Chapter 50
[Ding-dong. Congratulations, Player, for completing the quest “Make Others Envious.” You have received the reward — Chang’an Workshop.]
[Ding-dong. Chang’an Workshop unlocked. Please claim it from your system mail as soon as possible.]
[Ding-dong. Congratulations, Player, for triggering the hidden quest “I’m a Quest Whiz.” You completed the quest 5 days early. Reward: 500 EXP.]
[Player Info Panel]
Name: Xie Xingchen
Race: Human
Territory: Earth
Level: LV3
Companion: Chubby Bunny Ji (Feifei) [+]
EXP: 4300/5000
Plant Affinity: ? +1
Mental Power Rank: A- (?)
Game Progress: 0.1%
Codex Progress: 0%
Infrastructure Progress: 1%
All at once, he gained 500 EXP and 1% infrastructure progress.
It was just a little deer-shaped pearl—yet it instantly filled Xie Xingchen’s quest progress bar.
At the same time, Xie Xingchen’s communicator became lively.
A crowd of people—who knew where they’d gotten his contact ID—started adding him one after another. Their notes all read things like: XXX Jewelry Store, XXX Jewelry Collector, XXX Auction House.
A tall tree catches the wind. Since the quest was completed, Xie Xingchen wanted to end the stream.
Pointing at the light-brain that kept chiming, he said helplessly, “Everyone… looks like today’s livestream has to end early.”
The audience understood—but they couldn’t accept it!
Starting something and not finishing? That was torture!
Viewers begged him to ignore them and keep streaming. Some even suggested he sell the pearls on the spot so they could “widen their horizons.”
But Xie Xingchen wasn’t interested.
He wasn’t an influencer, and he wasn’t a celebrity. He didn’t need a stunt like that to boost fame.
He smiled apologetically at the viewers—then ended the stream with ruthless efficiency.
In just a few minutes, the moment the quest was done, Xie Xingchen shut the livestream off cleanly, leaving a crowd of stunned fans staring at each other in the pitch-black end screen.
[Damn, Boss Xie really ended it?]
[Ahhh I still want to know what happens next!]
[Is this what “rich and willful” looks like? That much traffic and he just… doesn’t want it?]
They weren’t talking nonsense—because the instant Xie Xingchen opened that top-tier black pearl, he shot onto the trending list.
When he opened the second, slightly smaller black pearl—and the perfect teardrop black pearl—he started climbing into the tail end of the overall trending rankings.
Good grief. It was only six or seven in the morning! Not much traffic in general, yet his climb was ridiculously fast!
And it still wasn’t over. When Xie Xingchen opened the second pearl oyster and pulled out two rare silver pearls, a wave of people who’d still been asleep were dragged awake by friends and rushed into the stream.
If Xie Xingchen had looked at his viewer count, he would’ve been shocked.
Because by the time he opened the third pearl oyster, his stream had already broken the all-time highest concurrent viewers record on the StarNet livestream app.
And after the deer-shaped pearl appeared, the numbers became downright insane.
Xie Xingchen single-handedly pushed the StarNet livestream app’s highest viewer count to a terrifying figure:
3,642,589,741.
3.6+ billion viewers—more than double the previous record—so extreme that the staff actually woke up the app’s executives out of bed.
The executives had just pushed Xie Xingchen’s stream to the platform’s top exposure slot… and then Xie Xingchen ended the stream.
StarNet livestream executives: ?
StarNet livestream executives: Reasonably suspecting you look down on me!
The “king of lucky draws” had no idea how complicated the executives’ feelings were. His own feelings were complicated enough.
After multiple rounds of “trimming,” his contacts list had shrunk to practically nothing. Whether to expand it again became a serious question.
As for selling the pearls—honestly, he was tempted. But after thinking it through, he felt it wasn’t necessary.
He wasn’t short on money. Selling or not selling didn’t really change anything for him.
After careful thought, Xie Xingchen decided not to sell them yet.
