After Waking Up I Inherited the Earth [Interstellar] – CH45

Chapter 45

Most of the time, the world seems to be full of “good things piled on top of good things.”

Xie Xingchen had barely walked two hundred meters after finding the passionfruit when he spotted the lemons he’d been yearning for.

He didn’t even need his eyes.

Just getting closer, he caught that distinct lemon fragrance—clean, natural, and uniquely fresh.

Xie Xingchen was so familiar with the smell of lemons that the moment he detected it, he blurted out on reflex, “It’s lemons!”

The livestream chat: ?

They looked left, right, up, and down—where were the lemons?

Wasn’t it supposed to be a bright, eye-catching yellow? They couldn’t see anything!

Xie Xingchen ignored the viewers. He gently closed his eyes and breathed in carefully, trying to locate the source of the lemon scent.

To the left!

Once he confirmed the direction, Xie Xingchen snapped his eyes open. His eyes lit up as he looked left.

He said happily, “I can smell it. The lemons are over there.”

[? Wait—Boss Xie isn’t human? Did he suddenly turn into a canine from the beast civilization?]
[Or the plant civilization? Their citizens are super sensitive to plants too!]
[Even merfolk have good noses. I’m from the eagle clan and I didn’t see anything, but Boss Xie found lemons—two words: absurd!]

Xie Xingchen happened to see that comment.

He laughed out loud, then explained seriously, “Don’t guess wildly—I’m definitely a full-on human.”

If his original body had been famous across the whole human civilization back then, people wouldn’t be debating whether he was human. They’d probably be debating why he suddenly seemed like a different person.

On that point, Xie Xingchen was actually grateful.

He continued, “I can smell lemons because their scent is special—once you’ve smelled it, you can recognize it the next time. And usually a single lemon tree grows a lot of lemons. When the fruits cluster together, the scent becomes stronger.”

As he spoke, Xie Xingchen directed the livestream orb to fly higher.

At first, nobody understood what he was doing.

But once the orb reached a certain height, they got it—

Because they saw them.

Lemons!

So many, so many lemons!

And they really were as obvious as Boss Xie said.

So obvious that once you’d seen them, it was hard to forget.

Also—

These “sourfruits” were ridiculously good-looking!

What a beautiful fruit!

Especially that bright yellow—just looking at it made the whole world feel brighter!

[Boss Xie really didn’t lie! There really are lemons here!]
[Wuwu, this fruit is so pretty… my kid was sucking their finger and said they want to eat it (?)]
[I want to eat it too… but is it really sour? And what exactly is that “special fragrance” Boss Xie mentioned?]

Who isn’t a looks person these days?

A pretty fruit naturally won more love!

Lemons were that pretty—so what if they liked them?

Xie Xingchen, who knew what lemons tasted like, was honestly impressed by these netizens.

Eat lemons?

Did they want to become lemon warriors?

He chuckled. “Lemons are a bit sour if you eat them straight. Usually we don’t eat them plain—we use them to infuse water, make fruit tea, brighten up food, or balance flavors.”

[Then compared to sourfruit—who’s more sour?]
[Ah! So you really can’t just eat lemons? Really? Looking at the color, they don’t seem that sour…]

Xie Xingchen: Uh…

He’d forgotten there were so many species here. Some species really could handle sour.

Or rather, some didn’t care about taste at all—because they only consumed nutrition and were diehard nutrient-solution supporters.

But his livestream probably didn’t have that kind of audience, right?

Otherwise his food segment later would completely flop.

He tested the waters. “Can anyone in the chat eat sourfruit? If you can eat sourfruit, you can definitely eat lemons—lemons are less sour than sourfruit.”

The moment he said that, the chat filled with disgust.

It was obvious everyone had suffered sourfruit for a long time.

Xie Xingchen finally relaxed.

Good—normal-taste interstellar people!

He reassured them, “Don’t worry. Even if you can’t eat lemons straight, I’ll teach you how to use lemons in food later.”

With that, Xie Xingchen and the three robots went to pick lemons.

Considering he’d be hosting Ludwig and the others in a few days—and he’d also promised giveaways—this time he picked all the ripe lemons from two trees.

In the end, he got several hundred lemons… and that was only because he didn’t pick the unripe ones! If he’d picked everything, he’d probably have thousands.

The yield was honestly shocking.

