An-Yi sat slumped against a wooden pillar, her eyes slightly glazed. She let out a sudden, sharp hiccup that startled others in the room. She gestured vaguely at the previous pictorial poem on the wall. "What good is it... all this talk?" she asked, her voice wavering with a playful cynicism. "What good is even talking about Zen? Zen is a awareness beyond words. Anything else is just more noise, isn't it?"

Bhäraté looked over at her, slowly shrugging her shoulders. She looked down at her empty glass, watching a single drop of liquid slide toward the rim. "How should I know?" he replied, his voice trailing off into a soft, philosophical sigh. "In the long run, what good is any human activity? We build sandcastles while the tides of time come in. Talking, sitting, breathing—it’s all just dancing in the dark."

Chariya, who had remained uncharacteristically still, finally spoke. He adjusted his posture, pulling himself into a straighter, more mindful seat, though his expression remained gentle. "Without sustained practice," he noted, his tone cutting through the discourse with a sudden, quiet clarity, "talking about Zen is likely nothing more than a form of intellectual amusement. It’s like reading a map and never taking a single step. It feels like movement, but we’re still standing exactly where we started."