After Waking Up I Inherited the Earth [Interstellar] – CH122

Chapter 122

That person from earlier really did look familiar…

Back in the bedroom, Xie Xingchen suddenly recalled that flickering face under the streetlight.

He kept feeling like he’d seen him somewhere—more than once.

But the lighting had been too dim, and he hadn’t seen the man’s face clearly.

With that lingering, uncertain doubt, Xie Xingchen went into the bathroom.

After dripping four or five drops of lavender essential oil into the tub, he relaxed and sank in, turning on the leisurely massage mode.

About twenty minutes later, he got out and slipped into a bathrobe.

In soft slippers, he walked to the hair-drying area. Under the warm, perfectly tempered airflow from the dryer, his eyelids slowly drooped.

He covered his mouth with one hand and yawned. His eyes grew heavy; sleepiness hit hard.

Lavender essential oil really did deserve its reputation as a blessing for insomniacs.

It was Xie Xingchen’s first time using lavender oil in a bath, and the effect was instant—he’d barely finished washing and he was already sleepy.

But his hair wasn’t fully dry yet, so he could only stand there yawning and wait.

His gaze unfocused, eyes blankly staring into space, the dim yellow light made his whole body look languid and tired.

A faint warm breeze brushed over him. Occasionally, droplets slid from the tips of his hair, trailing down his pale, long neck and disappearing into the white bathrobe.

Once he forced himself to stay awake until his hair was dry, Xie Xingchen yawned again and slowly walked toward the bed.

The moment his head touched the pillow, after a full day of busyness, he was already drifting off.

But in the last second before sleep, he hazily remembered who the person he’d bumped into actually was.

Then, unable to fight the drowsiness, he lost consciousness.

A dreamless night. The next morning, he woke up feeling unbelievably refreshed.

Lavender essential oil: effect confirmed ?

This really worked.

No wonder so many people fought to buy it!

Xie Xingchen decided to add it to his regular daily essentials list.

With a light, brisk step, he headed to the bathroom to brush his teeth.

Halfway through, he suddenly remembered the thing from last night.

And the name “Fu Yunzhou” abruptly surfaced in his mind.

To Xie Xingchen, the name “Fu Yunzhou” was both familiar and unfamiliar.

Familiar, because he was the person the original owner loved for a lifetime—without ever being loved back—and the name appeared countless times in the original owner’s memories. Unfamiliar, because Xie Xingchen had only watched those memories; he hadn’t lived them. And when he first arrived here, he’d cut things off cleanly and left without hesitation, so his impression of that “ex-husband” wasn’t deep.

If he had to give an accurate analogy, it was like this—

You watch a TV drama while exhausted; at the time, the lead actor’s face feels memorable. But afterward you never follow the show again, and the impression gradually fades.

The only reason he’d still found that face familiar under flickering streetlight—and even remembered who it was in a half-conscious blur—was because the original owner’s feelings had been genuinely deep.

Thinking of that, Xie Xingchen’s gaze turned complicated.

Staring at his own strikingly handsome face in the mirror, he made a hard-to-describe expression.

—Even now, he still couldn’t understand it. The original owner had money and looks, so why keep choosing to suffer?

Even if you really wanted to date, why not pick a high-quality simp and enjoy the fun of being chased?

Why insist on Fu Yunzhou—someone cold and emotionally distant?

Was it really that cliché “Man, you’ve successfully caught my interest” thing?

The sudden idol-drama scene that popped into his head made Xie Xingchen shiver in disgust.

Then he resumed brushing his teeth with a blank face.

An expired man was like an overused toothbrush.

No matter how “fine” it looked on the surface, if it’s time to throw it away—throw it away.

They were completely irrelevant to each other now. If that was the case, then not recognizing each other was the best outcome for both.

Of course, if he ever got the chance to step on the Fu family, Xie Xingchen absolutely wouldn’t hold back.

Don’t lecture him with some “objective outsider perspective” about how the Fu family wasn’t the absolute worst. Sure, they destroyed the Xie family’s foundation, but they still left the original owner something. And during the marriage contract period, the Fu family even financed the original owner’s extravagant lifestyle—if it were someone else, maybe the original owner wouldn’t have even had those scraps left.

Logically, that all sounded correct.

But feelings didn’t work that way.

Yes, the original owner truly had a “brought it on himself” element. Yes, the original owner’s behavior was frustrating enough to make you want to shake him awake.

But Xie Xingchen had received the original owner’s benefits, and if he ever had a chance to get revenge on the original owner’s behalf, he would never “stand by and watch.”

Every gain has its price. Cause and effect comes full circle. Since you chose to take something—regardless of your intentions, regardless of the outcome—you accept the risk of retaliation.