Because if he sold them—whether to an auction house or a jewelry firm—they would definitely hype them up.
And once everyone knew where the pearls came from, Earth would never have peace again.
To be blunt, he didn’t want to fight a guerrilla war of wits on Earth against stowaways and treasure hunters.
With that in mind, Xie Xingchen decisively deleted every friend request on his communicator from the “XXX firm / XXX collector” crowd.
After deleting them, he took out a beautiful crystal case from his spatial button, poured molding clay into it, and carefully placed the eight rare pearls inside. Then he pressed lightly so the clay sank into protective grooves.
Only after securing the pearls did Xie Xingchen tap on his system.
Xie Xingchen: “Little Demon, you there?”
[Infrastructure Maniac System: Here. Speak.]
Xie Xingchen (in a low voice): “Do you sell weapons?”
The system paused shamelessly for a moment before replying: “Yes.”
Xie Xingchen lit up. “Then get me a weapon!”
[System Notice: Player level too low. Weapon purchase permission unavailable.]
Xie Xingchen panicked.
He tried persuasion—both emotional and logical:
“Little Demon, that’s not right. Why does buying weapons require a level? If anything, weapons should require the least level.
Listen carefully—tell me if this isn’t true.
First: high-level players have strong capital. Their safety doesn’t need you to worry, because they have plenty of channels to buy weapons. But low-level players are different. When a player is weak, that’s when they’re easiest to bully. If the system doesn’t even provide weapons at that stage, wouldn’t they be easily wiped out while still weak? Then wouldn’t your system’s work be wasted?
Second: Earth has gained a bit of attention. Without precautions, we might attract a wave of stowaways.
Finally: neither of us wants Earth’s environment destroyed. Our goals have always been the same, haven’t they?”
Such simple, straightforward reasoning—why didn’t the system understand?
Xie Xingchen sighed gloomily, feeling like he’d exhausted himself worrying.
Honestly, he hadn’t expected his luck to be this good. He’d opened so many rare pearls in one go—and the three pearl oysters he casually picked up were each more outrageous than the last, making it look like every pearl oyster on Earth produced rare pearls.
Marx once said: once there is sufficient profit, capital becomes bold; with 10% profit it will be used everywhere; with 20% it becomes active; with 50% it will take risks; with 100% it dares trample all human laws; with 300% it will commit any crime, even risking the gallows.?
The numbers were exaggerated, but the principle was painfully real.
When he first opened the pearls, Xie Xingchen was ecstatic. Now, he was just as worried.
He didn’t want Earth to become a battleground. He didn’t want to play whack-a-mole with gold rushers.
After an unknown stretch of silence, the system chime finally sounded.
[System Notice: Planet Lockdown Program (trial version) officially activated. Planetary Shield has been deployed. From this moment on, only invited visitors may enter Earth’s sphere of influence. All others are barred.]
Xie Xingchen smiled. Done.
Nothing in the world was more delightful than freeloading.
Especially freeloading off the system! Hahahaha…!
Now that he’d obtained the workshop, Xie Xingchen didn’t plan to stay here any longer.
At this moment, nothing mattered more than the workshop!
Forget Ludwig— even if gold fell from the sky, it couldn’t stop him from finding a place to build his workshop.
After two hours of speeding, Xie Xingchen finally returned to the starship.
Endless flower fields and the vast ocean were two completely different scenes.
Different—but equally breathtaking.
Yet none of that mattered to Xie Xingchen. Right now, his mind held only one thing:
The workshop. The Chang’an Workshop—system-produced!
By now, the flower fields around the starship had expanded far, far out—so far that building a workshop nearby was impossible.
Luckily, aside from those flower fields, Xie Xingchen had plenty of barren land. Since more system buildings might appear in the future, he’d always planned to set aside an area specifically for them. So he chose the desolate place where he’d once found roses—planning to build the workshop near that “brilliant patch” amid the wasteland.
