After Waking Up I Inherited the Earth [Interstellar] – CH47

Chapter 47

After several hours of shore-foraging, the harvest was substantial—giant lobsters, bread crabs, oysters, scallops, “dai zi,” cat’s-eye snails, conches, starfish, sea urchins, clams, groupers, three-eyed crabs… basically everything you could want.

What excited Xie Xingchen the most was that when he reached the rocky area, he found abalone wedged in the cracks between stones.

Abalone bigger than his palm!

And the funniest part was that there were actually a few mantis shrimps crawling around on top of it.

Their movements, their “expressions”—they instantly made Xie Xingchen think of the once-viral Earth meme: “Mantis shrimp, let’s go.”

Xie Xingchen suddenly laughed out loud. “Hahaha…”

That random laugh immediately sparked the viewers’ curiosity.

But when they turned their attention to the ugly, segmented “mutant beasts,” their curiosity snapped in half with a crack, and everyone fell silent again—because they had nothing to say!

Other people saw mutant beasts and trembled in fear. But Xie Xingchen? His eyes lit up like he’d found treasure—as if those weren’t beasts at all, but priceless goods!

Now they were collectively doubting themselves—had they seen wrong?

Were those really not juvenile mutant beasts, but ordinary ingredients?

Otherwise… how could they explain Boss Xie being genuinely delighted every time he saw them?

Before the viewers could figure it out, Xie Xingchen quickly used his tongs to pull the abalone and mantis shrimps out of the stone crack, picking them up while marveling, “Our luck today is so good—how did we find this much stuff!”

He’d originally planned to do the classic beach trick—sprinkling salt to lure razor clams.

But he never expected the shore here to be so overflowing that salt was basically useless.

Razor clams? In front of these premium ingredients, they didn’t even matter!

Xie Xingchen straightened up, satisfied, and strolled around once more. After picking up a few more abalones, he finally began his leisurely return.

Watching his relaxed, cheerful back as he walked away with a small bucket, the fans’ feelings were complicated. They wanted to say something—but in the end, everything felt wrong.

After a long while, a single comment drifted across the screen:

[Ahem… random thought: spatial buttons are really useful. Like, insanely useful in moments like this.]

Netizens: …

Six dots couldn’t begin to describe how speechless they felt.

This topic pivot…

[Hahaha, true. Whether it’s shore-foraging or fruit-picking, having a spatial button makes everything so easy.]
[By the way, what brand is Boss Xie’s spatial button? It looks huge—like it can hold a ton!]
[Uh… what backwater civilization are you from? Since when does spatial-button size have anything to do with brand? As long as you have money, you can get it as big as you want. Why ask the brand? Kinda silly.]
[Hey, don’t start fights. If you don’t want to answer, don’t. Why call someone a backwater? Like your civilization is sooo amazing. Is that necessary? If you know, answer. If you don’t, just watch the stream.]

“…”

Fighting really was easy.

Just moments ago, everyone had been terrified Xie Xingchen would get attacked by mutant beasts. Now that he was so calm, their attention quickly wandered.

Xie Xingchen didn’t care.

As long as the quest counter in the top-right kept rising, it didn’t matter whether chat stayed on topic or not.

Happy times were always short. When orange sunset clouds appeared in the sky, the whole ocean looked as if it had been draped in a light, gorgeous veil.

The sun sank westward, the round sun sliding toward the sea; the scenery was breathtakingly beautiful and awe-inspiring.

It was Xie Xingchen’s first time watching a sunset by the ocean, but after just once, he fell in love with it.

When the sun finally dropped below the horizon, Xie Xingchen even began planning tomorrow morning with enthusiasm.

Xie Xingchen: “How about tomorrow I livestream the sunrise? I think sunrise might be even more spectacular than sunset!”

After saying that, he opened his arms and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, hugging the last traces of sunset glow as if he were hugging the wind itself.

Once the sun was down, darkness fell quickly. As night approached, the sound of the waves grew louder and louder.

The tide was coming in.

The spot where they’d been standing was already covered by seawater.

Xie Xingchen wandered around, rinsed his feet, then reluctantly retreated, all the way back near the coconut trees.

But he didn’t dare stand under them—if a coconut fell and hit your head, that was no joke.

He moved to an open space between the palms and coconut trees, pulled out an energy lamp from his spatial button, slotted in an energy stone, and set it up nearby.

