Chi Xiaoxue fiddled with the unfamiliar showerhead for a long time before getting the water to come out. After that, she didn’t dare touch the showerhead again, afraid she might make the water stop.
A robot’s perception of temperature isn’t as sensitive as a human’s. She didn’t know the water temperature had been set to the highest 67 degrees Celsius. She only knew that after showering for a short while, the bathroom filled with rising steam, becoming misty and ethereal, making everything hard to see.
Chi Xiaoxue stood in the mist, diligently applying adhesive all over her body and even in her hair. She rubbed it around vigorously, but it didn’t lather into bubbles; instead, her skin became slippery and sticky.
She couldn’t figure out why, just thinking maybe the shower gel in this world was just like that.
After rinsing her body and hair with the scalding 67-degree water and drying off with a towel, she put her previous clothes back on and pushed open the door to leave the bathroom.
The three family members were gathered around the dining table having lunch. Seeing a human-shaped carrot, red all over from being scalded, with long strands of hair stuck to her forehead, walk over, all three of them froze. The little curly-haired girl even dropped a big meatball from her spoon onto the table.
“You… Moji.” The male lead called her but then couldn’t speak.
Chi Xiaoxue looked at them with confusion, not understanding what was happening.
Could it be like in the novels, where they were all mesmerized by the scene of a beauty just out of the bath? Was she that captivating?
“Moji, what did you use to shower?” Jiang Yanyi put down his chopsticks, got up, and walked over to her. He reached out and pinched the clumps of sticky, matted hair strands.
They felt sticky and slippery to the touch, as if covered in glue.
He then brought his fingertips to his nose and sniffed. Confirmed—it was indeed adhesive.
“Come with me first.”
Jiang Yanyi led the robot back into the bathroom.
Soon after, a female scream came from the bathroom: “I… I, red, red, red!”
Then Jiang Yanyi’s voice: “The shower water was too hot. It’s fine; it’ll return to normal on its own after a while.”
“Moji, did you use this to shower?” It was Jiang Yanyi’s voice. “Moji, this is adhesive.”
“Ah, ah!” Two more panicked screams.
“It’s okay. It’s not dry yet. Lean your head over the sink here; I’ll help you rinse it off.”
Then came the sound of splashing water, occasionally accompanied by a few screams: “Eye… water, eye, ah…”
The male voice said patiently, “Close your eyes; then water won’t get in them.”
Back in the dining area, the apron-clad woman calmly picked up her chopsticks and resumed eating. Using serving chopsticks, she placed a piece of braised pork into the little curly-haired girl’s bowl. Suddenly, with a heartfelt sigh, she said:
“Zhibai, you’ve grown up.”
“Grand-auntie, what do you mean?”
Jiang Zhibai remembered that she was the one who chose the “shower gel,” feeling a bit guilty now. Her large puppy eyes kept glancing toward the bathroom.
The apron-clad woman said leisurely, “You’ve grown up, so your dad brought home a robot, aiming to address the issue that our household no longer has a small child needing care.”
Jiang Zhibai didn’t just brush it off with a smile like usual. She was still worried: what if that fake shower gel damaged the robot?
Fortunately, the adhesive couldn’t bond in the presence of water. Jiang Yanyi helped the robot rinse her hair clean, then got the correct shower gel for her to shower again.
The small silver suitcase actually had two layers. The bottom layer contained a change of clothes, which were standard factory configurations.
Jiang Yanyi took a set of clean clothes and placed them at the door, knocking on the bathroom door. “Moji, after showering, change into the clean clothes at the door.”
By the time all this was done, the food on the table had gone cold. Jiang Yanyi ate his lunch with the still slightly warm soup.
After eating, Jiang Yanyi cleared the dishes and placed them in the dishwasher.
Coming out of the kitchen, he saw that Moji had finished showering, sitting in a single-seat sofa with damp long hair, looking dazed, her skin still flushed with lingering heat.
Jiang Yanyi called her into the bathroom again, showed her where the hairdryer was, and asked her to stand there and dry her hair herself.
The apron-clad woman had taken off her apron by now. She changed into a cheongsam, picked up her handbag, and walked to the entrance hall, bending down to put on her leather shoes.
Jiang Yanyi came out of the bathroom and called to her, “Auntie, are you going out?”
“Teacher Jiang has a public tea ceremony class this afternoon. Since I’m free at home, I’ll go listen.”
Jiang Yanyi: “Mm. Will you be coming over tonight?”
“Can I not? That robot of yours…” The aunt glanced toward the bathroom, leaving her sentence unfinished.
“If it gets too late, you can stay in the city. Moji just needs time to adapt. Her learning ability is very strong; there won’t be any problems.”
The aunt straightened up after putting on her shoes, looked at him deeply as if wanting to say something, but ultimately said nothing, just silently walked out.
When Jiang Yanyi decided to customize a robot that looked exactly like his wife, his aunt had objected once before.
Later, she heard that he wanted to complete his mother’s unfinished research—to study bio-bionic androids, without installing any skill packages, relying solely on applied learning and imitation functions, and record the process of her changes while living with humans.
After hearing about this, the aunt objected once more.