He splashed his face with cold water and thought icily: So it’s best if you don’t come bother me.

After spritzing some floral hydrosol on his face, Xie Xingchen changed into clothes for going out.

He checked the time—8:00 a.m. already.

But the employees who were supposed to come up for breakfast still weren’t here.

Remembering they’d stayed up all night the day before yesterday, worked seriously yesterday, and were likely still catching up on sleep, Xie Xingchen didn’t disturb them.

He pulled up the booth photos he’d taken yesterday and reviewed them carefully, checking for anything that could still be improved.

Another hour passed.

The doorbell rang.

A group of energetic girls showed up, bent over and panting.

It was obvious they’d rushed.

Xie Xingchen joked with them. He smiled and said, “Yo, in such a hurry? Afraid I’ll eat all the breakfast?”

His light teasing made everyone finally relax.

Once they felt reassured, they even teased back.

“Hahahaha, of course—we were scared you’d finish everything!”

“Seriously, boss, your appetite is insane. You eat as much as three of us.”

“Honestly, I was shocked the last two days. I kept thinking—how can a guy who looks so slim eat that much?”

Everyone sighed: this was not scientific at all!

Someone who looked so delicate, but when it came to eating, the portion size was terrifying.

They’d even thought there was too much food and it might go to waste.

And then?

Boss Xie alone took out the equivalent of three people and wiped it all clean.

It made them look ridiculously inexperienced.

They joked and bantered while eating, occasionally tossing out ideas about today’s “renovation.” Without realizing it, breakfast was finished—and another hour had gone by.

Tomorrow was the official start of Trade Day.

As the final deadline, the moment they arrived at the venue, they immediately noticed the difference.

Compared to yesterday, today finally felt like the real “Trade Day” kind of bustle.

Today, every invited planet lord and estate owner had arrived.

They brought employees and subordinates, all busy at their booths.

Xie Xingchen’s group still drew a lot of attention, but unlike yesterday, people weren’t constantly looking for chances to wander over and peek.

Which was exactly what they wanted.

But…

The full-body attention still hadn’t changed.

If anything, the jealous, resentful stares had increased.

So even if each person looked at them for less time, the total number of people looking was higher—no idea which was worse. Either way, they were numb.

Only after entering the small energy shield that blocked visibility did everyone finally breathe easier again.

Wang Qianqian frowned. “It’s my first time realizing that being watched by too many people is actually not that great.”

Zhao Xin scrunched up her pretty face and sighed too. “Exactly. When I see their looks, I feel like I’m some kind of weird creature. It’s like I’m being offended for no reason.”

They complained under their breath, while everyone else shrugged.

Someone said, “You’d better adapt fast—because after tomorrow, there’ll be even more of those stares.”

That was the truth.

If nothing else, just the exposure of the Earth Trading House booth would draw a wave of curious eyes.

Customers were hard to predict, but other planet lords?

Everyone: Uh… maybe the jealousy level will go up too.

They could practically guarantee that among all these planet lords in this massive venue, their boss was probably the only one who stood out this much.

If it didn’t attract attention, that would be weird.

The only pity was that this “perfect opportunity” didn’t really matter, because their boss didn’t care about orders at all.

Most people came to Trade Day to sell goods, more or less.

Only their boss came purely to buy goods.

When they first learned that, they didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

But they had to accept this absurdly “humble-brag” statement from their boss.

Because if you thought about it, Earth Trading House really didn’t need orders.

They never lacked buyers. What they lacked was products.

And Earth had officially entered the development stage—energy, supplies, machines, construction equipment—everything was in short supply.

Especially energy.

They’d heard the boss’s energy warehouse was basically empty. This trip had a single clear goal: buy good, cheap energy.

When they heard that goal, they were mortified.

But they still helped compile a lot of information and put together a fairly reliable list of energy suppliers.

Because of that, Xie Xingchen happily rewarded each of them with a bag of fruit.

Don’t underestimate “just a bag of fruit.” For others, it was something you couldn’t even buy if you wanted to.

But since they were with the boss right now and could freeload meals and lodging anyway, they asked to mail the fruit back home for their families.

Families at home, sitting still while fruit fell from the sky: Waaah, happiness came too suddenly! [excited.jpg]

“Stop dawdling—get to work.”

“Pause the chatting. We’ve got a lot to do today!”

“…”

“Should we replace this vase first? It doesn’t match the table’s style.”

“Right—didn’t boss say he had someone ship wintersweet over? Maybe we swap the flowers for wintersweet. It matches the winter snow scene better, and the fragrance feels more high-end.”

“…”

“Wait—who has higher plant affinity? Hurry and send some mental energy into the wintersweet. It’s already drooping!”

