After Waking Up I Inherited the Earth [Interstellar] – CH84

Chapter 84

Xie Xingchen had seen all kinds of ice sculptures online before.

Some were huge and breathtaking, others small and delicate. No matter the size, they all made you stare in shock—like: we’re all human, so how are you people this insanely talented?

Now, Xie Xingchen was going to do something just as showy.

He didn’t know whether he could pull it off, but he knew Prosperity definitely could.

As long as there was a blueprint, Prosperity could finish it perfectly.

So after declaring boldly that he was going to make an ice sculpture, the first thing Xie Xingchen did was—

draw a plan.

[Is it me who’s cursed, or is Boss Xie cursed? Didn’t he say he was making an ice sculpture? Why is he suddenly drawing a blueprint?]

[My whole family is shocked—so you have to draw first to make ice sculptures? If you can’t draw, does that mean you can’t play this game?]

“…”

[Hahahahaha relax. You can still play even if you can’t draw! As for the final result… only heaven knows!]

[Smiling.jpg: ) You don’t need heaven to know. If it’s going to work or not, you usually know. Because being clumsy is like having a cold—you can’t hide it. If you’re really clumsy, just do the simple version: cut a little cube, hollow out a hole, toss in an energy stone. Easy.]

Seeing Xie Xingchen sketch seriously, the viewers were stunned.

He hadn’t drawn anything when he made the ice lanterns—he just improvised. So why did he need a plan for ice sculptures?

Ice sculpture—wasn’t it just carving something out of ice?

That “palace lantern” earlier—wasn’t that already an ice sculpture?

Nobody really understood the difference between “ice sculpture” and “ice lantern” in Xie Xingchen’s head. But for citizens from various interstellar civilizations watching someone play with ice like this for the first time, they felt the ice lanterns already counted as ice sculptures.

Ice sculpture, by definition, was carving things out of ice—right?

[Stop guessing. Just watch what Boss Xie does.]

[Exactly. You people are ridiculous—your guesses are getting more and more absurd! Why are alien beasts even showing up in the guesses now?]

[Stop yapping—you’re hurting my eyes! If you want to watch, watch. If you don’t, leave. Nobody’s forcing you.]

While Xie Xingchen was drawing, the chat started arguing.

The streamer didn’t respond, and another group who hated the noise stepped in to shut it down. By the time Xie Xingchen finished his rough sketch, the chat had become friendly again.

Carefully stepping out of the livestream orb’s view, Xie Xingchen took out the blueprint he’d worked so hard on and explained his concept to Prosperity in detail.

And the sneaky part?

He even turned off the livestream orb’s audio.

That instantly made the curiosity-exploding viewers feel like their hair was on fire.

Viewers: Angry.jpg
Viewers: Rage.gif

Seriously—was Boss Xie planning to stop being human?

It was just a drawing! Why act so secretive?

More than “surprise,” they wanted spoilers right now!

Unable to see the blueprint or hear anything, people practically used magnifying glasses to study Xie Xingchen and Prosperity’s expressions, trying to decode the plan.

And expressions really did reveal things.

Xie Xingchen looked smug and pleased, clearly very satisfied with his plan. But Prosperity looked surprised and a little awkward, which made viewers suspect the plan might be unreliable.

Why?

Because—look at Prosperity!

Even a realistic robot looked troubled. That had to mean the plan was questionable, right?

If it were a solid plan, why would a robot look troubled?

But they guessed the wrong reason.

Prosperity wasn’t troubled because he thought the idea was unreliable—he was troubled because he felt the task Xie Xingchen assigned him was impossible.

Xie Xingchen’s blueprint was actually fine. Not pretty, but simple and clear, with straight lines. Prosperity only needed a couple of glances to understand what Xie Xingchen wanted.

However—

Xie Xingchen didn’t want Prosperity to build the sculpture alone. He wanted them to do it together, and then Prosperity would still have to handle the cleanup and finishing work.

Could he do that?

Prosperity deeply doubted it.

But Xie Xingchen confidently patted his shoulder and said, “It’s fine, Prosperity. Don’t put so much pressure on yourself. I believe you can do it.”

Prosperity: “…”

Prosperity: Is that comfort… or pressure?
Why do I feel even more stressed now?

He complained silently in his head and even had the urge to let the viewers—who worshipped Xie Xingchen like an idol—see what kind of creature they were actually stanning.

In the end, he swallowed it all and obediently shouldered the responsibilities of being a robot.

Xie Xingchen’s plan was simple because he couldn’t draw anything complicated, but that didn’t mean his idea was simple.

