Cheng Xin enters the Deterrence Center with the PDC chair and the fleet chief of staff. The hall is stark, white, and empty except for Luo Ji, who sits cross-legged before the curved wall holding the red switch that controls the gravitational wave broadcast. In the final ten minutes before the handover, Luo Ji remains motionless, embodying the system’s long balance of terror.

The narration recounts Luo Ji’s fifty-four years as Swordholder. After a brief reunion with Zhuang Yan and Xia Xia, his family left him, possibly because he had become a terrifying figure who had destroyed one world and held two others hostage. Luo Ji then lived as a deterrence machine, silently staring across four light-years at Trisolaris, ready at every moment to trigger mutual exposure.

When the handover time arrives, Luo Ji rises without assistance and pays silent respect to the wall, and by implication to the enemy he has faced for half a century. Luo Ji and Cheng Xin meet eyes briefly; Cheng Xin senses an unfathomable depth and severity in him. Luo Ji then gives Cheng Xin the red switch with both hands, transferring the fate of Earth and Trisolaris from a 101-year-old man to a 29-year-old woman.

Luo Ji leaves without receiving thanks. In the lobby, prosecutors announce that Luo Ji is accused of suspected mundicide and is under arrest, but Luo Ji ignores them and continues toward the elevator. Cheng Xin hears the accusation and wants to thank him, but she does not act before he disappears.

After the others leave and the steel door closes, Cheng Xin feels her old life end and a new identity begin. Holding the switch, she understands that the device is now inseparable from her and that the silent hall will be her world. Cheng Xin resolves not to become like Luo Ji, but the chapter closes by revealing that her Swordholder career will last only fifteen minutes.