Do processing rules check for persisted values?

[aaaba]

I have these eVars:

eVar2 set to Most Recent and Never expire

eVar8 set to First Touch and Visit expiration

and these processing rules to set them:

Rule 1: 

   Overwrite value of eVar2 with context data variable

            if context data variable exists

Rule 2: 

   If eVar8 is not set

   If eVar2 contains XYZ

   Then Overwrite with custom value of ABC

In Workspace I see this example for a single visitor:

Visit 1:

Hit Depth	eVar2	eVar8
1	XYZ	ABC
2	XYZ (persisted)	ABC (persisted)
3	XYZ (persisted)	ABC (persisted)

Visit 2: 

Hit Depth	eVar2	eVar8
1	XYZ (persisted)	123
2	XYZ (set again)	123 (persisted)
3	XYZ (persisted)	123 (persisted)

In Visit 2 we expect eVar8 to equal ABC not 123. Is it because eVar2 is persisted from the previous visit on Hit Depth = 1 and not set until Hit Depth 2? Because eVar2 wasn't set (only persisted) on Hit Depth 1 does Rule 2 above "see" eVar2 as not set and thus cannot contain XYZ?

[AmanGu8]

@aaaba  Processing Rules are the very first thing which data undergoes after reaching to adobe servers. These rules operate on the data sent in the hits and not on persisted values. This is the reason why in visit 2 even evar2 was equal to 'XYZ' but since this was a persisted value and was not actually and eVar8 had 'visit' expiration so eVar8 value was not persisted to 'ABC'.