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This wasn't surprising. He tried to remember what was happening four hundred years ago: China was under the Ming Dynasty, and he thought -- he wasn't sure -- that Nurhaci had just founded the empire that would end up replacing the Ming, after slaughtering millions. The Dark Ages had just ended in the West; the steam engine wouldn't make its appearance for another hundred-plus years; and, as for electricity, one would have to wait three hundred years. If anyone at the time had worried about life four hundred years later, they'd be a laughingstock. It was as ridiculous to worry about the future as to lament the past.

Tianming read the newspaper and came to the following conclusion: Compared to the time before he was hospitalized, news about Trisolaris and the Earth-Trisolaris Organization (ETO) no longer dominated everything. There were at least some articles that had nothing to do with the crisis. Humanity's tendency to focus on the here and now reasserted itself, and concern for events that would not take place for four centuries gave way to thoughts about life in the present.

After Dr. Zhang's regular checkup on Yun Tianming, he left a newspaper with him, saying that since Tianming had been in the hospital for so long, he should be aware of what was happening in the world. There was a TV in Tianming's room, so he was puzzled, wondering if perhaps the doctor had something else in mind.

A fit of coughing forced him to put down the newspaper and try to get some sleep.

Why did Dr. Zhang want me to see this news?

As for Tianming himself, based on the way his condition was developing, he wouldn't even need to worry about next year.

The next day, the TV also showed some interviews and reports about the euthanasia law, but there didn't seem to be a lot of public interest.

But one item of news attracted his attention. It was on the front page: The Special Session of the Third Standing Committee of the National People's Congress Passes Euthanasia Law. Tianming was confused. The special legislative session had been called to deal with the Trisolar Crisis, but this law seemed to have nothing to do with the crisis.

Tianming had trouble sleeping that night: He coughed; he struggled to breathe; he felt weak and nauseous from the chemo. The patient who had the bed next to his sat on the edge of Tianming's bed and held the oxygen tube for him. His surname was Li, and everyone called him "Lao Li," Old Li. Lao Li looked around to be sure that the other two patients who shared the room with them were asleep, and then said, "Tianming, I'm going to leave early."

"No. It's that law."

"That is exactly why I've decided to do this. If this drags out much longer, they'd have to sell their houses. What for? In the end, there's no cure. I have to be responsible for my children and their children."

Lao Li sighed, lightly patted Tianming's arm, and returned to his own bed.

"You've been discharged?"

Staring at the shadows cast against the window curtain by swaying trees, Tianming gradually fell asleep. For the first time since his illness, he had a peaceful dream.

When Tianming awoke in the morning, he was baffled by how, in his dream, he was so certain that there, it would always be drizzling, the surface would always be smooth, and the sky always a misty, dark gray.

Tianming sat up. "But why? Your children are so solicitous and caring --"

He sat on a small origami boat drifting over placid water, oarless. The sky was a misty, dark gray. There was a cool drizzle, but the rain apparently did not reach the surface of the water, which remained as smooth as a mirror. The water, also gray, merged with the sky in every direction. There was no horizon, no shore…

The hospital was about to conduct the procedure Lao Li had asked for.

It took a great deal of internal discussion before the news outlets settled on the verb "to conduct." "To execute" was clearly inappropriate; "to carry out" sounded wrong as well; "to complete" seemed to suggest that death was already certain, which was not exactly accurate, either.

Dr. Zhang asked Tianming whether he felt strong enough to attend Lao Li's euthanasia ceremony. The doctor hurried to add that since this was the first instance of euthanasia in the city, it would be better to have representatives from various interest groups present, including someone representing other patients. No other meaning was intended.

Afterwards, he suddenly realized that Dr. Zhang's face and name seemed familiar -- did he know the doctor before his hospitalization?-- he couldn't recall exactly how. The fact that he hadn't had this feeling of recognition earlier was because their interactions had been limited to discussions of his condition and treatment. The way a doctor acted and spoke while performing his job was different from when he spoke as just another person.

But Tianming couldn't help feeling that the request did contain some hidden message. Still, since Dr. Zhang had always taken good care of him, he agreed.

None of Lao Li's family members were present for the procedure. He had kept his decision from them and requested that the city's Civil Affairs Bureau -- not the hospital -- inform his family after the procedure was complete. The new law permitted him to conduct his affairs in this manner.

Many reporters showed up, but most were kept away from the scene. The euthanasia room was adapted from a room in the hospital's emergency department. A one-way mirror made up one of the walls so that observers could see what was happening inside the room, but the patient would not be able to see them.

Whoever was responsible for decorating this room had made quite an effort: There were new, pretty curtains on the windows, fresh flowers in vases, and numerous pink paper hearts on the walls. But their well-intentioned attempt to humanize the situation had achieved the exact opposite: The frightful pall cast by death was mixed with an eerie cheerfulness, as though they were trying to turn a tomb into a nuptial chamber.

Tianming pushed his way through the crowd of observers until he was standing in front of the one-way glass window. As soon as he saw the interior of the euthanasia room, Tianming was seized by a wave of fear and disgust. He wanted to throw up.

Lao Li was lying on the bed in the middle of the room, and he appeared to be at peace. Tianming realized that they had never properly said good-bye, and his heart grew heavy. Two notaries were inside, finishing up the legal part of the procedure. After Lao Li signed the documents, the notaries came out. Another man went inside to explain the specific steps of the procedure to Lao Li. The man was dressed in a white coat, though it was unclear whether he was really a doctor. The man first pointed to the large screen at the foot of the bed and asked Lao Li whether he could read everything on it. Lao Li nodded. Then the man asked Lao Li to try to use the mouse next to the bed to click the buttons on the screen, and explained that if he found the operation too difficult, other input methods were available. Lao Li tried the mouse and indicated that it worked fine.

