Monica watches Professor Logan’s investor pitch for EMBRS, which features her photo with her grandmother and Louise’s photo with Meng, along with fabricated details about their reunion. Logan calls her to say investors are interested and offers Monica a full-time engineering position with salary and equity, suggesting she drop out of college to help launch the company.

When Monica tells Louise about the offer, Louise questions whether Monica truly wants to leave school and criticizes EMBRS as potentially invasive. Monica is hurt but recognizes the validity of the ethical concerns she’s been avoiding.

Resolved to learn the full truth about her grandmother, Monica confronts her at the kitchen table. She lists facts discovered through EMBRS, including the fire at the California house and the Taiwanese surveillance network. Yun can’t recall whether she shared this information with her granddaughter. Monica asks to learn Reforging to better understand her grandmother.

Yun agrees and retrieves the pencil Louise brought from Meng. She asks Monica to Reforge it but says she’ll teach her properly first. She adds that Monica is very much like Meng, who accomplished what she could not.

Later, Monica finds missed calls from Louise and returns them. Both apologize. Louise admits she was jealous after fighting with her parents about changing her major. They reconcile, and Monica invites Louise to visit again to see the Reforging she is about to learn.

Yun begins teaching Monica to Reforge. The first step, pushing the pencil heart into the wrist, came easily to Yun as a child but challenges Monica. For the second step, Yun wants Monica to release the words through pleasure rather than cutting. She asks if Monica has ever pleasured herself, prompting intense embarrassment from her granddaughter.

Yun notes Louise’s similarities to Meng, especially when Louise confronted her about sharing her story. She also reveals that she sent Meng letters with her updated address every time she moved in America, though she didn’t receive a reply for many years.

Flashing back to summer 1953, Yun describes arriving in California. Mr. Gao’s men place her in an isolated suburban house to monitor university students. Her mission is to run an unofficial restaurant called Phoenix 708, drawing in immigrants and students whose conversations would be monitored. She also sells Phoenix Pencils that Mr. Gao ships to her monthly.

Yun admits the full truth: She slept with Mr. Gao, beginning in Taiwan. However, she says that they used each other, and he never stopped loving Meng’s mother. In the 1950s, he introduces Yun to two student spies whose job is to steal pencils from classmates and bring them to her for Reforging.

Mr. Gao forces Yun to Reforge a pencil from her mother in front of him. The letter contains only superficial news, and Yun realizes she’s lost even the pencils as a private means of connection.

Monica reflects on the awkward conversation about masturbation with her grandmother. After absorbing a pencil heart into her wrist, a phoenix pattern appears on her arm, and she feels a brief wave of her grandmother’s emotion.

Monica reluctantly tells Louise about the possibility of using orgasm for Reforging. After a pause, Louise sends links to her favorite erotica. Monica reads them privately on an old smartphone. She admits she’s never masturbated and has been trying unsuccessfully all week. Louise provides tips and encouragement.

Their text conversation becomes intimate. Louise asks if Monica is touching herself, then says she will join in. This exchange, combined with Monica imagining herself pleasuring Louise, leads to Monica’s first orgasm. The climax triggers a successful Reforging. Monica experiences her grandmother’s message, an invitation to get ice cream, along with the overwhelming love and hope behind it. The phoenix vanishes from her arm, leaving only faint scars.

Monica sends before-and-after photos of her arm to Louise, who responds flirtatiously about helping with the next Reforging. Monica reflects that Reforging offers true, complete understanding between people, something EMBRS only imitates.

That night, despite the cold November weather, Monica takes her grandparents out for ice cream, and Yun’s face lights up. Monica marvels at the magic of understanding someone so thoroughly, even if only briefly.

Yun struggles to think about California, calling her time there the worst period of her life. She has avoided the state ever since, even turning down Monica’s vacation suggestions.

The narrative moves back in time. The student spies working for Mr. Gao bring Yun pencils stolen from classmates. She replaces each with a new Phoenix Pencil shaved to match. Reforging the stolen pencils, she discovers students organizing protests about people disappearing in Taiwan. Though guilt-stricken, she sends the incriminating material to Mr. Gao, telling herself it’s necessary to save her family. The students vanish, and no protests ever materialized.

On Mr. Gao’s next visit, he brings a suitcase full of pencils and tells Yun her mother is dead. She draws a phoenix, which Mr. Gao hangs in the restaurant area of Yun’s home before leaving. Devastated and alone, Yun Reforges the ending of the story she and Meng co-wrote as children. The joy in their shared creation reminds her there is pleasure in stories.

Yun realizes she was wrong to leverage the very power Meng tried to destroy by burning the Shanghai company. She decides to escape and eliminate the remaining pencils. After selling her belongings and giving away some pencils, she buys a bus ticket to Boston and sets up a delayed fire using oil on the stove. She lights incense for her grandmother, mother, Meng, and Meng’s mother, praying the ancestors will receive her mother’s pencils. She leaves the burning house and walks to the bus station, hoping to find Torou.

On the weekend of Thanksgiving, Monica’s father delays his return to the United States, suggesting he hire help for his parents instead. Monica remains uneasy about EMBRS but continues working on it.

In the middle of the night, a loud crash wakes Monica. She finds her grandmother crumpled at the bottom of the stairs, neck bent at an alarming angle and unable to speak. At the hospital, her grandfather sends Monica outside for air. She texts Louise, who calls immediately. Monica confesses she’s terrified of losing her grandparents and being alone and then abruptly hangs up.

Monica calls her father, tells him she never hated him for leaving his family until now, hangs up, and turns off her phone. Her grandfather sends her home to rest. At home, Monica sets up an altar with family portraits and incense, praying desperately to her ancestors not to leave her and her grandfather alone.

The next morning, as Monica walks to the bus stop, a car honks at her. It’s Louise, who drove all night from New Jersey after Monica hung up and turned off her phone. Monica cries, saying it’s the kindest thing anyone has ever done for her. Louise promises to stay by her side, and they enter the hospital together.

Wong Yun writes from a hospital bed, initially confused about her surroundings. A staff member brings blank paper and a pencil from Torou. Yun’s memory clears. She remembers that she fell after waking in a fog, urgently believing she needed to reply to an old letter from Meng hidden downstairs for decades.

The doctor tells Monica that Yun has a fractured hip requiring surgery. When Monica visits, Yun sees the fear in her granddaughter’s eyes and believes that Louise, who drove Torou home, must be in love with Monica.

Feeling she may not have another chance, Yun confesses what she considers her greatest mistake. Years ago, after a long silence, she received a pencil from Meng. She delayed Reforging it out of caution because she was pregnant with Edward and worried that the process might harm the baby. A year later, she Reforged the message, which said that Meng’s mother had died and begged Yun to return to Shanghai because Meng was alone. Paralyzed by fear for her new family and a desire to leave the past behind, Yun never replied. Monica tries to defend her, but Yun insists she could have written back. Monica says she’s never had a reason to doubt her grandmother and would forgive her for anything.

Louise enters the room. After Monica leaves for the bathroom, Louise again presses Yun to share her story, arguing that Monica will need it after Yun is gone. Yun becomes angry and asks whether Louise drove all this way for Monica or for her. Louise quickly answers that she came for Yun. Then she adds that she’s here for both of them and worries Yun’s story will be lost. Hurt, Yun orders her to leave.

Monica returns and escorts Louise out with an unreadable expression. Alone, Yun fears that allowing Louise close to Monica is her punishment for abandoning Meng.