Chapter 42
#EarthShopSunflowers
#TruePremiumGreeneryWith5PercentGreenMatter
#KneelingThanksBossXie
#EarthShopIsAConscientiousShop
The hired water-army trolls and their “fifth-column” helpers—who had just assembled their squad and were ready to counterattack: utterly confused.jpg
What was going on?
They recognized every word when separated, but why did the whole thing feel so alien when put together?
They knew what sunflowers were—Earth Shop’s new product.
But what was “5% green-matter content” supposed to mean?
Could it be… the green-matter content inside that plant called a sunflower?
No. Absolutely not!
A sunflower that costs 9,999 star-coins per stem contains 5% green matter?
Water army & sour trolls: Heh. Dream on. In dreams, you can have anything.
Everyone knew 5% green matter was a clear dividing line.
Any greenery with 5% green matter—even industry insiders would admit it was truly premium greenery, not the so-called “premium” online greenery with only 2%.
That kind of thing was expensive. At a minimum, the average price was close to six digits.
And that was only because greenery prices had dropped in recent years. Go back a few decades, and without seven digits, forget buying 5% greenery.
But Earth Shop’s sunflower?
It sold for 9,999.
So the trending topic couldn’t possibly be talking about that sunflower!
With an ominous, hard-to-describe premonition, the water army and sour trolls all took a deep breath.
With serious faces, they clicked the trending tag.
The moment they saw the words “sunflower,” everyone’s faces turned green.
Welp. No blackmailing or smearing this one now.
The water army felt regretful; the sour trolls sighed.
But then—very quickly—they became happy again.
Because that was a sunflower with 5% green matter!
And it was selling for a crazy low price: 9,999 per stalk!
And it sold 10,000 stalks a day!
Too cheap! Too worth it! Too likely to actually grab one!
A chance to get real premium greenery at a low price—what more could you want?
Even while still cursing out loud, everyone had already decided in their hearts:
They had to get the sunflower.
Once they got it, whether for personal use or reselling secondhand, they’d make a fortune.
By now, the sour trolls and water army had completely forgotten the comments they’d just posted insulting Xie Xingchen and Earth Shop.
Now the sunflower occupied their entire mind, and they even started imagining a blissful future where they successfully grabbed one sunflower every day!
But—
Just when they shamelessly tried to pretend nothing happened—and even planned to keep smearing Xie Xingchen and Earth Shop—Xie Xingchen did something nobody expected.
[Xie Xingchen V: In view of the fact that a group of netizens with “ideas” has appeared online recently—netizens who also don’t wish to waste money shopping at Earth Shop—I hereby make a solemn promise: Earth Shop will never force purchases. At this moment, right here, I will make a decision—starting today, this shop will implement user classification. Based on different user mindsets and habits, we will create corresponding user-type manuals in order to improve our service quality. Here, I sincerely hope every type of user can shop happily and live happily.]
The fans who were in the middle of roasting trolls saw this post and almost died laughing.
High EQ: “To serve everyone better, we’re establishing user-type manuals.”
Low EQ: “I can’t stand you. You’re going on the blacklist.”
Hahahaha—being able to phrase “blacklisting” so fresh and elegant… probably only Xie Xingchen could do it.
[BoboBallBoboFish: Congratulations, congratulations! Haters, are you happy? Boss Xie made a special user classification manual just for you LOL!]
[SunbathingFlounder: Hehehe… I think they must be thrilled! Look how respectful the boss is—he heard you say you don’t want to spend money, so he worked hard to help you not spend it. Boss Xie is so considerate, solving your urgent needs! You’ll never have to worry about accidentally wasting money again!]
[BlessMeNoFailThisYear: I’m dying—this is “asking for it and getting it,” huh? Big like. Boss Xie did great. This should’ve happened long ago—no more letting these dogs take advantage.]
No one defended the sour trolls or water army.
Because their behavior was genuinely disgusting.
Fans cheered. Sour trolls and water army panicked.
And the more panicked people got, the more they tended to speak without thinking—so their StarBlog comments became sharper and harsher.
But doing that didn’t make Xie Xingchen change his mind. It only made netizens feel he did the right thing.
It should be like this!
You take advantage and still yap—your face is that big? Do your parents know?
If you’ve got the guts to yap, you’ve got the guts to face the consequences.
Xie Xingchen didn’t budge. Fans gloated.
In the end, only the sour trolls, the water army, and the people behind them got hurt.
