An elderly woman named Kunchen Tsering and a young man named Sonam Lobsang watch as a group of students eat a midday meal. They discuss options for choosing a successor among the children to fill Kunchen’s role when she retires. Another woman must take on her name and assume her responsibilities as an icon of living history between generations, waking every decade or so from cryosleep to observe new developments in their culture and offer advice from their lived experiences. Kunchen rejects Sonam’s favorite candidate, Dawa Kalsang, citing the girl’s love of being loved, which would make it hard to live a detached and lonely life apart from her people. Kunchen finds herself drawn to an older girl in the room, Tashi Nyima, who seems observant but somewhat asocial. She is described as diligent in school by Sonam.  Through memory, it is revealed that the current Kunchen is the fourth to fill the role and is physically eighty years old. Kunchen arranges a meeting with Tashi, during which she explains the legacy of her role. She tells Tashi that she may be an ideal candidate, as Kunchen must be someone who can live without attachment, but still loves people enough to want to be with them. Tashi is somewhat resentful that she was picked for appearing to be lonely, but she agrees to think about it. After many months of consideration, she respectfully declines the offer. Kunchen agrees to the training of a different candidate suggested by Sonam, though she tells him to train Tashi, if she should change her mind while Kunchen is in cryosleep. Kunchen sleeps for one decade and wakes again. She finds Sonam and Tashi waiting for her, among the other monks and nuns. She asks Tashi if she is here because she has reconsidered the offer, only to find that she has not. During her first meal after waking, Kunchen listens as Tashi explains a concept she has come up with as a way to document history, which might prevent the sacrifice of another woman’s life in the role of Kunchen. In the past decade, Tashi has become a chronicler, one who records the stories of the elderly who remember the years during which Kunchen is asleep. She suggests the training of many people in this role, though Kunchen says this would not replace the need for someone like her, as her people rely on the accuracy of her guidance from her lived experience. Still, she agrees happily to have her words recorded by Tashi.