Captain, your ship has exploded again.

If the Warhammer world is fair despair, then the EVA world is fair madness.

Whether it's researchers or high-ranking government officials, they're either halfway to madness or already in a state of madness.

As for the ordinary people there, the glimmer of humanity they displayed was merely a way of finding joy amidst suffering, because their existence was so insignificant.

The EVA pilots, who represent humanity's struggle, are a group of problem children who, covered in excrement, are pushed into those pale insertion plugs by adults.

What 'ATFIELD' mental barrier? If we're talking about the strongest sense of isolation from the world, wouldn't the 'oxen and horses' that work year-round be even more effective?

Zhang Xun's inner complaints did not translate into Asuka's world, but when Zhang Xun squatted down, he saw a scene that displeased him.

A doll hangs in front of Asuka, who is curled up hugging a monkey doll.

"Tsk, sometimes I really hate the mentality of the Japanese."

Zhang Xun tugged at the doll's string, but the thin string connecting it to the clouds was surprisingly strong.

Zhang Xun bit the thin thread with his teeth and found that his soul alone could not shake this thing.

"Seriously, did I owe the whole world something in my past life?"

The limited divine power was drawn out through mental energy, and the pale golden light seemed so out of place in the black and white world.

Illuminated by the divine light, Asuka raised her head slightly.

Zhang Xun pinched hard with his fingers, and the doll fell off the thin string.

Zhang Xun looked at Asuka, who was gazing at him, and couldn't help but mutter to himself.

'I didn't ask at the time whether they were from the theatrical universe or a fusion of the original universe, but since they have the Wunder battleship, it's probably from the theatrical version. Hopefully, it's not like the Hypervariant universe again.'

"Wer ist es?"

"Who is this?"

Upon hearing the two languages, Zhang Xun felt his mind instantly explode.

Clearly, this Asuka is another case of overlapping identities. Who knows what Saito Yujun (explained in Chapter 227) did to the EVA world that caused Asuka to experience this mental overlap phenomenon?

Zhang Xun used his remaining divine power to cut the thread around the doll's neck and said, "Ahem, you can call me a life mentor, a comforter, or a captain."

"..."

Asuka seemed not to hear anything, simply looking at Zhang Xun, her deep blue eyes revealing nothing of her thoughts.

"Hey, you stubborn little brat, are you crying for your mom?"

"Bad guy! I'm strong and brave. I don't need anyone else. I can manage on my own! I can definitely survive."

Asuka's eyes welled up with tears from Zhang Xun's anger, and she was no longer in her previous listless state.

For people who are lost in their own world, ordinary communication will not elicit any response. Only by taking a strong stimuli can you get any feedback from them; otherwise, they will not respond at all.

Apart from the three special personnel (Mari Makinami, Rei Ayanami, and Kaworu Nagisa), the other EVA pilots are all the type who lack love and have no mothers.

Using Asuka's mother to provoke her was a last resort for Zhang Xun, since the Soul Tree had connected the two of them.

Zhang Xun could actually break through this world directly, but if he did that, Asuka would at best become a vegetable, and at worst lose her life.

As the team leader, Zhang Xun would never risk his teammates' lives, so he could only try to wake Asuka up and have her take him away.

"Okay, okay, our little hero is very strong and brave. Would you like a lollipop?"

Zhang Xun used his mental power to create a lollipop, an act that was essentially equivalent to tearing his own soul apart, except that it wouldn't cause permanent damage, though the pain was just as intense.

Because the lollipops are made using Zhang Xun's concentrated spiritual power, they appear colorful and very attractive to children in this black and white world.

The moment the lollipop appeared, Asuka's eyes were glued to it. Not to mention the colors, the intense spiritual energy emanating from it alone made her drool.

However, Asuka turned her head away defiantly and said, "I'm an adult, I'm not a child at all, and I should stay away from creepy uncles!"

Looking at the seemingly tough Asuka, Zhang Xun burst out laughing.

As one of the originators of the tsundere archetype, Asuka seems very tough, but her narrowed eyes are always fixed on the lollipop.

"Okay, okay, I'm the weird uncle, and the weird uncle's candy is poisoned!"

Then, right in front of Asuka, Zhang Xun put a lollipop in his mouth.

This action immediately made Asuka turn her head.

"you..."

When Zhang Xun saw the other person turn around, he quickly stuffed the lollipop in his mouth into the other person's mouth (he didn't use force because this was the other person's world and he couldn't do anything to them; if he used too much force, he would hurt Asuka).

