Over the next eight years, Red Coast Base settles into routine operation, and Ye Wenjie lives through one of the calmest periods of her life. The outward peace, however, makes her inner wounds sharper. Reading history and philosophy deepens her bleak view of humanity, and what she sees around Radar Peak—the destruction of forests, the cruelty of politics, and the global nuclear standoff—convinces her that human irrationality and violence are fundamental and overwhelming.

Four years after arriving at Red Coast, Ye marries Yang Weining. Yang truly loves her and sacrifices his career prospects by marrying a woman labeled counterrevolutionary, but Ye accepts mainly from gratitude rather than love. As Ye loses faith in humanity and in any meaningful future, she becomes increasingly alienated from the world, feeling spiritually homeless even after making a home with Yang.

During a lonely night shift, Ye notices that an incoming waveform is different from ordinary cosmic noise. The signal receives the highest possible recognizability rating, and when she runs it through Red Coast’s deciphering system, it is translated instantly because it uses the same coding language as Red Coast’s own broadcasts. Ye reads humanity’s first message from another world: a warning repeated several times telling Earth not to answer.

Ye then deciphers a longer message from a self-described pacifist in that alien civilization. The sender explains that Ye’s earlier transmission has been received, that their world lies in the direction of Earth among many stars, and that if Earth does not answer, they will not be able to identify the source. But if Earth does reply, they will locate the planet and invade it. Over the next four hours, Ye learns more about Trisolaris, its repeatedly destroyed and reborn civilization, and its plan to migrate to other stars.

Once the transmission ends, Ye quickly hides the evidence. She encrypts and conceals the received messages, replaces the record with old noise, and prepares a response in Red Coast’s transmission buffer. At dawn, she goes to the transmission control room, warms up the system, aligns the antenna with the sun for amplification, and after a long hesitation presses the transmit button. Although warned that answering will bring conquest, Ye deliberately sends a message inviting the aliens to come and help conquer Earth because she believes humanity can no longer solve its own problems.

After transmitting for only a few seconds, Ye stops the operation and leaves before the sleepy staff pays much attention. The brief message escapes formal notice, but its consequences are immense: Ye has chosen to open Earth to invasion. Overcome after making that decision, she collapses on the lawn outside. When she wakes in the base clinic, Yang is beside her, and a doctor tells Ye that she is pregnant.