Chapter 3 - The Prototype

"Lihua, I am telling you. This is a very, very bad idea. Bad, bad, baaaaaaad idea," Nan Shang followed her around while nagging, emphasizing the adjectives, as Lihua wandered about in a corner of her house, where she was going to spend her time building the robot. She glared at her best friend as she positioned all the tools on the bench and set up the 3D printer for use.

She snapped, "Nan Shang. Relaaaaaaaax. It's a very, very good idea." and she walked off into the little storage room in her apartment to get the boxes of materials to use when she build the robot.

"No, it's not. This is identity theft!" Nan Shang picked up a lid and forcefully tried to close the boxes.

Lihua pushed her friend away softly, "Nan Shang," she laughed slightly, "It's not identity theft. I am not stealing his ID to do bad things to his accounts."

Nan Shang raised one of her eyebrows and looked at her best friend meaningfully.

"Okay fine," Lihua threw up her hands in the air and rolled her eyes, "It is identity theft, but really, I'm just going to keep this one in my house and it's going to be for my personal use." 

Nan Shang cocked her eyebrows and wiggled it, "Personal use, huh?" 

"Get your mind out of the gutter," Lihua snapped back playfully, "this is for emotional support and not to fulfill the other needs. But anyway! Get your hands off my boxes." 

"I have really, really bad feelings about this, Lihua." 

"The last time you had a bad feeling about your boyfriend, you ended up dating him even till now. I think this is going to be a great invention." 

Nan Shang laughed and slightly punched her best friend and moved away from the boxes, leaving the machine-obsessed girl with her trinkets.

~~~

9 weeks of frustrations of countless trips to libraries and back, multiple calls to different providers for materials required, several electricity failures in the house due to high voltage usage, two replacement of 3D machines, and last but not least, hours of gazing at the examplery figurine of Wu Yifan at the wax museum and persuading the curator to get her hands on his measurement -

"He is so beautiful...." Nan Shang exclaimed in a dream-like voice as Lihua exhibited her first ever prototype of her Project Heaven. "Wow...Lihua, how did you do this? He looks so life-like..." She brought her hands up and gently poked the cheeks of the model, which dented inwards, "It even feels like skin too...wow.." 

Lihua smiled as she admired her very first prototype, which she spent hours on. It was not easy on her. The project was very time-consuming, energy draining, and mind-boggling. It was just the start. She had only finished the hardware part of her own project, which was quite impressive to her since she finished the whole construction in 9 weeks. Lihua consulted a lot of her friends from across the Engineering department - from materials to thermodynamics - to get advices on how to build a compact yet functional robot, which would serve well like a human. Every single part of the robot was precious to her since she printed all of the parts out in a 3D machine and assembled them herself. Building the robot was also one of the hardest parts since the robot stood tall at 187cm, while she was just at 162cm. She remembered having to buy a tall stool just so that she could sit on it while she planted individual eyelashes into the rim of the eyes.

"Hello~?" Nan Shang repeatedly waved her hand in front of the robot's face, "Wake up!"

Lihua chuckled at her friend's silliness, "Nan Shang, he won't wake up. I haven't installed softwares and programs in it. I have to spend time on coding those."

"More?" Nan Shang's face contorted into discomfort. Lihua nodded as a response and headed to the fridge in the kitchen part of her house and took out some yogurt popsicles and raised one of them, a gesture to ask her friend whether she wanted some. 

"No thanks," the best friend shook her head and followed her into the kitchen, "It's starting to get cold. I don't want popsicles. But. Let me get back to my question, you still have more to do?" 

Lihua nodded her head continuously as she ate her popsicles silently while sitting on a kitchen stool, "You think it's going to be that easy, isn't it?" 

Nan Shang tilted her head to the side. 

"I still have weeks to go, actually. Not sure whether I can be as this fast because school is back on and I have more classes to teach as well as spend more time on my Masters' project," Lihua hesitated and looked away into the distance through the window pane in her living room. 

"You can do this, Han Lihua. You are one bad woman. You can do this," Nan Shang's warm hands enveloped over Lihua's cold ones and held them tightly. 

"Then, I think I need help," Lihua pursed her lips and bit them nervously. 

Nan Shang frowned, "What kind of help?" 

"I have to map out how he is going to behave around me and you need to ask me questions about what I like in a man so that I can construct the whole thing objectively..." 

Her best friend didn't speak for a while. "I didn't know what you said after 'what I like in a man' but I'll help!" 

"Great!" Lihua clapped her hands together and dashed to her desk before coming back with a notepad and a pen in her hand, "Here. Ask me questions!" 

"All right," Nan Shang took her place on a stool in front of the one that Lihua was sitting on, making her look like a therapist who was taking notes from her patient. 

"What is your favourite trait in a man?" she started. 

"Kind, gentle, warm, understanding, and last but not least, family-oriented." 

"What do you not like in a man?" 

"Really, Nan Shang? Wow. So innovative." 

"Shut up and answer my question." 

"I don't like grumpy men and those who are so full of themselves." 

"Which is actually what Shen is in my eyes," 

"Nan Shang...." Lihua groaned. 

The other girl snapped quickly, "Continuing!" 

"What do you want him to do when you are scared of thunderstorms and can't sleep?" 

"Nan Shang......" 

"I'm the one who is asking or you're the one who is asking?" she tapped on her notebook and glared at Lihua.

"Fine. I want him to hug me and soothe me to sleep." 

"What do you want him to do when you're sad?" 

"Buy me chocolate. Dark chocolate. 70% and up." 

The conversation went on for hours until Nan Shang filled up nearly half of the notebook with all the data she had gathered from the lengthly interview. She scribbled down all the facts she had gathered and frowned at it. "You know, you sure you don't know Wu Yifan?" 

"Why?" Lihua asked as she cooked the dinner for the two of them on the stove. 

"From all the fan accounts that I have read, the traits you like in a man is just like that guy." Nan Shang shrugged as she put the cap of the pen back on, "Don't quote me on this. I'm just saying." 

Lihua shook her head slightly as she stirred the pot and brought the ladle to have a sip of what she was cooking. 

