Chapter 37
The dividends from the three companies hadn’t arrived yet. The butler had previously given him a batch of estate earnings, but there probably wasn’t much left on the books now either, so asking for help was out.
Borrowing money would be easy enough, but thinking back to that suffocating repayment pressure before, Xie Xingchen didn’t even want to touch the idea.
When in doubt, go on StarNet.
Xie Xingchen refused to believe nobody had ever run into this kind of situation.
Sure enough, in the Star Alliance era there was no shortage of poor people either, and plenty of folks had dealt with similar problems.
Looking at a whole basketful of search results, Xie Xingchen skipped over all the “borrow money” and “get a loan” suggestions and focused only on Star Alliance welfare policies—seeing if there was any way to fleece the government a little.
And would you look at that—he actually found an obscure method.
Why call it “obscure”?
Because to most people it was a bizarre, weird workaround—only suitable for someone who was short on money for a very short time. For the average person, it was even more of a trap than a loan.
But this kind of “welfare policy” suited Xie Xingchen’s tastes perfectly.
One look and he knew: this was the one.
After finding the method, Xie Xingchen didn’t hesitate at all. He went straight to StarNet’s leasing center.
When the robot explained that the policy had been in effect for a long time, he finally relaxed.
When buying starter storefronts on StarNet Mall, you didn’t have to pay the full amount up front. If you were short on funds but wanted to open a shop, there was a second payment option—installments.
StarNet Mall charged no processing fees and no interest. You only had to pay 1% of the total amount per day. Pay for 100 consecutive days, and the starter shop becomes yours.
And here was the catch.
Once you choose this payment method, you won’t miss a day. You could pay early, or you could pay 1% daily—but the moment you failed to pay that 1% on any single day, StarNet Mall would automatically repossess the property, and all the money you’d already paid would be confiscated as a breach-of-contract penalty.
Most people who needed to borrow money were people whose cash flow wasn’t stable. Paying 10,000 star-coins a day sounded easy, but for them it was actually hard. After several cases where people couldn’t keep up and got their shops taken back, this so-called welfare policy became widely hated.
But for Xie Xingchen?
This policy was perfect.
He really was short on money right now—but once the shops upgraded and opened, paying it back would be nothing. Pocket change.
After confirming with the robot customer service that he could apply for installment payments, Xie Xingchen started buying properties like crazy.
[Robot Customer Service 9867: Please confirm whether to expand Street 123.]
Xie Xingchen: “Confirm.”
[Robot Customer Service 9867: Street 123 has been expanded. The expansion has reached the maximum limit. Please choose your preferred starter storefronts on the virtual map.]
As soon as the robot finished speaking, an aerial view of Street 123 appeared in front of Xie Xingchen.
It was a real, bird’s-eye snapshot of the street. Every storefront was included—yet Xie Xingchen still spotted his Earth Shop at first glance.
No reason other than this: Earth Shop’s exterior was simply too eye-catching and gorgeous.
On the map, any unpurchased shops were shown only as empty lots. The shop directly across from Earth Shop and the newly expanded storefronts were all blank, marked in red to show they were available.
Without even thinking, Xie Xingchen selected the shop across the street and all 60 newly expanded starter storefronts behind it.
A screen full of red checkmarks—so many that even the robot couldn’t help showing a genuine smile.
At checkout, Xie Xingchen had selected 61 starter storefronts total, for a payment amount of 61 million star-coins.
Because he chose installments, he only needed to pay 610,000 star-coins per day.
After signing a pile of installment contracts and terms, Xie Xingchen specifically double-checked the status of the automatic deduction service.
Once confirmed, everything was ready.
Xie Xingchen: “Hello, I want to confirm—so the end of Street 123 truly cannot be expanded any further?”
After asking, he emphasized sternly, “I mean under any circumstances.”
[Robot Customer Service 9867: Yes. That is correct.]
Hearing that, Xie Xingchen smiled brightly and nodded in satisfaction. “Thank you for your answer. Goodbye.”
The robot customer service hadn’t expected the customer to be so polite, and it also smiled sincerely, warmly saying goodbye.
After the rep left, the private room in the leasing center was left with only Xie Xingchen.
No one would come to kick him out, so he didn’t leave. He stayed and began decorating.
Including his original flower shop, Xie Xingchen now had 62 storefronts.
