After Waking Up I Inherited the Earth [Interstellar] – CH59

Chapter 59

Unlike the other products at Earth Commerce—which, on day one, were released in tiny “toothpaste-squeezing” quantities—mugwort & mint balm won out in sheer supply.

On the first day, 280,000 units were listed, and after that, the daily listing never dropped below 10,000.

And since this was a traditional herbal balm—under normal circumstances, one tin could last a long time—Xie Xingchen set a purchase limit: one per person, per terminal, per month.

With that, buying the mugwort & mint balm became much easier.

Ever since Earth Commerce opened, its reputation had been solid. So even though this time it was a brand-new medicine, fans still showed up. After only a few seconds of hesitation, those with decent spending power placed their orders.

Because it was a limited-quantity item, Xie Xingchen had delivery robots pack everything before the product went live. So once the rush ended, he just slapped on shipping labels and the parcels could go out immediately.

Emile—who normally only received Earth Commerce deliveries the next morning—was stunned when he got the mugwort & mint balm within half an hour.

The silver-white tin was tiny, holding only 10g of balm. It looked very compact, yet the design was simple and tasteful. Especially the lid, printed with green mugwort and mint leaves—at a glance, the plants in the illustration looked bursting with vitality.

Emile had bought it on impulse.

He was still skeptical about the claimed effects. He only snagged it because he couldn’t? anything else, and it happened to be one of the few items that hadn’t sold out yet.

He didn’t expect the package to feel… pretty nice.

He twisted open the lid. Inside the silver tin was a pale green paste—fresh and clean-looking—giving off a faint, distinctive fragrance that instantly perked him up.

Carefully rubbing a little onto his hand, Emile found the skin there turned cool to the touch. The scent grew stronger—fresh and natural—like drinking something icy in the middle of a blazing summer.

Emile clicked his tongue and murmured, “Earth Commerce really is insane.”

A solid medicine, just like that—produced and shipped—and it even felt good on the skin.

Setting the effect aside for now, the scent and appearance alone were enough to earn a fanbase.

After using it for a few days, Emile was ready to kneel.

He took back what he’d said earlier—this little thing was ridiculously effective.

His planet was lush with vegetation. And where plants thrive, mosquitoes thrive too—except these mosquitoes had evolved. Their venom was strong; serious bites could even require hospital treatment.

But ever since he started using Earth Commerce’s mugwort & mint balm, Emile hadn’t been bothered by mosquitoes again.

Not only were they not biting him—this year they wouldn’t even come near him.

After a few more days, seeing the effect didn’t weaken over time, Emile even went to the hospital for tests.

Once he confirmed there were no issues, he immediately shared the purchase link in the family group chat and—despite the pain—packed up the tin he’d already used a bit and mailed it home.

His older brother, receiving Emile’s half-used balm: ?

His sister-in-law, holding and soothing the baby: ?

His brother couldn’t help complaining: “Little bro is so gross. He’s mailing back something he already used. Why not just buy a new one?”

Their family wasn’t poor. Why go to the trouble of sending back something he’d already been using?

His brother complained, but deep down he was pleased. He felt it meant Emile cared about the family—and about him as an older brother. Otherwise, why would he send home the good stuff he personally used?

His sister-in-law rolled her eyes at her husband’s humblebrag, but she was just as touched by Emile’s gesture.

Rocking the baby as she walked, she cut off her husband’s nonstop “flex” and asked softly, “What did Emile say?”

The husband checked the message and answered honestly: “He said it treats mosquito bites, very effectively. He used it and says it can even prevent mosquitoes from getting close, so we should use it for Tuantuan.”

Hearing that, the wife felt both relieved and worried.

She sighed, looked at her baby sleeping restlessly in her arms, and said with gratitude, “Alright. If Emile says so, he must’ve tested it. Let’s put some on Tuantuan and see how it works for him.”

Their planet had lots of mosquitoes, and Tuantuan’s constitution attracted them easily. Every summer, he barely slept. In bad cases, he had to go to the hospital several times. It was miserable.

They unscrewed the tiny lid. The pale green balm released its faint, special scent. Both exhausted adults instantly felt more awake.

And maybe it was just their imagination, but after opening the tin… the buzzing around them seemed to disappear.

They scooped a small dab and applied it to the swollen red spot where Tuantuan had been bitten.

