Chapter 26
Ni Kunqi’s group-buy order didn’t slow Xie Xingchen down at all—he still went out to explore.
Today, his luck was obviously pretty good. Even though he still hadn’t found any of the flowers listed in the game system’s handbook, he did find—eucalyptus leaves!
Yes, that eucalyptus greenery everyone in the flower world knows and loves as filler foliage.
Xie Xingchen was thrilled.
This whole stretch of eucalyptus—if he took cuttings, he could plant two mu with it.
Without a second thought, he brought the equipment along. Xie Xingchen, along with Get-Rich and the other three robots, worked through the night, planting the cut eucalyptus into the flower fields.
Only after nurturing everything once with spiritual power did Xie Xingchen yawn and head back to his bedroom.
Sleeping in the bedroom for once, he slept so deeply, so heavily. When he woke, the sun was already hanging high in the sky.
[Ding-dong, your Scallion Pancake Maker has been delivered. Please confirm receipt.]
The moment he opened his eyes, the system notification rang out.
His sleepiness vanished instantly.
His scallion pancake machine had arrived!
With a carp-flip, Xie Xingchen shot up, scrambled out of bed, slipped on his slippers, and rushed out.
He’d put the delivery address as the starship kitchen, so he ran straight there.
But the second he reached the kitchen doorway, he saw a bunch of tiny little robots—some sitting, some standing—crowded all over the prep counter.
Xie Xingchen: ?
Xie Xingchen was stunned.
He stared wide-eyed at these small robots that had appeared out of nowhere.
Unable to help himself, he asked the game system, “Xiao Mo… are these your system staff?”
The game system went silent for a long time, then finally replied with a single word:
“Yes.”
You could tell it also found this flock of chirpy, bird-like “lively” employees extremely annoying.
The moment they saw Xie Xingchen come in, the tiny cute robots swarmed him like a tide. They tugged at him, babbled excitedly, and told him—completely out of order—how to use the machine.
The way they spoke, with every sentence not matching the next…
Xie Xingchen: …Emmm.
Thank goodness this wasn’t his system!
Good grief—my head hurts.
His own Xiao Mo was reliable.
Thank you, Xiao Mo! Thank you, game system!
System products really were premium goods!
Xie Xingchen felt deeply moved.
Thankfully, the system was indeed reliable. The scallion pancake maker bought from the system shop wasn’t hard to use at all.
It was just like those simulation management games he used to play—completely foolproof, with only three buttons:
[Start] [Make] [Pause]
His brain still buzzing from the tiny robots’ noise, Xie Xingchen was forced to confirm receipt first before he could study the machine properly.
Once he confirmed receipt, the tiny robots finally left.
Xie Xingchen: I strongly suspect this is a trick the system uses to force players to confirm delivery!
With the annoying beings gone, Xie Xingchen began to study the machine seriously.
But no matter how he looked, he couldn’t figure anything out, so in the end he followed the manual and prepared the ingredients it required:
Oil, salt, flour, water, and scallions.
Great. Simple enough.
He had all of that in the kitchen.
For the first test run, he set the quantity to “10,” loaded the corresponding ingredients as instructed, then pressed [Start].
The moment the button was pressed, the machine’s extremely sci-fi-looking screen displayed a ten-minute countdown.
Xie Xingchen: That’s it?
So… so easy?!
This was too high-tech.
Put in ingredients, get a finished product—truly worthy of a game system.
He’d never seen anything this unscientific in the Star Alliance.
To observe it, he stayed right beside the machine until the countdown ended.
When the timer hit zero, the machine beeped: beep beep.
Xie Xingchen pulled out a sizzling, fragrant scallion pancake from the food output slot.
[Scallion Pancake (Good). Has a slight effect of expelling dark matter.]
He broke it open—crispy layers, flaky cross-sections, that perfect contrast of crunchy outside and tender inside. But what delighted him most was—
There were tons of scallions inside!
The moment he split it open, a strong scallion aroma rushed out, making his mouth water instantly.
“This is way too delicious… Why does it taste exactly like that old shop on Jianshe Road?!”
After one bite, Xie Xingchen couldn’t help blurting it out.
Suddenly, he felt that ten million was absolutely worth it.
He would never say the game system was a scam again.
Without hesitation, he dumped all the remaining flour in the kitchen into the scallion pancake maker, then added the required salt, water, oil, and a huge amount of chopped scallions.
Once the machine started, the kitchen filled with waves of fragrance again.
That shallow-fried aroma made Xie Xingchen feel—once again—that he hadn’t wasted that ten million revenue at all.
What could possibly beat a machine that cooks by itself and cleans itself?
Nothing!
In Xie Xingchen’s eyes, this food machine had only one flaw: it consumed a bit of energy stone.
But honestly… compared to the price of scallion pancakes, that “flaw” didn’t even count as a flaw.
Energy stones weren’t worth much anyway. One pancake could earn it back with plenty left over!
He didn’t know what mechanism the system machine used, but this time he set the batch size to “100,” and the production time was still the same as when he made “10”—
Ten minutes.
Ten minutes later, Xie Xingchen took out the food preservation containers he’d bought and packed the pancakes in one by one.
He filled nine smaller boxes with six pancakes each. The larger box was for Ni Kunqi—Xie Xingchen kept stuffing it until it couldn’t fit any more, and in the end it held ten full pancakes.
Even after that, there were still thirty pancakes left.
