Chapter Summaries

Misato Katsuragi freed Lu Mingfei from his collar and ordered him to pilot Unit-03 as headquarters came under attack, while Asuka was sent with him for safety. Lu Mingfei entered the EVA and reached a 100% synchronization rate, then launched as the defenses collapsed.

• Misato Katsuragi disconnected Lu Mingfei's collar and apologized for making him fight.
• Misato told Lu Mingfei that headquarters had been breached and ordered him to pilot Unit-03, while Asuka would go with him.
• Lu Mingfei left Asuka's hospital room and walked through the damaged corridors to the underground hangar.
• Lu Mingfei entered Unit-03's entry plug as the attack reached Central Dogma.
• Lu Mingfei synchronized with Unit-03 at 100%, heard a voice welcome him back, and launched the EVA.

Lu Mingfei returned to his old world after the events in Tokyo-3 and woke in his former room, uncertain whether his memories of NERV and the apocalypse were real. He went out to run errands, but his memories and grief followed him, leaving him unable to read the magazine he had bought.

• Lu Mingfei woke on his bedroom floor, remembered his time in Tokyo-3 and NERV, and found Old Tang's messages on his laptop.
• Lu Mingfei heard his aunt tell him to buy groceries and Novel Painting, then left the house to run the errands.
• Lu Mingfei recalled his life as a high school student and his work at NERV, including his conversations with Shinji and encounters with Ayanami and Asuka.
• Lu Mingfei caught sight of a woman in a blue dress and felt a powerful, unexplained pang as fragments of a hospital room returned to his mind.
• Lu Mingfei bought Novel Painting from the newsstand, told the old man that studying abroad sounded good, and found he could no longer read the magazine as tears blurred its cover.

Lu Mingfei experienced a disturbing vision in a supermarket and received an international envelope inviting him to Cassell, stirring memories of another world. That night, he waited for signs of the catastrophe he remembered, while an attached NERV notice revealed that the agency had recruited him for a special logistics position in Tokyo-3.

• Lu Mingfei saw ketchup appear to melt and spill like blood, but a stock clerk interrupted the vision and he hurried away.
• The guard gave Lu Mingfei an envelope containing a Nokia N96 and a letter bearing a half-withered, half-flourishing World Tree emblem; the phone listed Professor Guderian as its only contact.
• Lu Mingfei remembered being recruited by NERV in a previous world and wondered whether the same kind of surveillance was happening again.
• At home, Lu Mingfei studied his cousin Lu Mingze, whose appearance did not match his memories of a golden-eyed boy in a black suit.
• Lu Mingfei waited on the balcony for an air-raid siren, but nothing unusual happened, and he pinned a mosquito to the wall with an invisible force field.
• The attached NERV notice stated that Lu Mingfei’s application for a basic service position had been rejected and that he had been exceptionally recruited as a Special Logistics Officer.

Lu Mingfei questioned Cassell College’s scholarship offer to determine whether the school was a front for dangerous operations, then arranged to attend an interview with Nono. Haunted by memories of his former world, he searched for Hakone and decided he had to see it for himself.

• Lu Mingfei asked Professor Guderian about Cassell College’s field research, underground archives, and interview, then ended the call after arranging to meet at the Regent Hotel.
• Nono recognized that Lu Mingfei had been checking whether Cassell was a military organization and told Guderian she would attend the interview.
• Lu Mingfei dismissed a QQ invitation from Nono and saw Chen Wenwen’s message saying she would go to the interview.
• Lu Mingfei recalled the red-haired girl who had warned him to stay away from her and questioned whether his current world was truly peaceful or had reset after a catastrophe.
• Lu Mingfei searched for Hakone and decided to visit the place to see whether anything remained beneath its peaceful surface.

Lu Mingfei played StarCraft with Old Tang and reflected on how little he cared about Chen Wenwen anymore. Old Tang went to bed after recalling a strange voice from a past job, then dreamed of a boy surrounded by lava and woke up in tears.

• Lu Mingfei beat Old Tang in StarCraft, then lost a close rematch after his game sense returned.
• Lu Mingfei told Old Tang he might study in America and said he no longer liked Chen Wenwen.
• Old Tang recalled a riverbank search for a missing cat, where he heard a child call him “Big brother.”
• Old Tang remembered rescuing a starving boy from an abandoned building and wondered if the memory caused the voice he heard.
• Old Tang dreamed of a faceless boy in a landscape of lava, then woke with tears on his face.

Lu Mingfei attended Cassell’s admissions interview and answered questions about aliens, superpowers, and the organization’s defenses with knowledge from another world. After judging that the crisis was still under control, he left the interview and headed to Hakone to investigate what lay beneath the lake.