Tianming recalled that Lao Li had once told him that he had never used a computer. When he needed cash, he had to go queue up at the counter at the bank. This must be the first time in Lao Li's life that he used a mouse.

The man in the white coat then told Lao Li that a question was going to be displayed on the screen, and the same question would be asked five times. Each time the question was displayed, there would be six buttons underneath, numbered from zero to five. If Lao Li wished to answer in the affirmative, he had to click on the specific numbered button indicated in the on-screen instructions, which would change randomly each time the question was asked. If Lao Li wished to answer in the negative, he just had to press zero, and the procedure would stop immediately. There would be no "Yes" or "No' button. The reason for the complicated procedure, the man explained, was to avoid a situation where the patient simply continued to press the same button over and over without thinking about his answers each time.

A nurse went inside and secured a needle into Lao Li's left arm. The tube behind the needle was connected to an automatic injector about the size of a notebook computer. The man in the white coat took out a sealed package, unwrapped layers of protective film, and revealed a small glass vial filled with a yellowish liquid.

Carefully, he filled the injector with the contents of the vial, and left with the nurse.

Do you wish to terminate your life? For yes, select 3. For no, select 0.

Only Lao Li was left in the room.

The process repeated twice more. And then:

The screen displayed the question, and a soft, gentle female voice read it aloud:

Do you wish to terminate your life? This is your last prompt. For yes, select 4. For no, select 0.

Lao Li selected 5.

Noiselessly, the injector came to life. Tianming could see the column of yellowish liquid in the glass tube shorten and then disappear. Lao Li never moved. He closed his eyes and went to sleep.

But Lao Li selected 4.

A surge of sorrow made Tianming dizzy, and he almost fainted. Even when his mother died, he didn't feel such extreme pain and anger. He wanted to scream at Lao Li to select 0, to break the glass window, to suffocate that voice.

The crowd around Tianming dissipated, but he remained where he was, his hand pressed against the glass. He wasn't looking at the lifeless body lying within. His eyes were open, but he wasn't looking at all.

Lao Li selected 3.

Do you wish to terminate your life? For yes, select 5. For no, select 0.

After a while, Dr. Zhang's hand left Tianming's shoulder, and Tianming heard his departing footsteps. Tianming never turned around.

"There was no pain." Dr. Zhang's voice was so low that it sounded like the buzzing of a mosquito. Tianming felt a hand land on his left shoulder. "It's a combination of a massive dose of barbitone, muscle relaxant, and potassium chloride. The barbitone takes effect first and puts the patient into a deep sleep, the muscle relaxant stops his breathing, and the potassium chloride stops the heart. The whole process takes no more than twenty, thirty seconds."

He suddenly remembered how he knew the doctor. "Doctor," Tianming called out softly. The footsteps stopped. Tianming still didn't turn around. "You know my sister, don't you?"

Mechanically, Tianming left the main building of the hospital. Everything was clear now. Dr. Zhang was working for his sister; his sister wanted him dead. No, wanted him to "conduct the procedure."

The reply came after a long pause. "Yes. We were high school classmates. When you were little, I remember seeing you a couple of times."

Although Tianming often recalled the happy childhood he had shared with his sister, they had grown apart as they grew up. There was no overt conflict between them, and neither had hurt the other. But they had come to see each other as completely different kinds of people, and each felt that the other held them in contempt.

Tianming, on the other hand, was a loner. In career and personal life, he wasn't any more successful than his sister. He had always lived by himself in dormitories that belonged to his employer, and left the responsibility for taking care of his frail father entirely to his sister.

His sister was shrewd but not smart, and she had married a man who was the same way. They were not successful in their careers, and even with grown children, the couple couldn't afford to buy a home. Since her husband's parents had no room for them, the family had ended up living with Tianming's father.

Tianming suddenly understood his sister's thinking. The medical insurance was insufficient to cover the expenses for his hospitalization, and the longer it went on, the bigger the bill grew. Their father had been paying for it out of his life savings, but he had never offered to use that same money to help Tianming's sister and her family to buy a house -- a clear case of favoritism. From his sister's point of view, their father was spending money that should be hers. Besides, the money was being wasted on treatments that could only prolong, but not cure, the illness. If Tianming chose euthanasia, his sister's inheritance would be preserved, and he would suffer less.

Someone was waiting for Tianming when he returned to his hospital room: Hu Wen, a college classmate.

He thought of "The Judgment" by Franz Kafka, in which a father curses his son and sentences him to death. The son agrees, as easily as someone agreeing to take out the trash or to shut the door, and leaves the house, runs through the streets onto the bridge, and leaps over the balustrade to his death. Later, Kafka told his biographer that as he wrote the scene, he was thinking of "a violent ejaculation."

All right. If you want me to die, I'll die.

Tianming now understood Kafka, the man with the bowler hat and briefcase, the man who walked silently through Prague's dim streets more than a hundred years ago, the man who was as alone as he was.

Wen was the closest thing to a friend from Tianming's college days, but what they had wasn't friendship, exactly. Wen was one of those people who got along with everyone and who knew everyone's name; but even for him, Tianming was in the most peripheral ring of his social network. They had had no contact since graduation.

The sky was filled with misty, gray clouds, just like in his dream. Looking up at this endless grayness, Tianming let out a long sigh.

Wen didn't bring a bouquet or anything similar; instead, he brought a cardboard box full of canned beverages.

If she hadn't taken the initiative, he doubted if he ever would have gotten the courage to speak to her for the rest of their four years in college. At the outing, he had sat by himself, staring at the broad expanse of the Miyun Reservoir outside Beijing. She had sat down next to him and begun talking.

Of course Tianming remembered. That was the first time Cheng Xin had ever sat next to him, had ever spoken to him.