Then he took out the stool, table, grill, pots and pans, and other items he’d packed before leaving…

Once everything was out, the three robots—already prepared—stepped forward and briskly started “setting up the stall.”

Finally, Xie Xingchen brought out the day’s catch—four full buckets of seafood.

He’d never imagined such a haul. Looking at the four buckets, his eyes curved into crescent moons.

But seafood was best eaten fresh. Get-Rich, Prosperity, and Long-Life didn’t eat food, and Xie Xingchen definitely couldn’t finish all that alone—so he decided to try making what his classmate used to love: raw-marinated seafood.

Raw marinating needed at least six hours. If you wanted deeper flavor, ten-plus hours was also fine.

That way, he could process the extra seafood—and tomorrow he wouldn’t even need to cook!

As for whether it would taste good…

Xie Xingchen didn’t know.

But he didn’t mind sashimi, so he could probably accept the texture. As for the flavor… that depended on luck. He didn’t have enough ingredients, so he had no idea what it would end up tasting like.

He lined up the four seafood buckets, then pulled out the lemons, passionfruit, and small chili peppers he’d found in the morning, along with scallions, ginger, and garlic he’d brought.

After laying out the seasonings, he carried out a huge bucket of drinking water—something he’d been stocking in his spatial button. He still had more than ten buckets of the same size inside.

Raw marinating required mixing sauce with bottled water, but he hadn’t bought any before coming, so he could only boil water on-site and use cooled boiled water instead.

Holding up the kettle, he groaned, “I messed up—the kettle I brought is kind of small.”

With so much seafood, just mixing water would take two full kettles. If he wanted lemon-passionfruit tea too, that was another kettle. And if he wanted ice cubes, that needed more boiling. Doing the math, he’d need at least four kettles of boiled water.

Boiling water wasn’t hard—it just took time.

He inserted an energy stone, filled the kettle, and started heating.

And speaking of this—modern machines were incredible. Most could run independently on energy stones, making them easy to carry outdoors.

Even the freezer was insane. Its “rapid-freeze” mode was brutal: even if you put in freshly boiled water, it could freeze it into ice in fifteen minutes. The only downside—

It burned energy like crazy.

If you used rapid-freeze mode, an energy stone that could normally last ten days to half a month might only last one or two hours.

Even a mosquito’s meat was meat—normal people didn’t waste energy like that. But Xie Xingchen needed it fast, so he had to.

Still, he had another problem: the freezer was too crude.

It was only about one cubic meter and had no compartments, so it couldn’t do “fresh-keep + rapid-freeze” at the same time.

And Xie Xingchen wanted both raw-marinated seafood and lemon-passionfruit tea.

But raw marinating couldn’t be rapid-frozen, and the tea needed ice.

So if he wanted both, he had to do it in sequence.

Xie Xingchen: headache.jpg

Convenient—but not that convenient.

Thinking of this, he couldn’t help smiling. He looked at the camera and suggested sincerely, “I seriously recommend manufacturers make a portable freezer with two layers—one for chilling, one for rapid freezing.”

Technology is so advanced—why does it still feel worse than the 21st century?

Something this simple, and nobody bothered optimizing it?

Xie Xingchen: rabbit sigh.jpg

Such a pity!

Maybe interstellar people were used to nutrient liquids, so there wasn’t much demand for multi-function portable freezers. Many viewers couldn’t understand his frustration.

[But it’s a portable freezer. If you need both functions, just buy a big freezer!]

Xie Xingchen smiled again. “I know big freezers can do zones. But if the big ones can, the small ones should be able to too, right?”

[It’s just an exploration tool. Why does it need to be that fancy?]
[Yeah, current portable freezers already work fine. If they make a 2-in-1, it’ll cost more. Not worth it.]

Xie Xingchen wanted to say more, but the water boiled at that moment.

He poured the boiled water into a large clear container, then boiled a second kettle. While waiting, he replied casually, “Why would it cost more? It’s just adding functions that should’ve existed in the first place. That’s not hard.

To be blunt, if you don’t do it, someone else will. Once more people do it, prices come down. Especially for companies with no competitiveness that are on the verge of bankruptcy—if your original product or business model isn’t working, try something else.

Like the saying goes: more ideas, more ways to live. Maybe if you keep trying, you’ll end up becoming the industry leader.”

