A group of three scientists take a break from their work on a time machine to eat lunch at a Chinese restaurant. While there, they discuss the restaurant's unofficial but accepted name, “The Chinese Laundry," which is due to the fact that the building was previously a laundromat. One of the men suggests the name “The Red Lantern” as a replacement, but another views this as cliché. The group then looks at the fortune cookies that they received but are disappointed by the largely “proverb-esque” nature of the fortunes. When they return to their lab, they see that the building is on fire. This leads one of the scientists to reminisce about a time that he and a married women with whom he had an affair saw a fire. They had been on their way home from Chicago, and their weekend trip was supposed to be exciting and romantic. However, they had argued for most of the time about the nature of their relationship. As they drove back, the woman began to talk about life and love, and then proceeded to masturbate. A semi truck started to follow their car, but they managed to escape and drove onto a country road. They gave up on their search for the main road until the following morning, and then had sex. During the next day, the man took photos of the woman. Years later, the woman called him to ask if he still had the photos. He lied and said that he burned them, to which she responded with satisfaction. As the man watches the building burn, he realizes that his response is now truthful, since he kept the photos in the now-burning-lab.