• Lu Mingfei arrived at the Regent Hotel, barely recognized Zhao Menghua and Chen Wenwen, and waited with the other interviewees.
• Ye Sheng brought Liu Miaomiao, Su Xiaoqiang, Zhao Menghua, and Chen Wenwen into the interview room before calling Lu Mingfei in.
• Lu Mingfei greeted Shide Aki in Japanese and described buried monsters and Absolute Defense fields when asked about aliens and superpowers.
• Nono questioned Lu Mingfei about his phone call and why he had come despite knowing the place was dangerous.
• Lu Mingfei concluded that the crisis remained under control, thanked the interviewers for the food, and left for Hakone to investigate beneath the lake.

Guderian learned that Lu Mingfei had rejected Cassell’s interview and was urgently researching how to travel to Japan’s Kanto region. After sensing Lu Mingfei’s despair, Nono agreed to keep an eye on him.

• Guderian arrived and asked Ye Sheng and Aki about Lu Mingfei’s interview, interpreting his alarming answers as signs of S-rank bloodline resonance.
• Ye Sheng and Aki explained that Lu Mingfei had criticized Cassell’s interview process and left without agreeing to join.
• Nono said her profiling of Lu Mingfei had made her feel despair and smell something sweet, like expired syrup.
• Norma reported that Lu Mingfei was researching Hakone’s geology and shelters while looking for cheap flights and quick loans to Japan.
• Guderian left for Russia and asked Nono to stop Lu Mingfei from borrowing from loan sharks and flying to Tokyo.
• Nono picked up Lu Mingfei’s parents’ recommendation letter and said she would keep an eye on him.

Nono monitored Lu Mingfei as he bought emergency supplies, studied Hakone’s geology, and revealed habits that made her unable to profile him. Their afternoon of surveillance turned into an unexpectedly familiar outing, and Nono agreed to join him for dinner.

• Nono watched Lu Mingfei buy survival supplies and noticed him assess the supermarket’s structure as he shopped.
• Nono confronted Lu Mingfei after he left the supermarket, but he showed little interest in her surveillance.
• At the library, Nono struggled to reconcile Lu Mingfei’s ordinary appearance with the danger she sensed beneath it as he researched Hakone and Lake Ashi.
• Lu Mingfei spoke wistfully about Chen Wenwen and complimented Nono’s hair, then asked her to help with his research out of habit.
• Lu Mingfei invited Nono to dinner, and she agreed to take him to the food stalls.

Nono delivered Lu Mingfei’s parents’ recommendation letter for Cassell College, but he remained undecided and said he would reply after visiting Hakone. Back at the hotel, Nono told Ye Sheng and Shide Aki to arrange his Japan visa and urged them to confess their feelings for each other.

• Nono took Lu Mingfei to a night-market stall, questioned his withdrawn behavior, and gave him the recommendation letter from his living parents.
• Lu Mingfei was stunned to realize his parents were alive and joked that he had imagined them dead in the Second Impact or plotting in a laboratory.
• Lu Mingfei discovered he had no money for the meal, so Nono paid while he pocketed the change and asked her to tell Professor Guderian he would decide after visiting Hakone.
• Nono returned to the hotel and told Ye Sheng and Shide Aki that Lu Mingfei planned to go to Japan soon, urging them to arrange his visa.
• Nono told Ye Sheng and Shide Aki to confess their feelings, then left them shocked.

Lu Mingfei left Zhao Menghua’s humiliating confession setup to comfort Su Xiaoqiang, then accepted Nono’s offer to fly to Japan in exchange for signing Cassell’s enrollment agreement. As he departed with Nono, he wondered whether Shinji had ever managed to move on after being left behind.

• Lu Mingfei demanded ten thousand yuan to fill the lowercase “i” in Zhao Menghua’s confession display, and Su Xiaoqiang stormed out after condemning Zhao’s plan.
• Lu Mingfei ran after Su Xiaoqiang, struck Zhao Menghua with an unseen force when he tried to stop him, and went to comfort her.
• Lu Mingfei wiped Su Xiaoqiang’s tears and urged her not to hide and cry after being defeated or abandoned.
• Nono confronted Lu Mingfei, told him she was not the red-haired girl he remembered, and offered him a flight to Japan if he signed Cassell’s enrollment agreement.
• Lu Mingfei accepted Nono’s offer, told Su Xiaoqiang she deserved a better ending, and left with Nono while thinking about Shinji being left alone.

Nono drove Lu Mingfei toward the airport in a borrowed Ferrari, and he agreed to leave for Hakone after reflecting on his past and accepting that Nono had already helped him. At the airport, he faced the private plane bearing Cassell’s World Tree emblem, with his departure still ahead.

