After skillfully calling Fatty Liao and asking him to help request leave, Kraft took milk and bread from the fridge for breakfast, then ran toward his workshop.
Pushing open the workshop door, Kraft unscrewed the milk cap and gulped down two mouthfuls, then forcibly swallowed the bread he had stuffed into his mouth on the way.
"Whew... I almost choked to death..."
Kraft lightly pounded his chest with his fist and took another two gulps of milk to calm himself down.
Throwing the empty milk carton into the trash, Kraft began drawing the robot's blueprints.
Although Kraft did not need blueprints and could simply follow the memories from his dreams to reproduce the process step by step, that would do little to hone his own skills. Since he now had enough money and time, with plenty of room for trial and error, he naturally chose the method that would better train his abilities.
Kraft had no intention of altering the initial version of the blueprints, even though quite a few of its designs seemed baffling to him, such as the toe USB ports, the toaster head, and that oversized wind-up key the robot could not remove by herself.
But to play it safe, Kraft tried not to make any changes during his first attempt at building it.
"Hm?"
Kraft, who had been drawing the blueprints, suddenly turned his head and looked behind him in confusion. Then he stopped working and pulled up the workshop's surveillance footage. Yet from beginning to end, the footage showed that he had been the only person in the workshop.
"Was that just my imagination...?"
Kraft scratched his head, but still warily glanced behind him a few more times. While drawing the blueprints just now, he had vaguely felt as if someone were watching him from behind. Kraft's intuition was exceptionally sharp. Ever since he could remember, he had possessed this strange intuition, and it had saved him several times while he was wandering the streets. So he trusted it deeply.
Still, his intuition was occasionally wrong. Especially when Kraft had first discovered how useful it was, the slightest rustle would make him nervous, only for him to later realize it had all been in his head. It had taken Kraft quite some time to adjust, so after checking the surveillance footage and still finding nothing unusual, he stopped dwelling on it.
Returning to work, Kraft quickly finished drawing the blueprints. Then he actively blocked off the memories related to Dr. Shinonome building the robot. He was already very familiar with doing this, and it was related to the nature of his dream memories. Unlike ordinary memories, every dream involving inventions and creations was like a file he could access at any time. It was somewhat like a so-called memory palace, though it only worked on Kraft's dream memories.
After blocking the relevant memories, Kraft began building the robot according to the blueprints he had drawn himself.
Once he started, he remained cooped up in the workshop for over a week. Martin Lee had already returned from his business trip, yet Kraft was still holed up in the workshop and had not come out.
Dr. Shinonome had clearly built the robot in less than a day...
Kraft had only blocked the memories related to the construction process. He still remembered the other minor details.
I should've blocked those too...
Kraft scratched at his messy, unkempt hair and sighed inwardly.
"Hey! Kraft, did you stay up late again yesterday?"
Martin Lee walked in carrying a bag of soup dumplings. Seeing Kraft's bloodshot eyes, he frowned.
"No, no."
Kraft hurriedly waved both hands. His construction was nearing its end. It would be such a waste if Martin forcibly dragged him back now.
"I just overworked my eyes. If you don't believe me, you can check last night's surveillance footage. I went to sleep after eleven!"
"Really? But you promised me you'd sleep before ten."
Martin stared at Kraft with a dark expression.
"I was just so absorbed in my work that I forgot..."
Kraft moved closer to Martin with a fawning smile.
"I'll set an alarm today. I'll definitely sleep before ten!"
It'll be finished today anyway. I just need to fool him for now!
"You said it!"
Martin had no idea what Kraft was plotting. He pointed twice at Kraft's forehead from a distance, finally smiling before handing over the soup dumplings.
"Hurry up and eat breakfast."
"Oh! David's soup dumplings!"
Just as Kraft reached out to take them, Martin suddenly pulled his hand back.
"You haven't washed up yet."
"...Fine..."
Kraft's hands froze in midair before he helplessly lowered his arms and shuffled toward the bathroom, looking back every few steps.
After eating the breakfast Martin had brought, Kraft stretched his limbs and threw himself back into building the robot. By now, the robot's overall framework was basically complete. All that remained were some finishing details and the final connection to the power source.
The so-called power source was not the huge wind-up key on her back, but a device that converted food into energy. The blueprints placed this device in the robot's abdomen. Put simply, Dr. Shinonome had truly designed a "stomach" for the robot.
