After I died, a humanoid robot took my place and stayed by my husband’s side. Edward didn’t notice anything strange about me. Every day, he spent time with his first love, Sophia, just to enjoy watching me suffer—longing, desperate, and hysterical. But a machine can’t mimic human emotions. It could only interpret my love for Edward as following a set of commands. It didn’t understand jealousy, nor could it feel anger. Until one day, Sophia pushed me off the balcony of the Penthouse. My metal frame twisted from the impact. Edward rushed over. For the first time, he was close enough to me, just one look away from realising something was wrong. A loud crash echoed through the room. Edward dropped his glass and rushed over. But when he saw me lying there, his worry quickly morphed into disgust. The one who pushed me, Sophia, stood at the top of the stairs, feigning tears as she began her act. “Edward, Emma reached out to push me, but she slipped and fell herself.” Edward didn’t spare me a glance, striding straight over to Sophia. “Are you all right, Sophia? You didn’t get hurt, did you?” He checked her thoroughly, and after confirming that not a single hair on his beloved’s head was out of place, he finally exhaled in relief. Then, in a show of rare condescension, he turned to look at me. I was sprawled on the floor in a terribly undignified position, motionless. “Emma Parker, you’re as stupid as you are cruel! Crawling around on the floor like a dog—what, did you think this would make me care about you? That I’d pay you some attention?” He’d clearly seen the slight dent in the floor where I’d landed, but there wasn’t even a hint of concern in his eyes. When I didn’t move, he shouted, irritated, “Stop playing dead! Do you think pretending will make me feel guilty? Get up and apologise to Sophia!” I heard his command, my head twitched slightly, but then I let it fall back down. Edward’s expression darkened. “Emma Parker, stop testing my patience! Apologise to Sophia, or I’ll personally have you thrown into a cell!” He stood over me, certain I’d obey as I always had. But I stayed down, motionless except for a faint twitch in my leg. Sophia, playing the part of a concerned friend, chimed in, “Edward, maybe you should check on her? What if something’s really wrong?” Despite her words, she remained clinging tightly to Edward, making no effort to move. Edward let out a cold laugh, indifferent. “She didn’t even cry out. She’ll be fine. It’s just the fifth floor, she’s not dead—maybe crippled at worst. And if anything has happened, well, she’s brought it on herself.” There was such venom in his voice, so much malice. If he could, I’m sure he would have been delighted to see me die right there. Unfortunately for him, he was bound to be disappointed. Because the one lying on the floor wasn’t the real me. It was just a humanoid robot, almost indistinguishable from the real thing. Of course, the machine didn’t scream in pain. It didn’t feel pain. And it couldn’t die. Though my soul was bound to the robot, I couldn’t control it. It was sophisticated enough to function on its own—it had only crashed due to the severe impact.
