Sitting down at the entrance of what seemed like an immortal's abode, Pu Shi Wu let out a satisfied smile as he looked up into the clouds, ignoring the occasional strange noises coming from the house of Gu Yue Xin Yuan and her newly wed bride.
Stretching slightly, he looked down at the broken bodies of a dozen rank three Gu masters and the rank four with no arms on each side, head bowed, hunched over knees on the ground.
"Today's a beautiful day for the sun to shine, is it not?"
Not even a single peep escaped their mouths. He shrugged.
'Such a shame a beauty like her turned out to be a lesbian. But oh well, such is life. More importantly, that wife of hers seems to be getting more assassins thrown at her every day. Though anything above a rank four cannot come since her status dictates so. This is the eighteenth wave this month—well, since I got here at least.'
The door behind him slid open.
Gu Yue Xin Yuan stepped out, her scarlet robes pristine. She glanced at the broken bodies without expression, then sat down beside him.
Unusual. Normally she'd just give orders and leave.
They looked at the clouds together.
"You don't ask why they come," she observed.
"Not my business. You pay for protection, I provide it."
A faint smile. "Direct."
Silence settled. Comfortable, oddly.
"Do you have a goal?" she asked suddenly.
"No."
"None at all?"
"None." He took a drink. "Thirty years alive. Never figured out what I wanted. Never felt the need to, either."
"Most people would find that troubling."
"Maybe. I just find it accurate."
She turned to look at him properly. "You're content existing without purpose?"
"Content isn't the word. I just don't see the point in inventing one." He gestured at the broken bodies. "I kill people trying to kill your wife. You pay me. Tomorrow more will come. I'll kill them too. It's simple. Functional. Doesn't need deeper meaning."
"And if I asked you to stop? To leave?"
"I'd leave. Find something else to do. Wouldn't matter much either way."
"That's..." She paused, considering. "That's genuinely nihilistic. Not performative despair or philosophical posturing. You actually don't care."
"I care about immediate things. Not dying. Drinking. Getting paid. But long-term purpose? Goals? No." He looked at her. "You're different. You have something you want. I can tell."
"Immortality."
She said it simply, without hesitation.
"Of course." Pu Shi Wu nodded. "Everyone in the Gu world wants that."
"And you don't?"
"Never thought about it much. Living forever just means doing this—" he gestured vaguely "—for longer. What's the point?"
"The point is you get to keep existing. Keep experiencing. Keep pursuing whatever you want."
"But I don't want anything. So I'd just be existing for the sake of existing. That's not a benefit, that's just延长 the same empty experience infinitely."
Gu Yue Xin Yuan's expression shifted slightly—more focused, analytical. "You're assuming immortality doesn't change your perspective. That you'd feel the same boredom, the same lack of purpose, forever."
"Would I not?"
"No. Because immortality gives you infinite time to find purpose. Even if you don't have one now, with endless years, you'd eventually discover something worth pursuing."
"Or I'd have infinite time to confirm nothing matters." Pu Shi Wu took another drink. "Which seems more likely given how consistently meaningless things have been so far."
"That's lazy thinking."
"Is it wrong?"
"It's incomplete." She leaned back, clearly engaging now. "You're treating purpose as if it's some external thing you discover. But purpose is created, not found. With immortality, you have infinite capacity to create meaning through your actions."
"Creating meaning is just lying to yourself that something matters when it doesn't."
"And what's wrong with that?" Her voice was perfectly calm, reasonable. "If the universe has no inherent meaning, then creating your own meaning is the only rational response. The alternative is passive existence—which you're already doing."
"Passive existence is honest. Creating false meaning is elaborate self-deception."
"Honesty without purpose is just decorated futility." She tilted her head slightly. "You kill assassins. You drink. You exist. What's honest about that? You're still acting as if survival matters, as if immediate comfort matters. You've already created micro-meanings. You're just refusing to acknowledge macro-meanings."
Pu Shi Wu paused. That was actually a good point.
"Fair. But micro-meanings are instinctive. I don't choose to want to survive—I just do. Macro-meanings require deliberate commitment to long-term goals that feel arbitrary."
"All goals are arbitrary," she countered. "Immortality is arbitrary. Power is arbitrary. Love, legacy, knowledge—all arbitrary. But so what? Arbitrary doesn't mean worthless. It just means we choose the value ourselves."
"But why choose any value at all? Why not just exist without the elaborate self-justification?"
"Because existing without purpose is boring." She said this matter-of-factly. "You admitted you feel boredom. That proves you need more than mere existence. Boredom is dissatisfaction with meaninglessness. Your own emotions betray your argument."
"Or boredom proves that existence itself is flawed. That we're built to need meaning in a universe that doesn't provide it. The problem isn't that I'm not pursuing goals—the problem is that I'm conscious enough to notice the absence of inherent purpose."
"Then become unconscious." Her eyes glinted. "If consciousness is the problem, eliminate it. But you don't. You keep existing, keep thinking, keep feeling bored. That's choice. That's commitment. You've already chosen to value existence over non-existence. You're just unwilling to extend that logic further."
Pu Shi Wu smiled slightly. "You're good at this."
"I've thought about purpose extensively."
"For immortality."
"For everything. Immortality is just the foundation. Once you have infinite time, everything else becomes possible. Every experience, every achievement, every variation of existence—all available. You're not immortal for its own sake. You're immortal to have time for everything else."