[Infrastructure Maniac System: Confirm extracting the workshop? [Yes] [No]]
Xie Xingchen: “Yes.”
[Infrastructure Maniac System: Confirm the workshop construction location! [Adjust] [Confirm]]
Xie Xingchen: “Confirm.”
[System Notice: Chang’an Workshop claimed. Confirming location…]
[System Notice: Location confirmed. Summoning construction team…]
[System Notice: System construction team has arrived. Please pay construction fee: 2 billion starcoins in revenue.]
[System Notice: Please pay as soon as possible. Payment countdown: 24 hours.]
Xie Xingchen: Wait—what? It costs money? Isn’t this my quest reward?
Why did he have to pay to build a workshop he earned?
Xie Xingchen smiled: ? He almost wanted to sing “Thank you” to the system—out of pure rage.
Of course. This system was always greedy, always eyeing the money in his pocket.
Great—he was going to be broke again.
Fuming, he clicked “Pay.” His balance instantly shrank to almost nothing.
[System Notice: Chang’an Workshop under construction. Construction time: 72 hours.]
As soon as the system message ended, several familiar little robots appeared out of thin air.
Different from their chirpy delivery behavior, they were now wearing tiny hard hats and holding system blueprints, looking serious as they circled the chosen location and discussed.
After a long while, the discussion ended.
They rolled up the blueprints—and suddenly, many more tiny robots appeared all around.
Then a gust of wind came, and Xie Xingchen was blown backward.
When he steadied himself, he saw that thick fog had appeared over the previously barren land.
The fog blocked his view. He stepped forward—and heard the system’s warning.
[Warning: Do not approach the construction site!]
He stepped back one pace; the warning disappeared.
He stepped forward again; the warning returned, accompanied by an emergency alert.
[Warning: Do not approach the construction site. Violators will be punished.]
Xie Xingchen clicked his tongue and didn’t dare test it.
Standing in the system’s “safe zone” outside the fog, he craned his neck to peek for at least half an hour.
But he saw nothing. In the end, he left helplessly.
Three days wasn’t long, but it wasn’t short either. Waiting here felt boring—so he returned to Qiong Island.
This time, he didn’t go alone. He brought the three planting robots he’d purchased from the system, plus the other robots, too.
Since the system had locked down Earth, he didn’t need to worry as much about the flower fields. Leaving the courier robot and two planting robots behind for daily care was enough; the rest could go do more important work.
To be honest, he wanted to plant fruit on Qiong Island!
So many tropical fruits!
If Page 02 of the system codex was about these fruits, wouldn’t he be able to complete that task immediately?
After all, Qiong Island truly deserved its reputation as a blessed land. Tropical fruits were everywhere—mango and coconut trees alone were so plentiful Xie Xingchen couldn’t even count them.
Lemons and passionfruit were fewer, though. If he wanted higher yields, he’d probably need actual cultivation.
Bringing the robots to Qiong Island, Xie Xingchen split the team into two squads:
- An exploration squad led by Xie Xingchen
- A planting squad led by Long-Life
Three days passed. Xie Xingchen’s exploration squad had an incredible haul: not only did they find more lemon trees and passionfruit seedlings, they even found banana trees, jackfruit, and pineapple!
All of them were great—nutritious, delicious, and most importantly, new money-making industries.
Meanwhile, Long-Life’s planting squad progressed at max speed—clearing dozens of mu of land and preparing the crops.
Give them a few more days, and Xie Xingchen would harvest a whole tropical plantation.
Looking at the orchard plots, Xie Xingchen beamed.
He didn’t even want to explore anymore—he just stayed and helped plant fruit trees.
[Ding-dong. Friendly system reminder: Chang’an Workshop construction countdown: 03:00:00]
While planting a banana tree, Xie Xingchen jolted at the prompt.
Not caring that he was still digging, he tossed the tool aside and ran.
As he ran, he shouted, “Long-Life! Watch the plantation for me—I’m heading back. I’ll return later!”