The chat started discussing that, but because Xie Xingchen had already set expectations, everyone simply figured this area might be the most plant-rich place on Earth. They were surprised, but not suspicious.

Strangely enough, picking fruit was a boring activity…

Yet viewers watched with intense interest.

They watched for forty to fifty minutes, and when Xie Xingchen finally finished, people actually felt unsatisfied. Some even suggested he keep picking fruit!

[Boss Xie! Go pick passionfruit—I want to see you pick passionfruit!]
[Yes! There are so many passionfruit there—you could pick for another hour!]
[Right right, don’t waste them! There’s so much—if you can’t finish eating, you can pick them for giveaways!]
[Damn… yes, giveaways! We want giveaways—lemons, passionfruit, and Boss Xie’s food!]

Xie Xingchen, who’d planned to keep exploring, got pulled back by the audience.

After thinking it through, he decided to grant their request.

But not because they wanted to watch him pick fruit—rather because passionfruit is better after it sits. Let it rest until the shell wrinkles slightly, and the pulp becomes sweeter.

Picking earlier was better anyway. Freshly picked ripe passionfruit could be eaten, but it was too acidic—making fruit tea would require more sugar, and the flavor wouldn’t be as good.

As he walked, Xie Xingchen explained these passionfruit tips to the viewers. Then he arrived back at the vines.

With the earlier experience, he wasn’t a beginner anymore.

He split the work with Get-Rich, Prosperity, and Long-Life efficiently. In under an hour, they picked two to three times more passionfruit than lemons.

After storing the passionfruit in his spatial button, Xie Xingchen asked, “Alright, passionfruit’s done! Do you want the giveaway now, or later? If we wait, and I find something new, there’ll be more prize types in the giveaway.”

Translation: If I find new stuff, I’ll give it to you too.

[Wuwu Boss Xie is mighty and generous, I love you so much!]
[Later! Later! I want more stuff!]
[awsl A beautiful generous big boss falling from the sky! Boss Xie is so??! From today on I’m your diehard fan!]

As if to prove the comment true, the moment Xie Xingchen saw it, the system quest suddenly updated to:

[Make Everyone Jealous: 1/100000]

Xie Xingchen: So the 100k fans quest finally started moving?

So… this still counted as “the seaside”? A large range?

Also… are giveaways the true cheat code?

He understood.

If that was how it worked, then maybe he should do more giveaways—add a few more prizes and see if more loyal fans appeared.

But honestly, he still didn’t know how the system counted “loyal fans.”

From the chat content, some were clearly loyal Earth Shop fans. And now they obviously also liked him, the shop owner—yet the system didn’t count them.

Could it really be like his earlier joke—that “Make Everyone Jealous” required people to go from envy to loyalty?

If so… he might truly have to become a shameless show-off.

Xie Xingchen exhaled softly, trying not to be obvious. His gaze at the livestream orb was full of helplessness.

That look made the viewers blink blankly—they thought he’d been teased speechless.

With lemons and passionfruit found, Xie Xingchen’s main goal was complete.

But since luck was on his side today, he might as well press the advantage.

Going back to the beach was out of the question—only serious exploration was the path to riches!

This area was so plant-rich that he found lemons and passionfruit just by walking. If he kept going, who knew what else he’d find?

Oh, right—mangoes!

Before starting the stream, he’d seen loads of mango trees. Now he had to go pick mangoes.

Just thinking about mango flavor made him drool.

The mangoes here were huge. To give a simple example—

They were bigger than Xie Xingchen’s face.

Each one weighed at least 4–5 jin (2–2.5 kg).

Back in his hometown, mangoes like that were expensive. The old him could never have afforded them.

Remembering that mango fragrance, Xie Xingchen suggested excitedly, “How about we go pick mangoes?”

[Mangoes? What are mangoes?]

Xie Xingchen hinted, “A fruit. You’ve already seen them—right when I started the stream.”

The chat suddenly understood.

[Oh, that big greenish-yellow fruit!]
[That’s called mango? Is it tasty? It doesn’t look that tasty…]
[I noticed them earlier—tons of trees had them, and they’re huge. If it’s that common, can it really be delicious?]

Interstellar feng shui was weird.

There wasn’t much good food, and most of it contained dark matter.

Mangoes looked too easy to obtain, which made people suspicious of the taste.

Xie Xingchen insisted, “It’s definitely delicious—better than passionfruit and lemons.”

The chat: ?

Everyone was stunned.

