After Waking Up I Inherited the Earth [Interstellar] – CH11

Chapter 11

Xie Xingchen tried several methods, but in the end he discovered that the only thing he could view and unlock requirements for was the first page of the codex. Whenever he tried to tap any card on the second page, a “?” prompt would pop up on the system screen.

Xie Xingchen: “……”

Fine. There wasn’t even a hint for unlocking pages. Looks like he couldn’t slack off. For the near future, he could only focus on clearing Codex Page 01 first. As for all the cards after that… he’d probably have to take it one step at a time.

Xie Xingchen asked, “Xiao Mo, can you tell me how to unlock the later cards?”

The game system: Xiao Mo?

[System Prompt: Please explore on your own.]

Unwilling to give up, Xie Xingchen insisted, “But I completed the prerequisite task, didn’t I? Aren’t you going to give me any task reward?”

Hadn’t he just finished the “bind the game” task?

And that task was hard, okay?!

Not only did he have to finish it within seven days, he also had to spend a ridiculous amount of money!

The system paused suspiciously for a moment, but in the end…

[System Prompt: The player has already claimed the system charging reward. Please do not claim it again.]

As soon as the system notification ended, the codex icon on Xie Xingchen’s panel began to shimmer—actually floating up and down as if bobbing on waves.

Xie Xingchen: “……”

This system was brutally straightforward.

Xie Xingchen sighed.

In other stories, the system either acted cute, or tricked the host, or softened up and helped the host find loopholes and bugs. But his system?

A truly ruthless, game-like system.

So strict, so restrained, and never wasting words—perfectly living up to the principle of treating the player as nothing but a player.

Xie Xingchen gave up on shortcuts and began thinking about what would be the most cost-effective way to do tasks.

Looking over the 25 cards on Codex Page 01, the first row was: jasmine, iris, carnation, poppy, sunflower.

What these five flowers had in common was that they were common and easy to grow. Their unlock conditions were all the same (discover one plant), and their “light up” conditions were also the same (sell 10,000 plants).

But starting from Card 06 on Codex Page 01—that is, the second row—there appeared flowers like lavender, chamomile, blue lotus, osmanthus, and orange blossom, which could be used to make hydrosols and essential oils.

These flowers had the same unlock condition as the first row, but their “light up” condition changed to selling 20,000 plants.

The third, fourth, and fifth rows contained flowers that were suitable for making perfume, flowers that could be used for flower tea, and some that were simply highly ornamental.

But without exception, the later cards all had tougher lighting conditions than the earlier ones. By the last row, the condition had become selling 50,000 flowers.

If Xie Xingchen had obtained this system back on 21st-century Earth, he wouldn’t have worried at all about whether he could complete the codex tasks.

But the problem was—he wasn’t on 21st-century Earth. He was in the Star Alliance.

So these 25 “ordinary” flowers weren’t easy for him at all, because…

Who knew whether they had already gone extinct?

And even if, by sheer luck, they hadn’t gone extinct and he managed to find them—what if he only found two or three tiny plants?

Wouldn’t he have to first discover them, then breed them, then plant them, then wait for the harvest, and only then take them out to sell?

Manual goodbye.jpg

[Ding-dong, congratulations to the player for triggering the quest “Find Fresh Flowers”; Quest content: within three days, find any three flowers listed on any three cards from Codex Page 01; Quest reward: 100 EXP.]

Xie Xingchen accepted the quest immediately.

He had to look for flowers anyway. If he did it with a quest, he’d get 100 EXP on top of it. If he was lucky, in three days he might even reach Level 1.

Wasn’t that more cost-effective than just lighting the codex for nothing?

He just didn’t know whether, after reaching Level 1, he’d be able to view the cards on Codex Page 02.

After a quick wash-up, Xie Xingchen put on protective gear, brought the robots with him, and got into the hovercar.

Codex Page 01 was full of flowers. Their native regions were widely distributed, but most of them originated in Huaguo.

