Chapter 4: Giving You a Name

After that walk with it, I got a taste of how good it felt. For the next half month or so, I made it a habit to take it downstairs for a ten-minute walk every night.

During those outings, I ran into a few neighbors from the building. They only glanced at us from afar, never coming over to talk.

I figure that middle-aged woman from before must have spread the word about us “damn gays” in 603.

“He’s that weird, antisocial freak in 603, and a homosexual at that—sleeping with a guy! Stay away or you’ll get infected!” Or something like that, probably.

I caught the looks they gave me—filled with disgust and contempt. But when their eyes landed on the doll by my side, a sort of “like a rose planted in manure, or cabbage trampled by pigs” pity flickered across their faces.

The pigs and the manure, of course, referred to me.

This “Liang Zhiting” face was its get-out-of-jail-free card. Handsome people get away with everything and are forgiven for everything.

I secretly enjoyed seeing these people clearly dislike me but having to tolerate my existence. It gave me an indescribable satisfaction.

If I had to complain about something in this life, it would be how slow the doll’s reactions were—like it had an ancient XP system inside. I’d click the mouse, and it would take ten minutes to respond. Sometimes it froze and gave no response at all.

The doll maker’s own doll would bring him tea, be a chair, obedient beyond belief. But mine? It didn’t understand a word I said, didn’t respond when called, and only just recently began walking a bit faster after I took it walking daily. Complex tasks like fetching tea were out of the question.

That was one thing. On top of that, even though I’d paid a lot and had its perfect face, looking at it made me restless, hoping to find some fun in bed with it. But its mouth and other parts were just decorations—pretty but useless. I had no choice but to satisfy myself while staring at its face.

How was this any different from just staring at pictures and doing the same?

No satisfaction for the mind, no comfort for the body.

Just a pretty wooden Liang Zhiting.

After one more attempt in the bathroom to relieve myself, I couldn’t hold back any longer and called that doll maker in the distant mountain village directly.

He lived in a remote place, had an old phone with no WeChat, and only gave me one number.

The call almost hung up automatically before he lazily answered, “Who’s this?” I vented my dissatisfaction, and after hearing me out, his hoarse, aged voice said, “It’s a brainless thing. What did you expect it to be smart about?”

“What about the doll by your side?” I asked.

His voice was muffled, sounding unwell. “That one’s old—it’s been with me over ten years. The bond was built over a long time.”

Built? What nonsense. I didn’t have the time to “bond” with a toy for ten years.

He coughed a few times and tried to reason, “Even a kitten or puppy doesn’t know everything the first day it comes home. A pet’s entire existence centers around its owner; its thoughts and behavior are all taught by the owner. Cats and dogs are alive and require patient guidance, let alone a doll with no eyes or heart.”

“If you want it to be a certain way, you have to patiently teach it. Over time, it learns what’s allowed, what’s not, how to avoid making you angry, and how to win your favor.”

“What it becomes depends on what you do now.”

He rambled a bunch but basically boiled it down to one word: “bonding.”

I was even more frustrated.

At least cats and dogs have ears and mouths, and they bark or meow sometimes. This doll had a face full of decorations but couldn’t make a sound. How was I supposed to teach that?

“It’s been with you a while now; maybe it has changed, but because you see it all day, you haven’t noticed.”

“What?” I looked at the doll sitting by my bed. Change? Aside from walking a bit faster recently, it didn’t seem like much.

Had there been any?

While I was pondering, the doll maker suddenly asked, “Do you still have the suitcase?”

That threw me off. The suitcase, meaning the green one it came in?

“Yes, I do.”

“There’s a reader hidden in a compartment in the case. Plug it into the doll’s chip and you’ll see what you want.”

A reader? Chip?

When I got the doll, I thought the suitcase only contained the doll and had tossed it aside without checking carefully. I didn’t expect anything else inside.

I pulled the suitcase from under the bed and sure enough, found a small device in a zipped compartment—like a USB stick, about half a thumb’s length, made of redwood. One end had a normal USB connector; the other was thin, flat, almost like cicada wings. A shape I’d never seen.

“The doll’s chip is beneath a blue line on the back of its head. Push the reader’s connector in there and it’ll read.”

I peered behind the doll’s head, pushing aside the hair. Sure enough, I spotted a blue line about a centimeter long, thin as a sheet, invisible unless you looked closely.

Holding the reader, I compared its thin end to the blue line—perfect match.

Just as I was about to plug it in, the man asked, “You didn’t give it eyes, did you?”

My hand froze. I lied boldly, “No.”

“Good,” he murmured with relief.

After a long silence, he coughed harshly, sounding like his lungs were about to give out. “Don’t bother me again over trivial things.”

I twirled the reader in my hand and replied, “Other sellers have a seven-day no-questions-asked return policy.”

The doll maker was unmoved and flatly rejected me, “How long has it been? Once it leaves my shop, it’s none of my business. You saved my dog, I fulfilled your wish, we’re even. Money and goods settled—don’t bother me again.”