Like witnessing a miracle—right after application, the baby relaxed. His little brows smoothed out, his breathing steadied; clearly, it no longer itched, and he could sleep.

Half an hour later, the swollen skin began to deflate. Soon, it was completely gone. If not for a tiny red dot remaining, they wouldn’t have believed the baby had just been crying and refusing to sleep because of mosquito bites!

The couple was shocked—and overjoyed.

Then they realized: after applying the balm, mosquitoes no longer went for their child at all. They nearly cried from happiness.

So rare. Emile did great—later, they’d increase his allowance!

Just in case, they applied a little more on the baby, observed for an hour, and when no mosquitoes came, they finally slept.

That night was the most comfortable night the family of three had had since summer began.

The next morning, refreshed, the couple immediately contacted Emile.

The older brother said happily, “Emile, that balm you mailed yesterday is super effective! I’ll transfer you money—go buy a whole box and mail it over.”

He said it confidently—money wasn’t an issue.

But—

Emile pouted and rolled his eyes at his brother through the screen. “Bro, you definitely didn’t read the group chat last night, did you?”

His brother nodded matter-of-factly. “No time. Tuantuan made a fuss for ages. Your sister-in-law and I were too busy soothing him.”

Emile sighed, resigned to these “summer-only chores.”

But seeing how excited his brother was, Emile—who knew his brother’s personality well—suddenly had a bad feeling. He asked cautiously, “Bro… how much of the balm did you use?”

His brother looked confused, but answered honestly: “About one-fifth?”

Emile instantly got angry.

He yelled, “Damn it, bro! Why did you use so much?!”

His brother: ?

It was just balm—use it and then buy more, right?

Emile sneered. “Buy more? Sure. This is from Earth Commerce—one per person, per terminal, per month. I’ve been rationing it for over ten days and barely used any, and you burned through one-fifth in one night. When you finish it, I don’t even know where I’m supposed to get more for you.”

The moment he heard “Earth Commerce,” Emile’s brother panicked. By the time Emile finished, his face practically turned green.

He was anxious. “Then what do we do? Our planet just entered summer! There are still months left—what about Tuantuan?”

Emile’s face wasn’t great either. “What else can we do—go together. Starting tonight, call all the relatives to help. And use your kid’s terminal too. Open permissions to the robots and have them help?…”

Having finally slept well for once, Emile’s brother obediently followed instructions. He immediately sent a big red envelop in the family group and mobilized everyone to help snag mugwort & mint balm for his son.

But honestly, getting help was hard. It wasn’t like only their house had a child—everyone did.

Your kid needs it? Mine does too.

So in the end, everyone grabbed for themselves.

Families without kids were more willing to help. But families with kids? If they snagged one, they absolutely wouldn’t give it up.

At best, if someone managed to grab extra and felt sorry for your kid, they might share a little.

Emile’s family begged left and right, and only managed to secure two tins—from a younger cousin and an uncle who didn’t have children.

But since Tuantuan attracted mosquitoes easily and needed them daily, even being careful, those two tins wouldn’t last the entire summer.

With no other choice, the couple went to Xie Xingchen’s StarBlog to leave suggestions.

But it didn’t help—because Xie Xingchen rarely went on StarBlog.

He didn’t see their comments at all.

In the end, they didn’t get their suggestions to the person himself. Instead, they met many other moms and dads with the same struggles under his posts… and eventually created an “alliance group.”

As the balm’s effectiveness became more widely known and more people began rushing to buy it, the parents banded together to write a petition and submit it to the relevant department.

“Ha? You’re asking if I can specially produce some mugwort & mint balm for children?” Xie Xingchen was stunned.

It was an official call—right on the dot during office hours.

When he saw the department name on the caller ID, his first thought was: scam.

His second thought was: oh—wait—it’s verified. Probably not a scam.

Then came the real question: up to now, he shouldn’t have any business dealings with this department… so why were they contacting him?

With that confusion, Xie Xingchen hesitantly picked up. Once he understood their purpose, his voice changed in surprise.

The caller said, “Boss Xie, our department received many parents’ petitions in the last couple of days. To be honest, we were surprised too, but the petition was very sincere, so we looked into it. We found that the mugwort & mint balm currently sold by Earth Commerce is extremely effective for treating and preventing mosquito and insect bites. At present—aside from certain species—children are the group most troubled by this issue. After parents found this balm…”

They talked at length, but the core point was: your stuff is too hard to?, kids can’t get it.

