Chapter 1 - The Little Seed of Idea 

"Lihua" she heard one of her many aunties call her name as she was enjoying her plate of fried rice with gusto on one of her family's countless family gatherings on a holiday. 

"Yes, Aunty Zhang?" she put down her spoon and braced for what was yet to come at her direction while she tried to smile as innocently as she could. 

"How old are you again?" 

She resumed smiling, "I turn 27 soon, Aunty." 

Her Aunty smiled and Lihua didn't miss the hint of smirk lingering at the corner of her Aunty's upper lip. "You know, your cousin Steve got married a few weeks ago." 

"I know," she replied, while trying to hide the guilt, "I'm so sorry I couldn't attend his wedding reception. I had to attend a symposium of robotics and I really couldn't miss it out." 

Aunty scoffed and her smirk turned upside down, "You know. You and your robotics. They will take you nowhere. You have been in university of nearly a decade and all you have been doing is this robotics." She shrugged, "To girls, it is not that important to get into the frontline of career. A degree is to help secure a husband after meeting potential candidates. Be quick, Lihua. Your time is running out. 3 years more and you will be a leftover girl, unable to get married and getting nowhere." 

She could feel her face reddening in front of all the relatives at the lunch table. Lihua never liked it when people started to comment about her relationship status nor try to dictate where and what she should be doing. With her face tinted in scarlet, she politely excused herself to go to the restroom. Her mother, who had been watching the conversation from the side, followed her to the innermost part of the house, where the restroom was. 

"Lihua," her mom whispered when she found her daughter leaning on the wall in front of the restroom door, with tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. 

Lihua found her mothers eyes and smiled, causing a drop of tear to flow fluidly down her cheek, "Hi Mama," she sniffed and wiped away the tear, "I'm so sorry. I think I got chillies in my eyes. You put way too much chilli oil in my fried rice," she mustered out a blatant lie. 

"Hua," her mom called her in the soothing voice, "Forgive you aunt. She has always been self-righteous in the family." 

Lihua sniffed again, "It's all right, Mama. For now. But one day, I want to see her eat her own words again." 

"Oh, Lihua," her mom whispered and held her closely. Lihua instantly felt calm as her mother held her, listening to the heartbeat. There is one thing magical about hugs for her. She has always liked hugs - the way that they would soothe her and calm her down, especially when she could hear the heart beating rhythmically in the rib cage. That way she feels safe and secure. Maybe that was also part of the reason why she has so many plushies in her bedroom, to help her sleep when days are tough. 

A few moments later, she gently pushed her mother away, "Mama, it's getting late. I should go back," she spoke as she felt a sudden decrease in the light outside of the house.

"Hua, must you really go back to the robotics?" her mother sighed, "It's family gathering." 

With a smile, she squeezed her mother's hand, "Mama, it's important. I have to be there and I have to mark my students' papers." 

Her mother sighed as she looked away from Lihua, "You know. Times like this make me regret that I supported you to become this nerdy girl," she reached for Lihua's nose and pinched it lovingly. 

"But, that nerdy girl helped you take a great photo at graduation, didn't she?" Lihua remembered the time her mother looked proud as she went up on the stage as the Valedictorian of her year to make the speech. "Anyway, I'm going soon. Tell everyone that I said 'bye' okay? I don't want to meet Aunty Zhang again..." 

Lihua took her bag from her old room upstairs and got on her car, only to be interrupted by her father as she turned the key to the car, "So my little Hua is going back without saying goodbye to her Papa, isn't she?"  

"Papa," she peeked her tongue out. She completely forgot about her father as she left the house in a hurry, with the burning intent to get away from her aunt as much as she could. 

"So, where are you escaping to?" 

"Campus." 

"Even on a holiday?" her father asked with a raised eyebrow. 

She confirmed him while nodding her head, "Even on a holiday. It's my final year in Masters, Papa. I have to finish the final project. The exhibition is at the end of the year." 

"It's like... 12 months away. You and your robotics..." her father sighed, "Your mother is right. I regret supporting you to be this nerdy," he laughed, "All right. Off you go. Make sure you're back for the next family gathering and drive safe, okay?" 

