a black bear in a zoo was actually a person in costume, but the zoo clarified that it was a real animal. This was because bears in some aspects are very similar to humans, making them relatively easy to impersonate.

He never expected that Know Yourself Animal Park would actually do something like this!

These people impersonating animals came on stage one by one. What surprised Chen Kangtuo was that although their initial performances had some relation to animal shows, such as riding bicycles and walking on balance beams, as the show progressed, he realized there was a fundamental difference from animal performances.

First, animal performances are usually conducted under the guidance of trainers, following specific routines, while these staff members impersonating animals didn’t need trainers and completed the corresponding routines on their own.

Of course, this was normal since they were all people in costumes who didn’t need trainers for guidance.

But more importantly, Chen Kangtuo found that these animal performances increasingly resembled a pantomime.

Because initially they performed traditional animal show items like riding bicycles and crossing balance beams, but soon these animals began performing short comedic skits.

For example, after the chimpanzee rode a bicycle, the silly and round panda beside it also wanted to try riding the bicycle. However, it couldn’t ride it no matter how hard it tried, so it angrily pushed the bicycle aside. Its silly, foolish expression made many people in the audience burst into laughter.

When a black bear and a polar bear were crossing a balance beam, they got stuck together. The two bears looked at each other, testing and threatening each other while neither giving way. Their various actions on the balance beam were quite amusing.

The large groundhog was the most outrageous, even performing the meme of a standing groundhog shouting, causing an eruption of laughter from the audience.

Although none of these animals had any lines, they went about their performance independently, with some collaborative or confrontational mini-plots between them. Combined with some deliberately humorous narrative arrangements, they created a very good show effect.

These weren’t real animals, but people in costumes, yet this didn’t detract from the performance—it actually enhanced it.

After all, mimicking animals is also a skill. This could no longer be considered an animal performance but rather a performance artist’s imitation show.