“…”

The girls were nonstop, and Xie Xingchen was nonstop too.

But he wasn’t busy decorating—he was busy reviewing the energy supplier list.

To be honest, his energy warehouse really was empty.

The energy stones on Earth could only last until the day after tomorrow. So the moment Trade Day began tomorrow, he needed to buy energy stones immediately—so Earth could receive the shipment the day after tomorrow.

For someone as stingy as Xie Xingchen, this was a little tricky.

Because time was tight.

And he might not make it.

After all, this was “Trade Day,” also known as “the bulk commodity trading day.”

There were lots of goods, but no planet lord could stock everything at once—restocking took time.

Unless you ordered early. Then suppliers would prioritize the batch they’d prepared in advance.

Once that prepared stock shipped out, later orders would have to wait. The supplier would deliver within the contract period, sure—but whether they shipped on day one or the last day depended on luck.

If you didn’t want to rely on luck, you had to be the first one to place an order.

But many people liked to compare prices, or hold big orders to renegotiate.

Most of the time they still had to buy at the publicly listed tiered prices, but if the order was huge—and especially if it could become a long-term partnership—then better discounts were possible.

A discount on top of an already discounted price!

How much money could that save?

Xie Xingchen: I’m done pretending. I admit it. I’m here for the discount!
Lie flat and accept ridicule.jpg

To make things easier for buyers and sellers, the host provided everyone attending Trade Day with a price sheet.

It was compiled from sellers’ price lists.

Of course, if you didn’t want to submit a price quote, that was fine too—you could negotiate offline on the spot.

But that was more troublesome and would likely lose potential customers.

Not everyone would wander into your booth by chance.

Experienced people often contacted suppliers directly once the quoted prices were close enough.

So most sellers submitted quotes, at most adding a note like: “Long-term cooperation or extremely large orders: price negotiable.”

Only Xie Xingchen didn’t care at all.

Lower prices?

No chance.

He was just here to buy.

Selling?

Not happening.

He didn’t even have enough of his own goods to sell.

Coming here for high-end publicity was fine, but that was it.

Right now, the only thing Xie Xingchen genuinely planned to sell was the colored cotton cloth.

And for that, he planned to hype the price.

Because where was a better place to hike prices than Trade Day?

All planet lords in the Alliance gathered here—in other words, all the richest people in the galaxy were here. If he didn’t squeeze them a little, he’d feel like he was betraying himself!

With great joy, Xie Xingchen doubled his target price in his head.

Don’t act like he didn’t notice—these planet lords were loaded.

Ever since his livestream about opening clams blew up, pearl prices had skyrocketed.

Big round pearls and special-shaped pearls were absurdly expensive now, yet almost everyone here owned them.

The most outrageous thing was that Xie Xingchen even saw someone using glossy round black pearls as buttons.

This rich. This flashy. If you don’t squeeze them, who do you squeeze?

Xie Xingchen’s mental abacus clacked loudly.

Once he calculated how much money those ten bolts of cloth could sell for, these energy stones suddenly looked cheap like cabbage.

But to be honest, that “cabbage cheap” feeling lasted about one second. One second later, Xie Xingchen still felt heartache—heartache for his past self.

No wonder everyone said Trade Day prices were cheap. With no middlemen taking a cut, how could it not be cheap?

Just the energy stone price alone was nearly half of what Xie Xingchen usually paid!

“Boss, we’re done! Take a look—does this work?”

Right as Xie Xingchen was imagining how blissful it would be to use cheap energy stones from now on, Zhao Xin and the others blinked at him, waiting for inspection.

Compared to the original bare booth, the Earth Trading House booth now looked like a home—warm, cozy, and full of holiday atmosphere.

Xie Xingchen was quite satisfied.

He even imagined tossing in some sunflower seeds, juice, playing cards, and just hanging out here. And behind the carved moon gate was basically a neat, warm, pretty little shop—if they ran out of snacks or supplies, they could just go grab more.

A perfect place to relax.

When their boss said it like that, everyone’s eyes changed.

Looking again—yeah. They really had built themselves a relaxation spot!

And it was so pretty. Great—now they even had a dedicated place to livestream.

No exaggeration: they could livestream inside this booth for a whole day. And if they chatted with viewers, introduced Earth culture and the “Chinese aesthetic” products, and shared Trade Day gossip…

Boom. A week of livestream material was secured.

And then—

“Boss, you’re giving us sunflower seeds too?”

“Can we make milk tea ourselves?”

“Unlimited juice refills?”

“…”

Waaah, this was too amazing!

So amazing it felt like a dream!

