We chase the brightest star, only to find, when we reach it, that the stars filling the sky have long since shattered behind us.
At a top high school in a small southern city, Yukun, president of the astronomy club, meets Xiyue, the physics class representative, on the sports field at the winter solstice. She believes stars are wounds in the universe; he is devoted to calculating the path of every ray of light. As the pressure of the college entrance exams falls over the school and the astronomy club is forced to disband, Xiyue hides a star chart in the abandoned observatory. In fluorescent ink, she marks a secret message only the two of them understand: “Skip class to watch the meteor shower. We need the third cosmic velocity.”
As the two secretly explore the wilderness behind the hill, Yukun gradually discovers Xiyue's secret. While everyone else fixes their eyes on the “brightest star,” the college entrance exams, Yukun writes in his notebook: “If the universe is infinite, why does darkness still exist? Perhaps some light is destined to travel a long way before it can be seen.”
