After Waking Up I Inherited the Earth [Interstellar] – CH75

Chapter 75

As an ordinary housewife who used to pinch every penny, Linlang never bought natural foods before. But lately, she’d changed.

Today, Linlang received another delivery of natural food. After the delivery robot left, the housewives who had been quiet as chickens slowly gathered together and whispered, all of them saying Linlang’s family must have struck it rich.

Rumors like that were always popular. In less than half a day, the news had spread throughout the entire neighborhood—and it was still leaking outward.

When Linlang’s family went out for an after-dinner walk, someone even came up to tease her.

“Linlang, I heard your family spent big again on natural food today?” The nosy older woman’s eyes flashed with jealousy.

Linlang tugged at the corner of her mouth, hiding her impatience, and smiled gently. “Not really. I just haven’t tried it before, so I wanted to give it a shot.”

The older woman curled her lip, clearly convinced Linlang wasn’t telling the truth.

“Didn’t you buy some last time too?”

Linlang’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Last time I won a little from a raffle. My husband hadn’t tried it either, so we spent a bit and bought just a little.”

The older woman nodded, then shook her head. She prodded and fished for details for a long time. When she finally confirmed Linlang’s family hadn’t suddenly become rich, her enthusiasm faded—her words even carried a hint of disdain.

“Tsk. You young people really don’t know how to live. Sure, natural food is good, but you’ve gotta weigh whether you can afford it! With your husband earning that chicken-scrap pay, you still want to eat natural food? Having nutrient solution to drink is already good enough.”

The woman spoke rudely. Linlang got angry too—her face changed, and she finally snapped.

“What the hell is it to you? Who are you to tell my family how to spend money? If you’ve got the ability, go manage your own son first—stealing and sneaking around all day, he’s going to end up in prison sooner or later.”

After that, no matter how dark Susan’s face became, Linlang grabbed her son and walked away.

She’d been furious, but once she saw the mangoes and coconuts at home, the tight, blocked feeling in her chest finally eased.

Forget it, forget it. Why waste time fighting with those people? She’d rather spend that time learning more recipes from Boss Xie.

After a few deep breaths, Linlang finally shoved the annoying neighbor out of her mind. With her son cheering her on, she happily started cooking.

Linlang had real talent in the kitchen. Even though she’d never touched natural foods before because she’d been poor, it was like the heavens were feeding her with their own hands—her very first time cooking, she made a pretty decent dish.

After seeing her first results, Linlang hesitated for two days. In the end, with her family’s support, she gritted her teeth and spent a “huge sum” to buy the cheapest livestream orb. She registered on a StarNet livestream app and became a streamer.

Now, thanks to her cooking talent, she’d already passed 100,000 followers—a small but real influencer. Even though she hadn’t been streaming long, she’d earned over 50,000 star-coins in tips alone.

In half a month, she’d made more than her husband did working a full year—this was why she could keep buying natural foods, and why she had the confidence to clap back at that old woman.

And there were plenty of people like Linlang now. Food livestreams had sparked a new wave.

With more choices, audiences naturally became more picky.

The old era—where people used “cooking” as a gimmick, had terrible technique, and still gained fans—was over.

Some old-timers still couldn’t break out of their usual sloppy cooking rut, but powerful competitors had already emerged.

And this whole situation existed because of Earth Trading Co.

Because Earth Trading Co. sold affordable natural foods in huge quantities, and because Xie Xingchen taught cooking without holding anything back, many people who were interested in food began to appear.

Linlang was one of them—but definitely not the most outstanding. Still, being able to make a living through food was already incredibly lucky for her.

The same thing was happening on different planets. Since the direction was positive, the internet was filled with cheer.

Half a month had passed since netizens had roasted Xie Xingchen for being “heartless.”

The poor guy, roasted into misery, eventually gave in to those “mouth says no, body says yes” netizens and put the tomato and carrot listings back up.

And thankfully he did—otherwise he wouldn’t have known what to do with the surplus.

Who knew why the horse herd wasn’t interested in those two crops?

The robots on the grassland sent back reports: when feeding the horses carrots and tomatoes, each horse would basically take just one, like it was only a palate cleanser. After eating, they left—none of their usual clingy, shameless begging.

Thinking about how much they loved candy, Xie Xingchen could only guess randomly that tomatoes and carrots weren’t sweet enough, so they didn’t care for them.

But even that didn’t really convince him.

Because the tomatoes and carrots he grew were really, really high quality.

How high?

The tomatoes were all big and plump—tart when tart, sweet when sweet, the mix of sweet-and-sour incredibly appetizing. They were so juicy you could even make tomato juice.