While they talked, she tossed pebbles into the reservoir. Their conversation meandered over usual topics for classmates who were becoming acquainted for the first time, but Tianming could still recall every word. Later, Cheng Xin had made a little origami boat out of a sheet of paper and deposited it on the water. A breeze carried the boat away slowly until it turned into a tiny dot in the distance…

After a brief, awkward exchange of greetings, Wen asked a question that surprised Tianming. "Do you remember the outing back when we were first years? That first time we all went out as a group?"

With a start, he wondered if the world in his peaceful dream had been born from this memory.

That most lovely day of his time in college held a golden glow in his mind. In reality, the weather that day hadn't been ideal: There was a drizzle, and the surface of the reservoir was filled with ripples, and the pebbles they tossed felt wet in the hand. But from that day on, Tianming fell in love with drizzly days, fell in love with the smell of damp ground and wet pebbles, and from time to time he made origami boats and placed them on his nightstand.

Don't be too pleased with yourself. She's nice to everyone.

But Wen wanted to talk about what had happened later in the outing -- events that did not make much of an impression on Tianming. However, with prompts from Wen, Tianming managed to recall those faded memories.

A few of Cheng Xin's friends had come by and called her away. Wen then sat down next to Tianming.

Of course Tianming knew that. But then Wen saw the bottle of mineral water in Tianming's hand and the conversation shifted. What in the world are you drinking?!

The water in the bottle was a green color, and bits of grass and leaves floated in it.

He was in a good mood and so he was more loquacious than usual.

I crumpled some weeds and added them to the water. It's the most organic drink.

Someday I may start a company to produce this drink. It will surely be popular.

It must taste awful.

"Buddy, that conversation changed my life!" Wen said. He opened the cardboard box and took out a can. The outside was deep green, and on it was a picture of a grassland. The trademark was "Green Tempest."

Do you think cigarettes and liquor really taste that good? Even Coca-Cola probably tasted medicinal the first time you tried it. Anything addictive is like that.

Wen pulled the tab and handed the can to Tianming. Tianming took a sip: fragrant, herbal, with a trace of bitterness. He closed his eyes and was back at the shore of the drizzly reservoir, and Cheng Xin was next to him…

"This is a special version. The mass market recipe is sweeter," Wen said.

"Does it sell well?"

Tianming stared at Wen, not knowing what to say. Wen had graduated as an aerospace engineer, but now he had turned into a beverage entrepreneur. He was someone who did things, who got things done. Life belonged to people like that. But people like Tianming could only watch life pass them by, abandoned and left behind.

"Sells great! The main hurdle now is cost. You might think grass is cheap, but until I can scale up, it's more expensive than fruits or nuts. Also, to make it safe, the ingredients have to be detoxified and processed, a complicated procedure. The prospects are fantastic, though. Lots of investors are interested, and Huiyuan Juice wants to buy my company. Fuck them."

"But it's your idea. Without you, there would be no Green Tempest. If you agree, we'll just call it even, at least legally. But as a matter of our friendship, I'll always owe you."

"I owe you," Wen said. He handed three credit cards and a slip of paper to Tianming, looked around, leaned in, and whispered, "There's three million yuan in the account. The password is on the note."

"I never applied for a patent or anything like that," Tianming said.

Tianming said no more. For him, the sum was astronomical, but he wasn't excited. Money wasn't going to save him.

"You have to accept it. I know you need money."

Still, hope was a stubborn creature. After Hu Wen left, Tianming asked for a consultation with a doctor. He didn't want Dr. Zhang; instead, after much effort, he got the assistant director of the hospital, a famous oncologist. "If money were no issue, would there be a cure for me?"

"You don't owe me anything, legally or otherwise."

The old doctor brought up Tianming's case file on his computer, and after a while, he shook his head.

"The cancer has spread from your lungs throughout your body. Surgery is pointless; all you have are chemo and radiation, conservative techniques. Even with money…

The last bit of hope died in Tianming, and his heart was at peace. That afternoon, he filled out an application for euthanasia.

"Young man, remember the saying: A physician can only cure diseases meant to be cured; the Buddha can only save those meant to be saved."

He handed the application to his attending physician, Dr. Zhang. Zhang seemed to suffer some internal, moral conflict, and did not meet Tianming's gaze. He did say to Tianming that he might as well stop the chemo sessions; there was no point for him to continue to suffer.

The only matter that Tianming still had to take care of was deciding how to spend the money from Wen. The "right" thing to do would have been to give it to his father, and then let him distribute it to the rest of the family. But that was the same as handing the money to his sister, and Tianming didn't want to do that. He was already going to die, just as she wanted; he didn't feel he owed her any more.

He tried to see if he had any unfulfilled dreams. It would be nice to take a trip around the world on some luxury cruise ship… but his body wasn't up for it, and he didn't have much time left. That was too bad. He would have liked to lie on a sun-drenched deck and review his life as he gazed at the hypnotic sea. Or he could step onto the shores of some strange country on a drizzly day, sit next to a little lake and toss wet pebbles onto a surface full of ripples…

The twelfth session of the UN Planetary Defense Council has adopted Resolution 479, initiating the Stars Our Destination Project. A committee formed from the UN Development Program, the UN Committee on Natural Resources, and UNESCO is authorized to implement the project immediately.

Tianming got up and told his nurse that he wanted to take a walk. But as it was already after lights out, the nurse refused to let him leave. He returned to his dark room, pulled open the curtains, and lifted the window. The new patient in Lao Li's old bed grumbled.

That night, Tianming saw a news report on TV:

Tianming looked out. The lights of the city cast a haze over the night sky, but it was still possible to pick out a few silvery specks. He knew what he wanted to do with his money: He was going to buy Cheng Xin a star.

Once again, he was thinking of Cheng Xin. These days, he thought of her more and more.