He wanted to make an ice-and-snow castle—
a castle people could walk through and tour.

He’d once seen such a castle on a video site. It had been one of the most popular ice sculpture masterpieces.

Even now, he vividly remembered the shock and excitement of seeing that castle—made entirely of ice blocks—when it was completed.

Back then, he’d thought: after graduation, he’d get a good-paying job, save up money, and go to the place in his homeland where ice-and-snow culture was most thriving, to see those giant ice sculptures in person.

But he barely found a job before getting thrown into this novel world. No savings. No ice festival.

Given the situation, it was basically guaranteed he’d never go back—but…

He could make his own!

And making it himself was even more satisfying!

Who knew—maybe he could even lead everyone into loving ice sculpture culture.

Then, if some ice-and-snow planets got inspired and started innovating, he could enjoy a future where ice sculptures surrounded him in the interstellar age.

So although he didn’t say it out loud, deep down he cared a lot about this livestream.

It showed in one obvious way: he talked much more than usual—at least twice as much. And when he introduced ice-and-snow culture, he held nothing back, sharing everything he knew.

The result?

This livestream was unprecedentedly long.

Normally, aside from that one beachcombing stream, Xie Xingchen usually streamed at most two hours. But this time, between making ice lanterns and then starting ice sculptures, more than five hours had passed—and he still had no intention of ending it.

He hefted the ice blocks in front of him, then decisively waved Prosperity over.

“Prosperity, we don’t have enough ice anymore. Let’s go cut more from the river!”

Prosperity silently calculated the conservative dimensions of the castle in Xie Xingchen’s blueprint. Without a word, he drove the hovercar and followed Xie Xingchen back to the river.

For large ice sculptures, you didn’t need to harvest all the ice at once. In constant snowfall, snowflakes would land on the ice blocks. If left too long, the snow would fuse with the ice and turn it into an uneven block.

That kind of ice could still be used, but you’d have to flatten and smooth the surface first.

Which would be a pain.

So Xie Xingchen decided not to take too much—only seven or eight huge blocks—and had Prosperity haul them back. Once unloaded, the two immediately got to work.

To build a castle, you had to start with the foundation. Once the base was solid, you could stack the walls into a rough shape, then add decorations, then refine the whole structure…

One thing to note: when stacking ice blocks, you needed to pour water so the blocks bonded. After pouring, you also had to shave down the uneven bulges created by the frozen water.

So the viewers saw an absurd scene:

On the left, one person and one robot were working hard with laser blades, shaving ice blocks. On the right, a giant pot was bubbling as it “boiled snow.”

The worker on the left puffed white breath from exhaustion, and the pot on the right released white steam.

Once a pot of water was boiled, there was no need to wait long for it to cool. The moment the energy stove was turned off, the boiling water rapidly dropped in temperature.

By the time Xie Xingchen carried it over and poured it onto the sculpture, it was already cool water—no risk of melting the ice.

That sight left the livestream stunned.

Especially people from civilizations living on planets without winter. They had no idea hot water could cool down so fast in such freezing weather.

Even funnier was what Xie Xingchen did when he took a break to read comments.

He smiled, eyes gleaming with mischief. “Come on—I’ll do a magic trick for everyone!”

Then, without caring how the chat exploded, he stood up, filled an insulated cup with hot water, stretched, and in full view of everyone, sprang lightly into the air—like an ice spirit, free and beautiful in the snow.

He tilted the open container, scattering the water upward in a smooth arc.

The instant the water touched the freezing air, it turned into white crystal frost.

In that second, countless ice crystals became fireworks in the snow—brilliant and dazzling.

[So… so beautiful!]

[I always thought Boss Xie was pretty, but today he really stunned me!]

[Boss Xie is the GOAT! I like him so much—who wants to invest in Boss Xie with me? You won’t lose money doing it!]

In that moment, the figure leaping through glittering “ice-and-snow flowers” became everyone’s unforgettable moonlight.

After showing off, Xie Xingchen went right back to the grueling work.

At first, when he was laying the foundation, people didn’t know what he was building. But as the outline of an ice castle took shape, everyone’s jaws dropped.

Was this… stacking slippery ice like building blocks?

How did he even think of that?

Once the outline appeared, those viewers who had been shouting “so boring,” “I want to leave,” and “why are they just stacking ice blocks” all shut up—because they realized they might be witnessing a miracle.

One block, two blocks, three blocks…

Layer upon layer, the ice blocks formed a crystalline castle silhouette.

By the time the castle outline was completed, more than ten hours had passed.

When they saw Xie Xingchen cover the castle with a protective shield, everyone thought it was over.