As for the carrots, they were small, crisp, and sweet—great raw, great in soup, each way with its own texture.

This was produce even that picky, rage-inducing Bai Xi at the livestock workshop was willing to accept. Sure, Bai Xi only used them as occasional rewards for the lambs and calves, but didn’t that prove how good they were?

Xie Xingchen couldn’t figure it out.

So he stopped trying.

Fine. If the horses didn’t eat them, then they didn’t eat them. Perfect—he could sell them for money.

He’d had big expenses lately. He’d spent his savings on food machines and planting-related products. Now, his farming business was running smoothly, and his food output had multiplied several times. Netizens also said it was noticeably easier to grab items now.

But on the flip side, the money he’d saved up during this time got emptied out again. If he wanted to build an interstellar route, he’d have to start saving all over.

“Making money is hard, and eating sh— is hard too!” Xie Xingchen sighed fatalistically as he stared at his empty account balance—only six digits left.

Honestly, if you’d never been a planet owner, you’d never understand why early-stage planet owners got poorer the more they built.

Now, Xie Xingchen understood.

The higher the planet’s development level, the more projects you needed to build afterward—and the more expensive those projects became.

Back when he first arrived and started developing wilderness, he spent the least. The biggest expense back then was just building a spaceport.

Now?

Hearing “hundreds of billions, hundreds of billions” in spending was enough to scare anyone.

Xie Xingchen shook his head, pressing down the urgency creeping up inside him.

You can’t rush a hot tofu.

If he couldn’t build the interstellar route quickly, then fine—he’d build it slowly. One day, it would be done.

Letting his mind go blank, Xie Xingchen lay in a rocking chair at the starship entrance, facing the lavender fields.

It had rained last night, only stopping near dawn.

So in the morning, the lavender blossoms were studded with tiny jade-like droplets, fresh and natural.

The air after rain was especially clean, with a faint scent of wet earth.

Xie Xingchen inexplicably loved that smell, so he dragged out a lounge chair and lay there as soon as he woke up.

“Whatever. I’ll just scroll StarBlog.”

Coming back to himself, Xie Xingchen propped his cheek in melancholy and decided to distract himself by reading gossip.

Everyone loved drama, so StarBlog’s traffic never dipped.

You could even say it had never experienced a low-traffic slump.

StarBlog was the first cross-civilization social app, developed jointly by multiple civilizations in the very year the Star Alliance was founded. It took the galaxy by storm the moment it launched.

With so many users, there was always plenty of gossip on StarBlog.

Even if you didn’t browse the main board and only stayed within sub-boards, it was still nonstop excitement—one topic finishing as another began.

Xie Xingchen wasn’t a pure Star Alliance human, so he didn’t stick to only the human civilization trends. He bounced around several civilizations, reading whatever looked interesting.

This time, with a casual swipe, he landed on the plant civilization.

But plant people were way too zen.

This long-lived species seemed too lazy to even post. Their trending list was the same year-round: official suggestions and policy initiatives from various departments.

Official stuff on the trending list?

Well, legally speaking, staff in those departments had the responsibility to spread such announcements, so after posting, they’d share them.

And since they didn’t post often, their friends and family humored them. After someone’s brother/sister/mom/dad reposted, relatives would repost or comment too.

And thus the plant civilization’s trend board became bizarre—packed with government documents.

Xie Xingchen stared at it with a complicated expression. Trending slots that celebrities once bought with money had become official bulletins. He sighed and swiped past.

Next he randomly jumped to the merfolk civilization.

When he opened their trending list, it was full of shore-foraging videos and pearl-oyster opening videos.

Xie Xingchen: “……”

So… he’d accidentally started a trend?

Feeling complicated, he clicked a few. The content was repetitive—but the merfolk were gorgeous, so it was hard to look away.

Setting aside the fact that he started this trend, he genuinely liked watching shore-foraging and pearl-opening, so he endured the embarrassment and clicked through to the streamers’ pages.

At first it was fine, but after a while, merfolk streamers and viewers kept dropping “Xie Xingchen” and “Boss Xie” into the chat…

It really ruined the immersion.

After ten more minutes, he couldn’t take the cringe and retreated.

This time, Xie Xingchen didn’t dare randomly jump to another civilization. He deliberately chose a StarBlog board he’d never looked at before—the insectoid civilization.

The insectoid civilization was the most mysterious in the Star Alliance, bar none.

They rarely interacted with others. So far, Xie Xingchen only knew they were extremely strong fighters and had unique customs.

Their “male” and “female” weren’t divided by conventional anatomy—both sexes looked male. The difference was that males tended to be slimmer with higher mental power, while females were larger and physically stronger.

Their population wasn’t big, and they were very exclusionary and cold.