The official Chinese website for the Stars Our Destination Project begins operation this afternoon. According to an official at the UNDP resident representative office in Beijing, the Project will accept bids from individuals and enterprises, but will not consider bids from non-governmental organizations…

It was commonly thought that Infantilism was a response to an unprecedented threat to the entirety of civilization. That might have been true for individuals, but it was too simple an explanation when applied to humanity as a whole.

Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time, Infantilism at the Start of the Crisis

Many of the events during the first twenty years of the Crisis Era were incomprehensible to those who came before and those who came after; historians summarized them under the heading of "Crisis Infantilism."

The Trisolar Crisis's impact on society was far deeper than people had imagined at first. To give some imperfect analogies: In terms of biology, it was equivalent to the moment when the ancestors of mammals climbed from the ocean onto land; in terms of religion, it was akin to when Adam and Eve were banished from Eden; in terms of history and sociology… there are no suitable analogies, even imperfect ones. Compared to the Trisolar Crisis, everything heretofore experienced by human civilization was nothing. The Crisis shook the very foundation of culture, politics, religion, and economics. Although the impact reached the deepest core of civilization, its influence manifested most quickly at the surface. The root cause for Crisis Infantilism may well be found in the interaction between these manifestations and the tremendous inertia of human society's inherent conservatism.

There were two main motivations for the Stars Our Destination Project: first, to increase the power of the UN at the beginning of the Crisis; second, the genesis and popularity of Escapism.

The classic examples of Crisis Infantilism were the Wallfacer Project and the Stars Our Destination Project, both international efforts within the framework of the United Nations -- initiatives that soon became incomprehensible to anyone from outside that period. The Wallfacer Project changed history, and its influence so permeated the course of civilization that it must be discussed in another chapter. The same elements that led to the birth of the grand Wallfacer Project simultaneously conceived the Stars Our Destination Project. That project, on the other hand, quickly faded away after launch and was never heard from again.

The Trisolar Crisis was the first time that all of humanity faced a common enemy, and it was only natural that many placed their hopes in the UN. Even conservatives agreed that the UN ought to be completely reformed and given more power and more resources. Radicals and idealists pushed for an Earth Union and for making the UN into a world government.

Smaller countries, in particular, favored elevating the status of the UN because they saw the Crisis as an opportunity to get more technological and economic aid. The great powers, on the other hand, responded to this coolly. In actuality, the great powers all invested heavily in space defense after the Crisis. In part, this was because they realized that contribution to space defense would become the foundation for national strength and political status in future international relations; it was also because they had always wanted to invest in such large-scale basic research, but the domestic demands of their citizenry and constraints imposed by international politics had made such efforts impractical in the past. In a sense, the Trisolar Crisis provided the leaders of the great powers with an opportunity similar to the opportunity given to Kennedy by the Cold War -- similar, but a couple of orders of magnitude greater. While all the great powers were reluctant to place their efforts under the aegis of the United Nations, due to the rising tide of calls for true globalization, they were forced to cede to the UN some symbolic, political commitments that they had no intention of honoring. The common space defense system advocated by the UN, for example, received little substantive support from the great powers.

The basis for the project lay in the Space Convention, which was a product of pre-Crisis politics. Based on the principles enacted in the Law of the Sea Convention and the Antarctic Treaty, the Space Convention was negotiated and drafted over a long period of time. But the pre-Crisis Space Convention was limited to resources within the Kuiper Belt; the Trisolar Crisis forced the nations of the world to set their sights farther out.

In the history of the early Crisis Era, UN Secretary General Say was a key figure. She believed that the time for a new UN had arrived and advocated transforming the institution from what was little more than a meeting place for the great powers and an international forum, into an independent political body with the power to genuinely direct the construction of the Solar System's defenses.

To achieve this goal, the UN needed sufficient resources, a requirement that appeared impossible to meet given the realities of international relations. The Stars Our Destination Project was an attempt by Say to acquire such resources for the UN. No matter the results, the very attempt was a testament to her political intelligence and imagination.

Since humans had not even been able to set foot on Mars, any discussion of outer space was meaningless, at least prior to the expiration date of the Space Convention fifty years after it was drafted. But the great powers viewed the Convention as the perfect venue for political theater and amended it with provisions regarding resources outside the Solar System. The amendment provided that the development of natural resources outside the Kuiper Belt, and other economic activities regarding them, had to take place under the auspices of the United Nations. The amendment went into excruciating detail to define "natural resources," but, basically, the phrase referred to resources not already occupied by nonhuman civilizations. This treaty also offered the first international law definition for "civilization." Historically, this document was referred to as the Crisis Amendment.

The second motivation for the Stars Our Destination Project was Escapism. At the time, the Escapist movement was still in its early stages, and its consequences were not yet apparent, such that many still considered it a valid choice for humanity in crisis. Under such conditions, other stars, especially stars with their own planets, became valuable.

This unusual UN resolution attracted wide interest and attention. The permanent members of the Planetary Defense Council (PDC) mulled it over, but each decided that adopting it would not lead to adverse consequences in the foreseeable future. On the other hand, voting against it would incur a heavy cost under the prevailing international political climate. Still, debates and compromises followed, and the final version of the resolution that passed was limited to stars more than one hundred light-years away.

The initial resolution proposing the Stars Our Destination Project would have the UN auction off the rights to certain stars and their planets. The intended bidders were states, businesses, NGOs, and individuals, and the proceeds from the auction would be used to fund the UN's basic research into a Solar System defense system. Secretary General Say explained that the universe had an abundance of stars. There were more than three hundred thousand stars within one hundred light-years of the Solar System, and more than ten million within one thousand light-years. A conservative estimate suggested that at least one-tenth of these stars had planets. Auctioning off a small proportion of these would not affect the future of space development much.

