After Waking Up I Inherited the Earth [Interstellar] – CH21

Chapter 21

After finishing the shop renovation, Xie Xingchen quickly bought everything he needed, then logged off with a pat to his backside.

Including the cost of the virtual flower shop, he spent close to ten million star-coins today.

Don’t ask. The only answer was: the deposit was insanely expensive.

It was only today that Xie Xingchen learned you actually had to pay a security deposit to open a store on StarNet Mall.

And the amount depended on the type of store you opened. Not only did different categories require different deposits—the gap was outrageously huge. For example—

A regular shop typically only needed a deposit of 100,000 star-coins. But Xie Xingchen’s plant-and-flower shop didn’t count as a “regular shop,” so its deposit was dozens of times higher, simply because—green plants are a light luxury in the interstellar era.

So for the deposit alone, Xie Xingchen paid a full 8 million star-coins!

That number made his heart bleed. Heaven knew what he felt when he pressed the confirm button—“a bolt from the blue” couldn’t even describe his mood.

He stared gloomily at his account balance, now reduced to a mere five-digit number, his face drooping with misery.

This was basically being thrown back to square one.

Luckily, everything was now in place—he no longer had anywhere to spend money, so the little he had left could barely keep him going.

But even so, being broke changed him. The guy who once aspired to be a carefree slacker was now hardworking to an absurd degree.

Because life experience had taught Xie Xingchen: if your pockets are empty, you’d better earn—otherwise things can get terrifying.

Forcing himself to become a money-making machine, he spent this period running back and forth between the flower field and the treatment room. A week later, his flower field expanded.

Osmanthus took a long time to grow and needed a lot of space once mature, so he planted it sparsely across one mu. After two rounds of propagation, his roses expanded to one mu as well. As for lavender—lavender was on another level: he expanded it to a full two mu.

The osmanthus still hadn’t matured. Based on his current routine—infusing spiritual power once in the morning and once at night—it would take about three more months before it could be listed for sale.

So for now, the only items he could sell were roses and lavender.

That felt… a bit too little.

Should he bring over the rapeseed flowers to pad the inventory?

The thought barely appeared before Xie Xingchen dismissed it.

That rapeseed patch looked like a lot, but it really wasn’t. And it wasn’t on the unlocked Page 01 of the illustrated guide—selling it wouldn’t generate any turnover.

Most importantly, the rapeseed flowers were plentiful, contained no dark matter, and were tough as nails. Xie Xingchen’s original plan was to have the three humanoid robots cultivate them.

After all, he still had exploration tasks. That illustrated guide was thick like a brick—there was no way he could keep himself trapped in the flower field forever!

And the guide never explicitly said it was a plant guide either. For all he knew, what needed to be lit up might not be limited to plants—it could include animals or insects… or, worse, even infrastructure requirements.

Don’t tell him that was too ridiculous to happen. Just looking at the system’s name, he knew: anything was possible.

His one mu of roses and two mu of lavender still weren’t mature, so naturally, his freshly renovated flower shop on StarNet Mall wouldn’t be opening during this period.

Perfect timing—Xie Xingchen wanted to find more flowers anyway. So he planned to use this time to go exploring with Long-Life.

[Ding-dong. Congratulations, player, for triggering the quest “Find Fresh Flowers (Part Two)”; Quest content: unlock any one card on Illustrated Guide Page 01 within 24 hours; Quest reward: 200 EXP.]

[Ding-dong. Congratulations, player, for triggering the quest “Explore Within a Ten-Li Radius”; Quest content: leave footprints across a ten-li radius within 24 hours; Quest reward: 100 EXP.]

Xie Xingchen: “……”

He turned back and sighed. “Long-Life, looks like we have to take this one seriously.”

Originally, he’d planned to wander casually—great if he found something, fine if he didn’t. But now? No way.

These two quests together were worth 300 EXP. A few more like that and he’d level up again—how could he possibly let that slip away?

After pestering the system for days, Xie Xingchen had learned exactly how important levels were.

Turnover, he could grind out with effort. But EXP? He could only get it from system quests.

And the system mall had so many items—supposedly even processing workshops (fully automated). Xie Xingchen was drooling with envy.

Swallowing his jealous tears, he straightened up with renewed energy. “Let’s go a different way today and see if we can discover something new!”

They moved slowly. Vegetation gradually thinned, and the air seemed to grow hazier.

The environment here was more barren—worse than the other side.

But the good news was: even though the conditions were bad, there were still some plants growing. Sure, the dark matter levels might exceed the limit—but for this land, the fact that plants could grow at all was already a good sign.

Ding-dong. Congratulations, player, for completing the quest “Explore Within a Ten-Li Radius.” Reward: 100 EXP.

Xie Xingchen froze, then understood, then fell into thought.