~~~

It had been several weeks after Lihua had decided to start coding programs to inserts into all the softwares that she was going to use for the robot. She had lost track of how many days she had been working on the software side of the project. Her plate was more than full - her Masters project, her undergraduate classes, workshops to attend and top of all of this was the Project Heaven. 

"Miss Han?" a voice called her name at the staff hall in the university. 

She looked behind to see Professor Han, "Professor! Good afternoon!" 

"So, how is the personal project you had been working on?" he asked casually as he walked towards her direction, in his usual playful manner. 

She crinkled her nose, "It's okay. I think I'm about 70% done?" 

"Great! It has not been that long even!" he beamed gently, like a grandfather who is pleased with his grand daughter's progress.

She fixed her bag, which strap was starting to fall from her shoulder, "Then please excuse me Professor. I need to run some errand." Professor nodded and she excused herself before walking away from the Professor with her light steps.

"Lihua." 

She looked back again at the professor who called her name. 

"Remember. If things go wrong, it's not the end of the world. It's okay to fail. Just remember to revise and reapply." 

Lihua smiled and nodded before she left the staff hall. 

~~~

Several weeks passed by. Lihua was currently sitting at her desk beside the robot with her bleary eyes staring at the computer screen. The robot, which she had now uncreatively named 'Yifan', stood by the side, with its eye closed. Sometimes, the presence of the robot figure in the house scared her. There was one time she almost screamed because it looked like a real person standing tall. She had bought some clothes for him, which was just simple white long-sleeved t-shirt and a pair of dark jeans. 

She blinked her unfocused her eyes and looked at the robot. With dreamy steps, she walked towards the stool and sat on the stool beside the robot. It was the very best piece she had produced and spent so much time on it. Her slender fingers reached for the face and fondled it gently as she admired her work. Everything, from head to toe and inside out, was her craft. The whole thing will come to life and she would have a companion to her and live her fangirl dream of having a robot who is there for her and for her only. 

Lihua smiled and slid off from the stood and got back to the computer. She had installed all the softwares required and installed the initiating program. All she needed to do was to initiate the robot after it had finished installing everything inside. She glanced at the screen, which displayed 15% completion of the progress. Lihua stared at the screen again with her clouded eyes and sighed. Slowly, she drifted off into the dreamland. 

A gentle and slow movement around her stirred her sleep. Lihua's brain was too tired to process what was going on. All she knew was that she felt very comfortable and her arms slowly wrapped around an object, which seemed like a torso of a human body. 

"Wait a second..." she thought to herself and pried her eyes open. As soon as she saw what was in front of her eyes, she let out a little scream and her arms tightened around the said torso. Lihua was being carried in the arms of the robot. 

"Good morning, Master," a slightly rigid but nonetheless deep voice greeted her. The robot blinked its eyes and looked at her before it smiled. 

"This is way too natural," she whispered, "Are you human?" After she asked the question, she realized that it was too stupid of a question to even ask.  

"No, I am not, Master," the robot replied, "Han Lihua made me." 