The project was halted almost as soon as it began for a simple reason: No one bought the stars. In total, only seventeen stars were auctioned off, and all at the minimum reserve price. The UN earned a grand total of only about forty million dollars.

None of the winning bidders ever revealed themselves. People speculated on why they spent so much money to buy a piece of useless paper -- even if the paper was supposed to be a binding legal instrument. Maybe it felt cool to own another world, but what was the point when you could see but not touch it? Indeed, some of the stars were not even visible with the naked eye.

Say never thought of the project as a failure. She claimed that the results were just as she predicted. Fundamentally, the Stars Our Destination Project was a political proclamation by the UN.

The day after making his decision to buy Cheng Xin a star, Yun Tianming called the number listed on the website for the Chinese office of the Stars Our Destination Project.

危机纪元4年,云天明

The Stars Our Destination Project was quickly forgotten. It was a classic example of the irregular behavior of human society at the beginning of the Crisis.

"Don't worry. I won't ask her directly."

Then he called Hu Wen to get some basic information about Cheng Xin: contact address, national ID number, and so forth. He was prepared for any number of reactions from Wen in response to his request -- sarcasm, pity, exclamation. Instead, after a long silence, all he heard was a soft sigh.

The next day, Tianming got a text from Wen with all the information he had asked for, but nothing about Cheng Xin's employment. Wen explained that no one knew where Cheng Xin had gone after she left the Academy of Spaceflight Technology last year. Tianming saw that there were two mailing addresses for her: one in Shanghai and another in New York.

Tianming took a taxi and arrived at UNESCO's Beijing office. After the Crisis, every UN office in Beijing had expanded rapidly, and UNESCO now took up most of an office building outside of the Fourth Ring Road.

"No problem," Wen said. "But she's probably not in China right now."

"Just don't tell her I'm the one asking."

That afternoon, Tianming asked Dr. Zhang to give him permission to leave the hospital and run an errand. The doctor wanted to come with Tianming, but he insisted on going alone.

A giant star map greeted Tianming as he entered the spacious office of the Stars Our Destination Project. Silver lines connected the stars in constellations against a pitch-black background. Tianming saw that the map was displayed on a high-definition screen, and a computer nearby allowed for zooming and searching. The office was empty except for a receptionist.

Tianming introduced himself, and the receptionist excitedly went away and returned with a blond woman.

"This is the director of UNESCO Beijing," the receptionist explained. "And also one of the people responsible for implementing the Stars Our Destination Project in the Asia-Pacific region."

The director appeared very pleased to see Tianming as well. She held Tianming's hand and told him, in fluent Chinese, that he was the first Chinese individual to express an interest in buying a star. She would have preferred a ceremony to generate as much media coverage as possible, but she refrained out of respect for his wish for privacy. She seemed quite sorry to lose out on a wonderful opportunity to publicize the project.

"Are you feeling all right?" he asked Tianming.

A middle-aged, well-dressed man wearing glasses came in. The director introduced him as Dr. He, a researcher at the Beijing Observatory. The astronomer would help Tianming with the details of his purchase. After the director left, Dr. He asked Tianming to sit down, and called for tea to be served.

Don't worry, Tianming thought. No other Chinese will be as dumb as me.

Tianming knew that he didn't exactly look healthy. But after stopping chemo -- which had been like undergoing torture -- he felt much better, almost as if he'd gotten a new lease on life. Ignoring Dr. He's question, he repeated the request he had already made on the phone.

"I want to buy a star as a gift. The title to the star should be registered under the name of the recipient. I won't provide any personal information about myself, and I want my identity kept secret from her."

"No problem at all. Do you have an idea of what kind of star you want to buy?"

"As close to Earth as possible. One with planets. Ideally, Earthlike planets," Tianming said as he gazed at the star map.

"How far away is it?"

Dr. He shook his head. "Based on the figure you gave me, that's impossible. The starting prices for stars meeting those criteria are much too high. You can only buy a star without planets, and it won't be very close. Let me tell you something: The amount of money you are offering is too low even for bare stars. But after your call yesterday, in consideration of the fact that you're the first person in China to express an interest, we decided to lower the starting bid on one of the stars to what you offered." He moved the mouse to magnify a region of the star map. "It's this one. Say yes and it's yours."

"That's too far."

Tianming thought about it. The astronomer was right. It made no difference.

"It's about two hundred eighty-six point five light-years from here."

Dr. He laughed. "I can tell you're not completely ignorant about astronomy. Think about it: Does it really make a difference if it's two hundred eighty-six light-years or two hundred eighty-six billion light-years?"

"There's a very big advantage to this star," Dr. He said. "It's visible with the naked eye. In my opinion, aesthetics matters the most when you're buying a star. It's much better to possess a faraway star that you can see than a nearby star that you can't. It's much better to own a bare star that you can see than a star with planets that you can't. In the end, all we can do is look at it. Am I right?"

The director declared that the title to DX3906 was now vested in Cheng Xin, and she presented Tianming with an expensive-looking black leather folder.

"What's it called?"

Tianming nodded. Cheng Xin can see the star. That's good.

"The star was first cataloged by Tycho Brahe hundreds of years ago, but it never acquired a common name. All it has is a number." Dr. He moved the mouse pointer over the glowing dot, and a string of letters and numbers appeared next to it: DX3906. Then, patiently, the astronomer explained to Tianming the meaning of the numbers and letters, the star's type, absolute and apparent magnitudes, location in the main sequence, and so on.

The paperwork for the purchase didn't take long. Two notaries worked with Dr. He to make sure everything was proper. Then the director appeared again, along with two officials from the UN Development Program and the UN Committee on Natural Resources. The receptionist brought a bottle of champagne and everyone celebrated.

