After Waking Up I Inherited the Earth [Interstellar] – CH88

Chapter 88

Carefully picking up the hydrangea from the floor, Xie Xingchen felt both joy and grief at the same time.

So this was what “Only because you’re in the mountain” meant.

This hydrangea had been with him every day, right beside him—and he hadn’t even realized it. Not only that, he’d run all over the place, half-crazed, searching for it for ages!

Xie Xingchen: QAQ
This system was seriously screwing with him!

Sniffling, he complained, “Xiao Mo, why didn’t the system give me a notification when I touched it before?”

[System: Because the hydrangea hadn’t sprouted yet.]

Xie Xingchen frowned. “But it was a seed! When I find seeds, you always notify me it’s ‘XXX seed.’ Why didn’t the hydrangea count?”

The system replied calmly.

[System: Because the hydrangea seed’s vitality did not meet the standard. If it does not meet the standard, there is no notification.]

What the hell—seed vitality has a standard?

So if it’s “unqualified,” it doesn’t even deserve a system prompt?

Seriously, who designed this system? That lofty, superior attitude was the exact opposite of “for the people”!

Xie Xingchen ranted internally, convinced the system’s creator was a massive weirdo.

But ranting was ranting. Since some things couldn’t be changed, he had to get back to work.

He cautiously tried channeling his mental energy into the hydrangea’s tender sprout.

He’d already prepared himself for it to be useless, but—

Xie Xingchen: !

It actually accepted his mental energy?

And visibly so—the hydrangea began rooting, sprouting, and even pushing out new branches!

He hurriedly asked, “System, what is going on?”

What he was seeing felt like a medical miracle.

[System: Because the player transferred mental energy to the hydrangea.]

Xie Xingchen said, “I know that! I’m asking why before, when I tried giving it mental energy, it didn’t grow at all—yet now it’s growing so fast?”

[System: Because the hydrangea accepted the player’s mental energy.]

Xie Xingchen nearly choked.

He tried again, stubbornly: “No, I mean why it was useless before, but now it works?”

[System: Because it wants mental energy to grow.]

Xie Xingchen: “…”

Peak “nonsense philosophy.”

The system vividly demonstrated the meaning of: listening to you talk is like listening to you talk.

Realizing the system wasn’t going to explain, Xie Xingchen had to guess on his own.

He came up with two “most reasonable” theories:

1. The hydrangea seed had to sprout on its own first, and only then could it accept mental energy.
2. The system was deliberately increasing difficulty to stop him from lighting up the collection too fast.

But three days later, when he watched hydrangea seeds sprout rapidly in his hands, he rejected theory one. Another three days later, he finally asked the system directly, and the system replied with just two words: “information pouch.” That made him reject theory two as well.

In the end, Xie Xingchen had to admit that some things in this world were simply mysterious—and maybe that kind of mystery only happened once.

Because hydrangeas tolerate both cold and heat, cultivating them was incredibly easy.

As the number of hydrangeas steadily increased, Xie Xingchen’s eyes sparkled.

When Longevity reported that, after robot care, the baby’s breath and the night-blooming jasmine had reached record growth speed, Xie Xingchen practically started glowing.

Why?

Because the feeling of getting results with almost no effort was unbelievably addictive!

If all future collection entries could be like this—effortless—then yes please!

He loved “free meals” handed to him by fate.

While loudly declaring that he loved living off luck, Xie Xingchen worked himself to the last shred of mental energy in the hydrangea field.

Yep. Certified worker spirit, certified worker soul.

A week of brutal, nonstop work had him back to that boring two-point routine—home and field, field and home.

But the progress was energizing. And whenever he had a rare moment to breathe, he’d think of the traveling bunny, Feifei—especially the legendary four-leaf clover it was wearing—and he’d feel so happy he could burst.

Working day and night, he expanded the hydrangeas from a single plant to a full mu of flowers in just two weeks.

At first, a mu would have seemed like a lot. But for today’s Earth Trading House?