Xie Xingchen rubbed his nose. In his clear eyes appeared a mix of pride and helplessness.

He was proud that the balm was useful, but truly helpless about the “too hard to buy” problem.

Since Earth Commerce opened, it wasn’t like nobody caused trouble. But with demand vastly exceeding supply, the troublemakers hadn’t even gotten started before being chased off by netizens saying things like “Don’t buy it then, get out,” “Fine by me,” and “That means more for me.”

On one hand, that saved him a lot of hassle. On the other, it also made him realize just how hard it was for people to buy his products.

But what could he do? His output was simply too low—too low to supply such a huge market.

“Boss Xie, could you prioritize children a bit? Maybe create a special purchase link for them?” the caller asked sincerely.

Children were the future. When the topic was children, people tended to soften.

The caller did, and Xie Xingchen did too.

But unlike the caller—who only thought about children—Xie Xingchen also had to think about the fans who had supported him all along. Some were from special species; to be honest, he didn’t want to turn the balm into a “children-only” product.

After a long silence, just as the caller was about to speak again, Xie Xingchen answered first.

“The Star Alliance has many species. Some species also suffer from insects. Earth Commerce can’t strip them of the right to buy the balm,” Xie Xingchen said firmly.

But then his tone softened. “Even so, children are still important. I’ll plant and produce as much raw material as I can. The increased output of the balm will go into a separate purchase link, specifically for minors to buy.”

He added a request: “Minister Li, this link may need permissions opened by your department, because I plan to have parents use children’s terminals to purchase. Only minors’ terminals will have purchase slots.”

Minister Li nodded excitedly and repeatedly said it was no problem. Just before hanging up, he asked awkwardly about the timeline.

Xie Xingchen calculated silently and answered, “Next week should work.”

Next week? Minister Li was startled by how fast that was.

He wanted to ask more, but considering commercial secrets—and focusing only on children—he held back and simply said “Okay” again and again.

After the call, Xie Xingchen felt both happy and exhausted. He summoned all the robots and began replanning the day’s planting schedule.

Mugwort and mint were extremely vigorous. Compared to other crops, planting them required the least time and effort.

But “least” didn’t mean “none.”

To raise output quickly, Xie Xingchen still had to infuse them with mental power.

He worked in rotating shifts like that. Once mugwort and mint grew through a cycle, the machines he ordered arrived.

Those ten machines perfectly filled the remaining space in the empty workshop. With twenty machines running at once, it felt like the entire room was vibrating.

But the quality of Chang’an Workshop wasn’t a joke. As long as Xie Xingchen stepped outside the antique-style building, he couldn’t hear any sound at all.

After grinding overtime for a week for the children, when the children’s balm link went live, dark circles had formed under Xie Xingchen’s eyes.

Still—it was all worth it.

By that day, balm output had doubled. Raw material output had also doubled, ensuring stable production going forward.

Same 10g tin. Same “one per person, per terminal, per month” purchase limit. But this link could only be used by minors’ terminals—a balm specifically produced for children.

Others were envious, but nobody complained.

And Earth Commerce, cooperating with a government department, also served as indirect proof that the balm’s efficacy was strong. What did that mean?

It meant everyone now had another reliable, effective balm.

It was a product endorsed by an official department—and the children’s department, no less.

In any civilization, children were the most important. Having this department “vouch” for it was stronger than any celebrity or expert endorsement!

Certain people who couldn’t stand Xie Xingchen smashed the decorations in their rooms after hearing the news.

Xie Xingchen: Hehe~ I just love how you can’t stand me, but you can’t do anything about it.

Anyway, from then on, Earth Commerce gained a “medical effect buff” in the public mind.

Starting with mugwort & mint balm, customers began posting about the effects of its green-substance flowers, its foods delicious enough to make people cry, and its various flower teas.

Simple posts like: “After eating the food, my body feels better,” “Putting the flowers in my room makes breathing smoother,” “The flower tea actually improves skin,” and finally: “I feel like everything from Earth Commerce has medicinal value!”

One person saying it might be hype. Everyone saying it? That deserved thought.

In the end, some organizations—trying to seize the “traffic password”—spent huge sums buying products from scalpers to do detailed tests.