After the officials left, Dr. He turned to Tianming. "Don't answer me if you aren't comfortable, but I'm guessing you bought the star for a girl?"

"Your star."

Dr. He looked rather embarrassed. In fact, he was worried that she was going to blurt out his opinion of the Stars Our Destination Project: This trick the UN is pulling was already tried by a bunch of scammers more than ten years ago. Back then they sold land on the moon and Mars. It would be a miracle if anyone falls for it again!

Tianming hesitated for a moment, but then nodded.

"Lucky girl!" Dr. He sighed. "It's nice to be rich."

Fortunately, the receptionist went on in a different vein. "This isn't just about money. It's about romance. Romance! Do you even understand?"

Throughout Tianming's purchasing process, the young woman had stolen glances at him from time to time, as though he were a figure from a fairy tale. Her expression had at first been curious, then awed and admiring. Finally, as the leather folder containing the deed to the star was handed over, her face filled with envy.

"Oh, please!" said the receptionist. She stuck her tongue out at Dr. He. "Rich? Even if you had thirty billion yuan, would you buy a star for your girlfriend? Ha! I haven't forgotten what you said two days ago."

Dr. He tried to change the subject. "We'll send the formal documents to the recipient as soon as possible. Based on your instructions, we won't reveal any information about you. Well, even if we wanted to, we can't -- look, I don't even know your name!" He stood up and looked out the window. It was already dark. "Next, I can bring you to see your star -- sorry, I meant the star you bought for her."

"Can we see it from the top of the building?"

"You see the Big Dipper? Imagine a diagonal across the quadrilateral formed by the four stars, and extend it. That's right, in that direction. Can you see those three stars that form a flat triangle? Draw a line from the apex, perpendicular to the base, and keep extending it. Can you see it? Right there. That's your star -- the star you gave her."

"No. There's too much light pollution inside the city. We have to go far into the suburbs. If you aren't feeling well, we can pick another day."

They drove for more than two hours, until the glowing sea that was Beijing was far behind them. To avoid the lamps of passing cars, Dr. He drove off the road into a field. Then he turned off the headlights and they got out of the car. In the late-autumn sky, the stars were especially bright.

"Let's go now. I really want to see it."

With Dr. He's help, Tianming finally saw DX3906. It was very faint, and he had to find it again it each time his attention wavered. Although people commonly thought of the stars as silvery, careful observation revealed that they each had different colors. DX3906 was dark red.

Tianming pointed to two stars in succession, but Dr. He said neither was right. "It's between those two, but a bit to the south. The apparent magnitude is five point five. Normally, you have to be trained to find it. But the weather tonight is ideal, so you should be able to see it. Try this: Don't look for it directly; move your gaze a bit to the side. Your peripheral vision tends to be more sensitive to faint light. After you find it, then you can move your gaze back…"

Dr. He promised to give him some materials to help Tianming find the star in different seasons.

"I don't think I'd call myself fortunate. I'm about to die." Tianming looked at Dr. He for a moment, then he looked back into the sky and found DX3906 easily.

"You are lucky, as lucky as the girl who received your gift," said Dr. He.

He wanted to note something special about it, but there was nothing. He woke up at seven, as usual; a shaft of sunlight fell against its habitual spot on the wall; the weather was not great, but also not too bad; the sky was the same grayish blue; the oak tree in front of the window was bare (instead of, say, hanging on to a lone, symbolic leaf). Even his breakfast was the same.

What will her life be like? Maybe she'll remember that in the sea of stars, there's one that belongs to her.

The smoke from Dr. He's cigarette drifted before his eyes, and the faint star flickered through the veil. By the time she sees it, I'll be gone from this world.

Dr. He seemed unsurprised by this revelation. He lit a cigarette and smoked it in silence. After a while, he said, "Even so, I think you're blessed. Most people don't cast a glance at the universe beyond the world we live in until the day they die."

This would be Tianming's last day.

Of course, the star he saw and the star she would see were only an image from 286 years ago. The faint beam of light had to cross three centuries to meet their retinas. Another 286 years would have to pass before the light from the star at this moment would reach the Earth. By then, Cheng Xin would long have turned to dust.

At ten, he walked into the euthanasia room by himself, as calmly as if he were headed to his daily examination. He was the fourth person in the city to conduct the procedure, so there wasn't much media interest. Only five people were in the room: two notaries, a director, a nurse, and an executive from the hospital. Dr. Zhang wasn't there.

He could go in peace.

Pursuant to his request, the room was undecorated. All around him were the plain white walls of a normal hospital room. He felt comfortable.

Like Lao Li, Tianming didn't inform his family of his decision. He did try to write a note that could be given to his father after his procedure, but he gave up because he couldn't think of what to say.

This was a day like any other day in his life of twenty-eight years, eleven months, and six days.

He explained to the director that he was familiar with the procedure and did not need him. The director nodded and went to the other side of the glass wall. The notaries finished their business with him, then left him alone with the nurse. The nurse no longer showed the anxiety and fear that she had had to overcome the first time. As she pierced his vein with the needle, her motion was steady and gentle. Tianming felt a strange bond with the nurse: after all, she was the last person who would be with him in this world. He wished he knew who had delivered him when he was born twenty-nine years ago. That delivery doctor and this nurse belonged to the small number of people who had genuinely tried to help him during his life. He wanted to thank them. "Thank you."

He had been born to an intellectual family, but his parents lacked political savvy and social cunning, and they had not been successful in their lives. Though they did not live the life of elites, they had insisted on giving Tianming an education they thought befit an elite. He was only permitted to read classic books and listen to classical music; the friends he tried to make had to be the kind that his parents deemed to be from cultured, refined families. They told Tianming that the people around them were vulgar, their concerns common. In contrast, their own tastes were far superior.

Do you wish to terminate your life? For yes, select 5. For no, select 0.

