Chapter 16 Instincts in Sleep
After settling his mother in, Achen asked Xiaobao's uncle to keep watch. The fathead fish had been carrying them all the way and was exhausted. It was still sleeping soundly on his chest as a pendant.
He climbed onto the bed, lay down next to his mother, and pulled one of her arms out to his neck.
The last night his mother was conscious, she slept holding him like this. It's a pity that she won't hold him now. Thinking of this, Ah Chen's tears flowed like a burst dam.
Ever since his mother fell into a coma, he has lived in fear and anxiety every day. All the troubles of the previous seven years of his life seem to pale in comparison to this one day.
He cried himself to sleep. From the moment he entered the space quarantine station, he was filled with tension, curiosity, and waiting. Later, he desperately tried to escape and racked his brains to fabricate lies before checking into this small hotel. He was utterly exhausted.
At that moment, smelling his mother's familiar scent, he fell asleep despite not wanting to.
Even in his sleep, Ah Chen subconsciously wanted to wake his mother. His mental energy, relying on instinct, gradually entered his mother's brain.
He knew that his mother was not injured, and whether she could wake up depended on her brain nerves.
Ah Chen's mental energy, like thin, soft water plants, drifted into his mother's brain. After seeing a patch of nearly withered neurons, he moved closer and rubbed against them, eventually finding the ganglia that were twisted into a tangled mess.
Driven by instinct, Achen's mental energy transformed into slender, flexible fingers, which began to untangle the mess until it was completely straightened out, at which point he floated away satisfied.
After sleeping all night, when Achen woke up with a yawn, he found that his uncle Xiaobao was sleeping soundly by his mother's bedside, while the fathead fish was flying around the room like a busy bee.
It turns out that even without his permission, it knew to take over for Xiao Bao, and everyone could take turns resting.
Xiao Bao was very satisfied with the fathead fish's performance. He yawned again, and the fathead fish flew to his side and communicated with him using its consciousness: "Achen, you've been sleeping since yesterday evening, why are you still yawning?"
Although it cannot speak now, it can understand human language and communicate with its master through the bridge built by the contract.
"I don't know what happened, it just felt like I did superpower training all night, I'm so tired!" Ah Chen felt a little ashamed. So many important things were waiting for him to do, but he slept until dawn and still wanted to sleep.
He rushed into the washroom, used cold water to wake himself up, took out a bunch of third-tier sea beast jerky from his spatial storage for Fathead Fish, and also took some tender bamboo leaves that his mother had specially picked from the mutated purple bamboo forest in District 50 for Xiao Bao, plus a large bowl of rock sheep meat and celery dumplings.
The three of them ate their fill, leaving Uncle Xiaobao to watch over Mom, while Achen took the fathead fish out to gather information.
After wandering around for about ten minutes, Ah Chen had finished exploring the entire town. He couldn't help but exclaim: "This town is really small!"
He first strolled around several street stalls, pretending to be casual, but actually observed them silently.
He then discovered that some residents bartered goods, while others traded using contribution points.
The contribution points are roughly equivalent to the silver coins in their financial accounts on Algae Star, and are settled through transfers.
The difference is that here, instead of using wristwatches for transfers, contribution points are transferred using green passes.
The so-called green pass is the green transparent strip that the quarantine robot puts on their foreheads after they entered the space quarantine station and passed the quarantine, proving that they were not infected with the Wither X800 series virus.
It was precisely because all the procedures at the Silverwing Star Space Quarantine Station seemed so legitimate that all the aliens who entered were caught off guard, ultimately falling into their trap, being fitted with suppression rings, and becoming slaves who had lost the ability to resist.
Achen wasn't sure if the sticker on his forehead was real, so he copied what others did and pressed his forehead against his own for three seconds.
Then he saw the virtual screen in front of him. The screen only displayed his ID number, but his name was hidden with **.
Following the instructions, he accessed his account balance, which showed 0 contribution points.
Next, he found a small shop called the Soren Town General Store, which was the only shop in the town, with a name as simple as the small hotel where he was staying.
The grocery store owner was a slightly plump woman in her early fifties with a kind face. Ah Chen pretended to cherish it, took out a box of cookies, opened the box, and handed her a cookie.
"Auntie, would you like to buy this? You can try it first, it's really delicious. You can pay whatever price you want. My mother is sick, and we've run out of contribution points..." He feigned a timid look and pitifully looked at the woman.
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