Huo Yushen expressionlessly pushed his chopsticks aside, took out a tube of Advanced Nutrient Solution instead, quickly finished it, and tossed the packaging into the trash.
She Zhuyin had just finished eating as well and was drinking her after-meal dessert—Golden Fruit Juice.
After taking a sip, Huo Yushen said to her, "Mom, there isn't a food called fried dough sticks here, is there?"
She Zhuyin paused before saying thoughtfully, "...I never noticed until you mentioned it. It does seem like there isn't..."
Then, as if realizing something, she said thoughtfully, "I should look it up."
As she spoke, she pulled up her Virtual Display Screen and searched the Star Net for "fried dough sticks." Nothing came up, so she added the qualifier "fried dough sticks, a kind of fried food," but there were still no results.
As if obsessed, She Zhuyin searched again and again using every possible keyword. In the end, just as with Huo Yushen's search, the Mechanical Intelligence running the Star Net's search engine informed her that there was no fried food called "fried dough sticks" anywhere in the Beichen Galaxy.
She Zhuyin looked at the results and nodded. "It seems there really are no fried dough sticks here."
"What is it? Do you want some fried dough sticks? I remember you liked them when you were little, but they're too greasy—a complete carb bomb—so I rarely let you eat them."
"Only whenever you went to... your aunt's house would she secretly fry some for you..."
As She Zhuyin spoke of the past, she looked out at the courtyard beyond the window. Her usually indifferent face carried traces of nostalgia and regret.
After a long silence, Huo Yushen said, "What if someone from the Beichen Galaxy knows about this food and perhaps even knows how to make