Because the full-system mall allowed customers to choose entry modes—and because Xie Xingchen still didn’t have that many varieties of flowers—he decided not to expand the flower shop. Instead, he’d do a refined makeover.
He added some hazy, beautiful lighting fixtures to the existing layout.
With those lights in place, the shop—already fresh and ethereal—looked even more stunning.
He also changed the sign.
Before, the sign said “Earth Shop.” Now he removed those four characters, leaving only the Earth emblem, then drew a lot of elegant flowers around the sign so people would know at a glance it was a flower shop.
As for giving the flower shop a brand-new name?
Forget it. He was terrible at naming.
How many names was he supposed to come up with?
Who could stand that?
In his opinion, “Earth Shop” was perfectly fine.
Later, once everything was under the Earth Shop brand, he could put up one huge sign outside. Nice and simple.
After fixing the flower shop sign, Xie Xingchen renovated the starter storefront next door into a flower tea shop.
This time he went with a fresh, pale green theme. Inside were wooden racks at varying heights, and on the racks sat crystal jars and gem-like containers filled with different colors of flower tea.
The walls displayed images of Earth’s flowers and plants. Hanging greenery bought from the decoration space and pearl-like light fixtures shimmered together overhead—one glance, and you felt like you’d stepped into a lush forest.
He set up the checkout counter, added various exquisite little decorations, then copied and pasted the small garden outside the flower shop over here as well. The signboard became a matching white-and-green palette, decorated with simple line drawings of flower tea and the flowers used to make it. He updated the Earth logo, and the flower tea shop was done.
For the food shop, to keep the overall tone relatively unified with the other two, Xie Xingchen thought for a long while and finally chose a creamy yellow, fairytale style.
After changing the exterior, he glanced at the flower shop and tea shop next door… then forced himself to stop.
Whatever. As long as it looks good on its own.
So what if it was fairytale-style now? Maybe later he’d open a hotpot shop here.
Convincing himself that even more mixed styles might appear in the future, Xie Xingchen immediately felt firm about the choice.
Because the food shop was a fairytale-style building, the exterior automatically came with several rounded, cute sculptures—little bowls, chopsticks, and forks.
The signboard also automatically formed silhouettes of different foods. As for the interior, Xie Xingchen couldn’t be bothered to design it—he planned to buy a fairytale-style template from the mall, then place several unmanned vending machines inside, along with refined rest tables and chairs, a serving counter, a cashier counter, and so on.
Outside the food shop, he didn’t plan to make a little garden.
He laid down grass, planted flowers, then placed an adorable food cart on the lawn, with a few short stools for kids beside it.
Done.
Three shops are fully decorated.
As for the remaining properties, he had no plans to decorate them yet, so he decisively chose to hide them.
The moment he clicked “Hide,” thick fog rolled in and swallowed the remaining storefronts.
However—
With the fog up, the three visible shops looked oddly short and bare, and Xie Xingchen felt like something was off…
Wasn’t his original goal to build a little Earth-themed street?
But could this be called a “street”?
Three shops couldn’t make a street at all!
After thinking it over, Xie Xingchen dispersed the fog again.
Then he went into the decoration space, found building exteriors in similar styles, and started giving storefronts makeovers one by one.
Only after he’d swapped nearly all the exteriors available did he finally stop, still wanting to do more.
Now, the whole Earth Shop specialty street looked like a dreamy fairytale town.
Macaron-colored buildings, childlike decorations everywhere, countless Earth flowers, plus the Star Alliance’s famously gorgeous greenery—
At one glance, you could tell the owner had spent a fortune.
And that wasn’t even the best part. The best part was: Xie Xingchen set up lots of backrest benches along the center of the street for passersby to rest, with cute pumpkin streetlamps and lush, beautiful plants beside them.
The most brilliant touch was that he also placed many small wooden tables with matching chairs near the benches.
Now this felt right!
Outdoor dining is the best!
Anyway, this was the end of the street. All the shops were his. Nobody needed to pass through here to reach other stores, so he could design the street however he wanted—people couldn’t even complain about it.
Since that was the case, hiding everything in fog was worse than turning it into a leisure zone. At the very least, it looked great—and occasionally, it could double as an outdoor dining area!
Honestly, Xie Xingchen really wanted to park an ice cream truck here and sell ice cream.
