Chapter 20 Summary: The Heart Fails Without War
⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.
Summary
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The chapter opens with Ruijie inside a hospital, undergoing a series of heart examinations. A doctor measures her heart with a stethoscope, followed by an electrocardiogram, with each test taking roughly an hour. Most of that time is spent waiting, and Ruijie passes it by chewing on protein chips that no longer distract her from the needle. She has grown so accustomed to injections that she now watches the needle slide into her arm with a kind of detached fascination, noting how dark and thick her blood looks.
During her three-day stay, a hospital robot follows her everywhere, connected to her by an intravenous line that delivers vitamin infusions. The absorption takes two to three hours normally, but her doctor notes that her thin blood vessels will require four. Ruijie's parents bring her favorite snacks when she is released, but she feels too queasy to eat them, sucking on ginger jelly in the car instead. Her father tries to cheer her with suggestions of trips to the zoo or a robot museum, and reassures her that missing summer school is not a problem.
Back in bed, Ruijie thinks of Yoyo, hidden in the rabbit pen at school. After the near-kidnapping at the Robot Free Market, Mars suggested smuggling Yoyo into the school, and the three friends decided the rabbit pen was safer than the gym or the supplies shed, keeping him out of reach of the salvage yard and the scrappers.
When Ruijie insists she feels well enough to return to school, her parents come into her room with news. Her father reveals they plan to buy her a new robot: the Imagine Friends Future X Children model, releasing in seventeen days on September 1, with a launch event at the robot museum. Ruijie asks if she can have a boy robot, and her father agrees to a trial run with a hundred-day return window. Her mother mentions a reporter friend who described the new model as