Better than passionfruit and lemons?

Then why hadn’t Boss Xie picked mangoes earlier? Why had he been desperately searching for passionfruit and lemons?

Wasn’t that ridiculous?

Xie Xingchen scratched his nose awkwardly. “Ahem… because I was so focused on lemons earlier, I didn’t pay much attention to mangoes.”

Yep—definitely a young guy.

People laughed but also understood.

Sometimes it’s not that what’s in front of you is bad—your mind is just stuck on something else.

Once you get what you wanted, you naturally start missing the good stuff you ignored before.

[Boss Xie, then let’s go pick mangoes!]
[Pick more and do giveaways!]
[Hahaha yes! Giveaways! I really want to know what all these things taste like!]

Thoughtful viewers helped him out of the awkward moment.

Xie Xingchen nodded. “Sure. There are a lot of mangoes over there. I’ll pick the ripe ones and do a giveaway!”

Since he’d already found the trees, he wasn’t stingy.

Mangoes would grow again after picking. There were probably mangoes elsewhere too. If he gave these cute viewers more stuff, what was the big deal?!

It was just one person and three robots, but maybe because the viewers were so silly and loud, Xie Xingchen somehow made it feel like a whole crowd.

Back at the starting point, Xie Xingchen looked up.

Staring at the massive mango trees, he opened his mouth slightly.

So tall!

Earlier he’d been too busy drooling over mangoes to notice. Now he was genuinely shocked.

How many years had these trees grown?

They were enormous!

[Hahaha Boss Xie, wake up—stop staring at the tree and pick mangoes!]
[Mangoes! Mangoes! Mangoes are what matters—don’t get distracted by the tree!]

The viewers protested.

If they wanted to look at trees, they could do that anywhere.

But not now!

Watching Boss Xie pick fruit was addictive.

They were addicted.

They wanted to watch!

[Earth’s ecology really seems great. These trees look healthy.]
[That’s normal… a planet is huge. Some places are less affected by dark matter. If everything were abnormal, Earth couldn’t be a habitable planet.]
[That makes sense… but I’m still jealous, wuwu. So many fruits—if they taste like Boss Xie says, I’m drooling!]
[Jealous +1. When will I be rich enough to buy my own planet?]

Now that topic came up, nobody was sleepy anymore.

Who didn’t dream of being a planet owner?

The chat instantly turned into a daydream festival.

Some of the comments made Xie Xingchen laugh and feel bitter—but not for them. For himself.

He looked at the camera sincerely. “Let me advise everyone… don’t be fooled by the ‘planet owner’ job. It’s a money-burning profession. Since coming to Earth, I honestly think I’ve been very frugal, but I’ve still spent a lot, including…”

He rattled on, sounding like he wasn’t complaining, but somehow it was even more painful than complaining.

Viewers felt they no longer recognized the word “frugal.”

Hundreds of billions vanishing with a whoosh—this was frugal?

And that was only the early stage? Later would cost even more?

His eyes were full of sincerity. “If anyone watching happens to have enough star-coins and contribution points to buy a planet, I truly recommend calculating your early development costs first. If it’s going to be tight, please think carefully before buying immediately.”

Don’t let everything go down the drain.

He could act “wild” only because this was Earth—and more importantly, because he had a system and three decently profitable businesses.

Without that support, he couldn’t develop Earth at all.

Building a planet was too hard.

Calling the costs “astronomical” was still flattering the word “astronomical.”

He sighed. “Alright, let’s stop talking about that. Let’s pick mangoes.”

He brought the topic back.

He and Get-Rich, Prosperity, and Long-Life looked around, then chose a twisted, slanted tree.

Easier to climb, less likely to slip.

Xie Xingchen decided. “This one.”

He walked quickly to the trunk and climbed up smoothly.

In his previous life, he’d never climbed trees. But in this life—between the giant osmanthus tree and the huge jasmine trees—he’d climbed so many times he’d basically trained up.

Plus, after drinking the physique enhancer, his movements were even smoother.

Viewers watched, dumbfounded, as this sunny, beautiful boy “scrambled-scrambled-scrambled” up the tree like a monkey, reached a high branch, and immediately started picking mangoes while holding onto the limb.

But then…

An awkward atmosphere spread.

[HAHAHAHA I’m dying—Boss Xie can climb fine, the problem is picking mangoes!]
[He can’t hold it with one hand LOL! Needs two hands!]
[Ninety-nine steps done but stuck on the last one—LOL!]

