The night she restored a Qing-dynasty butterfly hairpin, Shen Xingmian saw Pei Yuhuai's shadow in the phosphorescent glow. He had once turned a dying blue butterfly into a specimen, saying that low temperatures could freeze every flutter of the heart. Years later, at the finals of an AI robotics competition, his creation, titled "Butterfly Kiss, Moonlight," took first place. Butterfly powder drifted from its movements like a galaxy, but then he set a ring into the artifact stand she had restored. "Specimens belong sealed away at -18°C, but spring shouldn't freeze."
Later, she came across a Warring States butterfly lantern he had donated at the Palace Museum. Nine hundred and ninety-nine silver butterflies spun around, projecting a star map. Only one spot was empty, the place for the butterfly whose wingtips were stained with moonlight. He became a rising star in technology, while she kept watch over the artifact storerooms. In its glass display case, the lantern, forever missing one butterfly, shone over a dawn-and-dusk line that would never meet.
