Earthling Shi Lei finds a badly injured "little fluffball" beneath an old osmanthus tree: Xiao Ruan, a starborn girl from her home planet. Blood stains the tip of her tail, but she gazes at him with damp eyes and softly says, "Don't be afraid. My name is Xiao Ruan."
From then on, two figures walk the flagstone lanes of the Jiangnan waterways: one always standing on tiptoe to tie a bow for the other, while one crouches by the stove to cook starbud porridge and the other draws crooked osmanthus trees on letter paper with a stardust pen. Shi Lei teaches Xiao Ruan to recognize Earth's mugwort, while Xiao Ruan shows Shi Lei the starlight of her home planet. On Grain Rain night, they gather mugwort and weave it into rings, saving up "star gifts" for their unborn baby. When Xiao Ruan is pregnant, Shi Lei secretly learns to knit baby sweaters, with unspooled stardust still clinging to the yarn.
After they marry, Xiao Ruan becomes a "little mother" twice. The cries of Tuanbao and his younger brother, mingling with the soft chime of the star-net screen, become the sweetest song in their home. The home planet's star core hangs in the night sky like a blue sapphire, and the star-net connects the two worlds like the Milky Way. But the most precious "star-net" is hidden in the steam rising as they cook porridge, in their fingertips as they weave grass rings, and in their eyes as they watch their children smile.
This isn't some epic interstellar saga. It's two souls from different dimensions playing house together:
Someone asks, "How grand must love be?"
They answer, "I found you, you warmed me, and then together we simmered ordinary days into the sweetest stardust in the universe."