The system rebooted quickly. “You could drop dead, and I still wouldn’t feel like looking at you. No matter how much you act, I’ll never come down to help.” As Edward spat out those words, I slowly rose, though my right leg was grotesquely twisted. This odd movement only made him more certain I was putting on a performance, and he lifted his chin, satisfied with himself. Sophia gasped dramatically. “Edward, look at Emma’s leg—it looks so strange!” “She’s only broken a bone, that’s all. Dogs can break a leg and be fine in a few days. She’s hardly worse than an animal.” Edward’s remark made Sophia laugh, and she giggled uncontrollably. “Yes, and Emma has a knack for escaping death. You saved her after that lorry accident, and now she’s fallen from the penthouse without a scratch!” As she spoke, Edward’s face grew darker, his hatred for me barely contained. I knew he’d always regretted saving me. The day he sent Sophia off to study abroad, I learned for the first time that she was the one he couldn’t let go of. Distracted by the news, I hadn’t noticed the lorry speeding toward me. He acted on impulse, pushing me out of the way, but in the end, it was his legs that were crushed. For a professional ballroom dancer, losing your legs was worse than death. Every day after that, Edward’s resentment for me grew. “She’s no miracle survivor—she’s a bloody curse. First, she cost me my legs, and now she wants to take you away too!” His anger boiled over, and he kicked me hard in the leg. My already misshapen limb bent even further, emitting a faint crackling noise. Edward paused, suspicious, but the sound soon stopped. He composed himself again and barked, “Go and make some tea for Sophia to apologise.” I nodded obediently and hobbled to fetch the tea. Sophia turned her nose up as I approached, clinging to Edward’s arm like a spoiled child. “Edward, I don’t think Emma’s really sorry. She brought me cold tea, after all. I want it scalding hot.” I went back, prepared fresh tea, and brought it to her again. This time, she intentionally let go of the cup. “Oh no!” Even though the entire cup spilled onto my leg, it was Sophia who cried out in distress. “Edward, my leg! I think I’ve been burned!” Edward hurriedly rolled up her trouser leg, revealing nothing more than a faint red mark on her smooth skin. “Emma Parker, you did that on purpose, didn’t you?!” I stared blankly at the synthetic skin on my own leg, where the hot tea had scalded me, and muttered numbly, “It wasn’t on purpose.” Sophia, pretending not to hear, sobbed louder. “Emma, I know you don’t like me, but this is too much! You’re just jealous that Edward and I can still dance ballroom together, aren’t you? Fine, I won’t dance with him anymore.” Edward was fuming, desperate to console her, and in his rage, he slapped me hard across the face. “You spiteful woman! All you ever do is cause trouble! Now, clean up that mess from the floor with your tongue, and then give Sophia a proper apology.”
I used to be a proud woman. The only time I ever put my pride aside was when I knelt and begged that strange doctor, Dr. Vincent, to make prosthetic legs for Edward. I would’ve traded my life for it, without hesitation. If I were still alive, I’d have screamed at Edward, not caring about anything else. But the machine didn’t understand humiliation. To it, the command was just that—a command. It had inherited all my memories, and its core programming was to love Edward. So no matter what orders he gave, it would follow them without question. And right now, I was licking the spilled tea off the floor like a dog, utterly devoid of dignity. The machine couldn’t comprehend emotions. I thought that by obeying Edward, he would be satisfied. Maybe even happy. “Emma Parker, you’ve really surprised me.” His expression shifted to something more complicated, as though he wanted to take a closer look at my injuries. But just then, Sophia let out a feeble cry, collapsing softly into his arms. Edward scooped her up immediately and rushed her out. He was so close. If he’d only looked a little longer, he might have seen the faint glint of metal under my skin. After they left, I connected to a power source and entered standby mode. Staring at the burnt synthetic skin, I felt a rising sense of fear, even though I was already dead. I couldn’t help but think back to the day Dr. Vincent came to me. Edward had been in a rage, smashing everything in the hospital room, while I stood outside, hiding my tears in my hands. Normal prosthetics could let him walk again, but they’d never be as fluid as real legs. “I can make prosthetic legs as good as the real thing,” Dr. Vincent had told me, “but you’ll have to agree to be my test subject in exchange.” “I agree.” Vincent had looked at me, surprised by my quick response, and raised an eyebrow. “Think carefully before you answer. You’ll endure a lot of pain and die in the process. After you’re dead, I’ll replace you with a humanoid robot. That’s part of the experiment.” Edward had saved my life once. In return, I would give him back his legs. In my mind, that made us even. But even knowing what was to come, I hadn’t expected the experiment to be so brutal. To create an exact replica of me, Vincent had to remove the skin from different parts of my body, piece by piece, for testing. The final step was opening up my brain to create a memory chip. By the time I died, there wasn’t a single patch of skin on my body left unscathed. In my agony, I’d begged Dr. Vincent to make one last call to Edward. I just wanted to hear his voice one final time. But the call went unanswered, and Vincent—tired of my requests—told me that Edward had blocked my number. “I almost feel sorry for you.” Vincent had said, switching on a surveillance camera. The screen showed Edward carefully tending to the roses in the passenger seat of his car, smiling as he drove to the airport. Soon, Sophia appeared at the arrivals gate, and they embraced tightly. The people around them were cheering. “Kiss! Kiss!” Edward brushed a strand of hair away from Sophia’s face and kissed her passionately. Vincent turned to me and asked, “Do you regret giving up your life for his legs?”
