“When you peer into the void, the void peers back—and sometimes, it even wears a knowing smile.”

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  Millennia of solitude have a way of shattering even the most indomitable will.

  How does one slay an immortal when the sole immortal in existence is oneself? This paradox had long haunted my thoughts. In the depths of my despair, I resolved to drain every iota of cultivation from my body, surrendering myself to the void in hopes that its nothingness might dissolve my very soul. In that bleak epiphany, I found an odd solace—a prescribed path, however it might lead to a barren end. And so, with a heavy heart, I poured all my qi into the consuming darkness.

  As the qi seeped from me, I observed in quiet astonishment that the departing essence began to gather before my eyes, coalescing into a shimmering orb. With each further surge, the orb pulsed with an ethereal radiance until, suddenly, a resounding bang shattered the silence—a shock that vibrated through my body and rattled the core of my soul. Amid this tumult, a serene relief washed over me, as if my being had finally aligned with the immutable cosmic decree: all things, without exception, must come to an end.

  “Hello.”

  “Who—who said hello?”

  Was it a mere figment of my faltering mind, or had I truly been greeted? Had I become naught but a hapless fly ensnared in a celestial spider’s web, the torment of my existence nothing more than a cruel amusement for some capricious deity?

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  Drawn to the source of the voice, I beheld a glimmering light—the second such beacon in the endless night of my exile. As it intensified, a solitary figure emerged within its glow. Could it be that, after all this desolation, a human soul had found its way to me?

  “Hello,” I managed to reply.

  When the light receded, the figure became distinct. What first seized my attention was the vivid scarlet of his robes—a hue steeped in the sanguine memories of billions—and the streaks of white that spoke of heavenly tribulation and celestial anguish.

  As he approached, his face revealed itself—a countenance as inscrutable as a carved wooden mask, his eyes as white and unyielding as frozen time. He exuded the air of a hermit, one who had long since receded from the clamor of the world into the silent embrace of final solitude.

  “Why do you destroy yourself in the act of world-making? Were you not schooled in the sacred arts of creation?” he inquired.

  His words stirred a tempest of confusion within me. What did he mean by world creation? How could I comprehend such a notion? And who were these ‘they’ to whom he alluded?

  “Pray, elucidate what you mean by ‘world creation,’ venerable one. Are you suggesting that my actions—this disbursement of qi into the void—are akin to the genesis of a world?”

  “Did you just ascend from your own universe? Where is the caretaker of that realm? Has he abandoned his charge, leaving you to be forsaken in the void?”

  At his query, a bitter realization took root. The caretaker of my universe had, in truth, forsaken me—dispensing me into the abyss with nary a word of farewell. But what was this “caretaker” of which he spoke, and why had he shirked his duty? Had I somehow transgressed against the natural order?

  “Yes, I am newly ascended,” I conceded, “and I know nothing of this caretaker. But who might you be, venerable one?”

  “Ah, allow me a proper introduction. Call me Tim.”

  “I am Win Chumm,” I replied. “But tell me, what is the nature of your existence, esteemed Tim?”

  “Is it not evident from this mortal guise? I expected, as cultivators, you would possess the soul-sense to pierce the veil of appearances and perceive true essence. Yet, here I stand—human, in all that is deceptively finite.”

  Was he mad? To claim humanity while embodying the perfection of a sculpture sculpted from jade—a visage that seemed more artifice than flesh? With cautious intent, I invoked my divine sense to scrutinize him. All that resonated from the depths of my soul was a singular truth: this being was, indeed, human. Nothing more, nothing less—as though the reality itself had decreed that a human must reside in his place.