When the results came out, people were shocked.

The tests showed all Earth Commerce products contained green substances. Some even had effects like strengthening the body and mildly removing dark matter.

Other products showed obvious benefits for beauty, sleep adjustment, and boosting qi and blood.

And just like that, Earth Commerce products—already hard to grab—became exponentially harder to grab.

Original fans were furious and anxious. Some even reported the testing organizations, claiming that the organization ignored the wishes of merchants and netizens and forcibly “advertised” Earth Commerce.

Such a ridiculous reason that even bystanders laughed out loud.

Honestly, not just bystanders—Xie Xingchen himself found it both hilarious and exasperating.

Now it was worse. He’d planned to list wild chrysanthemum flower tea, but after this “reporting” fiasco, he had to delay it.

Because—this tea was a specialized remedy for “heatiness”!

If he listed it at this moment, he worried that overheated netizens would hype wild chrysanthemum into a full-on medicinal product.

But some things just wouldn’t stay hidden. The more you didn’t want to see it, the more you did.

Xie Xingchen had already prepared to list wild chrysanthemum tea. Even though he hadn’t been able to list it yet, he kept thinking about it—and started noticing “heatiness” symptoms everywhere around him.

Of course, not in himself or the robots—he meant the moms and dads who treated his StarBlog like a nightclub, showing up late at night to “dance” and seek attention.

After their kids fell asleep and they’d just finished snagging items, they used Xie Xingchen’s StarBlog comments like a parenting group chat.

Across the countless planets and countless seasons of the Star Alliance, children’s illness symptoms were strangely similar:

Sore throat, runny nose, swollen gums, hoarse voice, flushed complexion, thirst and dry mouth, bad breath, and so on.

It turned into a huge exchange forum for kids’ minor illnesses.

None of it was a big problem, but when it happened to kids, it was still stressful.

And unlike adults, kids were still developing. Many medications couldn’t be used, and minor ailments weren’t enough to justify a treatment pod—so parents often worried.

By then, the comments under Xie Xingchen’s latest post had surpassed ten million, most of them being parents’ anxious messages.

Watching them brainstorm together—until all kinds of “folk remedies,” reliable or not, emerged—Xie Xingchen couldn’t help sighing: worry really made people irrational.

So even in the interstellar era, the superstitious still stayed superstitious!

Those so-called folk cures still had room to survive in a high-tech age?

Truly bizarre.

Seeing the discussion veer further and further off course, Xie Xingchen replied:

“This is ‘heatiness.’”

When people saw the original poster reply, they were startled.

But they didn’t understand what “heatiness” meant. They assumed he simply meant summer heat—like the weather getting hot—so they laughed, treated it like a fun interaction, and went right back to chatting, completely ignoring his words.

Xie Xingchen: “…”

He felt like nothing more than a tool providing a place for them to talk.

As the thread got more and more outrageous—eventually reaching a folk cure from an animal civilization involving eating bugs—Xie Xingchen couldn’t take it anymore.

[Xie Xingchen V:] Tomorrow I’ll list “Wild Chrysanthemum Flower Tea.” Wild chrysanthemum tea can soothe the liver and brighten the eyes, clear heat and detoxify, and it can help relieve “heatiness” symptoms!

Everyone was shocked—Boss Xie, who had “disappeared from the internet,” actually posted again. People spread the news joyfully, as if it were the New Year.

But after reading the content, they felt their brains short-circuit.

Heatiness? What heatiness? Does he mean heatstroke?
Boss Xie says wild chrysanthemum can treat “heatiness” symptoms—does that mean it treats sunstroke?

They didn’t know, but it sounded impressive.

Still, some sharp, clever people began connecting dots.

This wasn’t the first time Xie Xingchen had used the word “heatiness.”

Linking it back to his earlier reply to parents, “heatiness” seemed to refer to the list of minor symptoms the parents had been discussing so intensely.

So when Boss Xie said it could relieve “heatiness,” he meant it could relieve the kids’ annoying symptoms that were giving parents headaches?

Seeing speculation running wild, Xie Xingchen hurriedly clarified:

[Xie Xingchen V:] No. Nope. Don’t guess. I’m saying relieve, not cure. Look carefully—it’s relieve, relieve, relieve! [trembling.jpg]

Click here to download the full novel. (EPUB & PDF)