The day after deciding to buy Cheng Xin a star, Yun Tianming contacts the Stars Our Destination Project and asks Hu Wen for Cheng Xin’s identifying information while insisting his own identity remain secret. Hu Wen quietly helps, though he says no one knows where Cheng Xin went after leaving the Academy of Spaceflight Technology and provides two addresses, one in Shanghai and one in New York.

Tianming leaves the hospital and visits UNESCO’s Beijing office, where the director is delighted because he is the first Chinese individual interested in buying a star. Dr. He, an astronomer from the Beijing Observatory, explains that Tianming’s money cannot buy a nearby star with planets, but because of Tianming’s symbolic value to the project, they have lowered the price of one bare, distant star to match his offer. Tianming accepts DX3906, a faint naked-eye star 286.5 light-years away, and has its title registered to Cheng Xin.

After the paperwork and small celebration, Dr. He takes Tianming into the suburbs so Tianming can see the star. With Dr. He’s guidance, Tianming finally finds DX3906, a dim dark-red point in the sky. Tianming admits he is about to die, and Dr. He says Tianming is still blessed because most people never look beyond the world before death. Tianming reflects that by the time Cheng Xin sees the star, he will be gone, but hopes she may remember that one star belongs to her.

The next day is Tianming’s scheduled euthanasia. He tells no family members, writes no note, and enters the plain euthanasia room calmly. As the automatic system asks for confirmation, Tianming reviews his life: his lonely childhood shaped by elitist parents, his isolation after their divorce, his college years brightened by Cheng Xin’s kindness, and his later failures in work and relationships. He remembers a failed trip to Shanghai after his cancer diagnosis, when he waited outside the Academy of Spaceflight Technology hoping to see Cheng Xin but never did.

Tianming gives the final confirmation, imagining an epitaph: He came; he loved; he gave her a star; he left. Before the drugs enter his body, the director, hospital executive, and nurse burst in and stop the injector. Cheng Xin appears at the doorway, then embraces Tianming in tears. Tianming assumes she has only come to dissuade him from euthanasia, but she reveals something shocking: the euthanasia law was passed specifically for him.