Chapter 43
#ThoseWhoKnowKnow
#NewSecretCode
The two trending titles made people curious enough to click.
And as more and more people clicked in, the topics only got hotter.
But… as the topics exploded, Alice and her fans actually became more low-key instead.
Netizens: smells like gossip!
Battle-hardened gossip-eaters—veterans of countless scandals—noticed that Alice and her fans were acting unusually quiet. Their gossip radar instantly turned on, and they got hyped.
Netizens: This one’s definitely huge!
In the end—
The more mysterious Alice and her fans were, the noisier the trending topics became.
But this time, everyone’s mouths were sealed. Since it involved “benefits,” no matter how many people tried all kinds of fancy ways to ask, everyone who got asked kept silent.
But, generally speaking, the more mysterious something is, the more it stirs up curiosity.
At first, most people were just joining the fun. But seeing Alice and her fans acting like this, netizens’ competitive spirit kicked in.
Honestly, who isn’t a stubborn, prideful netizen?
You don’t want to tell me?
No problem. We believe there’s no mouth in the world that can’t be pried open with enough effort!
Netizens were convinced: if they tried hard enough, they’d find a breakthrough.
And to be fair, netizens really are talented.
In just a few hours, some people actually broke through the defenses.
But—
Hehe, it’s the sunflower~!
I didn’t get one either!
So… I’ll talk after I get one!
Almost every netizen thought that way. And in the end, for a short while, Alice and her fans really did manage to keep it under wraps.
As the owner of Earth Shop, it’d be a lie if Xie Xingchen said he wasn’t curious about people’s shopping tactics.
But Alice’s group was ridiculously united. Xie Xingchen spent two or three hours in the morning eating the gossip, and still couldn’t find any follow-up anywhere!
Xie Xingchen: This generation of netizens is useless!
Shaking his head and lamenting the lack of paparazzi spirit among Star Alliance netizens, he suddenly heard the long-awaited system notification tone.
[Ding-dong. Congratulations, player: you have successfully lit up the “Sunflower” entry in the Codex. Reward: 500 EXP. For details, please check the system Codex.]
[Ding-dong. Congratulations, player: you have successfully lit up the “Iris” entry in the Codex. Reward: 500 EXP. For details, please check the system Codex.]
[Ding-dong. Congratulations, player: you have successfully lit up the “Orange Blossom” entry in the Codex. Reward: 500 EXP. For details, please check the system Codex.]
Huh—this time the Codex lit up so quickly?
Xie Xingchen was a little surprised.
He’d thought he wouldn’t get the system message until tomorrow.
Because the system only counts sales revenue after the buyer confirms receipt.
So Codex notifications usually lag by one or two days.
That’s partly because Earth Shop has so many fans—most of them automatically confirm receipt and leave reviews soon after deliveries arrive.
Though that wasn’t always true.
Last time, when the “Rose” Codex entry lit up, Xie Xingchen waited more than a full week. He’d been so anxious he almost thought something had gone wrong.
[Player Info Panel]
Name: Xie Xingchen
Race: Human
Territory: Earth
Level: LV3
Partner: Fat Bunny Ji (Feifei) [+]
EXP: 3800/5000
Plant Affinity: ? +1
Mental Strength Level: A- (?)
Game Progress: 0.1%
Codex Progress: 0%
Infrastructure Progress: 0%
Even though he was still Level 3, his panel data looked completely different now.
First, after drinking the physique enhancement potion, his mental strength jumped from B to A-. The A- still had a question mark after it, but Xie Xingchen reasonably suspected the “(?)” meant: can be increased.
Second, his game progress had reached an unprecedented 0.1%. Still tiny—but compared to his previous 0.01%, it was ten times higher.
Finally, adding the 500 EXP from lighting up the Rose entry earlier, his EXP was now 3800—only 1200 away from leveling up!
No matter how you looked at it, this panel was way stronger than before.
Especially that tenfold jump in game progress!
Xie Xingchen was sure it wasn’t just because he lit up a few icons. It had to be connected to the travel souvenirs Feifei brought back.
He clearly remembered: right after signing the Partner contract, his game progress barely changed—combined with the icon, it was only around 0.1%.
But!
When Feifei returned from traveling with souvenirs, that turtle-crawling progress bar suddenly jumped a lot.
Now he just didn’t know whether Feifei’s second set of souvenirs would increase progress again.
Xie Xingchen felt it probably wouldn’t—but even a slim hope was still hope. Unfortunately, Feifei was still on the second trip, so there was no way to test the theory yet.
Back to the Codex page.
Among the currently unlocked flowers, only “Lily of the Valley” hadn’t lit up yet.
As for other plants—
All locked.
Those chains, those huge locks—like the day of unlocking was infinitely far away!