Still, Xie Xingchen wasn’t panicking, because… if M215 really was Earth, just as the system claimed, then there had to be other flowers here. Certain places had tons of flower farms—flowers from all over the world were grown there.

Even if the native region had changed, as long as the seeds existed, why would they not sprout?

And if that didn’t work, he could go search elsewhere. With a starship, he could go anywhere on the globe.

In short, Xie Xingchen simply didn’t believe the system would give him cards for animals or plants that were already extinct. So no matter what, if the system had it, he should be able to find it on Earth—the only difference was how long it would take.

Xie Xingchen waved and called out, “Get-Rich, Prosperity, Long-Life—later you three come with me. If you see any flowers along the way, remember to remind me, okay?”

He trusted his own eyes, but he trusted a robot’s eyes even more!

Get-Rich, Prosperity, Long-Life: “Yes, Master.”

Hearing “Master” again, Xie Xingchen couldn’t help suggesting, “Get-Rich, Prosperity, Long-Life… maybe you should call me ‘boss’ from now on.”

Calling someone “Master” was way too perverted!

Get-Rich, Prosperity, Long-Life: “……”

“Understood, Boss.”

With the title issue settled, Xie Xingchen shifted his attention to the wilderness.

On an unscanned wasteland planet, no amount of caution was too much.

Although he had B-rank mental power, the original owner had devoted himself to studying planting ever since school—his physical fitness was trash.

Sure, people who studied planting usually had an affinity for plants, and those with plant affinity tended to be healthier than average (they expelled dark matter more easily). But if you didn’t work out, you’d still be no match for the tough, strong pioneers!

So he didn’t dare mess around. He stayed fully alert the entire time.

With both the exploration objective and the “find flowers” quest in mind, Xie Xingchen drove the hovercar at a snail’s pace.

If you ignored quantity and only looked at quality, there weren’t that many green plants—but along the road he still saw emerald lawns, lush forests, a vivid blue sky, and crystal-clear rivers…

Without human industrial pollution, Earth looked as if it had been completely purified—clean and beautiful.

To be honest, after seeing all this, Xie Xingchen felt reassured.

Because overall, the planet’s vegetation cover along the way was far better than he had imagined.

When he first looked at the hologram, he had worried Earth might slip out of the “habitable planet” category at any moment. Now it seemed he’d been overthinking.

As long as there was no major catastrophe, Earth might even hold out until he died before falling below the habitability standard.

Get-Rich said, “Master, there’s a flower-growing area ahead.”

Xie Xingchen’s eyes lit up. “Where?”

Get-Rich replied, “Proceed ten thousand meters in the two o’clock direction.”

Xie Xingchen: Ten thousand meters?

Xie Xingchen sighed. “Get-Rich… did you install a detector in your eyes?”

Could a human see that far?
Oh right—Get-Rich wasn’t human. Then never mind.

Heading toward two o’clock, it didn’t take long before Xie Xingchen saw a field of rapeseed flowers—at least a hundred square meters. Compared to the surrounding desolation, it was breathtakingly beautiful.

With the wind, the flowers rippled into a gorgeous golden wave.

Unfortunately, rapeseed flowers weren’t in his codex. But even so, the sudden sight of so many familiar blossoms still put him in an excellent mood.

After using his mental power to scan and confirm there was no danger nearby, Xie Xingchen and the others got out of the car and got to work.

Wearing gloves that blocked dark matter, they picked a few rapeseed flowers and collected some of the soil beneath them, then brought everything back to the hovercar. Xie Xingchen’s eyes flickered—quickly, he opened his light-brain, scanned the location, and drew a simple rapeseed flower icon on the coordinate.

If the dark matter content in these flowers wasn’t excessive, they might become one of his flower products.

Just as he finished marking the spot, Xie Xingchen sharply sensed something approaching.