“You want compensation?” Hua Yanqing’s voice was cold, his smile not reaching his eyes.
On the other side, the water-army leader sounded greedy and self-righteous:
“Of course. Because of you, we got blacklisted by Earth Shop. Now we can’t buy their sunflowers anymore. Don’t you think you should compensate us for our losses?”
He’d been furious, but hearing that, Hua Yanqing calmed down instead.
He replied coolly, “Oh? And what does that have to do with me? Did you do something bad?”
The water-army leader laughed in anger. “Heh—what did we do? You don’t know? Didn’t you pay us to smear Xie Xingchen and Earth Shop on StarNet?”
Hua Yanqing smiled and countered, “Listen to yourself. How could I do something like that? That would be illegal. The Hua family never does anything that violates the law.”
Hua Yanqing had been prepared. Even if he had the leader’s contact info, someone else had been the actual intermediary. Even if it blew up, he wasn’t afraid—let alone of mere threats.
Hearing the threat implied in Hua Yanqing’s words, the water-army leader immediately cooled off.
His tone became less urgent—almost calm.
Satisfied that the other party “knew their place,” Hua Yanqing offered a couple of casual consolations and treated the matter as finished.
But for the water-army leader, it wasn’t so easy to let go.
He knew the buyer was probably no saint, but getting dumped like this was still a career humiliation.
So what now?
Blacklisted by Earth Shop, no compensation from the instigators—then they’d just switch targets.
They were good at this business anyway.
And they weren’t “doing it on purpose,” right? They were merely acting as “watchdogs”!
If someone caught a problem—heheh—how could that be their fault?
As Star Alliance citizens, wasn’t it their duty to let the public know certain injustices existed?
Fuming, he posted the whole story in the water-army group.
Those tightly disciplined, covert part-time trolls turned red-eyed with rage.
Right now, the people they hated most weren’t Xie Xingchen for blacklisting them—it was the ones who hired them:
the Hua family, and the families behind the scenes: Hou, Bradford, and Chestnut.
They went crazy online, relentlessly smearing those four major families—each of them turning into a detective.
Any tiny movement from those families got exposed and broadcast widely. And unbelievably, this troll group even found real “handles,” triggering a major crisis for the families.
When the heads of those families learned the whole disaster started just because they hired water armies and failed to clean up afterward, they regretted it so hard their intestines turned green.
Of course, that was later. For now, let’s focus back on Earth Shop.
Earth Shop went viral again!
At this moment, the sunflower successfully became everyone’s No. 1 favorite greenery.
At this moment, everyone eagerly awaited the 21:00 time Xie Xingchen had mentioned.
People are selective.
At first, most people were “blinded” by food. Now, everyone was “tempted” by sunflowers.
Except for a few true gluttons and the super rich who didn’t care about money, any ordinary citizen who understood what 5% green matter meant was determined to get tonight’s sunflowers!
By now, Earth Shop’s product details had been dug out and shared everywhere.
The flowers listed in the flower shop, the teas in the tea shop, and the three foods in the food shop—their green-matter contents and test reports—became the center of discussion.
Honestly, Xie Xingchen was extravagant.
Every single item Earth Shop listed had a corresponding green-matter content report, and the numbers were real—no fakes, no dilution—truly delivering “buy with peace of mind, use with comfort.”
Time had never felt this hard to endure—seconds felt like years.
Yet at this very moment, someone was chatting and laughing, calm as ever.
And the most hate-inducing person wasn’t anyone else—
It was Alice, the one holding five priority shopping cards.
Alice’s fans knew she had insane luck. She caught the “three-day card giveaway” right when Earth Shop opened, then became Earth Shop’s very first StarNet customer, and yesterday she even became the first paying customer at the food shop.
After all that, the “priority card concentration” in her hands had gone off the charts!
One priority shopping card gave 10 priority purchase chances. Alice had five, meaning 50 guaranteed priority purchases.
Xie Xingchen had only given out a little over a thousand priority cards total since opening.
Yet Alice alone held five.
And it didn’t stop there—her unlucky little brother had one too.
Ah! How could people not be jealous?
[InkSpiritAwakened: Envy jealousy hate! Alice, are you going to use a priority card later?]
Yep. Classic fan envy.
Seeing Alice so calm, everyone assumed she’d use one.
But to everyone’s shock, Alice shook her head decisively.
“Nope. I want to try grabbing it myself first. If I really can’t, then I’ll use it.”
She looked stubborn—like she wanted to rely on skill.