• Nono teased Lu Mingfei about Cassell’s recruitment offer, and he said he would judge the school after reaching Hakone.
• Lu Mingfei agreed to leave, and Nono sped along the highway before discovering the Ferrari was nearly out of fuel.
• Lu Mingfei recalled pushing Misato’s broken-down Renault with Shinji and Asuka, explaining that he did not want to be yelled at again.
• Nono refueled the Ferrari, gave Lu Mingfei money for snacks, and drove him to the airport.
• Lu Mingfei told Nono that she had already saved him by giving him the ten thousand yuan he needed for his Japan trip.
• Nono said she had arranged his visa and outlined the journey to Hakone, while Lu Mingfei looked at Cassell’s private plane.

Lu Mingfei traveled with Nono from Narita Airport toward Hakone, haunted by memories of another world and wondering whether it had truly existed. At Lake Ashi, the site he associates with Tokyo-3 and NERV, he faced the possibility that he would find nothing.

• Lu Mingfei woke from a nightmare aboard the Sleipnir after Nono noticed he had stopped breathing for forty-five seconds.
• Lu Mingfei refused to sign Cassell's document until he could visit Hakone, and Nono pressed him about the girl he was seeking.
• At Narita Airport, Lu Mingfei recognized the ordinary city around him but remembered Tokyo as a fortified battlefield from another world.
• Lu Mingfei and Nono drove toward Hakone, where he identified Lake Ashi as the location of Tokyo-3 and NERV headquarters.
• Lu Mingfei stopped at a Lake Ashi overlook, and Nono sensed that he feared finding nothing there.

Lu Mingfei searched Lake Ashi for signs of NERV’s underground city, then relived the trauma of Unit-03’s destruction and his confinement under the DSS collar. After Nono brought him back to the present, he tested the abnormal power in his body and walked onto the lake’s surface.

• Lu Mingfei sneaked into the mountains at night and found no signs of the underground city or its launch shaft at Lake Ashi.
• Lu Mingfei remembered the pain of Unit-03’s destruction, Gendo Ikari ordering a DSS collar kept around his neck, and Asuka urging him not to give up.
• Nono found Lu Mingfei on the lakeshore and forced him to look at her, but he realized she was not Asuka and that the world he remembered was gone.
• Lu Mingfei tried to recall synchronizing with Unit-03 and said, “Deploy.”
• A golden hexagonal screen appeared beneath Lu Mingfei’s foot, allowing him to stand on Lake Ashi’s surface.

Nono profiled Lu Mingfei and witnessed his memories of the apocalypse and the red-haired girl he held as the world ended. After waking beside him, she urged him to stop searching and promised to support him.

• Nono realized Lu Mingfei was testing the lake's depth, and his despair caused golden hexagonal screens to spread across the water.
• Nono's profiling showed her the ruined world, where white dragons devoured a red dragon and raised a purple dragon into the sky as the world dissolved into blood.
• Nono saw Lu Mingfei holding a red-haired girl in the ruins before the psychic backlash made her collapse and lose consciousness.
• Nono woke in a room with Lu Mingfei nearby and hugged him from behind, telling him to let go of what he was searching for and live well.
• Nono promised Lu Mingfei that she would have his back from then on.

After Lu Mingfei suffered a severe nosebleed and relived memories of drowning and an explosive collar, Nono comforted him until he fell unconscious. Watching over him, she pieced together the connection between the dragons and humans in his memories and wondered who Lu Mingfei really was.

• Nono rushed to stop Lu Mingfei’s nosebleed, then dragged him onto the futon and tried to reassure him as he muttered about drowning and a bomb.
• Lu Mingfei relaxed and fell unconscious after Nono told him he was safe, and she stayed beside him to clean the blood from his face.
• Nono recalled the ruined city and the red-haired girl in Lu Mingfei’s memories, and recognized a twin-like connection between the girl and the dead red dragon.
• Nono remembered the black dragon standing behind Lu Mingfei and realized their bond mirrored the red dragon and the girl’s connection.
• Nono concluded that Lu Mingfei and the dragons had resisted the Black King Nidhogg and lost, then remembered Lu Mingfei kneeling on Lake Ashi and questioned who he really was.

Chu Zihang saw a forum post about Lu Mingfei and Nono’s trip to Japan, while the Eight Families of Sheqi reviewed footage of Lu Mingfei walking across Lake Ashi on a golden screen. The families decided not to respond while he was only investigating, leaving the nature of his search—and Erii’s condition—unresolved.