Xie Xingchen nodded, and gave an even better answer: “All of it. As long as you’re willing to do it yourselves. And since we don’t have any requirement to close deals, once Trade Day starts you only need one person to stay here. Everyone else can go explore.”

Then he paused as if he remembered something, and smiled. “Also, if your families came, you can bring them here to rest. Or if you want to go out with them and talk partnerships or something, you can do that too. If you don’t want to go anywhere, just stay here and have fun.”

Everyone’s eyes lit up.

Because someone’s parents really were coming!

Now that the boss said they could bring parents here…

“Boss, can parents eat and drink here too?”

“Boss, what about family members? Friends? Can they also come here and enjoy unlimited drinks?”

Everyone stared at Xie Xingchen with wide, eager eyes, holding their breath for the answer.

Xie Xingchen thought for a moment, then nodded—and shook his head.

“Yes… but they have to trade for it. If you can guarantee you’ll earn an excellent employee rating this year, then your family members can enjoy the same treatment as you. But if your family members take the benefits and you don’t earn an excellent rating, then next year your benefits get cut in half. How’s that?”

Anything obtained too easily isn’t cherished.

None of the Earth Trading House items were cheap. Out in the market, they’d get snapped up.

Letting family members come eat and drink a bit was already a huge advantage. “Unlimited” wasn’t something he could just casually approve.

Otherwise, wouldn’t that be unfair to employees whose families didn’t come?

But if they were willing to stake their year-end evaluation, it was different.

It became a wager.

And people would just praise them for having guts.

After all—

Earth Trading House had plenty of strong employees. Getting an excellent rating at year-end wasn’t easy. Trading next year’s half benefits for this chance was a decision most people couldn’t make.

Sure enough—

When Xie Xingchen said that, most people hesitated.

But two people agreed immediately—Wang Qianqian and Zhao Xin.

One was already responsible for production of the “Liuxian Series” hanfu. The other was about to be responsible for part of the folk merchandise production.

Basically, if they worked a bit harder and grabbed another project, they’d almost certainly earn “excellent” at year-end.

The others exchanged looks. Some shrugged—no family coming, so no need. But two girls who clearly had family coming struggled intensely.

In the end, they gritted their teeth and agreed.

If no family came, fine.

But if family did come, could they really stand there and watch other coworkers’ families eat, drink, and have fun?

Honestly, they couldn’t (and wouldn’t dare).

So they might as well enjoy it now, and later try to fight for a couple of projects.

If they failed?

Well… they’d deal with it later. (:???)

Xie Xingchen nodded. “Alright. Then it’s settled.”

“Then we’ll bring our families during Trade Day!”

“It’s pretty big here—will there be enough seats?”

“Should we move things around and put a long sofa here? I feel like if we shift that area, we can fit a whole set.”

“That works. If we need sofas, I have them in my storage button. Want me to pull a set out?”

She even had a storage button—and from her tone, it sounded like it had a lot of capacity.

A truly rich employee…

So wealthy and still working for someone—Xie Xingchen couldn’t think of any reason besides love.

Since he didn’t need to help, he let them do their thing.

But maybe Xie Xingchen’s earlier words lit a fire under their “interior decorating” passion.

Originally, they saw this as a “model room,” so it needed to be refined and elegant. Now the boss called it a “rest lounge,” comfort mattered too.

They kept bustling around until, by the time everyone finally felt satisfied, the moon was already high.

At this hour, the Trade Day venue had very few people left—mostly security robots brought by various planet lords.

Also, the booths that had been bare before were now covered by energy shields of various sizes.

Seeing those energy shields, Xie Xingchen didn’t feel much, but his employees burst into laughter.

“I’m dying—look at these copycats.”

“Hahahaha, the energy shield is really that good, huh!”

“We basically helped sell energy shields for free. The manufacturers are going to be thrilled—people sitting at home and money falls from the sky!”

“…”

It was hilarious.

No wonder the stares had been so intense earlier!

They’d thought people were staring at them—but now it seemed not necessarily.

Maybe people were studying the energy shield’s uses.

They joked back and forth, their clear, carefree laughter carried by the night breeze into the distance.

The same long street back to the hotel.

The same dim yellow streetlights.

The same group of people.

When Xie Xingchen once again met Fu Yunzhou face-to-face, Fu Yunzhou gave a slight nod and walked past without looking aside.

Xie Xingchen, however, turned his gaze away with cool indifference, acting as if he hadn’t seen him at all.

Noticing that cold, detached look, Fu Yunzhou’s steady steps paused—so slightly it was almost imperceptible.

For the first time, Fu Yunzhou truly understood, with painful clarity: the two of them were no longer connected.

They couldn’t even be friends.

After Waking Up I Inherited the Earth [Interstellar]