Chapter 13
[Beep-beep—your test report is ready. Please check it!]
The analyzer was linked to Xie Xingchen’s light-brain. The moment the report came out, his device chimed as well.
The report was a full page—at least a thousand words. Xie Xingchen couldn’t understand most of the technical terms, so he skipped the analysis and went straight to the final conclusion.
[After testing, this plant’s dark-matter content is: 0%]
Xie Xingchen: pupils shaking.jpg
Plants on Earth—growing naturally—actually contained no dark matter?
He was stunned.
And this wasn’t just one specimen. It was ten!
Ten tests, and not a trace of dark matter. What did that mean?
It meant he’d found a treasure that could make him rich!
Xie Xingchen: suddenly excited.jpg
He took out the ten rapeseed flowers he’d collected as samples, then nervously placed the three soil samples—taken from different locations where the flowers grew—into the analyzer.
The quality of the rapeseed already suggested the soil was fine, but… there was always a “what if.”
He wasn’t about to gamble on “what if”!
Since he’d already brought the samples back, running the test was just a quick extra step. Easy—and totally worth it.
The clock ticked around one full cycle. Before the next one was even halfway through, another report popped out.
Seeing the words on it, the corners of his mouth lifted.
As expected… the soil that nourished the rapeseed contained 1% green matter.
Two great results in a row had him beaming.
While the iron was hot, he carefully placed the samples from the gigantic osmanthus tree into the analyzer.
Watching the red “working” light glow, he grew so nervous he felt like a father waiting outside a delivery room.
Rapeseed was one thing—he could stay calm about that.
But osmanthus?
He couldn’t stay calm about that.
Because this was a flower that appeared in the codex!
He’d searched for an entire day and finally found this lush, fairy-tale giant osmanthus tree—so big it looked like a place where elves might live.
What did that mean?
It meant the tree was enormous.
It meant that if it contained no dark matter, he could light up a codex card easily, without painstakingly breeding seeds and growing crops.
And nobody liked hard work. Xie Xingchen definitely didn’t.
Back then, his dream had been to become a rich salted fish—lying flat and doing nothing.
Now? He’d been tricked by the system once. His money was gone, and his salted-fish dream was dead.
But… who doesn’t love taking shortcuts?
He’d already worked hard enough for over twenty years. If he could relax even a little now, he’d take it.
The clock turned slowly. Sometimes it felt as fast as a breath; other times it felt as long as a season. When the report finally came out, his heart nearly leapt out of his chest.
His long fingers tightened unconsciously. He even hummed A Good Day to “buff” his luck.
“Today is a good day, whatever I wish for…”
When the song ended, he took a deep breath. Ignoring the technical jargon at the top again, he flipped straight to the last page.
When he saw that the osmanthus contained 2% green matter, he broke into a silly, unconscious grin.
Two percent wasn’t “excellent,” but that was only by the standards of professional planters. For ordinary people, this was already a high-quality plant—something you’d normally have to spend real star-coins to buy!
Because dark matter could kill, most people avoided anything that contained it unless they had to (like when eating).
But in truth, that “avoid everything” idea didn’t really hold.
The most obvious example was that habitable planets were required to maintain a minimum vegetation coverage rate. Plants naturally released substances beneficial to the body—and compared to the trace dark matter they might also emit unintentionally, the benefits outweighed the harm.
So in general, habitable planets preserved primeval forests far from cities, and built protective barriers around urban outskirts for filtering. Inside cities, only small amounts of “safe” greenery were planted.
Also, to reduce everyday exposure to plant- or animal-based materials, most ordinary people preferred furniture and home goods made from metal or minerals.
Wealthy families, on the other hand, spent huge sums on products made from fully safe raw materials.
That was exactly why the butler had wanted to pack up all the villa’s furniture and ship it with Xie Xingchen.
Except for a few civilizations with unusual tastes, nobody wanted to live in a home that was cold and metallic from wall to wall. Even a silver-white metal house needed a bit of decoration to feel like a life.
People who couldn’t afford “safe” home renovation might still splurge occasionally on a potted plant.
Because of that, the market for small plants with zero dark matter had always been strong—and plants containing green matter were even more in demand. As soon as stock appeared, people basically fought to buy it.
No other reason than this: the Star Alliance had an enormous population.
More than a dozen civilizations.
Pick any one of them and you’d have at least hundreds of millions of citizens. Species with strong reproduction had populations in the tens or even hundreds of billions.
Just imagining an “osmanthus craze” in the future made Xie Xingchen’s blood heat with excitement.
But quickly, he forced himself to calm down.