He snapped his head around—and saw a chubby rabbit staring at him with a dumb little head tilt. After deciding he wasn’t dangerous, it hopped into the rapeseed field and began “murdering” flowers with gusto.

Watching the fat rabbit munch rapeseed flowers in huge bites, Xie Xingchen suddenly remembered something.

Interstellar “mutant beasts” weren’t normal species. They were animals, birds, insects, fish—countless creatures infected by dark matter on countless planets, their bodies mutated.

When highly intelligent beings were infected by dark matter, their mental state would collapse until they died. Other creatures would become deformed and mutated, losing reason entirely and retaining only instincts to eat and attack.

The rabbit in front of him—apart from being fat—showed no signs of mutation at all. And the way it ate rapeseed flowers so smoothly suggested this area was its territory.

Seeing this, Xie Xingchen had his answer: this rapeseed field was probably fine.

He glanced at the fat rabbit and didn’t immediately wipe it out.

Instead, he stepped out of the rapeseed area and watched it eat with a look of deep satisfaction.

Slurp. Spicy rabbit head. Braised rabbit meat!

Fat rabbit, just you wait—when I run out of food, I’ll come back and eat you!

Perhaps because they had never seen humans before, these rabbits weren’t afraid of people at all.

Even with Xie Xingchen standing there like a whole living person, it didn’t stop members of the rabbit family from hopping over.

In the end, one little rabbit even tried to “scam” him.

It lay down leisurely on top of Xie Xingchen’s shoe to play—fine. But then it tried to poop on his foot! That was the final straw, and Xie Xingchen tossed it back to its parents.

Before leaving, Xie Xingchen happily drew a little rabbit head icon beside the rapeseed field.

The raw material for spicy rabbit heads: found!

Even though he still hadn’t found the flowers he needed, he’d found a rapeseed field and a whole herd of rabbits—Xie Xingchen was ecstatic.

He turned to the three robots and said, “Get-Rich, work harder and find more flowers, got it?”

Then, with a tone of “how useless,” he said to the other two, “Prosperity and Long-Life, you need to work hard too! Get-Rich is already ahead of you!”

Get-Rich, Prosperity, Long-Life: “……”

Cheerfully leaving the “reserve base,” Xie Xingchen felt he could definitely complete the system quest today.

However, it seemed his good luck had already been used up. For the next half day, not only did he fail to complete the quest—he didn’t see a single flower at all!

By a little after three in the afternoon, Xie Xingchen decided to stop searching for flowers.

He planned to go into the forest to look for seasonings to improve his meals.

Ever since dark matter appeared, people’s pursuit of food had been reduced to the bare minimum for survival. Add cultural discontinuity, and many cooking techniques had been lost.

In recent years, thanks to experts, scholars, and planters, more and more ingredients with extremely low dark matter—or no dark matter, or even a trace of green matter—had been cultivated in large quantities. Prices had dropped to the point where ordinary people could enjoy them a few times a month. Only then did “good food” begin returning to the public eye.

But for some reason, Xie Xingchen hadn’t seen many chefs making Chinese cuisine. Many chefs only knew Western dishes—steaks, fried chicken, baked pasta—and even their seasonings were simple.

For someone with a Chinese palate, eating those once was fine. Eating them repeatedly was just… tiring.

But cooking for himself was also hard, because on Central Planet, a place that huge, there wasn’t even ginger, scallion, or garlic!

Truly: even the cleverest cook can’t make a meal without rice.

Now that he was on Earth, if flowers were hard to find, surely he could find ginger, scallion, and garlic, right? And if not, at least cilantro or chilies would do!

After eating “original flavor” cuisine for so long, Xie Xingchen declared that right now he only wanted something bold and heavily seasoned!

Having come from tough times, Xie Xingchen wasn’t someone who’d say “why not eat meat?” like a clueless rich person. He knew these basic seasonings inside out. After describing their shapes and smells in detail to the three robots, the four of them split up and went searching.

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