Their society was tolerant toward “males,” but for ordinary outsiders? If you went to the insectoid civilization, people wouldn’t even glance at you—one of the most unbearable business-trip destinations.

But that wasn’t absolute.

Everything above applied to adults. For children, the insectoid civilization had a completely different attitude: children from other civilizations would be treated well there. You could say it was the most child-protective civilization in the Star Alliance.

It was paradise for children—and hell for anyone who harmed children.

And on this day, their #1 trending topic was actually the “Black-Heart Cotton” incident.

Xie Xingchen: ?

Honestly, the first second he saw it, his heart nearly stopped.

The second he reacted, he couldn’t help wanting to see who was stupid enough to pull something like black-heart cotton on insectoid territory.

“Black-heart cotton,” as the name implied, wasn’t cotton with a black center, or dirty cotton.

It meant cotton with residual dark matter contamination inside.

[Rich Single Bug: Tongxin, huh? Heh. Fine. Just you wait.]

[My Male Is Too Cute: Selling black-heart cotton in insectoid territory? Do you not know how to write the word ‘death’? The military is already mobilizing. Shapechanger civilization—if you don’t give the insectoids an explanation, then let’s fight.]

Seeing “military mobilizing” made Xie Xingchen jump.

He wanted drama, not war!

He kept scrolling. Even from scattered fragments, he could piece together the cause—and his heart went cold.

Was the Tongxin Group from the shapechanger civilization truly suicidal?

Of all places to sell black-heart cotton, they chose the insectoids?

That was like lighting a lamp in the toilet—looking for death!

The insectoids bought cotton and cloth mainly for their children. Now some little kids had their potential damaged. Of course the insectoids would explode.

The incident escalated fast.

Basically, Xie Xingchen had just finished reading the context and backed out, and it had already hit the main StarBlog trending board.

[Bobo Ball: Holy crap—is that Tongxin? The Tongxin I know??]

[lllLeYi: Impressive, Tongxin. You dared sell black-heart cotton in insectoid territory. I respect your courage.]

[HateWoodpeckers: Seriously, if you live long enough you see everything. Never thought I’d witness such a stupid suicide method by a civilization. Tongxin is sick in the head—messing with the insectoids for no reason, and it’s their kids too!]

The galaxy exploded.

People read about Tongxin’s suicidal move and felt panic.

Then the panic was confirmed.

[BusinessTrip Wage Slave: Damn! The insectoids are really mobilizing. I’m literally on a trip in insectoid territory right now—I saw warships fly overhead with my own eyes. This place is already tense as hell.]

[WhenWillIMakeAMillion: Wuwuwu, can Tongxin stop dragging us into their suicide? I’m just a law-abiding traveler. I don’t want war!]

[I Love Traveling: F—! The spaceport is sealed. Streets are under lockdown. All shapechanger citizens I know are being detained!]

Workers in insectoid territory began livestreaming the situation.

The “we’ll fight!” commenters who’d been shouting earlier quietly deleted their posts.

The insectoids weren’t like other civilizations. Even though they’d evolved, their genes still carried a killing instinct.

Who knew if, once they went blood-red, they’d trigger another interstellar war?

Just from how quickly they mobilized, it was terrifying. What other civilization did that?

It was only a few children’s potential being harmed. Elsewhere this would be a civil case. In insectoid territory? It was turning into interstellar war.

Now every civilization’s leadership couldn’t sit still. Star Alliance executives rushed there overnight. Shapechanger citizens trembled with fear, hating Tongxin Group for its arrogance and connections.

[DamnIdiot: F—, I’m from the shapechanger civilization. I know Tongxin—trash company.]

[JustAnOrdinaryCitizen: Exactly! Tongxin acts superior at home because they have backers. Their products are faulty and they suppress public opinion. Fine. But you went to insectoid territory and caused trouble? Are you trying to get us all killed?]

[So Angry: Hand over Tongxin! Give the responsible people to the insectoids! The rest of us shapechangers are innocent—we’re victims too!]

Shapechanger citizens panicked; many began exposing scandals.

Their higher-ups were probably drowning in chaos. No one had time to stop citizens from “embarrassing the civilization” anymore.

Inside the shapechanger leadership, a middle-aged man with three eyes roared at a bizarre figure—human upper body, octopus lower body.

“It’s all your fault! What ‘expanding into other civilizations’? We must’ve been out of our minds to believe your crap!”

The octopus-bodied second-in-command went pale, looking helplessly toward the fully human first-in-command.

The first-in-command avoided his gaze, face grim. “We have to give the insectoids an explanation.”

Meaning: whether it was the second-in-command or Tongxin, someone had to pay.