Then he grabbed Prosperity—who was diligently planting— and dragged him into the hovercar.
Prosperity the tool-man: ?
Xie Xingchen, breathing unevenly: “Prosperity, what are you waiting for? Drive!”
Only Prosperity had the skill to speed back in two hours. Otherwise, Xie Xingchen wouldn’t have remembered to take him even in his rush.
This taught a valuable lesson: learning to drift is important (not really)!
Seeing Prosperity slowly confirming the route, Xie Xingchen panicked. “My dear Brother Prosperity—why are you still slower than a snail at a time like this? Can you speed it up? I’m in a hurry!”
If Xie Xingchen knew how to drive like that, he’d have done it himself.
But he didn’t. And Prosperity—who could—insisted on safety first.
Watching Prosperity slowly buckle the seatbelt and slowly start the hovercar, Xie Xingchen sighed.
He tried negotiating. “Prosperity… can we go faster?”
Prosperity shook his head. Safety first.
When Prosperity ignored him, Xie Xingchen finally realized he was the one being unreasonable.
After all, his hovercar wasn’t some high-end model. It needed startup time.
Flooring it instantly wasn’t “rushing”—it was courting death.
Calming down, Xie Xingchen apologized, face red. “Prosperity… sorry. I was too anxious.”
The moment he finished speaking, Prosperity began accelerating.
By the time Xie Xingchen reacted, they were already at top speed.
Xie Xingchen: “…”
Uh. Slight ringing in the ears.
It was hard not to suspect Prosperity had done it on purpose.
They arrived at the workshop after a wild two-hour sprint, right on time.
The fog still hadn’t dispersed, but Xie Xingchen could faintly see small robots carrying odd machines in and out.
The scene was bizarre. Prosperity, however, acted like he saw nothing—standing quietly to the side.
Xie Xingchen opened the system page. There were still 50 minutes left on the construction countdown.
Xie Xingchen: “Prosperity… we got here early.”
After five more minutes, Xie Xingchen didn’t want to wait like a foolish father outside a delivery room. He decided to return to the starship and bring over the three food machines.
He called out, “Prosperity, let’s go. Back to the starship.”
The starship wasn’t far. At full power, it took only a dozen minutes. Since there were still 50 minutes, Xie Xingchen drove himself—slowly—and still took only 25 minutes.
Back at the starship, he used machinery to load the food machines from the kitchen into the hovercar, then left again.
This time he didn’t bring Prosperity. He told Prosperity to stay behind and help spray the flower fields with green-matter pesticide solution.
Halfway there, Xie Xingchen received the completion notice.
[Ding-dong. Chang’an Workshop construction complete. Please inspect it promptly.]
[System Notice: Congratulations, Player, for unlocking “Chang’an Workshop.” Reward ?: 500 EXP. Reward ?: Chang’an Workshop buff (stacking automatically): Factory-type machine refresh rate +30%.]
The first reward didn’t impress Xie Xingchen much. 4300 + 500 = 4800 EXP—still 200 short of leveling up, not a big deal.
But the second reward made his hands tremble with excitement.
Factory-type machine refresh rate increased by 30%!
That was insanely good!
So this really was the Infrastructure Maniac System, huh?
Just building one Chang’an Workshop boosted infrastructure progress by 1%, and the reward was unprecedentedly tempting.
So… was the “correct” way to play this game not business management—but infrastructure building?
Xie Xingchen fell into thought. He felt like he was brushing against the system’s core.
He’d chosen an “operations” route, but the system seemed to care far more about infrastructure.
Given the system’s name, his guess felt pretty reasonable.
Still thinking, he arrived at the Chang’an Workshop.
The fog still hadn’t cleared.
But the countless tiny robots were gone now. Only one small robot remained—wearing a hard hat and holding blueprints, looking like both designer and engineer—waiting for him.
[Ding-dong. You have a workshop. Please confirm receipt!]
Xie Xingchen: “Confirm.”