Converting food into power...
That was completely unscientific!
After returning from his business trip, Martin Lee's workload had become relatively light, so he did not hurry off. Instead, he watched with great interest as Kraft gradually assembled the nearly finished robot girl.
The kid's grown up...
Looking at the robot girl's adorable face, Martin Lee rested his chin on his hand and gave Kraft a meaningful look.
Kraft: ???
"Hey! Martin! Why are you looking at me like that?"
Feeling uncomfortable under his gaze, Kraft could not help protesting.
"No, it's nothing..." Martin Lee withdrew his gaze, then earnestly said, "Although this robot is very cute, she isn't a real human being after all."
"Of course I know that! I made her myself!"
Kraft shot Martin a baffled eye roll.
"Oh, all right. Maybe I misunderstood..."
Martin smacked his lips. Kraft's reaction made him realize that he had probably gotten the wrong idea.
"You're acting all weird..."
Kraft curled his lip and did not investigate exactly what his adoptive father had misunderstood. The robot was at its final stage of construction, and he had no interest in anything else right now.
After installing the final energy device, Kraft closed the cover over her abdomen, pulled down her rolled-up clothes, and smoothed them out. Then, with great excitement, he flipped the final switch.
"Click... click-click-click..."
As the wind-up key on her back turned, the robot girl slowly opened her eyes.
"Kraft?"
The robot girl tilted her head and called out the name of the boy before her according to the information in her mind.
"Hahaha! I did it!"
Kraft excitedly hugged Martin beside him and shook his head wildly up and down.
"That's right! It's me!"
Kraft rushed in front of the robot girl and began touching her all over.
"I actually made her! This is incredible!"
"W-Wait..."
The robot girl shyly covered herself and cried out in a soft voice.
"H, H is bad behavior!"
"H my ass!"
Kraft raised his hand and smacked the robot girl on the forehead.
"You're a robot! What's there to H about!"
"Ah-woo!"
The robot girl let out an adorable cry of pain, covered her forehead, and crouched down. With tears in her eyes, she silently accused Kraft of his brutality.
Martin Lee watched his adoptive son interact with the robot he had created, his face utterly blank and his mind a complete mess.
This is a fucking robot?!
The robot Kraft had made had far exceeded Martin's expectations. He had thought Kraft would make, at most, a humanoid mechanical doll that was essentially a large toy. But seeing the robot girl's rich expressions and the intelligence she displayed in conversation...
Take away the wind-up key on her back, and she was no different from an ordinary human!
After enthusiastically interacting with the robot for a while, Kraft turned to look at Martin Lee, whose expression remained calm even as turmoil raged within him.
"Martin, can you help get Alice some identification?"
"Alice?"
Martin came back to his senses and looked at Kraft.
"Yeah, that's the name I gave her."
Kraft pointed at the robot girl he had made and told Martin the backstory he had prepared long ago. "Alice Lee. Her Chinese name is Li Mingnai. She's your distant niece and my cousin."
There was no need to give Nona a Japanese identity. Keeping the name was enough. As for Alice, it came from Alice in Wonderland, giving her at least some connection to dreams.
"But she clearly looks older than you."
"By seniority, seniority!"
Kraft waved his hand irritably. The Nona from his dreams had looked like a high school student, but there was no way he would call her his older sister!
"Fine." Martin smacked his lips. Since Kraft had made her himself, he could call her whatever he wanted. "But..."
Martin pointed to the wind-up key on Alice's back.
"With that thing there, won't other people question Alice's identity too? Can't you remove it?"
"Sure."
Kraft casually pulled the wind-up key off Alice's back.
"It's just decoration."
"Huh? Huh—?!"
Alice Lee stared in shock at the wind-up key in Kraft's hand and demanded from the depths of her soul, "Then why did you put it on me in the first place?!"
"Ummmmm..."
Kraft pondered for a moment, then replied with Dr. Shinonome's original words. "Because it's cuter this way?"
As he spoke, Kraft casually plugged the wind-up key back in.
"Click-click-click..."
The reinserted key mischievously turned half a circle.
Alice Mingnai Lee: "That doesn't make it cute at all!!!"
Kraft: I suddenly understood why Dr. Shinonome designed the wind-up key~
Before you continue