The flames froze.
Orange-red flames hung in midair, and the entire mountain had been coated in syrup.
Lu Mingfei remembered when he had first arrived at his aunt's home. There had been a little old man at the entrance to the residential complex. Every day when school let out, he would push out a cart covered with sugar paintings of every kind. A copper pot stood beside it, the red syrup inside bubbling away.
The old man would scoop up a ladleful, twist and flick his wrist, and let the syrup fall onto a board. A few strokes outlined Sun Wukong; then he pressed a bamboo stick onto it, lifted it up, and it was done.
Children crowded around the cart, holding their parents' hands and waving their pocket money, shouting, "Doraemon!" and "Ultraman!" He stood behind them, gazing enviously at the treats in their hands, and at the mothers and fathers beside them.
How nice. Lu Mingfei had a little figure in his hand too. He instinctively licked it. It was sticky, and a bloody smell assailed his nose.
He looked down.
It was not a sugar painting. No one had ever bought him a sugar painting.
It was the EVA Unit-03 beside him!
Stripped of its armor, Unit-03 sat slumped on the winding mountain road. Its muscles were exposed, and blood seeped from its entire body, flowing down the mountainside in ever greater quantities until it formed a river.
The mountain began to shake. The flames turned into orange-red water that rushed down the mountain, washed over his feet, and continued scouring its way down the winding road.
Rain fell briefly from the sky. Standing in the middle of that orange river, he watched blankly as Unit-03 in his hand turned to water.
Orange.
"LCL?" Lu Mingfei murmured.