People's Liberation Army Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Jianyung Yan is isolated in an outdated Chinese Academy of Space Technology station. He reflects on his time working on now obsolete space craft in the cold, snowy mountains. When Jian and his 23 fellow engineers began working for the Academy, he was glad to escape the Red Guard's purges. Engineers, at least, received livable rations. However, now there are only 10 elderly engineers left at the station--the rest died, committed suicide, or have "gone crazy."

Jian explains how different engineers contributed to the project and the relationships between them. For instance, Jian now feels remorse for betraying another engineer named Feng by criticizing his political loyalty. Looking back, Jian believes he was jealous of Feng's romantic relationship with fellow engineer Wei Leng while he and the others were condemned to loneliness. Jian wonders if Feng, always the most creative member of the group, could have imagined innovative new technology for the station to use. The remaining 10 engineers are the last people in the world who understand the archaic language of the computers they work on. The rest of the world has accepted more advanced modern technology.