But then Xie Xingchen said, “Ah, I’m so tired. After all that work, we finally finished the beginning.”

Everyone: ?
Everyone: Beginning? You’re saying this is just the beginning?

He rolled his neck and exhaled. “I’m going to rest now. To keep the snow from ruining the base we worked so hard to stack, I’ll protect it with a shield first. Don’t worry—this shield blocks snow but doesn’t block temperature, so it won’t cause the sculpture to melt.”

The viewers were speechless.

This already looked amazing—how was this only the start?

Then Xie Xingchen smiled again. “Um… I’m not going to put the livestream orb away. I’ll leave it here so everyone can keep admiring my half-finished work, okay?”

His reasoning was simple: the orb was linked to his personal terminal. If more than one hundred people triggered the real-name “Emergency” button, his terminal would receive an alert—basically a surveillance device.

Better safe than sorry.

The viewers didn’t mind. If anything, they were used to this kind of thing.

Before sleeping, Xie Xingchen messaged Get-Rich and Long-Life, telling them to bring any idle robots over if they had time.

Then he rubbed his slightly bloodshot eyes and fell asleep under the down quilt.

He didn’t know how long he slept. When Prosperity woke him up, he was still dazed, looking like he desperately wanted to crawl back into the warm bed.

In weather this cold, sleeping under blankets was too tempting.

Prosperity reported, “Boss, Get-Rich and Long-Life arrived with three robots.”

Xie Xingchen mumbled, “Mm… huh? Oh.”

Prosperity, long used to it, wrung out a towel soaked in cold water and slapped it onto Xie Xingchen’s face.

Xie Xingchen jolted awake, shivering. “No—I’ll do it myself.”

After cleaning up and putting on his protective suit, he stepped out of the inner tent.

The outer tent was already full of robots: Get-Rich, Prosperity, Long-Life, and three standard planting robots.

Xie Xingchen didn’t care about the small number. He was excited.

He led them over, checked the stream, and found that hours had passed—but the viewer count had actually increased.

He blinked in surprise. “You guys didn’t rest?”

[Rest? I flew overnight to Snow Planet to play!]
[Same! I used to think Snow Planet was boring. Now it’s insanely fun!]
[My planet has snow, so I went to the northlands to play for the first time—and found out I’m actually super handy!]

Xie Xingchen stopped asking questions. It was obvious: people got hooked on “playing.”

He greeted everyone brightly, stretched, and started a meeting with the robots.

Seventy percent was the structure he’d already discussed with Prosperity. The remaining thirty percent was new ideas he’d come up with while building the outline.

Those ideas required refined skill—Xie Xingchen couldn’t do them himself. But with a team of robots?

He decided to act as foreman.

Time in the pale, snowy world seemed to slow down.

For three full days and nights, he supervised tirelessly.

Only then did the ice castle finally finish—eight meters tall, covering more than a hundred square meters.

It wasn’t huge, but it was overwhelmingly impressive.

Inside and out, it was made entirely of crystal-clear ice blocks. Aside from the material, it was as sturdy as a real castle—yet even more dreamy and beautiful.

The most stunning parts were the staircase and the decorative details, all carefully carved by the robots. Then they hollowed small holes into the decorations and steps and embedded energy stones emitting different glows, creating a magical light source in the endless snow.

Viewers were stunned—not just by the beauty, but by the extravagance.

Activated energy stones didn’t simply “turn off.” Once activated with mental power, they burned continuously until their energy ran out.

That meant this castle was literally consuming money to glow.

Xie Xingchen climbed to the top, looked out, filmed every angle, and took countless photos with the castle.

Then he decided the castle alone was too plain—so he rallied everyone to make more ice lanterns.

After another full day, they placed countless lanterns on both sides of the gate, stretching outward like two dreamy “carpets of light.”

Now Xie Xingchen was satisfied.

He smiled at the viewers. “Alright! That’s it for this ‘Ice-and-Snow Journey’ stream! Next time, if I have time, I’ll make a beautiful courtyard-house ice sculpture! Bye!”

Then he shut the stream off without hesitation.

He stayed one more day, reluctant to leave, and only on the second day did he finally pack up and depart.

During those days, he’d felt firsthand how brutal the cold truly was.

In this weather, finding fresh living plants was a fool’s dream.

So he decided to leave—go find warmth instead.

The hovercar headed south along a new route. The farther south they went, the more the snow disappeared.

Past a mountain range, the snow seemed completely blocked—no trace of it remained.

Continuing south, when they passed over a basin, Prosperity suddenly spotted something unusual below:

a vast stretch of deep green unlike anything around it.

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