Lihua suppressed a giggle that rose within a chest. She gently murmured, "Can you please put me down?" 

"It seems that you are feeling very tired, Master. I must put you to sleep before you crash from sleep deprivation." 

She chuckled, "It's fine, Yifan. Please put me down." The robot obliged and she slowly slid away from his body.

"Wow..." she exclaimed as she scurried around the robot from back to front, which the robot's head followed naturally like a human who was confused by a child running around him.

Lihua ran towards her mobile and fumbled to dial her best friend only to reach her voice mail, "Nan Shang! It's alive!" she muttered just a few words and hung up.

The robot blinked its eyes and smiled again, his face was void of subtle expressions like that of a human but his features were passable. "YES!!!!" Lihua screamed and jumped onto the sofa near her. The joy of jumping on the sofa did not last long before the robot's long arms caught her, "It's not safe. You'll fall off." It hugged her and gently put her down to the floor.  

All Lihua could do was sit down and stare at the robot again and again. The silence was shattered by her stomach, growling in protest. A shade of surprise swept across the robot's face, "It seems like Master is hungry." Lihua still has not gotten used to being addressed as Master but she let it slide off since she was too excited to do anything. She nodded at the robot. 

It smiled, "I will make you breakfast. What would you like?" 

"Congee..." she replied quickly, earning a fond smile from the robot. "God damn, girl. You did a frigging great job that you should win a Nobel prize in Engineering. yeah!" 

"I will go make something. Would you like to have a shower while I make congee?" 

Lihua squealed in excitement and nodded before she rushed into her bedroom, and undressed herself. She stepped into the shower with glee; feeling very proud about her project and smug about how it was a success. With every movement of hers feeling like she was on a cloud, she finished showering and wrapped the bathrobe around her and tightened the waist.

zzzzzing~ crash~ 

A loud crash appeared from outside the bedroom, which startled her. Urgently, she rushed outside, where an unsightly scene was greeting her. There was her robot, in a fit of spasm in front of the stove, with a spoon in his right hand to his mouth and static noise was coming from within his body. Within splitseconds, she went to her desk and took the remote control and clicked on a button to shut down the robot. The static noises ceased and the spasm stopped. 

She investigated the robot thoroughly, wondering where it went wrong until she spotted a patch of congee on the corner of its mouth. Lihua started laughing in hysteria after she slapped her forehead, "Oh god, how stupid I can be to install a software to taste the thing before serving... I didn't even install the censors." 

With affectionate hand, she once again reached for the robot's face and gently it, "Yifan, I'm so, so sorry. I'll fix you up soon but right now I need sleep" Her eyes fell on the stove, where a pot was simmering with congee inside. She stood up and moved the robot with much difficulty, since the robot was much more denser than she actually expected. Her hands reached towards the waist as she rested on them. She let out a sigh, with a desperation of realizing that her first prototype had failed, ultimately. 

As she stirred her congee, she remembered the very first thing Professor Han spoke to class when she first entered university.

"Failures are normal. Never give up."  

~~~

[Author's note:]
As usual. I am very, very thankful of the lovely comments here. It's really great reading the comments. I'll see you again soon!