The second-in-command turned as white as a sheet.

“It’s just a few civilian kids! If their potential is damaged, then fine—Tongxin can pay a huge compensation! Why start a war?” he raged.

But yes—there was a civilization that started wars at the drop of a hat: the insectoids.

The shapechangers had decent combat power, but they absolutely couldn’t beat the insectoids. If war started, they would lose—period.

And shapechangers were famously disunited, while insectoids were the most united civilization in the galaxy. Everyone knew: offend one bug, offend the whole insectoid civilization.

“I can’t just sit and wait to die.”

The second-in-command tried to flee, but the first-in-command stopped him.

If the insectoids needed someone to vent their rage on, Tongxin and the second-in-command were perfect targets.

The third-in-command looked at the second-in-command—trembling on the ground like a dead dog—with pity, then locked him up without hesitation.

“Chief, what do we do now?” the third-in-command asked, headache splitting.

The first-in-command stared into the distance and inhaled deeply. “Contact the Star Alliance leadership. We cannot let a war happen.”

Before a single shot was fired, the shapechanger civilization caved.

And online, surprisingly, nobody mocked them.

It could only be said: the insectoids’ reputation for violence was too strong.

Honestly, seeing this, Xie Xingchen let out a breath.

If the shapechangers were willing to bow and surrender, that was great.

If they didn’t, the two civilizations really might fight.

He wouldn’t care if the shapechangers got wiped out—but he feared the insectoids would get carried away and ignite another galaxy-wide war.

Anyone who knew interstellar history would share that fear.

This sort of thing had happened too many times. That’s why once the incident escalated, every civilization’s leaders ran to insectoid territory to mediate.

They had to.

If they didn’t stop it now, it might spread and hit their own doorstep later.

[Respect: Insectoids are wild… no wonder they’re the most mysterious and strongest of the five great civilizations!]

[Boss666: Even though the injured kids were civilians, two of them were little “males.” It’d be weird if the insectoids let it go.]

[SunshineRainDew: Wait, what? Little males? Damn. The shapechangers are doomed. Everyone knows little males are the insectoids’ precious treasures.]

Seeing Star Alliance leadership step in, people felt war probably wouldn’t happen, so… their gossip instincts came roaring back.

Xie Xingchen’s eyes were opened.

From all this gossip, he unintentionally learned a lot about insectoid society and military structure.

Their somewhat twisted, pheromone-driven system made him glad he wasn’t born insectoid.

But apparently… that “twisted” one-husband-many-wives system—only relatively fair—was already the most harmonious and fair society the insectoids could achieve after so many years.

Xie Xingchen: “……”

Yeah… that might be the most brutal “harmonious and fair” ever.

The more he learned, the weirder the insectoids seemed, so Xie Xingchen focused on official announcements instead.

After confirming that even if war broke out, Earth wouldn’t be within the combat zone, he finally exhaled hard.

To be honest, even though netizens said it probably wouldn’t turn into war, Xie Xingchen wasn’t that optimistic.

Who knew whether tomorrow or disaster would arrive first?

Blind optimism only lowered your chances of escaping.

Before things were fully resolved, Xie Xingchen didn’t dare work far away these days.

He stayed near the starship, watching the “black-heart cotton” situation closely. When he saw that the shapechanger civilization handed over their second-in-command and Tongxin Group’s chairman, executives, and responsible staff—and sent them to the interstellar court—only then did he truly relax.

Another week passed. The “black-heart cotton” suspects were transferred from the interstellar court to the insectoid court, and the insectoid military finally disbanded.

Now Xie Xingchen fully shifted into spectator mode.

When a wall falls, everyone pushes it. Those troublemakers who’d once run wild in the shapechanger civilization probably never expected that the civilians they looked down on had so much evidence of their crimes.

With public outrage pushing from behind, those who deserved death were sentenced to death. Others were exiled or sent to mining.

Only one mid-level person was released—because he truly hadn’t done anything and really didn’t know. But even after being freed, he developed a deep psychological shadow toward the insectoids.

“Seriously? That second-in-command only got three hundred years of mining? Damn—I think he should’ve gotten the death penalty!” The youthful Xie Xingchen grumbled, furious.

But after reading more comments, he got happy again.

Hahaha—three hundred years of mining. For someone like that, it was probably worse than death.

“True! Mining is pretty good. He deserves three hundred years!” Xie Xingchen laughed at the comments.

After watching the punishment results for those shapechanger scum, Xie Xingchen nodded in satisfaction.

Then he turned lightly on his heels and called out to Long-Life behind him, “Long-Life, let’s go now! Time to see that ‘colorful cotton candy’ the robots said is running all over the grasslands.”

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