In primary school, Tianming had managed to make a few friends, but he never invited them home to play. He knew that his parents would not allow him to be friends with such "vulgar" children. By the time he was in middle school, his parents' intensified push for his elite education made him into a complete loner. That was also when his parents divorced, after his father met a young woman who sold insurance. His mother then married a wealthy general contractor.

The nurse smiled at him and left, her footsteps as silent as a cat's.

Do you wish to terminate your life? For yes, select 2. For no, select 0.

All his memories of his childhood and youth were gray.

Thus, both of his parents ended up with the kind of "vulgar" people they had told Tianming to stay away from, and finally realized that they had no moral authority to impose the kind of education they wanted on him. But what had already been done to Tianming was enough. He could not escape his upbringing, which was like a set of spring-loaded handcuffs: The more he struggled to free himself, the tighter they bound him. Throughout his high school years, he became more and more alone, more and more sensitive, grew further apart from others.

He had imagined that college would be a frightening place: a new, strange environment; a new, strange crowd; more things for him to struggle to adjust to. And when he first entered college, everything pretty much matched his expectations. Until he met Cheng Xin.

He pressed 5.

Tianming had been attracted to girls before, but not like this. He felt everything around him, which had been cold and strange, become suffused with warm sunlight. At first, he didn't understand where the light had come from. It was like a sun seen through a heavy veil of clouds, only appearing to observers as a faint disk. It was only when it disappeared that people realized that it was the source of all light during the day. Tianming's sun disappeared at the start of the weeklong holiday around National Day, when Cheng Xin left school to visit home. Tianming felt everything around him grow dim and gray.

It was almost certain that more than one boy felt this way about Cheng Xin. But he didn't suffer the way other boys did, because he had no hope for his yearning. He knew that girls did not like his aloofness, his sensitivity. All he could do was to look at her from afar, bathing in the warm light she gave off, quietly appreciating the beauty of spring.

Initially, Cheng Xin gave Tianming the impression of being taciturn. Beautiful women were rarely reticent, but she wasn't an ice queen. She said little, but she listened, really listened. When she conversed with someone, her focused, calm gaze told the speaker that they were important to her.

Cheng Xin was different from the pretty girls who Tianming had gone to high school with. She didn't ignore his existence. Every time she saw him, she would smile and say hi. A few times, when classmates planned outings and parties, the organizers -- intentionally or otherwise -- forgot about Tianming. But Cheng Xin would find him and invite him. Later, she became the first among his classmates to call him just "Tianming," without using his surname. In their interactions -- limited though they were -- the deepest impression Cheng Xin left in Tianming's heart was the feeling that she was the only one who understood his vulnerabilities and seemed to care about the pain that he might suffer.

But Tianming never made more of it than what it was. It was just as Hu Wen said: Cheng Xin was nice to everyone.

In truth, Tianming had had very few conversations with Cheng Xin. In four years of college, he could remember talking with her one on one just a couple of times.

One event in particular stood out in Tianming's mind: He and some classmates were hiking up a small mountain. Cheng Xin suddenly stopped, bent down, and picked up something from the stone steps of the trail. Tianming saw that it was an ugly caterpillar, soft and moist, wriggling against her pale fingers. Another girl next to her cried out: That's disgusting! Why are you touching it? But Cheng Xin carefully deposited the caterpillar in the grass next to the trail. It will get stepped on.

It was a cool, early summer night. Tianming had climbed to the deck on top of the library, his favorite place. Few students came here, and he could be alone with his thoughts. The night sky was clear after a summer rainstorm. Even the Milky Way, which normally wasn't visible, shone in the sky.

Cheng Xin turned to him and pointed at the campus and city below them. "It's really beautiful down there, too. Remember, we live here, not in the faraway galaxy."

"It really looks like a road made of milk!"

"That's so that we may make life here better, not abandon the planet."

"So many stars. It looks like a fog," Tianming said.

Four years of undergraduate life came to an end. Tianming failed to get into graduate school, but Cheng Xin easily got accepted into the graduate program at their university. She went home for the summer after graduation, but Tianming lingered on campus. His only goal was to see her again at the start of the new school year. Since he wasn't allowed to stay in the dorms, he rented a room nearby and tried to find a job in the city. He sent out countless copies of his résumé and went to interview after interview, but nothing resulted. Before he knew it, the summer was over.

Tianming understood that Cheng Xin had meant to gently point out his own aloofness and solitude. But he had no response. This was the closest he had ever been to her. Maybe it was his imagination, but he thought he could feel the warmth from her body. He wished the breeze would shift direction so a few strands of her hair would brush against his face.

"But aren't we studying to be aerospace engineers? Our goal is to leave the Earth."

Tianming looked over at the speaker. A breeze stirred Cheng Xin's hair, reminding him of his dream. Then he and Cheng Xin gazed up at the galaxy together.

Tianming returned to campus, but couldn't find Cheng Xin. He carefully made some inquiries, and found out that she and her advisor had gone to the school's graduate institute at the Academy of Spaceflight Technology in Shanghai, where she would finish her graduate studies. That was also the day Tianming finally found a job at a new company founded for civil aerospace technology transfer that desperately needed qualified engineers.

Do you wish to terminate your life? For yes, select 4. For no, select 0.

Just like that, Tianming's sun left him. With a wintery heart, he entered real life in society.

He pressed 2.

Right after he started working, he had been happy for a while. He discovered that, compared to his competitive peers in school, people in the business world were far more tolerant and easier to deal with. He even thought his days of being isolated and aloof were over. But after winding up on the losing end of a few office political maneuvers and bad deals, he understood the cruelties of the real world, and became nostalgic for campus life. Once again, he retreated into his shell and set himself apart from the crowd. Of course, the consequences for his career were disastrous. Even in a state-owned enterprise like his company, competition was intense. If you kept to yourself, you had no chance of advancement. Year after year, he fell farther and farther behind.