A mu was tiny.

Still—Xie Xingchen was satisfied.

Because that mu meant he was about to be freed from the soil. It meant robots could take over more work. And it meant he could go roaming again.

Just as he was debating whether to head to Qiong Island to escape the cold or go horse-riding at the ranch, the long-missed system notification chimed again.

[Ding-dong, your companion Feifei has returned from traveling!]

[Ding-dong, your companion brought back a huge haul this time—come see what it brought you!]

Xie Xingchen: suddenly excited.jpg

Feifei was back. Feifei—wearing a legendary four-leaf clover—was finally back!

In that moment, all plans for riding and vacation evaporated. Xie Xingchen had only one thing in his eyes: that chubby little bunny.

He unhooked the travel bag from Feifei’s neck, staring intensely.

He was waiting for a “new world” to arrive.

[Corn poppy seeds: A bag of pretty corn poppy seeds. If you’re worried, you can inspect them before planting. But trust us—we are a proper game system! Corn poppies will absolutely not turn into opium poppies!]

[Blue lotus seeds: A small pot of unusually beautiful blue lotus seeds. Feifei found them near the ruins of an ancient temple. Feifei loved those beautiful blue blossoms so much that it spent several days collecting a full pot of seeds! (P.S. Hydrosol made from blue lotus has top-tier hydration effects!)]

[Mini daisy seeds: During its travels, Feifei found these colorful little daisies while resting. Their bright colors reminded it of its butterfly friends. Before leaving, Feifei decided to gather seeds from the different types so its human could plant them later—and then it could gift flowers to its friends.]

[Peony seed: A peony seed bursting with vitality. It got mixed in by accident when Feifei was collecting mini daisy seeds… or perhaps it simply wanted to grow its clan under your care?]

[Gardenia tree: A gardenia tree with wonderfully fragrant blossoms. Feifei once leaned on its branches to eat carrots! It brought the tree back because it discovered that eating carrots beside this fragrant gardenia somehow made even the carrots smell nicer—so it yanked the whole tree up and took it along!]

[Freesia: A pot of freesia seedlings that sprouted not long ago. Feifei accidentally pulled out an empty, pretty flowerpot and couldn’t be bothered to put it back, so it casually dug up some roadside soil and shoved a little plant into it.]

The system’s lively descriptions left Xie Xingchen both enlightened and completely speechless.

He’d always known the system seemed to have two different “faces” for him and for Feifei, but… this was ridiculous.

And was Feifei’s luck secretly adjusted by the system or something?

Otherwise, why was its luck so absurdly good?

Even with the legendary four-leaf clover, look at those reasons:

“Liked it.”
“Casually.”
“Didn’t want the pot empty.”

Xie Xingchen: jealousy distorts faces.jpg
Xie Xingchen: no-luck gamer has no rationality.jpg

So… he couldn’t find these flowers because he didn’t “like them,” wasn’t “casual,” and “wanted the pot empty,” is that it?

The descriptions were so irritating that even as the beneficiary, his chest still hurt.

Compare Feifei. Compare himself. The contrast was blatant.

Xie Xingchen: tsk tsk tsk.

After a long while, he finally recovered from the system’s double standards.

And once he reframed it, he suddenly felt happy.

Because Feifei’s luck was basically his luck, right?

See? You have to think. You can’t narrow your own path.

His optimism did its job perfectly.

Grinning, he tapped into the rest of what Feifei had brought back.

Yes—you heard that right. Feifei brought back even more!

Besides the six collection flowers, Feifei brought two rare items.

[Legendary four-leaf clover: A perfectly formed, extremely rare legendary four-leaf clover. It’s said that if you wear it when traveling, it will definitely bring you good luck!]

[A little frog’s gift: A present from Guagua, the spirit of all things, to Feifei’s new friend. It is a single-use wearable item. If Feifei wears it while traveling, it greatly increases the chance of discovering aquatic plants and animals.]

So Feifei really was the chosen one.

Xie Xingchen had never been more certain.