The aunt had always opposed Jiang Yanyi immersing himself in the past. She hoped he would look forward, make more friends, cultivate his own hobbies, and live a more sunny, happy life.
But Jiang Yanyi kept spending his time, money, and energy on matters from the past.
“How long will it take for you to truly move on?” Every time his aunt asked him this, her eyes always carried a touch of sadness.
Jiang Yanyi would always smile and pat her shoulder. “Whether past or future, they are all part of the real me. I’m just doing what I want to do.”
Neither could convince the other, so they eventually stopped discussing the topic. But today, bringing Moji home made it clear his aunt was still unhappy.
·
Jiang Yanyi taught Robot Ethics at the University of Science and Technology. His classes weren’t many, only three times a week. Today happened to be a day with no classes at all.
After lunch, Jiang Yanyi suggested taking Moji to the mall to buy some daily necessities.
Actually, everything available at the mall could be purchased directly from online stores, with delivery within an hour. For items like clothing, accessories, and cosmetics, online try-on services were also provided.
But when Jiang Yanyi had time, he still preferred going to the mall. The feeling of walking on bustling streets and immediately receiving the physical item after payment gave him a sense of solidity.
But Jiang Zhibai was different from her dad. She hated shopping, finding it tiring and a waste of time.
Every time Jiang Yanyi went to the fitting room to try on clothes, repeatedly discussing with the sales robot whether a gray suit paired better with a brown tie or a tie of the same color, Jiang Zhibai would sit in the rest area with a few middle-aged men waiting for their girlfriends or wives, her short arms crossed, pouting with anger.
Today, Jiang Zhibai didn’t want to go shopping either. But both Jiang Yanyi and Moji were going out, and Grand-auntie wasn’t home either. As a 3-year-old child, she couldn’t be left alone at home, so she was forced to go to the mall as well.
Chi Xiaoxue loved shopping. Before becoming vegetative, if she knew she could go shopping the next day, she’d be so excited the night before she couldn’t sleep.
But she wasn’t in high spirits now. Just thinking about mistaking adhesive for shower gel and scalding herself into a red prawn made her feel ashamed.
After listening to so many novels, she’d never heard of any female lead making an entrance like hers.
So embarrassing she wanted to die.
Chi Xiaoxue looked at her hands. The scalded redness hadn’t completely faded yet; now her skin looked fair with a rosy tint, not as frightening as before.
But her mood was still downcast. She leaned her head against the car window, gazing absently at the speeding trees and western-style houses outside.
Jiang Zhibai glanced at her sideways, then withdrew her gaze. She reached out and patted Jiang Yanyi’s shoulder in the front seat. “Daddy, actually… I was the one who told Mo-ji that the adhesive was shower gel.”
Jiang Yanyi turned to look at her. “What happened?”
“She asked me which one was shower gel, so I picked something that looked like shower gel for her.”
Jiang Zhibai thought carefully for a moment, then added, “I just thought that bottle’s color looked like my shower gel. I didn’t do it on purpose.”
These two illiterates—one dared to ask, and the other dared to believe.
What Jiang Yanyi thought, he didn’t voice out loud. He just gave Jiang Zhibai a gentle smile and reached over to stroke her fluffy little curly hair. “It’s okay if it wasn’t on purpose.”
Little Zhibai puffed out her cheeks and sighed in relief. “Then do I still need to apologize to Mo-ji?”
“Generally speaking, the act of apologizing typically occurs between people. It’s a behavioral pattern humans adopt after harming others, to repair relationships or balance their own sense of guilt.”
Jiang Yanyi answered very seriously, not as if speaking to a three-year-old child but more like conversing with an adult.
The little curly-haired girl leaned back in the safety seat, frowning with a serious expression, seemingly trying hard to digest her dad’s words.
After quite a while, she asked, “Since Moji isn’t human, does that mean I don’t need to apologize?”
“Hmm, you could say that. Apologizing to a robot isn’t morally obligatory. But I think, from the perspective of maintaining your own habits and character, you could also apologize to Moji. Although Moji doesn’t have feelings, as a conscious human, you should have an attitude toward your own actions.”
Chi Xiaoxue pricked up her ears listening to the father and daughter’s conversation but felt confused. What are these two chattering about?
Then she saw the little curly-haired girl turn her head to look at her and say softly but seriously, “Mo-ji, sorry. It was my fault for giving you the wrong shower gel.”
“I… don’t… don’t, it’s okay.”
Chi Xiaoxue originally wanted to say, she wasn’t “Mo-ji.” Although she couldn’t speak English either, she could still tell that when the male lead called her “Moji,” it sounded quite sophisticated. When the kid called her “Mo-ji,” it sounded like a villain’s name.
But after being asleep for 16 years, it was hard to articulate such a long sentence at first, so she quickly gave up.
Little Zhibai frowned and asked, “Daddy, why does she always talk like this?”
Jiang Yanyi also thought it a bit strange. Generally, when a bio-bionic android is used for the first time, there is an activation process, but it doesn’t last too long—maybe about an hour to complete activation.
But now half a day had passed, and Moji’s speech was still halting.
“Maybe it’s because no skill packages were installed, causing the main program to run a bit slowly.” After analyzing for a while, Jiang Yanyi could only come up with this possibility.