The viewers burst into laughter—they thought he was joking.

But what no one knew was that there really was a struggling industry boss watching at home.

And he thought Xie Xingchen made a ton of sense.

If the company wasn’t making money and might shut down, why not change?

He produced a batch of more user-friendly portable freezers, added functions but grit his teeth and kept the price the same—sales immediately skyrocketed.

In less than a year, his obscure little company became a rising star.

After that, the boss became obsessed with innovation and user experience, and the company kept growing thanks to its popular new products.

But that was a story for later.

Xie Xingchen didn’t know his wish would soon come true. After sighing a couple of times, he got back to work.

Chatting with fans while boiling water, he finished four kettles. He covered the large container full of water and put it into the freezer.

He set rapid-freeze for five minutes, just enough to make the water icy with tiny crystals, then switched to chill mode.

He clapped his hands, satisfied. “Okay, we’ll leave it like this for now. If we need ice later, we’ll freeze it again—fifteen minutes is fine. Now, let’s deal with the seafood.”

Small talk time was over—time to bring out the real knives.

Four buckets looked like a lot. They were a lot. And the variety was huge.

But he wasn’t planning to touch the conches, starfish, sea urchins, or kelp, so he packed those away into his spatial button.

The remaining oysters, giant lobsters, bread crab, abalone, mantis shrimp, three-eyed crab… were today’s ingredients. So Xie Xingchen resigned himself to washing and scrubbing.

But honestly, he wasn’t as good at scrubbing as Get-Rich, Prosperity, and Long-Life. Same job—yet they cleaned faster and better!

And that made the “I must be strong” man refuse to accept it.

Xie Xingchen stepped aside. “Come on, you three do this. I’ll chop stuff.”

No way was he doing scrub-scrub-scrub!

If you knew you couldn’t beat someone and still insisted, that was just stupid.

A truly strong man learned how to use his strengths and avoid his weaknesses!

So Xie Xingchen shamelessly handed the dishwashing role to the robots and ran to the cutting board to chop garlic.

The chop-chop-chop sound had some kind of magic.

It should have been boring—but somehow people couldn’t stop watching.

The fans felt Boss Xie was poisonous.

It was just chopping, yet somehow he made them drool.

Even scarier—they didn’t even know what it tasted like, and they were still craving it?

It made no sense!

People rolled around in the chat, “dying of hunger.” And as quitting time arrived, more and more viewers poured in—the number of “victims” skyrocketed, and more people fell into the pit and couldn’t climb out.

Xie Xingchen, meanwhile, calmly continued. Not only ordinary viewers—chefs were drawn in too.

You could often tell whether someone could cook just by watching.

Xie Xingchen’s movements were efficient, like someone who cooked often. No one doubted he knew what he was doing.

It was just…

Since when was learning cooking this easy?

Wasn’t it supposed to cost a fortune to attend culinary school and study diligently for years?

How had it become “something anyone can do” in Xie Xingchen’s mouth?

It was so unusual that nobody even commented on the three robots washing “mutant beasts” anymore.

Xie Xingchen held up the minced garlic for a full 360° display. “See? Just chop like this. Once it looks like this, it’s basically ready—put it aside for later.”

After setting aside a big bowl of minced garlic, he took out the small chilies, scallions, ginger, and lemons.

He washed the board, washed the ingredients, and carefully washed and dried the knife before continuing: “This is small chili and scallions—they need to be sliced into rings. Lemons and ginger should be sliced. Thickness is up to you. Uneven sizes are fine. After you cut everything, put them into separate bowls and plates.”

[Why do they need to be separated?]
[Can’t we put them together?]
[Aren’t they all used together in the end?]

Only after he’d arranged everything did Xie Xingchen look up and see the comments.

He looked surprised at such a simple question and said matter-of-factly, “So the flavors don’t mix, and it’s easier to store. If they’re separate, you can put leftovers away. If they’re mixed, leftovers just have to be thrown out.”

Netizens: Okay… they thought there’d be some fancy reason. Turns out it was extremely down-to-earth.

Xie Xingchen shrugged and smiled. “As long as it’s not ‘down-to-the-underworld.’”

[Underworld? What’s that?]
[What does ‘down-to-the-underworld’ mean?]
[If it’s ‘underworld,’ does that mean the food can’t be eaten? So we can’t ‘connect to underworld’?]