• Chu Zihang read a gossip thread about Lu Mingfei and Nono’s trip to Hakone and recognized Lu Mingfei in an airport photo.
• Gen Chisei joined a meeting of the Eight Families of Sheqi, where Tachibana Masamune revealed that the college’s S-rank student had arrived in Japan.
• Fuma Kotaro presented a report that Lu Mingfei had deliberately searched Hakone’s geological strata for an underground structure.
• The families watched footage of Lu Mingfei spreading a golden hexagonal screen across Lake Ashi, suffering pain, and being helped by Nono.
• Miyamoto Shio said the phenomenon matched no known Word Spirit, and Gen Chisei suggested Lu Mingfei had entered Spirit Vision.
• Tachibana Masamune ordered the families not to act while Lu Mingfei was only searching, then told Gen Chisei that Erii’s condition was unchanged.

Nono took Lu Mingfei sightseeing and encouraged him to reconnect with the peaceful world around him. After he told her about losing everyone in his former world, she reassured him that they might be living ordinary lives elsewhere, and he agreed to join Cassell College.

• Nono woke Lu Mingfei and took him to Ōwakudani, where she fed him a black egg.
• Nono and Lu Mingfei cruised Lake Ashi, where Lu Mingfei remembered Asuka, Shinji, and Ayanami and began to enjoy the scenery.
• Nono persuaded Lu Mingfei to soak in the inn's hot spring, where he remembered his former companions and admitted he was enjoying life.
• Lu Mingfei told Nono that everyone he knew had died in a world that seemed to have vanished, and she suggested they might be living safely in another world.
• Lu Mingfei asked about the food at Cassell College and agreed to enroll after Nono promised all-you-can-eat German pork knuckles.

At the Chicago station, Lu Mingfei met Cassell senior Fingel before boarding the school train with Nono. After learning about dragons and Cassell’s war against them, Lu Mingfei accepted enrollment because the conflict had not yet spread to cities.

• Lu Mingfei gave a military ration to Fingel, who introduced himself as an eighth-year Cassell senior, and Nono warned him not to scam the freshman.
• Lu Mingfei recalled being forced to pilot Unit-03 and learning from Lu Mingze that they were powerful figures in their world, despite being treated as lab rats in this one.
• Lu Mingfei, Nono, and Fingel boarded the CC1000 school train, where Guderian greeted Lu Mingfei and presented an enrollment agreement.
• Lu Mingfei recognized the dragon in Guderian’s painting as Nidhogg without experiencing the expected visions or awakening.
• Lu Mingfei asked about dragon attacks, battlefields, and casualties; after Guderian said the fighting remained limited to remote areas, Lu Mingfei accepted the situation and joined Cassell.

Lu Mingfei watched Cassell College’s Day of Freedom turn into a staged duel between Caesar and Chu Zihang, then walked toward them in a sudden fury. Nono was tranquilized by Susie before she could intervene, leaving Lu Mingfei’s next move unseen.

• Nono left Fingel to escort Lu Mingfei to his room, but the Day of Freedom began with students firing tranquilizer rounds across the campus square.
• A tranquilizer round flew toward Lu Mingfei, and a hexagonal barrier appeared to stop it; Fingel mistook it for the Realm of Dust.
• Caesar and Chu Zihang fought with guns and blades while Fingel narrated, and Lu Mingfei dismissed their duel as a genteel game.
• Lu Mingfei recalled the brutal battles he had known and grew angry at the peaceful young elites playing at war.
• Lu Mingfei walked toward Caesar and Chu Zihang as Nono tracked him from the clock tower and Susie shot her with a tranquilizer round.
• Nono collapsed before she could stop Lu Mingfei, who had reached the flower bed as Caesar and Chu Zihang noticed him.

Lu Mingfei arrived at Cassell College and condemned its students’ mock battles and lax discipline after demonstrating overwhelming repulsive force against Caesar and Chu Zihang. Principal Angers welcomed him but privately called him a potential tyrant, while the college prepared to investigate the underwater city at Kui Gate.

• Lu Mingfei interrupted Caesar and Chu Zihang’s duel, learned that the vice principal’s Discipline suppressed Word Spirits across campus, and dismissed their sword fight as a childish game.
• When Caesar and Chu Zihang challenged him, Lu Mingfei unleashed a powerful repulsive force that knocked them down and cleared the ground around him.
• After an Angel invasion, Lu Mingfei helped NERV’s logistics crew clean blood from a damaged shelter corridor.
• Professor Manstein confronted Lu Mingfei during Cassell’s Day of Freedom, and Caesar and Chu Zihang offered to pay for the damage before Principal Angers dismissed the charges to the Board of Trustees Fund.
• Lu Mingfei told Angers that Cassell was a disappointing theme park and called its teaching system irresponsible; Angers replied that the college’s blade would not disappoint when it drew blood.
• Aboard a ship, Angers told Mance Rondstadt that Lu Mingfei represented a third answer to the dragon threat: a tyrant, while Mance warned that the Kui Gate Project and its dive would begin in a week.