The sunset falls.
The warm orange light shines on the two former presidents of Rhein University, as if draping them with a floating dress, dancing with the evening breeze.
Gao Yang grins, snuffs out the cigarette butt, lifts the hafnium alloy trash can VV's lid, and tosses the cigarette butt inside.
Then he exhales a cloud of white smoke and softly says:
"Do you miss them?"
"Of course I do."
Lin Xian stands motionless:
"Initially, during the first few days after waking up from the hibernation pod, I barely thought of them because... in my subconscious mind, I had just left their side yesterday, so there was no real sense of separation."
"But now it's different; as the days pass, this sense of separation grows more tangible."
He purses his lips and recites the story discussed with VV in front of the statue at Sky City in the Third Dreamland:
"Lives do not meet, like stars moving apart; tonight what night is it, sharing this candle light."
Lives do not meet.