"But that assumes 'everything else' has value."
"It does if you decide it does." She spoke with absolute conviction. "The universe is indifferent. So what? Humans aren't indifferent. We create value through our preferences, our actions, our commitments. That's not weakness—that's power. We're the only beings in the universe capable of generating meaning from meaninglessness."
"We're the only beings delusional enough to think we're generating meaning when we're really just generating noise before we die."
"Then why do you care about the distinction?" She leaned forward. "If it's all meaningless noise, why do you care whether I pursue immortality or you pursue nothing? Why have this conversation at all? Meaninglessness should make you apathetic to everything, including arguments about meaninglessness."
"I'm not apathetic. I'm just not convinced anything matters long-term."
"Long-term is a human construction. Time is continuous. There is no 'long-term' versus 'short-term'—there's just duration. You're arbitrarily privileging short-term meanings while dismissing long-term ones. That's inconsistent."
Pu Shi Wu considered this. "Maybe I just find short-term meanings more honest because they don't pretend to be more than they are."
"Or maybe you're afraid of commitment." Her voice was perfectly neutral, not accusing—just observing. "Micro-meanings are safe. They expire quickly. Macro-meanings require sustained effort over years, decades, centuries. If you commit to immortality and still find existence meaningless, that's terrifying. So you avoid commitment entirely."
"That's not fear. That's practical assessment."
"Practical assessment that conveniently avoids risk." She smiled faintly. "You're a coward about meaning the same way others are cowards about death. You won't commit to purpose because you might fail to find fulfillment. So you pretend not caring is sophistication."
"And you pretend certainty is wisdom." Pu Shi Wu met her gaze. "You say immortality gives infinite time to find meaning. But what if you live a thousand years, ten thousand years, and still feel the same emptiness? What if meaning is impossible regardless of duration? Then you've just extended your confusion forever."
"Then I'll still have experienced ten thousand years of existence. That's inherently more than experiencing thirty years and dying."
"More isn't better if the quality is the same. Ten thousand years of boredom is worse than thirty years of boredom."
"Only if you assume boredom is constant. But it's not. Boredom comes from repetition, from exhausting local possibilities. With immortality, possibilities are infinite. New experiences, new perspectives, new contexts—endless variation prevents existential boredom."
"Until you exhaust the fundamental categories of experience. How many variations of 'being alive' are there really? Eventually, everything reduces to recurring patterns. You'll have felt every emotion, thought every thought, experienced every situation. Then what? You're immortal and profoundly bored."
"Then I create new categories." She spoke with absolute confidence. "Humans are creative. We invent new forms of meaning constantly—art, culture, technology, philosophy. With infinite time, I can explore every existing category and invent new ones. The potential for novelty is inexhaustible."
"The potential for novelty is bounded by the laws of physics and the limitations of consciousness. You can't experience impossible things. You can't escape the fundamental structure of what it means to be alive. Eventually, you hit the ceiling."
"Even if true—which I don't concede—the ceiling is so high it might as well be infinite. I could spend a million years exploring human potential and never exhaust it."
"And I could spend thirty years not caring and achieve the same level of fulfillment."
Gu Yue Xin Yuan laughed—actually laughed. Brief, but genuine. "You're deliberately obtuse."
"I'm consistently nihilistic."
"You're lazy." But she said it without heat. "Nihilism is the refuge of people too afraid or too tired to build something from nothing. You've decided meaning is impossible, so you don't have to try."
"And you've decided meaning is mandatory, so you don't have to question whether your efforts are futile."
"My efforts produce results. I'm stronger now than five years ago. I have resources, influence, capability. That's not futile—that's measurable progress toward immortality."
"Progress toward a goal that might not satisfy you even if achieved."
"Then I'll choose a new goal. That's the beauty of immortality—infinite opportunity for course correction."
They sat in silence for a moment.
"You know," Pu Shi Wu said slowly, "you're probably right that I'm avoiding commitment. But you're also avoiding doubt. We're both protecting ourselves—me from disappointment, you from uncertainty."
"Possibly." She didn't sound defensive. "But my protection leads to growth. Yours leads to stagnation."
"Or your growth is elaborate self-distraction and my stagnation is honest acceptance."
"We could debate this forever."
"We probably will, if I stay here long enough."
Gu Yue Xin Yuan stood, brushing off her robes. "Good. I enjoy debates with people who actually think. Most Gu masters just pursue power mindlessly."
She paused at the door. "For what it's worth, I don't think you're genuinely without purpose. I think you're between purposes. Waiting for something to matter enough to pursue."
"Maybe. Or maybe I'm just killing time until time kills me."
"Killing time is still a choice. You could kill yourself instead."
"True. But that seems like more effort than it's worth."
She smiled a genuine smile, for just a moment. "Lazy nihilism. I knew it."
She went inside.
Pu Shi Wu sat alone, looking at the clouds.
'She's sharp. Really sharp. Counters every point I make without hesitation. Thinks about purpose like it's a weapon to be mastered. Reminds me of someone...'
He just couldn't place my finger on it.
He took another drink, watching the sun move across the sky.
Tomorrow, more assassins would come.
He'd kill them.
And probably have another conversation about why any of it mattered.
Which was, oddly, more interesting than having a purpose.