He couldn’t bear it…
He didn’t know how long this giant osmanthus tree had grown on Earth to become so huge.
Even without deep testing, he believed Earth was special—maybe he himself was special too.
For Earth to be sold in the first place, someone had to discover it, then decide it wasn’t very useful before registering it at the planetary exchange.
But now he’d tested several things: not only did they contain no dark matter, many even contained green matter. If the original survey team had discovered that early on, Earth would never have been put up for sale!
So in the short term, he couldn’t sell potted plants. If he sold anything, it would have to be bouquets.
But selling bouquets meant cutting off small branches—because without soil and protection, once those branches passed through a small wormhole gate, they wouldn’t survive long. That way, the secret wouldn’t be exposed.
But that felt like a crime against nature!
If that was the only way, he’d rather propagate the cuttings, cultivate them, and then sell the grown plants.
Either way hurt, but:
One option hurt once and created endless future supply.
The other hurt once and left nothing but money behind.
He let go of the idea of selling osmanthus—for now—and placed the mushrooms he’d collected into the analyzer.
The dull gray mushrooms weren’t pretty, but they smelled amazing.
The test showed these mushrooms hadn’t mutated, and contained no toxins or dark matter.
However, the brightly colored mushrooms he’d picked had various problems. The highly poisonous ones he threw far away. He kept two types that only had mild hallucinogenic effects, placing them on the testing room shelf with careful notes: effects, species, harvesting location, and so on.
Mushrooms could be eaten fresh—but some varieties smelled even better after drying.
For example, shiitake mushrooms: once dried, their aroma became extremely concentrated. Ground into powder, they could be used as an umami seasoning.
He picked out the shiitake, washed them carefully, rinsed them once more, and placed them into the dehydrator.
Xie Xingchen sighed. “It actually takes three hours…”
He shook his head and abandoned the idea of cooking dinner.
No wonder everyone loved drinking nutrient solution—when you wanted to be lazy, nutrient solution was king.
Even though he usually complained that nutrient solution felt like medicine, right now he suddenly thought it was great.
At least it meant he didn’t have to force his exhausted body to cook.
The starship’s bedroom facilities were simple. The bathtub wasn’t like the massage tub back at the villa—it could only be used for soaking. But the butler had served the Xie family for years and had lived through Xie Xingchen’s father’s pioneer days, so no matter how much Xie Xingchen objected, he’d stuffed a massage device into his luggage.
Xie Xingchen: so fragrant.jpg (aka: “Worth it!”)
He studied on the star-net while getting a massage. When the chime sounded, he returned to the kitchen to handle the dried shiitake.
He opened the dehydrator, rubbed a piece between his fingers, and confirmed it was dry enough to grind. Then he pulled out a small grinder.
This little machine had come as part of the pioneer toolkit. Xie Xingchen didn’t know what it was originally meant for, but regardless of its intended use, in his eyes it was a flour mill.
He fed the dried shiitake in batches, set the grind time and level, and pressed start.
“Bzzzz…”
A dozen seconds later, the machine stopped.
He opened it—and was delighted.
Nice. The powder was very fine.
He pinched a little between his fingers. The taste was intensely savory.
Purely by flavor, it beat chicken bouillon—he just didn’t know how it would perform in actual cooking.
But remembering how he used to cook rice with shiitake soaking water or add it to dishes, he figured this powder wouldn’t disappoint.
Without looking up, he called, “Get-Rich, bring me a sealed jar.”
Get-Rich, who was cleaning, rolled over and replied stiffly, “There are no sealed jars.”
Xie Xingchen paused, then said casually, “Then just bring me any jar.”
Get-Rich: “There are no jars.”
Xie Xingchen was genuinely surprised. “How can there be none? Didn’t I bring lots of kitchen stuff?”
Get-Rich: “Do you mean the pots and pans?”
Xie Xingchen: “……”
Seeing the boss fall silent, Get-Rich thought so hard its program felt like it was overheating. “Boss… use a cup?”
A cup? Was he really reduced to storing shiitake powder in a cup now?
He’d miscalculated—he’d forgotten to bring bottles and jars.
Did he need to install the small wormhole receiver now?
But for a few jars, it didn’t seem worth it.
Once installed, unless a professional dismantled it, it couldn’t be shut down. Whether he had deliveries or not, it would keep burning energy stones nonstop.
Get-Rich: “Boss?”
Xie Xingchen: “…Fine.”
No solution. He accepted the cup.
And just like that, one of his already limited number of cups was gone.
Xie Xingchen swore: once he opened a shop on the star-net, once he installed the small wormhole receiver, he would immediately buy a hundred—or a thousand—sealed jars!
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