Sadly, he couldn’t find the raw ingredients to make ice cream yet.
Sigh. It was hard.
He wrote it down in his little notebook—he’d revisit it once he found the materials.
The interior of “Earth Shop Street” was now fully decorated. Only the front-facing facade remained.
By “facade,” he didn’t mean each store’s sign—he meant the overall entrance of the Earth-themed street.
All the shops on Street 123 had some spacing between them, so Xie Xingchen planned to use that gap to build a big floral gate.
He spent a huge amount to buy an ornate, hollow-carved gate as wide as the street, then placed it at the entrance so the specialty street and Street 123 became clearly separated zones.
Then he bought climbing flowers similar to roses, letting them crawl up the gate until clusters of brilliant blossoms bloomed across it.
Next, he filled the open area near the gate with layered plants, playful sculptures, streetlamps, and more. Finally, he hung a high plaque on the gate, using rounded, cute lettering to write:
“EARTH SHOP.”
He opened the preview.
The renovation effect unfolded instantly before his eyes.
The shock was beyond words.
If he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, Xie Xingchen would never have believed a miracle like this could exist in the world.
Watching a blank street turn beautiful and perfect according to his own vision, Xie Xingchen suddenly stopped feeling heartache.
Sure, it costs a lot—
but the result was too good.
Worth it.
He glanced at the cart total. His heart still trembled a bit, but after saving the preview page, he paid anyway with shaking hands.
[Mechanical Bank: Your account completed a delegated payment of 610,000 star-coins at 08/28 20:12:01. Balance: 37,450,000 star-coins.]
[Mechanical Bank: Your account completed a delegated payment of 603,000 star-coins at 08/28 22:32:55. Balance: 36,847,000 star-coins.]
After the payment, Xie Xingchen immediately activated the fog concealment.
In an instant, outsiders discovered that the Earth Shop that had been standing there on the street was gone!
Thinking of how Boss Xie had said he was renovating to stock more flowers, everyone got excited, craning their necks in anticipation of tomorrow’s surprise.
Inside, after confirming the fog fully concealed the Earth specialty street, Xie Xingchen pulled up the preview page again and hit [Confirm].
The moment the button was pressed, the miracle appeared again.
No matter how many times he watched it, Xie Xingchen still couldn’t help marveling.
As the renovated street manifested once more, his heartache eased dramatically.
He still had over thirty million star-coins in his account, which meant he could finally loosen up.
Before, he’d been trying to spend as little as possible to buy shops. But now that he had installment payments, everything changed.
He used the leftover star-coins to buy more food ingredients, vases, flower wrapping paper, and so on.
Strangely, ever since Xie Xingchen stopped selling flower baskets and only sold bouquets, items like vases and bouquet-wrapping materials—satin, sheer fabric, wrapping paper—had skyrocketed in sales.
Xie Xingchen couldn’t understand it at all. To him, it made no sense that someone would wrap a single flower and give it as a gift.
But whether he understood it or not, it didn’t stop him from caring about customers.
Those items didn’t make much profit, but to make shopping convenient, he still kept them listed.
One thing led to another—adding this, adding that. By the time he finished placing an order for flower-tea containers from one shop, his balance was down to 36 million.
Xie Xingchen: That was… kind of sudden.
Why did money disappear so easily?
Thinking about the 60.39 million installment total he still had to repay, Xie Xingchen gritted his teeth and decided to go all in.
He entered 10,000 units as the listing quantity for each type of flower.
Right now was the blooming season for most fields, so he could support that number.
At the moment, aside from eucalyptus leaves (which didn’t increase system revenue), Xie Xingchen had:
- 20 mu of osmanthus
- 20 mu of jasmine
- Pink diamond carnations and roses increased to 30 mu
- Newly unlocked orange blossoms, irises, and lily-of-the-valley: 10 mu each
- Lavender, the best-seller: 40 mu
Worth noting: sunflowers had the highest green-matter content. Since sunflower seeds were abundant, Xie Xingchen had the planting robots sow a full 50 mu using all the seeds, but due to time constraints, only 1 mu was currently ready for sale.
Finally, he also had ingredients for cooking—ginger, scallions, garlic—totaling 5 mu, with scallions alone taking up 4 mu.
Even though the food machines used a lot of scallions, scallions grew fast, so 4 mu was more than enough.