Stuck? No way.

He’d just been gentle earlier because the mangoes were so yellow and he didn’t want to break them. Now that they wouldn’t come off, he simply used more force.

Snap—into the spatial button. Snap—into the spatial button.

Eventually he didn’t even bother saving hand strength: he guided half the mango into the spatial button first, then pinched off the stem.

Everyone was stunned.

Almost anyone with mental power could use a spatial button, but very few could operate it this precisely. If someone could, it meant their mental control was strong.

Now they fully believed Boss Xie really was “saving money” by commuting between home and the fields every day to pump mental power into plants.

And they believed his mental power would definitely rise again soon.

With that workload and at his age—if his talent wasn’t bad, he’d improve for sure.

They watched in a daze as he finished picking even faster than before.

In the end, the chat even paused.

Only when Xie Xingchen finished did the chat flood back to life, filling the screen.

That was when he finally had time to read.

When he saw one especially eye-catching bold red comment, his eyes widened in surprise. “Huh—really? You actually saw red fruit?”

[Yes, Boss Xie. I saw it when you were picking mangoes. The camera only flashed past it, so I didn’t see clearly, but if I’m not mistaken it’s roughly to the southeast.]

Xie Xingchen: ) Good grief—what sharp eyes!

He thought for a moment, didn’t move, and instead controlled the livestream orb to fly in that direction.

Then he pulled up the live projection on his light-brain so he could see what the orb was filming.

Xie Xingchen: New exploration method unlocked ?

After about a minute heading southeast, the screen really showed red fruits—and not just one type, but two!

The moment he saw those two patches of red, Xie Xingchen jumped with joy.

He ran over immediately.

They were bird’s eye chilies and tomatoes!

Perfect—absolutely perfect. His luck today was unreal!

He’d found chilies and tomatoes with ridiculous ease!

Just imagining that chili heat made him drool.

The interstellar “devil pepper” was insanely hot—bird’s eye chili was the best for cooking!

With this chili, he could finally make a ton of dishes.

The livestream orb hovered over the chili patch and tomato patch. Xie Xingchen arrived about ten minutes later.

Without hesitation, he started harvesting like crazy. After he finished, he said happily, “These two plants are both great! The small one is chili—medium heat, often used for seasoning in cooking… The big one is tomato, also called ‘fanqie.’ You can eat it raw, stir-fry it, or make it into ketchup. It’s sweet-and-sour and really delicious!”

[Sweet-and-sour? I feel like I’ve heard that a lot today…]
[Yeah! So what does “sweet-and-sour” taste like? Why does Boss Xie like it so much?]
[It sounds weird. Why does it have to be sweet-and-sour to be tasty? Can’t it just be sour, or just sweet?]

Interstellar netizens really were something.

If they ate more real meals, they wouldn’t say stuff like that.

But since not everyone in real life even liked sweet-and-sour flavors, Xie Xingchen explained sincerely, “Of course it can be just sour or just sweet. Everyone’s preferences differ. Not everyone likes sweet-and-sour. But in the end, you can’t really know until you taste it. If you’ve never tried it, it’s hard to tell whether you’ll like it. So I suggest everyone try it if you can—then you’ll know.”

His words weren’t wrong.

They were just a bit… heart-stabbing.

[Wuwu I want to try too… but food is so expensive. Just thinking about the cost of trial and error makes my heart bleed!]
[Right! And we don’t have chefs or recipes. If we cook ourselves it feels like wasting ingredients. But restaurants are unaffordable—food prices are insane now!]
[So please—can Earth Shop increase food quantity? A few tens of thousands isn’t enough to grab!]

Xie Xingchen couldn’t promise that.

He’d already upgraded the food machines to max. There was no way to increase output further.

Unless the system refreshed more food machines, his output would stay capped.

He could only smile bitterly and avoid replying.

Once everything was gathered, Xie Xingchen returned to the beach.

Like most people seeing the sea for the first time—

Standing there, he felt as if he’d been conquered by the ocean.

Blue sky, white clouds, a vast sea, seabirds moving with the tides. The beach rose and fell with the waves, covered in gifts from the ocean.

Looking at the seafood the sea had practically delivered to his doorstep, Xie Xingchen beamed. Facing the camera, he shouted happily:

“Dear viewers—our shore-foraging livestream is officially starting now~!”

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