Xie Xingchen: Fine! The exploration journey is back on the schedule.
But this time he wasn’t going to the mountains. He was going to the seaside.
Don’t assume the coast is just ocean—coastal regions have plenty of plants!
The climate, soil, and moisture are perfect for growth. Many fruit trees can thrive with basically zero care, and the fruit yield is so big that it could feed pigs.
Coconuts, mangoes, lychees, longans, lemons, passionfruit… not only could he eat tropical fruit freely, but they were also raw materials for fruit tea!
If he could find a few, he felt the system might very well refresh a milk-tea machine for him!
God knew how much he craved milk tea!
Some things you really shouldn’t think about—thinking makes you crave, craving makes you want it more, wanting makes you want to go…
But right now, he probably wouldn’t have time to go to the coast in the next day or two.
Last night before bed, he did a refresh round. No surprise—nothing suitable. So he spent a fortune and bought three system-made planting robots.
According to the plan, he couldn’t leave for 1–2 days. He had to stay and observe how capable these insanely expensive robots were at reclaiming land and farming.
They were system products—he wouldn’t even complain about the 100 million star-coin price tag…
But if their performance didn’t match the price?
Xie Xingchen: ) smile.jpg
Sorry. If they weren’t good, then—bye-bye.
If anyone wanted to be a sucker, they could do it themselves!
The afternoon sun was harsh. Xie Xingchen lazed in bed and took a nap.
When the sun tilted west and the outdoor temperature dropped, he finally took the three new system robots to the flower fields.
At first glance, the three robots looked ordinary—unremarkable, like most robots sold on the market.
But if you looked closely, you’d notice something off.
Their mobility, agility—even their displayed intelligence—felt far less stiff than typical commercial models. They were more like awakened citizens of Mechanical Civilization.
Xie Xingchen casually said one word: “Reclaim.”
The moment he gave the order, all three robots moved immediately.
Unlike the robots he bought from StarNet Mall—which required programs and routines—these three felt like something from a sci-fi movie he’d watched on Earth.
He only gave them a goal, and they started showing initiative on their own!
Xie Xingchen: starry eyes.jpg
Oh my god, this is way too good!
A robot that can take initiative—doesn’t that basically mean a thinking supervisor robot that can solve problems?
Xie Xingchen’s eyes lit up.
He was going to be fully liberated!
From now on, he could hand everything here to these robots.
Three system robots handle management + work. The other normal planting robots just do labor.
Thinking of a future where he could complete tasks while lying down, he wanted to buy ten or eight more and free himself completely.
But he needed to save money for emergencies, so the “buy more robots” plan had to wait.
Even so, Xie Xingchen was still smiling brightly—because he knew his exploration (foodie) trip could resume immediately.
Before he left, though, he needed to swing by Feifei’s old den, check it out, and fertilize and water that rapeseed field—so Feifei could come home to tasty food.
Bringing a few capable planting robots and several bottles of the new plant nutrient solution, Xie Xingchen got into his hovercar, turned on auto-navigation, and headed to Feifei’s lair.
From afar, the rapeseed field was a sea of gold. Flowers swayed gently in the breeze. Busy little bees, pretty butterflies—tirelessly dancing from bloom to bloom.
The only thing that ruined the scenery—
Was the adorable fat rabbits.
They hopped around the field with zero mercy, brutally biting rapeseed stalks out of the ground—crunch crunch.
For Feifei’s sake, Xie Xingchen merely drooled at them instead of grabbing them.
After all, he didn’t want Feifei to return from traveling one day and discover its dad/mom/brother/sister/grandpa/grandma… had been eaten by its partner.
Just imagining it made Xie Xingchen cringe.
Anyway, ever since becoming Feifei’s partner, whenever he felt like eating rabbit, he’d just go catch wild rabbits in the forest instead.
After carefully tending the field with the three robots, before leaving, Xie Xingchen also fed a wave of mental energy into the rapeseed field.
And he didn’t know if it was his imagination, but after “eating” his mental energy, the field seemed… even more cheerful?
Not the normal “healthy and green” vibe of plants—but a kind of personified happiness.
He couldn’t figure it out, so he stopped thinking about it.
Maybe this place was some kind of blessed land?
It already naturally sustained a massive green-matter rapeseed field, and it had produced Feifei—such a smart bunny.
So if there were a few “plant abnormalities,” that seemed… kind of normal?
Xie Xingchen wasn’t one to overthink. It didn’t interfere with him anyway!
When the work was done, night quietly fell.
At this hour, Xie Xingchen obviously wasn’t going to go out.
He returned to the starship, then went to the kitchen to pack up the grill rack, barbecue seasonings, spices, skewers, buckets, and so on. He went back to his room and packed two sets of protective suits, stored them in his space button, and since it was still early, he made green-matter medicine in his bedroom.