Asuka, who initially wanted to spit out the lollipop out of disgust, immediately started eating it with her eyes lit up after tasting it.

Since Zhang Xun voluntarily gave up the lollipop's spiritual power, Asuka, apart from absorbing it a little slowly, did not experience any rejection.

But as the other person swallows the dissolved sugar from the lollipop, Zhang Xun, from a third-person perspective, experiences the tragic life of Asuka Koko.

Although the concept of time in the mental world is vague, Zhang Xun felt as if a long time had passed, but in reality it was only a moment. He rubbed his aching forehead. To be honest, he harbored a great deal of resentment towards the author of EVA. He really didn't know what kind of mentality that guy had that made the pilots of EVA suffer so much.

After calming down, Zhang Xun looked at Asuka and said, "Hey, kid, since you ate my lollipop, shouldn't you tell me your name?"

Zhang Xun certainly knew Asuka's full name, but in the spiritual world, if he suddenly revealed her name, it could easily cause him to fall into her deeper spiritual world. After all, Asuka didn't know Zhang Xun when she was a child, and he wasn't confident that he could find Asuka in the deeper world.

"Soryu Asuka Langley, you can call me Asuka."

Zhang Xun noticed that Asuka's body had regained some color. Whether it was due to his spiritual power or something else, it seemed that once she fully regained her color, he should be able to leave this world.

"Really! Asuka, my name is Zhang Xun, and I'm Chinese. You've been looking at this doll for a while now, so it should be yours, right?"

"...No, it's mine!"

Asuka's punctuation is strange, conveying a sense of wanting something yet not wanting it.

Zhang Xun understood why, of course, because the doll represented both her mother and herself.

The death of Asuka's mother was mentioned in the older version.

As one of the participants in the development of EVA Unit-02, he partially merged with Unit-02 due to an accident, which caused him to become mentally unstable and no longer recognize Asuka, but instead recognize a doll as his daughter.

Of course, Kyoko (Asuka's mother) didn't have a good ending. Before Asuka told her that she was going to become the pilot of Unit 2, she hanged herself at home (tsk, Japanese people are so fragile). And little Asuka happened to see her mother's corpse, which was quite a shock.

The doll in Zhang Xun's hand is the one that Kyoko used as her daughter, which basically represents the twisted conflict in Asuka's heart.

Seeing that Asuka was no longer paying attention to him, and that apart from the initial increase in color, the conversation had not caused any increase in the color on her body.

He then tried to touch her head, and seeing that Asuka didn't object, he tentatively asked, "Asuka, where are your parents? Why are you all alone here?"

Asuka, who was happily eating a lollipop, gradually had her composure replaced by snot and tears when she heard Zhang Xun's question.

"Waaah... Mommy! Daddy, they don't want me anymore, Mommy doesn't recognize me... Waaah, Daddy doesn't want me either... Waaah!"

Zhang Xun hadn't expected Asuka to cry like this. The doll he had handed over was suddenly snatched away by Asuka.

She first hugged the monkey doll, holding both dolls tightly with both hands, as if she was about to embrace something. Then, Asuka threw away the monkey doll, forcefully tore off the head of the girl doll, and then looked up and cried loudly.

Although Asuka cried very hard, Zhang Xun couldn't feel sad at all.

Who made Asuka cry while sucking on a lollipop, and occasionally swallow the melted sugar water while sobbing?

That scene was exactly like a crying, fussy, greedy cat.

However, this time the stimulation effect was very obvious. The colors that had been stagnant before increased significantly. It seems that Asuka's intense emotional fluctuations are very helpful for her return.

Seeing that the color had stopped increasing, Zhang Xun rolled his eyes and decided to give her something even more intense.

"Asuka, since your mom and dad don't want you anymore, how about I become your dad?"

Zhang Xun's voice clearly reached Asuka's ears (due to enhanced mental strength), which caused the previously crying Asuka to suddenly quiet down.

Her blue eyes looked at Zhang Xun with disbelief. Although she was just a child, this Asuka had all the memories of that universe.

In her opinion, even when her father remarried, his stepmother was not as shameless as Zhang Xun was now. If he were on the street, he would definitely be handcuffed.

No good person would ask someone to acknowledge them as their father after only a few meetings.

"Why are you looking at me like that? In your current state, you can't possibly acknowledge me as your older brother. If you were to become my uncle, wouldn't I be at a huge disadvantage?"

Then Zhang Xun whispered, "After all, you eat my food and use my things, so calling me godfather isn't excessive at all."

