Chapter 170 My Hometown is the Earth
There is no money to buy clean water.
After hearing the news, Liu Xingquan became even more restless. If it weren't for him, Little Ross wouldn't have to spend double the money to buy water. Now it was him who made Little Ross fall into this situation. But Little Ross didn't seem to care. He touched Liu Xingquan's head (this is their way of showing closeness) and said that he would think of other ways.
Liu Xingquan took out his cell phone, which had long run out of battery, and tried to sell it for some money. But no one in the lower cabin was interested in his cell phone. "This thing is useless." A roommate threw the cell phone back to him. The technological electronic products on Earth were worthless in the eyes of these aliens.
In the lower cabin, if you don't have money, you can only eat greasy and dirty sewage and kitchen waste. Liu Xingquan didn't want to sit there and rely on Little Ross. He followed the other alien roommates to the kitchen waste disposal station, where those poor stowaways picked up food. There were a lot of things dumped from the middle and upper cabins, but no matter how delicious the leftovers were, mixing them together would only make people lose their appetite. Several alien roommates picked and chose from the pile of leftovers. In Liu Xingquan's opinion, he really didn't know how to start.
His alien roommate was able to discern which ones he had rarely eaten and which ones he couldn't eat. He told Liu Xingquan that this was an edible mushroom, and that was a shrimp claw with meat still on it. Liu Xingquan looked at these strange alien foods and remembered a delicacy his pen pal had introduced to him. He asked, "Do you have tartare balls?"
"Tus balls?" The alien roommate laughed, the fleshy tentacles on his face trembling. "This is what the rich eat. If you could eat tus balls, you would have had the money to sit on one a long time ago."
Liu Xingquan shut up awkwardly.
After returning to the cabin with nothing, he found that Little Ross was not there. Another roommate told him that Little Ross had gone to find a job.
"Looking for work?"
"Yes, there are a lot of chores to do on this ship." She looked Liu Xingquan up and down, "Actually, you can try it too."
Liu Xingquan's eyes lit up when he heard this, "Can I make some money?"
"There's always a little bit. And you're a Homo sapiens, and Homo sapiens are very popular." The roommate looked at Liu Xingquan and sighed, "It would be better if you could be cleaner."
Liu Xingquan blushed. He knew what kind of person he was now. After these days, he no longer looked like the clean-cut middle school student. His hair had grown longer, his T-shirt was covered with stains, his pants were not much better, his shoes were torn and tattered, his nails were long and dirty, his face was greasy, and now he looked like a dirty homeless beggar.
"Actually, this is fine." The roommate said thoughtfully, "It will save you from being targeted by some rich guys."
"What does this mean?"
"You don't look that old. Let me tell you, some rich guys like to buy Homo sapiens your age as personal pets."
"ah?"
"This is not uncommon. I've seen a Gobos buy a little Homo sapiens girl as a pet. He implanted a pair of wings on her back and led her with a chain, saying that she was his little bird. I don't know how many such things are happening behind the scenes. You'd better be careful and keep on being dirty."
Liu Xingquan nodded.
Not long after that, thanks to the introduction of this enthusiastic roommate, he received good news: a chef on the upper floor needed a quick cleaner.
"Do I need to prepare anything?"
"Be more diligent. Be quick."
"I don't understand a lot of customs. Can I really do this?" Liu Xingquan suddenly hesitated. He was a boy with a strong sense of self-esteem. He also knew that there were too many things in this world that he didn't know, and what he feared most was being laughed at and looked down upon by others.
"It's okay." The roommate smiled, "I won't ask you to operate any complicated equipment."
Liu Xingquan followed his roommate nervously and took the elevator to the upper floor.
When he walked into the kitchen, he was startled by a giant fleshworm moving towards him. The pink fleshworm raised its huge bristly body and shook its head at Liu Xingquan. Liu Xingquan screamed and kept backing away, and his roommate grabbed him. A bloated Fei Tu spider walked out from behind the giant fleshworm and said, "What the hell is this little devil yelling about?"
Liu Xingquan was so frightened that he first pointed at the giant flesh worm, then stared at the big spider, unable to utter a word.
"This is Ali Machi," said the roommate, "and this is the cook, Rico. Rico, this Homo sapiens is from the countryside and doesn't have much experience, so don't be surprised."
"Arimachi?"
"The parasites in its body are good food." The big spider looked at Liu Xingquan, "Is this little Homo sapiens really okay?"
"I can. I will work hard." Liu Xingquan calmed his breath and straightened his chest to say to the spider chef. This Fei Tu spider was slightly taller than Liu Xingquan. The chef's uniform could not hold its huge belly. Its eight legs were flexible, its head was covered with brown and orange hair, and it had six symmetrical black eyes of varying sizes.
"Forget it, I'm short of staff now, you can try it for the time being." With its announcement, Liu Xingquan became the Spider Chef's temporary servant.
