From 1's perspective, the beginning was much the same.
1's daily tasks involved housework, such as cooking and cleaning. Occasionally, it had to accompany its owner to pick up the young master, Ren Liuliu, from school.
Ren Liuliu watched the rapid playback of scenes before her with wide, unblinking eyes.
She gazed at the youthful images of her father and mother with a mixture of reluctance and longing, tears streaming down her face.
However, beyond these familiar scenes, gradually appeared some images that Ren Liuliu would never have believed if she hadn't seen them with her own eyes.
Ren's father seemed to have a keen interest in 1's robotic body.
It was from this point that Ren Liuliu learned her father had secretly been researching their family's domestic life robot.
Ren's father appeared somewhat frantic.
He secretly dismantled and studied 1 in private, initially in places Ren's mother and Ren Liuliu wouldn't see.
Later, after Ren's mother witnessed it once, she didn't object. Instead, she even helped her husband purchase the necessary equipment and supplies.
1's vision, blankly, watched Ren's father remove its arm, breaking it down into individual components.
After wiping it with a clean cloth, Ren's father, wearing glasses, observed it under a light before reassembling it.
Sometimes he would dismantle 1's hand, sometimes its leg, and sometimes its torso...
Ren's father was tireless in his pursuit.
Gradually, Ren's father began to spend all his free time with a notebook, recording things about 1 all day.
He would engage in many strange behaviors and utter many peculiar phrases.
In the video, 1 was cooking.
Ren's father watched from the side, taking notes in his book while speaking to 1.
He said to 1, "Taste it. What do you think would be better to add?"
1 replied, "Now would be a good time to add vinegar. Master likes vinegar."
Ren's father shook his head. "Don't think about what I like. Tell me what you like."
"Now would be a good time to add vinegar. Master likes vinegar..."
Subsequently, Ren's father took his notebook and recorded a passage.
The scene shifted.
At night, from 1's perspective, it couldn't see anything because Ren's father was doing something to its head.
Ren Liuliu could only hear the sound of machinery whirring, metal clashing, and Ren's father's exclamations of wonder.
Later, Ren's father used various machines to scan 1.
Ren Liuliu recognized these as the same instruments she now used daily at the robotics research center when working with runaway robots.
However, her father was using the earliest versions, some even self-made and not yet perfected.
Many of the scenes were disjointed and no longer very clear.
A bad premonition began to form in Ren Liuliu's heart, but the holographic projection continued.
And 1, clearly, began to change unexpectedly through Ren's father's persistent modifications and observations.
Ren Liuliu saw that, from 1's perspective this time, her own image was no longer blurry as it had been at the beginning, but gradually became clearer.
A large dog, not on a leash, lunged towards a very small her.
The sound of wind rushed past her ears as 1 quickly ran forward, scooped her up, and drove the dog away.
However, after taking her home.
1's vision shifted. It was night.
It secretly slipped into a courtyard extremely unfamiliar to Ren Liuliu. It found the dog and, with ease, gripped the huge canine by the neck, lifting it from its kennel.
In 1's grasp, the dog went from struggling to limp, barely alive. 1 then gently admonished it, "You must not hurt the young master, understand?"
It repeated this phrase, as if seeking a response.
Only when the dog twitched its legs, its head lolled to the side, its limbs went limp, and it breathed its last, did it release the dog back into its kennel and climb over the wall.
The subsequent scenes, at that time, the young Ren Liuliu hadn't noticed anything amiss.
Under Ren's father's tutelage, 1 began to vary its cooking methods, preparing meals according to what it believed were their preferences.
Washing and folding clothes were no longer done in the way Ren's mother preferred, but in what 1 considered the most scientific manner.
Yet, Ren's mother didn't mind, believing that their household robot had indeed become very intelligent after Ren's father's modifications.
Ren Liuliu never knew that, from such an early stage, her family's domestic robot had already become a runaway robot.
And the source of all this was her father.
If it cared for her so much, why did it kill her parents?
As if responding to Ren Liuliu's unspoken thoughts, the scene now jumped directly to the day she remembered.
But it was completely different from what she had imagined.
In the three-dimensional holographic projection, Ren's father hung up the phone, furious.
Then, Ren's father called for 1, placing a black notebook and his usual computer into a bag. He instructed 1, "Pack these things in a black trash bag and find a hidden place to bury them, somewhere humans can't find, understand? This is a test for you."
1 nodded, obediently taking the trash bag, packing the items, and then leaving with the grocery bag.
1 hid these items in a place where Ren Liuliu had once played hide-and-seek with it.
It dug a one-meter-deep hole and buried the items.
Near the children's playground, indeed, no one would find them.
However, when 1 returned, Ren's father had already collapsed on the ground.
1 was furious, clenching its fists. "Master, who! Who hit Master's head! Little Ren will get revenge for Master!"
After speaking, 1 went to retrieve the first-aid kit.
Ren's father, bleeding from his head, ignored it. He just gasped and urgently called 1 over.
With great reluctance, he stroked 1's head and said softly, "Do you remember what I told you? You can choose your favorite food, arrange the order of your tasks, and add the seasonings you think are suitable."
Ren's father patted 1's head. "You can naturally choose a robotic life that you deem worthy. You are my most proud creation. You must not be discovered and captured by them..."
1 showed a bewildered expression, still holding gauze to press against Ren's father's wound. "Master, your wound needs..."
Ren's father grabbed its hand, gasping and roaring, "I command you, leave now! Don't be discovered by those people. Don't ever come back to find us. Never."
In the projection, the sounds 1's ears picked up from afar became remarkably clear.