[Friendly system reminder: Construction team engineer “Xiao Xiao” requests that you give the completed Chang’an Workshop a five-star review.]
Xie Xingchen: ?
Xie Xingchen smiled and deflected politely. “Sure—let me take a look at the workshop first.”
Yeah right.
He wasn’t stupid. How could he give five stars to something he hadn’t even seen?
If there was a trap, he’d be the one suffering.
The system didn’t prompt again, but the construction engineer robot named “Xiao Xiao” angrily squeaked a “zha!” at him.
Xie Xingchen: 0.0
Didn’t care. He couldn’t understand it anyway.
Ignoring the engineer robot, Xie Xingchen stepped into the workshop zone, excitement he couldn’t quite describe rising in his chest.
Past the fog boundary, everything finally came into view.
The entire workshop district was broad and orderly, its structures uniform and arranged like a chessboard grid.
Towering city walls rose like hundred-foot buildings.
Just as the ancients said: “A wealthy house sells wine along Chang’an’s streets; once a tower rises, it stands a hundred feet high.”? “To the east, a hundred-foot tower rises; jeweled plaques reflect the sunlight.”?
Even just the grand, antique-style city tower was spectacular. It was hard to imagine what it would look like if an entire Chang’an stood before him.
Perhaps it was the romance of: “Chang’an’s grand avenues connect to the narrow lanes; green oxen and white horses pull seven-fragrance carriages. Jade carriages crisscross past noble mansions; golden whips stream toward lords’ houses. Dragons bear jeweled canopies beneath the morning sun; phoenixes spill tassels with the evening clouds.”?
Yes—Xie Xingchen already vaguely guessed it.
This was Chang’an City.
That ancient Chinese metropolis of splendor, long silent for who knew how many years—yet haunting countless hearts.
Blue bricks and dark tiles, flying eaves and roof beasts, neat rows of workshops, antique streets… aside from the absence of people, everything looked almost identical to the Chang’an of a thousand years ago.
Xie Xingchen couldn’t speak for a long time.
He gazed greedily at the city, suddenly feeling an urge to fill it with life.
Ancient Chang’an had countless wards and markets, each like a small independent city.
And what stood here now was merely one ward restored.
If he wanted to recreate the whole of Chang’an, he would need to gather countless wards.
[Ding-dong. Detected: Scallion Pancake Maker, Scallion Oil Noodle Maker, Sugar-Roasted Chestnut Maker. Would you like to place these three food machines into the food workshop?]
The system prompt pulled Xie Xingchen out of his awe.
He nodded. “Yes.”
[System Notice: Food production machines deployed. Please proceed to the Food Workshop to claim them.]
Xie Xingchen blinked, looked left and right, then said awkwardly, “Food Workshop…? Where is it?”
In front of him was an antique-style small city. Every plaque read “___ Workshop,” yet after circling around, he still couldn’t find “Food Workshop.”
Xie Xingchen: “Little Demon, can you point the way?”
Whoever built this place must’ve been obsessive. Everything looked similar at a glance—Xie Xingchen truly couldn’t tell which was which.
As if defeated by such a dumb player, the system took a while before finally showing guidance.
A gigantic arrow appeared at his feet—so big you’d have to be blind to miss it.
Xie Xingchen nodded in satisfaction.
Good. Very cooperative!
Now he wouldn’t get lost.
The workshops were amazing, but with a square grid layout and near-identical structures, it really was easy to lose your way.
With the system guiding him, Xie Xingchen turned two corners and arrived at the Food Workshop.
The moment he arrived, he received an unexpected surprise.
[Ding-dong. Congratulations, Player, for successfully unlocking “Food Workshop.” Reward: 1 Workshop Management Robot]
![After Waking Up I Inherited the Earth [Interstellar]](https://i1.wp.com/panda-translations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20220822190944_300_420.jpg?resize=151,215 "After Waking Up I Inherited the Earth [Interstellar]")