Xie Xingchen: …

His expression was… complicated.

But the chefs didn’t care about his expression. Compared to ordinary viewers, they were obsessive about cooking steps and didn’t want to miss anything they didn’t understand.

Xie Xingchen rubbed his forehead, embarrassed. “What is the underworld… how do I explain it… the home of unknown energy entities?”

The interstellar era had no ghosts—but it had unknown energy entities.

Different name, similar concept. Or… maybe even scarier.

The chat froze.

Xie Xingchen: Emmm… looks like everyone’s afraid of unknown energy entities.

He nearly couldn’t hold back his smile—so interstellar people were still scared of “ghosts,” just under a different label.

He cleared his throat and changed the subject. “Ahem, let’s not talk about that. Back to ingredients. The seasonings are ready, so now we process seafood. See these oysters? I’m planning both raw-marinating and grilling, so we need two different preparations. First, pry them open and remove the meat, then…”

Xie Xingchen quickly brought over the dozen-plus giant oysters that had already been scrubbed clean.

For the largest three, he removed the meat for raw marinating. For the rest, he opened just one side of the shell.

Next were the scallops (the big kind). He wasn’t using these for raw marinating, so he didn’t remove the meat—he just opened the shells.

For the clams, he planned to stir-fry them, so after cleaning them he set them aside.

As for the grouper, he’d originally planned grilled fish—but while processing it, he suddenly wanted claypot congee. So the fish ended up sliced—he was going to make fresh-sliced fish congee.

Abalone for raw marinating needed to be briefly blanched. Xie Xingchen didn’t know why, but the videos he’d watched all did it—so he followed along.

After forty or fifty minutes of busy prep, he pulled out an energy stove and a big iron pot.

When the water boiled, he rolled the abalone in for a few seconds, then cooled it in cold water, then sliced it.

The abalone was huge. Even though he’d only found a few, once sliced it filled a whole bowl to the brim.

Satisfying. Too satisfying.

He’d never expected to achieve “seafood freedom” so quickly. At that moment, he wanted to hum a song.

Joy was contagious—Xie Xingchen’s excitement made the fans excited too.

Watching him handle ingredients more and more smoothly, the viewers felt it was simply a feast for the eyes.

But…

Seeing that there were still three kinds of “mutant beasts” left in the bucket, everyone felt uneasy.

After all the processing, the bucket only contained three “beasts” and an ugly thing Xie Xingchen called a “three-eyed crab.”

That made everyone’s hearts sink.

They didn’t accept that these were ingredients—but they also hadn’t forgotten Xie Xingchen insisting they were delicious.

And now, all the “delicious” ones were the ones left behind?

So… were they really delicious?

Xie Xingchen didn’t realize his “process everything together” approach was causing a misunderstanding.

He got up to look for big scissors in the hovercar, but the fans thought he was going off to psych himself up—and felt sorry for him.

The downside of tossing scissors somewhere randomly was that it took Xie Xingchen half an hour to find them.

When he returned, he was so focused on giant lobster, bread crab, mantis shrimp, and three-eyed crab that he didn’t notice the chat’s weird mood. To be fair, he was weird too—weirdly excited.

Putting on protective gloves, he announced excitedly to the camera, “Ta-da! We’re finally going to process the giant lobster, bread crab, mantis shrimp, and three-eyed crab!”

Before anyone could respond, he poured all the seafood into a basin and added several bottles of high-proof white liquor.

He put the lid on and shook it evenly.

After twenty minutes, the seafood was completely “drunk,” limp and soft like it was dead.

Xie Xingchen didn’t dare cut them while they were lively. He moved fast and cleaned them while they were intoxicated.

Starting with the smallest—mantis shrimp—he cut off the whiskers and legs. Then he cracked open the three-eyed crab, set aside the roe-filled shell, trimmed away the inedible parts, and chopped the body into four pieces…

There were two giant lobsters, each longer than his arm. He swiftly twisted off the head; translucent shrimp meat loosened from the segments. Because the lobster was too big to absorb flavor, he cut it into more sections.

By the time he got to the bread crab, his movements were already practiced—three cuts, five twists, and the whole thing was dismantled.

Then he put the processed seafood into the sterilizer and dumped the scraps back into the ocean to feed marine life.