But what she really thought was: she needed to exploit the advantage of “web version is easier” while the news hadn’t spread yet. Once it got too hard, then she’d use the priority card.
[BeingSingleIsFreakingAwesome: Respect LOL this is the Alice I like! Don’t give in! Don’t be like those idiot streamers next door—getting one priority card and acting like they’re god-tier. Ugly people cause trouble. They’re even flexing on stream using priority purchases.]
Fans screamed internally: so hateful!
Alice shrugged like it didn’t matter.
She wasn’t going to use it. The chance to grab was still high—why waste priority attempts?
Alice wasn’t that dumb.
She laughed casually. “If they want to stream it, let them. It’s good—satisfies everyone’s curiosity. I just like the hype. I like competing with everyone in real-time speed battles!”
Then she added immediately, “But speed battles depend on internet speed, so I’ll have to end the stream later. Otherwise, I’m afraid it’ll lag when I’m trying to buy.”
Fans all said they understood.
Not just Alice—they were going to leave too!
This was a purchase rush! If you run too many programs and lag, what then?
Even if the chance of lag was low, it was better to close everything. Who knew if you might be that once-in-a-century unlucky person?
After agreeing, everyone happily logged off as 21:00 approached.
After ending her stream, Alice felt instantly relaxed. She giggled, opened the web version of StarNet Mall, and clicked straight into her target:
the sunflower purchase link.
A countdown sound effect began.
As time approached, Alice’s heartbeat sped up.
Ten thousand sounded like a lot—but once the base population got huge, it was actually very little.
Alice didn’t dare lose focus. Her eyes locked on the purchase page.
When the countdown ended and the button turned green, she rapidly clicked:
Buy ? default address ? pay.
The moment she finished, she immediately opened the already-prepared candied chestnut link from the food shop.
Same steps: click buy ? default address ? pay.
After paying, Alice finally exhaled.
She refreshed—270,000 portions of candied chestnuts were sold out.
Alice threw her head back and laughed. “HAHAHAHA I’m actually so OP!”
She bounced around her room for ages, then finally reopened her stream with a radiant smile.
Within minutes, fans flooded in. She happily shared the good news.
Hearing that Alice got both sunflowers and candied chestnuts, everyone turned into sour lemons!
[SourLemonSpirit: AHHHH I don’t believe it! Alice, you MUST have a secret technique!]
[IHaveAnOceanStar: I don’t believe it either… Alice you’re so mean! You definitely found a method—otherwise there’s no way you’d succeed every time! Tell us! We’re your most loving fans, and also the fans you love most!]
Seeing so many fans come back empty-handed, Alice hesitated, her expression shifting.
Fans sensed a chance and immediately started pleading and showering her with ridiculous flattery—so exaggerated it made Alice laugh.
But their words really did soften her.
Alice tugged at her hair, her pretty face showing a helpless smile.
She glanced at the viewer count, then at the crying bullet comments flying across the screen, and sighed.
“Fine… I do have a method. I can tell you, but don’t tell anyone else. Otherwise, nobody will be able to grab anything later.”
Before she could say more, the fans immediately stopped her and began strategizing.
They told Alice to close the stream room so more people wouldn’t swarm in. Then they all spammed the chat with solemn promises about the risks, begging everyone listening not to spread it.
Even if you do spread it—wait until we get our share first!
Alice didn’t object. In fact, she was pretty satisfied.
Once everything was ready, Alice finally revealed the secret in front of countless eager eyes.
Alice: “Basically… try using the web version to rush purchases.”
Fans: ?
Web version? What web version?
Alice scolded them in exasperation. “What web version? StarNet Mall’s web version, of course!”
Everyone: StarNet Mall has a web version?!
That question made Alice helpless.
She nodded. “Of course it does. Just not many people know, and even fewer use it. So it might be a bit faster.”
In truth, it wasn’t that much faster.
But sometimes even a 0.01-second advantage could beat tens of thousands of people.
So at moments like this, the web version was extremely nice.
Everyone suddenly understood. Eyes lit up with excitement.
They happily left to test Alice’s claim tomorrow.
But some people couldn’t wait until tomorrow.
They went hunting for flash sales and camped them using the web version.
And unbelievably, a few of those fans actually succeeded.
Now it was over—Alice shot straight to the top of the trending list.
Only… the trending keywords about her were kind of weird, and the comments were even weirder.
Everyone: “……”
So the question was—
What exactly does “those who know, know” mean?!
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