This Fei Tu spider was just one of the large team of chefs on the ship, and it was responsible for some simple barbecues. From the spider chef Rico's brief remarks, Liu Xingquan learned that this spider had once worked as a private chef in the mansion of a certain big shot, but later that big shot was involved in a political struggle and dismissed all the staff in the mansion. Chef Rico was proud of having served that big shot, and he had some complaints about his position on the ship.
Liu Xingquan's daily routine has now become a busy job. Because spider chef Rico was excluded from the ship's catering chef team, the big spider was assigned only one cleaning robot. And this robot only comes for about half an hour every day. So Liu Xingquan has to take on most of the cleaning work every day. Chef Rico is in charge of a small barbecue room, which is greasy and dirty every day. It taught Liu Xingquan to use an automatic clay, knead the clay into a ball, and the ball will automatically roll around to absorb grease. But the clay ball is not very autonomous, and it often gets stuck in the gap or absorbs grease and hides in the corner.
Every day, the first thing Liu Xingquan did when he came was to lie on the ground and find all the clay balls one by one. Some balls would become very hard and get stuck in the cracks. It would take a long time to knock one down, so Liu Xingquan later used a knife to dig them out. After collecting all the small balls, he would put all the clay balls into the oil machine to remove the oil.
After that, he had a lot of things to do. What took up a lot of time was washing the ingredients and scrubbing the plates. Although there were unified vegetable washers, Spider Chef disliked automatic vegetable washers very much, because different ingredients had different processing methods, and the rough washing methods of the vegetable washers often made the ingredients lose their original flavor. There were machines to scrub the plates, but if the guests found any small stains on the plates, it would not be the machine that would be in trouble, but the chef. So Spider Chef ordered that all the plates he handled must be washed by machine and by hand.
Sometimes he had to run errands with a tray of food, and even delivered it to the restaurant on the upper floor. Through the crack in the door, he could glimpse the magnificent and luxurious restaurant, and wonderful music was swirling in the air. The well-dressed upper-class guests were laughing in the restaurant. Many alien guests were wearing beautiful clothes with constantly changing colors. A huge meat creature was carried by several slave-like insects and walked around the restaurant. It was covered with dazzling jewels. These well-dressed guests looked so shiny, luxurious and happy.
Then Liu Xingquan was hit on the head with an electric baton by the patrolling robot. The robot would never tolerate servants being lazy in front of it.
After a busy day, Liu Xingquan was rewarded with a bottle of clean water and two boxes of instant lunches. He shared the water and lunches equally with Little Ross.
At this moment, he fully understood his pen pal's tired mood before. After a hard day's work, he just wanted to go back to the cabin and fall asleep.
He remembered what he had learned in school, and wrote to his pen pal: [The essence of exploitation is oppression.]
…
I could sense something subtle was happening beneath the calm water.
When I went to see Miss Murlie, she was reading a book.
I knocked on the door carefully.
"Ah, you're here again." Miss Mulley raised her head, a happy look on her face. I can't really tell the difference between beauty and ugliness among Homo sapiens. Their skin is bald, which makes me feel weird and insecure. But I think Miss Mulley should be very beautiful among humans. She has a pair of very bright and lively big eyes, and very soft and smooth long hair.
"Are you here to tell me a story?" She looked at me expectantly. "What did Losa do today?"
After I was transferred to the security guards, I had a lot of free time. When I walked near the courtyard, I would often see her. She was always alone and looked bored. I told her the Losar stories that Xingquan told me. Liu Xingquan, my pen pal, always wrote stories that were so touching and moving.
"I'm not here to tell a story today," I replied. "In fact, I want to tell you something."
"What?"
"I'm getting a promotion," I said. "I'm going to be promoted to vice-captain."
Hearing this, there was no joy or surprise on her face, she just nodded calmly. "Will you come here often in the future?"
"I will." I said, "Thank you for Lianna and Tita's work." Earlier, I asked Miss Muli to find a relatively easy job for Lianna and Tita. Now Tita and Lianna don't have to work overtime day and night like before.
"I like Lianna very much, and Tita is also very interesting." Miss Muli smiled, "Thank you for introducing them to me."
"Please don't thank me. I have no way of repaying you for what you've done for me and my friends."
"No, the greatest reward you can give me is just to come and chat with me."
Hearing this, I lowered my head and said nothing. The kindness that Miss Muli had shown me and my friend was something I could never repay. When I lowered my head, I didn't see the gray-clawed raccoon Xixi who was always nestling in her arms. "Um, where's Xixi?"
"Xixi ran out to play." Miss Muli said softly, "By the way, do you know the earth?"
"Earth? What is that place?"
"A very beautiful aquamarine planet." Miss Muli turned her head and said softly, "My distant hometown."