The sterilizer had only one function: it killed all parasites inside seafood without harming the texture. That alone made Xie Xingchen satisfied.

Five minutes later, sterilization was complete.

He washed the seafood again in soda water. Once done, he put it—along with the sliced abalone and oyster meat—into a large container, then poured in lots of soy sauce, salt, mushroom powder, small chilies, minced garlic, scallions, lemon slices, and sesame oil.

Finally, he took out the chilled cooled boiled water and added it in, until the brine covered the seafood. Then he put it into the freezer to chill for at least six hours.

And that was it.

Xie Xingchen had no idea how this raw-marinated batch would taste. He was missing important seasonings—fish sauce, aged vinegar, chicken bouillon, cilantro. Even the soy sauce was just whatever he could find. The only thing truly satisfying about this raw marinate was that the seafood was lively and the meat was naturally sweet.

Xie Xingchen: Please let the ingredients make up for the shortcomings.

After praying a little, he left the rest to time.

He still had to keep working.

Fresh-sliced fish congee wasn’t hard—Get-Rich could do it.

After “training” Get-Rich remindedly over time, Xie Xingchen discovered Get-Rich cooked congee especially well.

So he taught Get-Rich the method and left it alone, confident Get-Rich wouldn’t mess it up.

What he needed to handle now: grilled oysters, grilled scallops, and lemon-passionfruit tea.

Once grilling started, it didn’t stop—so the drink had to be ready first.

That meant he had to take the raw-marinate out again and use the remaining cooled boiled water to freeze ice cubes.

This was easy, so he handed it to Prosperity.

He and Long-Life stayed to crack passionfruit and scoop out the pulp.

Freshly ripe passionfruit was pretty sour, so Xie Xingchen chose the slightly wrinkled ones for pulp.

And passionfruit truly lived up to the name “hundred fragrances.”

Once he cracked one open, not only he—even the three robots took deep breaths.

That bizarre reaction made viewers want to rush in and smell it themselves. What kind of scent could attract even robots?

After cracking seven or eight passionfruits and collecting the pulp, he tossed in the remaining lemon slices into a crystal teapot, added honey, ice, and cooled boiled water, and stirred.

Before long, a whole pot of icy lemon-passionfruit tea was done, cold mist clinging to the glass.

[Wuwu now I understand what “refreshing all the way down your throat” means… This tea looks so delicious!]
[Please open another Earth Shop store—one just for fruit tea! If you won’t sell drinks, just sell the fruit. It looks so simple—this is totally something even I could do!]

In the heat of summer, even imagining a sip of iced lemon-passionfruit tea felt amazing.

Seeing the condensation beads on the crystal teapot, viewers begged Xie Xingchen to list new products.

But Xie Xingchen was busy. After making the tea, he ran under the coconut trees and picked up two coconuts.

He chopped off the green outer husk, poked a hole with chopsticks, swapped in a straw, and drank happily.

He squinted and sighed, “So good… sweet and refreshing!”

He repeated the process—but this time, he put the coconut water into the freezer to chill, then ran off to handle something else.

Today, Xie Xingchen didn’t want meat. He just wanted grilled oysters and grilled scallops until he was full.

With small chilies on hand, he immediately stir-fried minced garlic and chilies in oil to make the key topping for garlic grilled oysters and garlic grilled scallops.

After the two toppings were done, he didn’t even bother washing the pan. He tossed in extra minced garlic and chilies, heated it on high, threw in clams and cat’s-eye snails, and gave everyone a stir-fried clams + cat’s-eye snails combo.

Smoke, heat, and sizzling aromas—viewers nearly drooled themselves into dehydration.

And it still wasn’t over, because…

Boss Xie’s barbecue stall officially opened!

With “evil intentions,” Xie Xingchen aimed the camera at the grill.

At first, nobody thought much of it.

The oysters and scallops lined up neatly looked kind of nice.

But slowly, as time passed, the pale shells darkened at the edges, and the juices inside began to bubble up. The boiling liquid, the slight tremble of the oyster meat and scallop meat in the bubbling broth—just looking at it made you feel like it had to be unbelievably delicious.

Especially when Xie Xingchen added a heaping spoonful of minced garlic to each one, then sprinkled on a bit of small chili—red and white, dancing in the bubbling juices…

That scene was simply—

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