Lihua nodded and shut the cardoor before she drove out of the driveway from her family house. 

~~~

She drove along the highway and her mind drifted on as she pondered about what her aunt just told her a while ago.

It was not that Lihua hated being in relationship. She had been into several relationships, all of which failed ultimately. They all failed to live up ton her expectations to provide her with what she needed, when in fact she provided her ex-boyfriends with everything she could possibly do. 

Her first boyfriend and she met when they were preparing for university entrance exams. They dated for a year. She had always known he was not as smart as her but she never brought up the topic in order to not hurt his feelings. Acceptance letters came out and she got into her university of choice while he couldn't even make it to his second-choice university. After that, their relationship started to dwindle. He started accusing her about how she has so much pride in herself and her intelligence. Gradually, they split up - with Lihua on the suffering end while the other moved on to another girlfriends. They never kept in touch but she learned about him through mutual friends. 

Her second boyfriend was someone who was in the same class with her in her undergraduate years. He was intelligent, suave and hardworking - all the qualities that girls look for when choosing a husband. However, nobody is perfect in life. Her second boyfriend lacked greatly in terms of handling human emotions. He never knew what was happening to Lihua nor how she was feeling. He didn't even notice that she had disappeared for a few days due to a bad cold. That was how much attention he paid towards her. Nevertheless, Lihua was not bothered by it and gave her best to the relationship. However, just before the day of graduation, he broke the news that he was getting married to someone else his parents had set up for him. 

That shattered Lihua to an extreme degree. For the past two relationships, she had given her ultimate effort to maintain it - just as how she would give all to keep things in tip-top condition - being a perfectionist. However, the two people took away her trust and her ability to be frank with people, especially in romantic encounters. She stopped showing her true self to people around her unless they made the effort to enter her life. To her, showing the real self to other people equals to being vulnerable, which gives others the advantage to trample all over her. Hence why she closed off her wall and became someone who was perceived as cold.

Her third and final relationship was destroyed because of that. She was constantly nervous and worried about him leaving her while not letting him get to see her true self. Everything he knew about her was just the tip of the iceberg, while she tried to conceal her real self continuously. In the end, the guy gave up on the relationship. When it ended, Lihua felt like a string had been cut. She felt free - like a bird, which just escaped the narrow confines of a cage.

Relationships were not for her. She would much rather read and spend time with her robots and machine. The thing about machines and robot was that they would never betray you. As long as you get the system, command, and coding right, they will run smoothly and efficiently. There is absolutely no emotions involved, no expectations on returns of how much one is returning the favour, no secrets hidden behind the surface. Nothing. Everything will run like a clockwork without hindrance.

It was part of the reason why she became too involved with robotics, the degree that she was trying to get her post-graduate certificate in. Being the Valedictorian, she was chosen to lead a tutorial class to guide the undergraduate class while managing on her own to master in robotics. It felt lonely being one of  the very few girls in her batch of fellows but she had gotten used to it. School, work and her personal life - the only three things that matter to her the most. Her life would feel complete, until someone like her Aunty Zhang would come and berate her about how she could turn out to be the leftover, unmarried girl if she kept up her lifestyle. 

~~~

Lihua entered her apartment in the city she lived it, which was kept neat with due to her perfectionism. She hooked the keys onto the nail she hammered in near the front door and took off her heels. Her apartment was decorated with different hues of white and metallic - offwhite, cream, ivory, silver, etc. She likes white. People would argue that it is such a difficult colour to keep clean but she loves the high-maintenance aspect of it. It suits her personality and her habit of paying so much attention to detail. She entered her apartment to her room - crossing her kitchen, which also suited the rest of the house, pristine and shiny with necessary appliances fitted. Once she got into her bedroom, she changed and headed back out into the lounge - just to walk over to the corner of the apartment, where she kept her leisure readings on shelves. 

Manga is one of her another side that not many people knew about. She enjoyed reading them and as a teenager, she would go to personal signing ceremonies of her favourite manga artist to support them and to tell them that she liked them so much. Whenever she gets stressed, she would head over to the corner of santuary, which she named herself, and pick up a book to let all her worries washed away. She also felt the extreme need to do it, especially tonight. 

Her slender fingers languidly glided across the shelf as she pondered what book she wanted to read. Absolute Boyfriend caught her attention as Lihua's eyes fell on it. She smiled contentedly and pulled it out from the shelf. She made herself a cup of hot chocolate and plopped herself on the bean bag. As she read the pages of the manga, which was not the first time she had read it, she became truly engrossed in the book - especially at how Tenjo Knight would go to extreme lengths to prove the love he has for Riiko. 

All of a sudden, she felt as if a light bulb had been lit within her brain. She knows computers. She knows how to write programs. She knows how to build robots. She has a small army of professors to ask for her as well as an ocean of resources within the university. 

Lihua smiled. When she was young, her father taught that she should not wait for things to happen magically out of thin air. Instead, she should walk forward bravely and create them herself, and grab her fortune by herself. Time and tide wait for no men, or women.

She could make a robot like Tenjo Knight herself. A robot, who would do nothing but care for her immensely. It could either be the best idea that had ever happened to her or a complete nightmare of a project. But she couldn't care. Engineers are supposed to try things out and see if it works or not anyway. She grinned like a Cheshire cat. She may have found a side project to get away from school stress.  

~~~