For the food, Xie Xingchen didn’t plan to charge high prices. At 100 star-coins per serving, he’d still make a solid profit, so there was no need to squeeze customers to death.
Sure, even at 1,000 star-coins a serving plenty of people would still scramble for it—but compared to endless profit, he wanted more people to know Earth’s food!
He didn’t plan to change the flower prices, but he added green-matter content notes to the product details.
Yep. Definitely not because he planned to sell sunflowers at a high price!
He was just doing it for customer convenience!
Right. For customer convenience.
Xie Xingchen guiltily priced sunflowers at 9,999 star-coins, then hurriedly closed the sunflower backend and went to price the other flowers.
- Jasmine: 199 star-coins
- Osmanthus: 199 star-coins
- Carnations: 299 star-coins
- Lavender: 299 star-coins
- Orange blossoms: 299 star-coins
- Roses: 399 star-coins
- Irises: 399 star-coins
- Lily-of-the-valley: 499 star-coins
- Sunflowers: 9,999 star-coins
Nine flower types, six price tiers—different flowers priced differently; same flower priced the same across different colors.
Right now, Xie Xingchen offers 30–40 color options.
Good thing he’d been helping two professors run experiments lately, and the robots had been taking photos—otherwise uploading images now would’ve been a nightmare.
However—
After uploading, Xie Xingchen realized the pictures were ugly as hell!
In the end, he had to send robots into the fields late at night to pick one stem of every color, then scan and upload them to StarNet Mall.
By the time he finished, it was already 1 a.m.
But it still wasn’t over—he also had to upload green-matter content test reports for each flower, or he wouldn’t be allowed to display green-matter content in the product details.
And after uploading the reports, he still had to handle listings for the flower tea shop next door.
You don’t realize it until you calculate it—Xie Xingchen had nearly ten thousand jin of flower tea in storage!
Aside from a tiny handful of toxic flowers, most flowers could be made into tea.
Xie Xingchen had always followed one principle: waste nothing. When the planting robots used flower stems for cuttings, the leftover blossoms were dried and turned into flower tea.
He started out just trying not to waste anything, but he never expected that little by little, he’d accumulate such a massive fortune.
Over ten thousand jin of flower tea—according to the original plan, it would last him a long time!
At first, to let more people get flower tea, he only planned to sell small jars, 50 grams per jar.
The tiny crystal jars were ridiculously cute… as for quantity, don’t ask too much—if you were careful, maybe you could brew it ten times or so?
And since flowers weren’t cheap, flower tea couldn’t be priced too low.
10,000 star-coins per small jar. On paper, it was pricier than buying fresh flowers, but raw materials and processed products were never going to be priced the same!
Given how hard it was to grab flowers from Earth Shop now, without a priority card you could at most get one stem a day—but flower tea came as a whole jar in one purchase. How could that be compared?
It couldn’t.
The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. Xie Xingchen decided to stick to his original plan.
He set the first-day listing quantity for nine flower teas to 30,000 units each. Then he thought about it and added a promotion across all three shops:
The first 100 buyers in each shop would receive one Priority Shopping Card.
After the tea shop was done, all that remained was listing the food shop items.
Xie Xingchen scanned and listed food images the same way, uploaded their green-matter content reports, and then set the prices:
- Scallion pancake: 100 star-coins
- Sugar-roasted chestnuts: 100 star-coins
- Scallion oil noodles: 100 star-coins
He set the first-day listing quantity to 15,000, added a first-day promotion, confirmed everything was correct, and pressed [Confirm].
Finally, he hopped over to StarNet and posted new-shop promotional announcements.
[Xie Xingchen V: Celebrating the growth of “Earth Shop”! Tomorrow at 21:00, Earth Shop will run a special promotion. The first 100 buyers in each of the three shops will receive a Priority Shopping Card. Fans—don’t miss it if you’re passing by!]
[Xie Xingchen V: Here’s a preview of what the shops will offer:
? Flower shop: 9 types of flowers, 10,000 units listed daily;
? Food shop: 3 types of food, first-day listing 15,000 units each; starting the next day, 1,000 units daily;
? Flower tea shop: 9 types of flower tea, first-day listing 20,000 units each; starting the next day, 10,000 units daily.
[PS: Too many prices, I’m too lazy to write them—check tomorrow (:???) ]]
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