Snow fell heavily, blanketing the buildings and streets. As far as the eye could see, the white landscape stretched into a realm of eternity.
Huang Zhetian breathed out a cloud of mist, picked up his luggage, and headed to the subway station.
This subway station was where Rebuild of Evangelion: Thrice Upon a Time ended, and where the story came to a close.
He looked up at the sky, where wires and concrete poles stood in orderly rows. All sorts of people waited on the opposite platform-young people looking down at their phones, office workers dozing with their eyes closed, and elderly people reading newspapers.
The people across from him reflected the stages everyone would eventually reach in life.
Life kept moving, never stopping, never slowing.
Living in the past was no way to go on, but neither could one forget everything that had happened.
Not clinging to the past doesn't mean I don't care about it.
Huang Zhetian had already taken off his mask. He stared blankly at the opposite platform as memories of his past and present lives flashed before his eyes, like a film on fast-forward.
So I missed so many opportunities in my previous life. Failures at school, failures finding work...
Yet I don't regret any of it. So why... do I miss the past so much?
As a child, he hadn't understood; as an adult, understanding had come too late.
That was how fate toyed with people. In those happy, innocent years, they never stopped to savor what they felt. They tasted the sweetness without understanding what it meant.
Only after growing up and gaining some insight did they look back and realize that the past had been the most carefree stretch of their entire lives. For most ordinary people, the years that followed probably