Because his mental strength had improved, his efficiency in making green-matter medicine soared. Now he could make one bottle at a time, instead of splitting it into multiple steps like before.
After storing the medicine, Xie Xingchen—having drained his mental energy—lay in the treatment pod for half an hour. Then he showered and went to sleep.
The Next Day
Driven by his body clock, Xie Xingchen woke early. After cleaning up, he set off proudly with Get-Rich, Prosperity, Long-Life.
On the way to the coast, Xie Xingchen hummed happily.
He didn’t remember the lyrics, but he remembered the melody.
A familiar tune plus a good mood made the trip feel especially light.
And the biggest reason he felt relaxed was—
Feifei!
With Feifei around, his stress dropped sharply, and exploration stopped being pure work—it became something like traveling.
Just hearing the word “travel” made people happy.
Back on Earth, Xie Xingchen never had the money or time to travel. In the interstellar era, he had money—but still not much time.
Now, he’d finally stolen a perfect chance for a little vacation.
And it was the place he’d always wanted to go most:
the sea.
Growing up inland, never having seen the ocean, he’d longed for it deeply.
How deeply?
There was a time when “shore foraging” videos and livestreams of opening pearl oysters were his favorite thing.
So much so that even without time off, he’d watch those videos on commutes and while eating.
And now—
It was finally his turn to forage the shore and open pearl oysters!
Xie Xingchen: excited.jpg
Foraging, pearls, tropical fruit.
His old dreams were about to come true.
How could he not be thrilled?
To make the dream even more perfect, he headed straight for what used to be Qiongzhou Island—Hainan Island.
Not only did it have tons of fruit, but the South Sea pearls were also top quality.
A premium hovercar at top speed wasn’t slower than a plane. After several hours, Xie Xingchen went from inland to the coast.
With no human pollution, the vast sea was a pure blue.
White clouds floated in the sky. Golden sand stretched along the shore. Tall coconut trees stood everywhere, and seabirds occasionally leapt over the water—everything was intoxicating.
The coconut trees were huge, and under their lush leaves hung countless coconuts—some even being gnawed by small squirrels hugging them.
Stepping onto the beach, Xie Xingchen found piles of seafood pushed up by the tides. With each wave, the seafood rose and retreated with the water.
So. Much.
The seafood was practically overflowing—like an ecological disaster.
Xie Xingchen couldn’t help smiling like an idiot.
Especially when he saw several giant crabs strolling sideways across the sand like they owned the place—his smile got even brighter.
Great. He was in for a feast.
He found a shorter coconut tree, picked a coconut, and used a knife to remove the outer green husk.
Then he took out a portable tester and scanned it.
When it came back safe, his smile completely changed.
Coconut water, coconut oil, coconut candy, shredded coconut…
So many coconut byproducts—pure happiness!
He jammed a straw hard into the coconut’s “eye,” squinted, and happily drank the sweet, refreshing coconut water.
The moment it hit his mouth, his eyes widened, and he blurted out:
“So good!”
Pure wild coconut, naturally sweet, no additives—its rich coconut flavor was unreal!
Xie Xingchen turned back excitedly and declared to his three robots:
“Get-Rich, Prosperity, Long-Life—this coconut water is amazing! When I get back, I’m going to figure out a coconut-juice-flavored energy fluid for you!”
Then he muttered, “Oh right… Ludwig and the others are coming in a few days. Should I make them this flavor too?”
After all, they were traveling a long way to deliver a machine for him. It would feel wrong not to treat them properly.
He scanned the area and made a decision.
Yep—he’d host them right here!
Sure, they were mechanical lifeforms, but awakened robots and humans were basically the same aside from biology, right?
Who said robots couldn’t enjoy beach foraging, opening pearl oysters, and tropical fruit?
Back on Earth, tons of people were obsessed with those three things.
Xie Xingchen didn’t believe they’d be any less popular in the interstellar age.
But… maybe he should find fruit nearby first.
Especially lemons and passionfruit.
Lemons could be used for barbecue. Passionfruit with sugar and ice made incredible fruit tea—perfect for this heat, instantly refreshing down to your throat.
And maybe… buy some beach chairs and a big sunshade?
Drinking coconut juice while watching the tides rise and fall.
Just imagining it made him want to brag.
He suddenly wanted his fans to see what kind of god-tier life he was living.
[Ding-dong. Congratulations, player: you have triggered a quest — “Make Everyone Jealous.”
Quest area: Seaside.
Quest requirement: Gain 100,000 loyal fans by some means.
Time limit: 7 days.
Quest reward: Workshop (can contain workshops and factories; a hub for major production facilities).]
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