In the old district of Jiangcheng, Lu Chen is an engineer responsible for the digital restoration of ancient buildings. After an autumn rain, he meets Shen Xingci, a star-chart algorithm engineer who has retreated to the old town.
One restores the past, the other calculates the future. One guards the old bricks and tiles, the other gazes into the boundless starry sky. Reunited through an old acquaintance, they fall for each other through understanding. Amid interlocking joinery and crossing stellar paths, they tuck their most restrained affection into the precision of their work.
But reality has no gentle algorithm.
His mother's Alzheimer's, the call of the space program, his grandmother's death, the rift between class and duty, and the crushing weight of public opinion online gradually push them off course.
In the end, he grows old keeping watch over the old clock tower, never marrying;
she leaves for another land to heal, never marrying either.
When they meet again, their hair is white and the Milky Way remains unchanged. They love, understand, and yearn for each other, but can only gaze from afar, never stay together; cherish one another, but never share a life.
This is a love story of exquisite anguish, crushed by reality.
No melodramatic misunderstandings, no mindless entanglements,
only the fate-born regret of what could have been, but could not be.
The sea of embers stretches without end, yet my love for you burns on, never to be extinguished.