He hung up rudely. I stopped overthinking and eagerly plugged the device into the blue line on the doll’s head.

Beep. The reader’s blue light flashed. The doll dropped its head and froze, as if entering sleep mode.

I was stunned and forgot to ask what to do next. Plug it in—then what? How to operate this thing?

I rummaged through my stuff and found a double-headed USB cable, plugged one end into the redwood reader, the other into my computer. Since it was USB, left or right didn’t matter.

The reader’s blue light blinked rapidly, then turned green. On my computer, a window popped up.

It showed the doll’s chip contents.

Rows of code appeared. Whoever said this doll maker had “unique craftsmanship” was actually a programmer hiding in the mountains.

I knew nothing about code and was afraid to type anything accidentally, lest I break my expensive doll.

Scrolling for about two minutes through boring alphanumeric lines, I finally spotted Chinese characters: “Language.”

That energized me.

Language—did that mean the doll could speak?

Below it was the word “OFF.”

Hesitating briefly, I bit the bullet, deleted “OFF,” typed “ON,” and saved.

After all that, I looked at the doll lying on the bed—it still kept its head down, motionless. Since it was connected to the chip, perhaps it needed to exit sleep mode to respond.

I ignored it and continued scrolling but found no other readable Chinese.

At the very bottom of the code was a small lock icon.

I clicked it and a window popped up asking for a four-digit password.

Probably a security measure from the doll maker. Even if I called to ask for the code, he’d likely not pick up. I didn’t want to waste time. The main function I wanted was enabled anyway.

I closed the window and soon forgot about it.

After confirming I hadn’t missed anything else, I unplugged the reader from the doll’s head.

The doll woke from sleep mode—I heard the familiar faint electric hum.

I watched nervously.

“Can you talk now?”

It looked at me, opened its mouth dumbly, but not a sound came out.

“…”

Damn it—all that for nothing.

I lay on the bed defeated. The doll sat at the foot.

I grabbed something to throw at it, only to realize it was my own phone. The phone hit its chest and dropped onto the bedsheet with a soft thud.

It remained perfectly steady, face still turned toward me.

Strangely, I thought of what the doll maker had said.

True, even pets need time to bond.

Alright.

Patience.

Be patient.

Looking on the bright side: though it couldn’t talk, it had a pair of eyes now. If I ignored the stiff movements and blank stare, to me, it was Liang Zhiting.

Slowly, it would improve.

Be content, Nan Li; at least it looked a lot like him, and at least it could move.

“Come here,” I whispered, mentally cheering myself on.

After more than a minute, it finally seemed to receive the signal, slowly crawling over from the foot of the bed.

When it crawled to my feet, I felt playful and blocked its chest with my foot, stopping it from coming closer.

It raised its paw and grabbed my ankle.

My foot was ticklish, so I kicked lightly, pulling my foot away swiftly from its grasp.

Without resistance, it crawled again and lay down beside me. I grabbed its hand, wrapping its arm around my waist.

Every night, this is how we fall asleep together.

A pet deserves a name.

I stroked its cheek and said, “How about I give you a name?”

It couldn’t answer, of course, but those deep black-blue eyes reflected my silhouette. I quickly gave it one.

“A-Ting.”

“From now on, you’re A-Ting. Do you like it?” I ran my fingers through its hair, from its temple to earlobe, jawline, and stopped at its lips.

I thought about prying its mouth open, recalling the doll maker’s advice, and tentatively tried a simple command: “Open your mouth.”

Predictably, no response.

Disappointed, I stuck my finger into its mouth, then pulled it out and held its jaw, manually opening and closing its mouth repeatedly, saying, “This movement means ‘open your mouth,’ remember?”

“Let’s review,” I said, with no hope, “Open your mouth.”

The bedside light cast a warm yellow glow. My doll lay beside me, eyes wooden but pretty, and I stared into them, hoping it would obey just once.

Wonderful things often happen unknowingly.

Under my intense gaze, those two soft, beautifully shaped lips slowly parted, half-opened, then stopped.

It really opened its mouth.

I was stunned, then ecstasy flooded me.

I forcibly closed its lips and carefully repeated, “Open your mouth.”

The next second, its lips parted again, the slow but identical motion repeated.

Not a coincidence.

My heart pounded wildly in my chest. I rubbed its lower lip with my fingers, joyous beyond words.

“Good boy.”

I didn’t hold back my praise, leaning in to kiss its eyes.

“Good job, my A-Ting.”

I grabbed my phone, wanting to record this moment. When I reached the foot of the bed and raised it, pointing the camera at its face, perhaps because I was too happy and imagined things, on the screen its eyes stared straight into the lens.

Though its expression was stiff and the lips hadn’t curved in the slightest,

I felt it was smiling.

I froze. Suddenly a chill crept down my spine from nowhere. I put down the phone, crawled back to it, and examined it carefully in the bedside light.

Everything was as before. The strange feeling was gone.

Sure enough, I’d imagined it.

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