As for why it wasn't called by another name, Zhang Xun said it had nothing to do with Natal.

He saw that Asuka's cheeks were puffed up and she was staring at him fiercely, as if she was about to bite him at any moment.

Upon realizing something was wrong, Zhang Xun immediately used his mental energy to make a lollipop, but Asuka bit his wrist without hesitation.

"Ouch! Ouch! Be gentle, or you'll break your tooth!"

Although this world belonged to Asuka, she was so angry that she wanted to bite Zhang Xun to death that she bit him with considerable force, leaving a clear bite mark on Zhang Xun's wrist. However, the immense compressed mental energy emanating from Zhang Xun's body was not to be underestimated. If she continued to bite so hard, Asuka's teeth would all be shattered.

Although it's unknown whether the broken tooth in the mental world will affect the real world, Zhang Xun's chances of leaving easily are truly slim.

"Stop biting me, I'm sorry, I'll give you another lollipop!"

As he spoke, Zhang Xun took out the lollipops he had just made.

When Asuka saw the new lollipop, her previously fierce eyes suddenly sparkled as she looked at the other lollipop.

However, Zhang Xun mischievously held the lollipop very far away, so Asuka couldn't reach it at all when she tried to grab it.

After a few attempts, Asuka puffed out her cheeks and climbed off Zhang Xun's wrist. She then ran to the new lollipop and snatched it from Zhang Xun's hand.

Zhang Xun rubbed his wrist, which was marked with obvious teeth marks, and looked at Asuka, whose body was almost half colored, with a sigh.

He placed his hand on Asuka's head and said, "Tsk, really, it took so much effort to get almost half the color. Asuka, Asuka, how much resentment do you have! When will I be able to leave this place!"

As they were talking, Asuka's body was half-covered in color, and then, in the blink of an eye, Asuka's entire body was covered in color.

"...Uncle...do you want to leave here?"

Although he didn't know what was going on, Zhang Xun still bent down and patted the other person's head, saying, "Of course, Uncle has things to do. I'll come back to see how Asuka is doing after I'm done."

For some reason, Asuka's face suddenly turned red. Zhang Xun looked at her with some confusion. If it was because he was leaving, shouldn't her eyes be red? Could it be that Asuka's face turns red when she feels wronged?

Previously, Asuka's face was always black and white, and Zhang Xun couldn't tell her expression. How could he know whether Asuka's eyes were red or her face was red when she was aggrieved? (Why did I involuntarily think of the black sergeant in Alien Universe?)

"There, you can leave by going through that door."

Following the direction Asuka pointed, there was a dark room door. If it weren't for a sliver of light shining through the crack, Zhang Xun wouldn't have been able to tell at all what the person had to do with the door.

He ruffled Asuka's hair, then got up and walked towards the door in the distance.

As Zhang Xun drew closer to the exit door, Asuka's hands involuntarily tightened around her skirt.

Just as Zhang Xun was about to leave, and Asuka was making up her mind about what to do, Zhang Xun suddenly turned around and said.

"Hey, Asuka, you've eaten so much of my food (lollipops and other necessities), can you call me 'Daddy'?"

Just as Asuka was surprised, Zhang Xun suddenly leaned back and entered the room.

Seeing Zhang Xun leave, Asuka took out the second lollipop she hadn't had time to eat, carefully kept it close to her body, and then turned and skipped away.

As Asuka walks along, her black and white world is gradually filled with color.

After leaving Asuka's mental world and returning to his own mind, Zhang Xun felt lightheaded for a moment, and his eyelids felt heavy. But as soon as he moved his neck, he felt much better.

"Are you cosplaying as an earthworm? But there aren't any fish here!"

Asuka's voice came from above Zhang Xun, and Asuka's face was rosy and her spirits were high.

"Uh, I just fainted? Do you feel any discomfort?"

Before Asuka could answer, Misato Katsuragi's impatient voice came through the communicator.

"What are you two doing! The order was given three seconds ago. This is a battle, not a romantic chat!"

It seems that someone has answered his question. Zhang Xun was a little confused but didn't take it to heart. After all, the 'mental barrier' of EVA pilots often isolates things and seals away deep memories. It's not impossible that even if there is a disturbance, it won't be noticed.

Asuka picked up Zhang Xun's head with both hands and fixed him back to the driver's seat.

"Release the domain, Unit 2, launch!"

As the escort ship carrying Unit 2 departed the Death Star, no one noticed that the pilot of Unit 2 licked his lips as he looked at Zhang Xun's bald head, and then seemed to silently say something by moving his lips up and down.