Xie Xingchen suddenly thought of Butler Xie.
Ever since testing the flower deliveries, he’d had the robots send the butler a bouquet every week. But food…?
After thinking a moment, he regretfully dropped the idea.
Butler Xie had watched the original host grow up and knew perfectly well the original never touched kitchen work. Scallion pancakes still required some technique. And since Xie Xingchen couldn’t reveal the existence of the system food machine… he had no way to explain how his cooking skills had suddenly skyrocketed.
So he only kept ten pancakes for himself.
He planned to give the remaining twenty to Little Randy, as an apology for standing him up during the shop opening.
After packing the pancakes, Xie Xingchen had the robots go to the fields to pick flowers.
This time, with eucalyptus leaves, his bouquets could be much more varied.
He personally arranged ten bouquets, then found crystal jars of suitable size and filled ten jars of flower tea. After packing everything up, he handed it all to the delivery robot.
—
[Beep-beep. Your delivery has arrived. Please go to the first floor to sign for it.]
The academy’s research building was tightly controlled. To prevent technological leaks, only researchers (professors) and assistant researchers (students) were allowed inside—everyone else was strictly barred.
From yesterday to today, after endless waiting, the big shots of the First Academy’s planting department finally got the delivery they’d been longing for.
And it arrived right on time—exactly at lunch.
Busy old professors remembered the taste of yesterday’s seafood porridge. Without even discussing it, they naturally paused their work and followed Ni Kunqi outside.
Students in the research building saw all the planting professors heading out together and thought something major had happened, so a few brave and sharp-eyed students secretly followed.
They never expected these senior professors were just going to the first floor to pick up a delivery.
Students: [a head full of question marks.jpg]
They watched as the professors accepted the packages from the delivery robot… then immediately started dividing things on the spot.
Everyone was stunned.
When they saw each professor holding a bouquet, carrying a bag, smiling so wide their teeth showed—students following them were speechless, and even students who happened to pass by outside the building froze in place.
Flowers, okay—that part they could understand. These were planting big shots; of course they liked flowers. Being happy about receiving flowers was normal.
But… if their eyes weren’t lying, the top item in the bags those big shots were carrying was—
Food preservation containers?
Was food really that precious?
To ordinary people, yes.
But to these planting department elites? No!
In the entire galaxy, anyone might lack money—except these planting geniuses.
Not to mention: just living off patents could make them absurdly wealthy. Which one of these big shots didn’t have one or two patents?
So… what kind of treasure could make them beam like this?
Dying of curiosity, students from other departments reported what they’d seen to their own professors.
“Really? Then I’ll go take a look,” an old professor from the Weapons Research Department said, intrigued.
“Professor, can I go with you?” the student asked cautiously.
The professor rejected him without hesitation: “No need, no need. I’ll go by myself.”
The food-obsessed old man walked straight toward the planting department research offices, eyes forward.
Good grief!
The moment he opened the office door, a thick wave of food fragrance hit him head-on, so tempting it made his mouth flood with saliva.
“Hello, everyone! You’re eating, huh?”
His eyes burned as he stared at the scallion pancakes in their hands. His voice was so loud it even drew attention from the office next door.
The planting professors shot him an annoyed look.
“Old Guang, why are you so loud?!”
“If you’re coming in, shut the door. If you’re not, get out.”
Old Guang faced the glares, calm as ever, and closed the door.
Then, completely naturally, he wandered over to a professor he knew well and held out his hand.
“Let me taste one.”
Old Lei’s eyes practically rolled into the sky. “Do I owe you something?”
Old Guang patted his shoulder, utterly shameless. “Come on, what’s our relationship? I’ll just try one piece. I don’t want more than that.”
He swore it confidently. Old Lei had no choice and handed him a piece.
However—
Old Lei’s face turned red with anger. “This is what you call ‘try one piece’?!”
Old Guang gave an embarrassed smile and didn’t dare answer—because he’d eaten a full three pancakes from Old Lei.
His clever brain spun, and he actually came up with a “solution.”
“Uh, Professor Lei… look. Me eating your food like this isn’t right. How about tomorrow when you guys buy, you add one for me too? I promise I’ll pay you back tomorrow for the pancakes I ate.”
The whole office burst into laughter at how he called him “Professor Lei.”
When had he ever said that? Normally he just called him “Old Lei”!
Looks like Old Guang was really willing to throw away his pride for food.
Shivering off goosebumps, Old Lei glared at him. Finally, unwillingly, he pointed at Ni Kunqi.
“Go ask Professor Ni. That’s something her student sent.”
Old Guang’s eyes lit up instantly.
He couldn’t contain his excitement. He dashed off to find Ni Kunqi and negotiate joining the group buy.
And using “I want to learn about the products” as an excuse, he sweet-talked Ni Kunqi into giving him a bouquet of old flowers (the bunch Xie Xingchen had sent yesterday), and even coaxed out a small jar of flower tea before leaving contentedly.
No one expected that he didn’t just leave—
Not long after, he came back… with an old professor from his own department in tow!
The next day—
Xie Xingchen discovered, utterly baffled, that he had received yet another group-buy order: one from another department’s professors at the academy, and another from Little Randy’s family.
Staring at the growing stack of group-buy orders, Xie Xingchen fell into deep thought.
Logically speaking, he’d only meant to send gifts to his teacher at first.
So why had it turned into… sales promotion in the end?
Could it be…
He was secretly a hidden marketing genius?
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