He was sure he hadn’t actually covered a full ten-li radius today. Yet the system said the exploration quest was complete. So… did it count the rapeseed field and the forest from before?

If that was true—

Did that mean the system’s quests were cumulative?

His thoughts immediately spiraled.

If quests were cumulative, could the illustrated guide’s “lighting up” requirements be cumulative too?

Right now, Page 01 cards unlocked by “discovering a plant”—only when he physically touched a specific plant would it unlock.

But while searching for target plants, he’d found countless other plants. If Page 02 or Page 03 unlocked later—and those pages happened to include plants he’d already encountered—would those cards auto-unlock?

He desperately wanted to open the guide right away and test the theory, but… no luck. He hadn’t completed Page 01 yet. So he forced the idea down for later.

From that moment on, though, his exploration became even more meticulous—so meticulous that he didn’t even let unknown weeds off the hook.

Everything got packed up and brought back for testing.

Test first, then categorize and store.

Who knew when it might come in handy?

They stopped by a small river. Xie Xingchen used the rice, meat, and seasonings he’d brought to simmer a pot of lean pork congee.

The fresh green scallions tossed into steaming hot congee instantly released their fragrance. Paired with the pork aroma, it was downright irresistible.

He ladled a heaping bowl for himself, then handed Long-Life a tube of energy liquid, smiling. “I’m digging in!”

He took a spoonful into his mouth—grain fragrance washed over his senses. As he chewed, the tender meat texture surged in, deeply satisfying. What delighted him most was the finely sliced ginger: it carried a mild heat, and mixed into the congee, it made the flavor far richer. Add in the scallions he’d grown himself, and it became one word—

Delicious.

He finished one bowl with gusto, then scooped a second.

A cool breeze drifted by, rippling the river’s surface, sending a refreshing chill through the air.

Suddenly—mid-bite—Xie Xingchen slammed his spoon down. His nose twitched; he sniffed lightly.

A moment later, he exclaimed in wild excitement: “Long-Life, let’s go.”

He quickly extinguished the fire on the riverbank, then put the unfinished congee into the hovercar.

If he hadn’t smelled wrong, that strange, drifting fragrance just now was the scent of jasmine.

Jasmine—an iconic flower everyone back in Huaguo recognized. The folk song “Jasmine Flower” had been sung for generations; practically anyone, young or old, could hum a few lines.

Following the wind, Xie Xingchen arrived at what looked like a “forest”—and he was so stunned he couldn’t speak.

He’d found… a jasmine-tree forest?

Who knew—his entire life he’d only seen jasmine as small potted plants. He’d never seen jasmine trees.

And now, every “tree” here was at least two meters tall, with young saplings sprouting beneath them.

It was genuinely a forest composed entirely of jasmine.

Which was… honestly headache-inducing.

Xie Xingchen put on a mask to block the fragrance, then placed his hand on the tallest jasmine tree.

Ding-dong. Congratulations, player, for discovering “Jasmine.” Jasmine unlocked.

Ding-dong. Congratulations, player, for completing the quest “Find Fresh Flowers (Part Two).” Reward: 200 EXP.

[Player Information Panel]

Name: Xie Xingchen
Race: Human
Territory: Earth
Level: LV1
EXP: 300/1000
Plant Affinity: ? 1
Spiritual Power Rank: B (?)
Game Progress: 0%
Illustrated Guide Progress: 0%
Infrastructure Progress: 0%
Active Quests: None

Xie Xingchen noticed a question mark had appeared after his spiritual power rank.

Was it about to level up?

He was puzzled.

But very quickly, a single soft, pink carnation stole his attention.

A carnation… growing among jasmine bushes?

Wasn’t this world a little unscientific?

How could a pink-diamond carnation grow inside jasmine?

But… it was so beautiful.

That shade was unbelievably pink and creamy—straight-up heart-melting.

He could already imagine what would happen if he displayed it in his flower shop!

If nothing else, he wanted a bouquet of pink-diamond carnations in the grid window display as decoration.

[Ding-dong. Congratulations, player, for discovering “Carnation.” Carnation unlocked.]

[Ding-dong. Congratulations, player, for discovering five illustrated-guide plants. Triggering system business quest “Open a Flower Shop”; Quest content: open a flower shop anywhere and obtain your first turnover; Quest reward: 700 EXP.]

Hearing that, Xie Xingchen’s eyes lit up—700 EXP! If he completed it, he’d reach Level 2!

And in two weeks, his flower shop would open—meaning he really could level up soon.

Plus, his luck today was incredible.

Not only had he found two more flowers, but their audience would differ from roses and lavender. That meant he should take advantage of this window and plant another mu of flowers.

When opening day came, he could list more gorgeous bouquets, build momentum, and ideally—blow up in one shot.

Advance Chapters on PDF and EPUB Click Here~