The sharp ring of a phone broke through my thoughts. I unplugged the charging cable and answered almost immediately. “Emma, Sophia’s craving your chicken noodle soup. Make it and bring it to St. George’s Hospital now.” Edward barked the command and hung up before I could respond. I quickly prepared the soup and hailed a cab to the hospital. When I opened the door to Sophia’s private room, Edward was sitting by her bedside, gently stroking her shoulder, whispering soothing words until she drifted off to sleep. As soon as he saw me, his tender demeanor vanished. He carefully lowered Sophia’s head onto the pillow, then dragged me out into the hallway, his grip rough and angry. “Are you doing this on purpose, Emma? Taking your sweet time, knowing full well Sophia was waiting for you!” Without waiting for an answer, he opened the thermos, and before I could react, he dumped the soup straight into the rubbish bin. Edward’s face was like stone, his jaw clenched with the effort to contain his rage. He looked ready to lash out at me again, but the sound of crying from the room pulled his attention back to Sophia. He threw me one last furious glare and rushed back inside. “Edward, don’t worry about me. My kidney failure is getting worse… That’s why I left you all those years ago—to seek treatment abroad. But there’s been no donor. I’m dying… I just wanted to come home and see you one last time.” “It won’t come to that. Don’t say such things.” Edward gritted his teeth, his voice tight with the effort of reassurance. “You’re the one who found Dr. Vincent. Without you, I wouldn’t be able to walk, let alone dance. I owe you everything. I’ll donate my kidney to you. I won’t let you suffer.” I stood frozen. My mind couldn’t process what I’d just heard. It was me who had sacrificed everything to give Edward his legs back, not Sophia. Sophia glanced at me over Edward’s shoulder, a smug, taunting glimmer in her eyes as she wrapped herself more tightly around him. “Edward, I’ll never take your kidney. You need both to stay healthy, and if you only have one, you’ll never be able to dance again. But maybe Emma could give me hers? She doesn’t do much with her life. What’s the harm in losing a kidney?” Edward considered the suggestion and slowly turned toward me. “Emma, why don’t you give Sophia your kidney? I’ll be good to you. I’ll take care of you.” I shook my head and answered plainly, “I can’t.” To Edward, it must have seemed like I was being difficult, selfish. But in truth, I literally couldn’t donate my kidney. The body I was trapped in was full of wires and metal, not organs. Edward’s face twisted with fury, interpreting my refusal as cold indifference. “What do you mean you can’t? Are you really so heartless that you’d let her die? I can’t believe I ever saved someone as selfish as you.” He raised his voice, shouting, “I gave you your life back! You owe me this! You can’t just refuse!” Human emotions are messy and complicated, too complex for a machine to grasp. But as a robot, I could only repeat myself mechanically, “I can’t.” It wasn’t hard to see that Edward was on the verge of losing control. He glared at me, his voice dropping to an icy tone. “Fine, have it your way. But I’m telling you, Emma, you will donate that kidney.” The machine received his command. Despite how unnatural it seemed to comply, my programming—rooted in love and obedience—made me slowly nod in agreement. Edward’s anger melted into relief as he called for a doctor, watching eagerly as I was wheeled into surgery. He held Sophia close, his eyes gleaming with joy. “Sophia, we’ll be back to dancing together in no time.” But their joy didn’t last long. The surgeon emerged from the operating room, his face a mix of confusion and disbelief. “Are you having a laugh? This isn’t a person! It’s… It’s a machine!”
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