During that time, Tianming dated two women, but the relationships fizzled quickly. It wasn't that Cheng Xin already occupied his heart: For him, she would always be the sun behind a veil of clouds. All he wanted was to look at her, to feel her light and warmth. He dared not dream of taking a step toward her. He never even sought out news about her. He guessed, based on her intelligence, that she would go for a Ph. D., but he made no conjectures about her personal life. The main barrier between him and women was his own withdrawn personality. He struggled to build his own life, but it was too difficult.

He pressed 4.

Fundamentally, Tianming was not suited to live in society, nor out of it. He lacked the ability to thrive in society, but also the resources to ignore it. All he could do was hang on to the edge, suffering. He had no idea where he was headed in life.

But then, he saw the end of the road.

Do you wish to terminate your life? For yes, select 1. For no, select 0.

By the time his lung cancer was discovered, it was already late stage. Maybe there had been an earlier misdiagnosis. Lung cancer was one of those cancers that spread fast in the body, so he didn't have much time left.

He wanted to see Cheng Xin.

As he left the hospital, he wasn't scared. The only emotion he felt was loneliness. His alienation had been building up, but had been held back by an invisible dam. It was a kind of equilibrium that he could endure. But now, the dam had collapsed, and the weight of years of accumulated loneliness overwhelmed him like a dark ocean. He could not bear it.

Without hesitation, he bought a plane ticket and flew to Shanghai that afternoon. By the time his taxi arrived at his destination, his fervor had cooled somewhat. He told himself that, as someone about to die, he shouldn't bother her. He wouldn't even let her know of his presence. He just wanted to look at her once from afar, like a drowning man struggling to take one last breath before sinking down forever.

Standing in front of the gate to the Academy of Spaceflight Technology, he calmed down even more. He saw how irrational his own actions of the past few hours had been. Even if Cheng Xin had gone on to obtain a Ph. D., she would be finished with her studies by now, and she might not even be working here. He spoke to the guard in front of the door and found out that there were more than twenty thousand people working at the academy, and he had to know the exact department if he wanted to find someone. He had lost touch with his classmates, and had no more information to give the guard.

It was still possible that Cheng Xin did work here. It was almost the end of the workday, and if he waited here, he might see her.

He felt weak and out of breath, and he sat down a little ways from the gate.

The gate to the academy complex was very wide. Large golden characters engraved into the short black wall next to it gave the formal name for the place, which had expanded greatly since its early days. Wouldn't such a large complex have more than one entrance? With an effort, he got up and asked the guard again. Indeed, there were four more entrances.

This moment resembled the rest of his life: a dedicated watch for a slim, slim ray of hope.

Slowly, he walked back to his place, sat down, and waited. He had no other choice.

The odds were against him: Cheng Xin would still have to be working here after graduation; to be at the office, instead of away on business; to pick this door, as opposed to four others, when she got out of work.

It was the end of the workday. People began to depart the complex: some walking, some on bikes, some in cars. The stream of people and vehicles grew, and then shrank. After an hour, only a few stragglers remained.

Cheng Xin never passed.

He was certain that he would not have missed her, even if she drove. That meant that she was no longer working here, or maybe she hadn't come to work today, or maybe she had used another entrance.

He felt he was already dead.

He remained where he was until it was completely dark. He didn't remember how he managed to hail a taxi to bring him to the airport, how he flew back to his city, how he returned to his company-owned single dormitory.

Do you wish to terminate your life? This is your last prompt. For yes, select 3. For no, select 0.

The setting sun stretched out the shadows of buildings and trees, like numerous arms extended toward him in pity.

He pressed 1.

What would he want as his epitaph? He wasn't even sure he would get a tomb. It was expensive to buy a burial plot near Beijing. Even if his father wanted to buy him one, his sister would probably disagree -- she was still alive, and she didn't even own a home! Most likely, his ashes would be stored in a cubby in the wall at Babaoshan People's Cemetery. But if he were to have a tombstone, he would like it to say:

He pressed 3.

He came; he loved; he gave her a star; he left.

Then the nurse began to bandage up Tianming's bleeding left arm.

In the lead was the director, who dashed for the switch that would turn off the automatic injector. The hospital executive that followed him went and yanked the injector's power cord out of the wall. After them came the nurse, who pulled the tube attached to the needle in Tianming's arm so hard that he winced from the sharp pain as the needle was jerked out.

There was a commotion on the other side of the glass. Just as Tianming was pressing the mouse button, the door to the euthanasia room flew open and a group of people rushed in.

Only one person stood outside the door to the euthanasia room. But for Tianming, the whole world seemed brighter: Cheng Xin.

Tianming could feel the dampness on his chest -- Cheng Xin's tears had soaked through his clothes.

Everyone gathered around the tube to examine it. "That was close! None of the drugs went into him," someone said.

When he first saw her, he thought she hadn't changed at all. But now he noticed that her hair was shorter -- it no longer draped over her shoulders, but stopped at her neck. The ends curled prettily. He still didn't have the courage to reach out and touch the hair that he had long yearned for.

But when she finally spoke, what she said was not at all what he expected. "Tianming, did you know that the euthanasia law was passed specifically for you?"

I'm really useless. But he felt like he was in heaven.

Cheng Xin seemed to hear this inner speech. She lifted her head. It was the first time their eyes were this close, closer than he had ever dared to dream. Her eyes, made even more beautiful by her tears, broke his heart.

The silence seemed like the peace of paradise, and Tianming wanted that silence to last. You can't save me, he said to her in his mind. I will listen to you and not seek euthanasia. But I'm going to end up in the same place anyway. I hope you take the star I gave you and find happiness.