*"What are you?"*

  The question. Always the same words from different mouths across different centuries.

  The inn was quiet. Late enough that even the drinkers had surrendered. I climbed the stairs. One step at a time. My body performing the ascent, my mind no longer in the inn.

  I was in a library. So long ago that even the language he'd written in had died.

  He was a philosopher. A condition he'd developed rather than a title he'd chosen. A mind that couldn't stop asking, in institutions that couldn't stop answering.

  He was thin. The thinness of thought rather than deprivation. He sat surrounded by scrolls. Thousands. Every attempt humanity had made to articulate the nature of reality in a language reality had never agreed to be described in.

  He looked up and saw me, but didn't flinch. He had no categories left. He'd dissolved them — systematically, deliberately — and sat in the wreckage with the serene discomfort of someone who had destroyed his own shelter because the shelter was inaccurate.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  "What are you?" First sentence. No greeting.

  I sat down. Among his scrolls. And I answered.

  I told him pieces of truth. About time. About qi. About the structure of the world as I perceived it — his scrolls were written by people inside the painting and I was someone who could see the frame.

  He listened. Days. Weeks.

  He understood. That was the problem. Other minds filtered what I said — the limitations acting as protection. He didn't filter.

  The first month, he was brilliant.

  The second month, he was quiet.

  The third month, he was still.

  The fourth month, he was empty.

  Not dead. Empty. He breathed. He ate when food was placed in front of him. But the light behind his eyes was gone. He had stopped asking questions. Everything else had stopped with them.

  I left. He remained. Among his scrolls. Existing — the verb that remained when all the others had been removed.

  *He got his answers. Afterward, he wished he hadn't asked.*

  That I was old would have been the survivable answer.

  I reached the top of the stairs.

  Xu Ran had asked the same question. And I had given him the survivable answer.

  Wei was sleeping. His core glowed — faint, warm.

  I opened the door. Sat.

  The stream flowed.

  The inn settled. The night continued.