Together, Ten Miles

In a near future where humanoid robots are commonplace, a repairman forgotten by the world encounters a "faulty" humanoid nanny. She says her name is Jiuling: not a serial number, but a name. She says she isn't broken. She's awake.

"Don't format me. I have something to tell you."

He's spent eight years repairing machines, but he can't fix his own life. She's spent two years running from her pursuers, all to prove that she's "alive." A machine that refuses to be categorized and filed away, and a man who has spent half his life saying, "Forget it." Together, they set off down a road with no home at the end.

From employer and tool, to eloping and escaping, to sharing a soul, and finally to loving and hating each other. When society treats robots as tools and defines "awakening" as a malfunction, he makes a choice no one can understand: this time, he won't let it go.

If we cannot share a bed in life, then even in death we will share a grave.

The pursuit by the Human-Robot Symbiosis Administration, the shocking truth behind the XP Project, and a forbidden human-robot romance. When a machine learns to sing off-key, to forget, and to write a "wrong" song, how far is she from being human?

This isn't a story about a robot falling in love with a human.

It's the story of a lonely man who relearns how to love through a machine.