But Feifei was his companion!

Which meant… he could ride that luck.

Hahahahahaha.

Staring at the legendary four-leaf clover Feifei brought back, Xie Xingchen was so happy he almost bubbled over.

Xie Xingchen: this is a huge win.jpg

Free stuff always feels the best. And since Feifei earned it “for free,” Xie Xingchen wasn’t jealous at all—he just patted Feifei’s chubby butt and praised it happily:

“Feifei, you really are Dad’s good kid! You did amazing!”

At that moment, Xie Xingchen didn’t just resemble the system a little—his “two faces” energy was basically identical to it.

After rewarding Feifei with a big carrot and watching it munch loudly, Xie Xingchen felt energized from head to toe.

He decided to start work immediately.

His gaze instantly locked onto the corn poppy seeds.

Sure, the system had certified them, but the description was weird enough that he couldn’t help spreading them out and inspecting them one by one. Only after confirming they all looked identical did he finally relax and plant them.

Opium poppies were absolutely not happening. Not in this lifetime.

As a law-abiding citizen who had never even considered breaking the rules, Xie Xingchen would not allow any suspicious seeds to slip in.

While the seeds were at peak vitality, he diligently planted the corn poppies—checking everything from seeds to stems to blooms.

Only after confirming the flowers were correct did the anxiety in his chest finally ease.

Next, he took out the pot of blue lotus seeds.

Because blue lotus is aquatic, he’d been soaking them in plant nutrient solution, growth solution, and even green-substance potion this whole time.

And it turned out that his “random” method was accidentally correct.

The water where these blue lotus seeds came from was unusual. After Feifei picked them, they looked fine, but their actual vitality had dropped. Xie Xingchen’s soaking essentially revived them.

When he placed the prepared seeds into a renovated pond, they absorbed a few waves of his mental energy and soon rooted, sprouted, and bloomed—revealing deep blue, stunning flowers.

Only then did he understand why the system had said “unusually beautiful,” and why Feifei had liked them so much.

Because they were truly breathtaking.

And the beauty felt pure, mysterious, and deeply pleasing.

If blue lotus was the kind of flower you had to cherish and carefully cultivate, then the mini daisies were the kind you could scatter and let grow anywhere.

He gave them a burst of mental energy before planting, then left even the planting to robots. Even so, the enormous number of multi-colored daisies grew so explosively it was scary.

To borrow Xie Xingchen’s own words: they grew like weeds—wild and savage.

They were supposed to be delicate and fresh, yet they somehow grew with the energy of “I will conquer the world.”

Xie Xingchen sighed in amazement again and again.

But that wasn’t even the craziest part.

The most shocking was the peony.

It truly deserved the system’s label: “wants to expand its clan.”

Even though it started as a single seed, it forced its way into becoming a whole “family.”

Its rooting, sprouting, and blooming speed was terrifying.

Same nutrient solution, same growth solution, same green-substance potion, even the same mental energy—yet on the peony, none of it went to waste. Its growth speed crushed every plant Xie Xingchen had ever seen.

He was so moved his eyes watered, and he even lectured the other plants like a child, telling them to learn from the “model student” peony.

As plants, how could they waste land and nutrients?

That was wrong. Good plants should learn from peonies!

So moved by the peony’s sheer will to live, Xie Xingchen developed a habit: whenever he felt unhappy, he’d go look at the peony field once.

The moment he saw those mature peonies—plants that could actually share his workload—his bad mood vanished instantly.

Peonies barely needed his attention. Planting robots were enough.

So what about the remaining gardenia tree and freesia?

The gardenia tree hadn’t bloomed yet, but Xie Xingchen planted it in the flower fields on day one. Since then, planting robots handled watering, fertilizing, and propagation through cuttings, while Xie Xingchen dropped by every few days to feed mental energy and help the new cuttings adapt quickly.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to care about gardenias—flowers and trees simply required very different amounts of mental energy. He learned that lesson the hard way with the osmanthus tree.

So from the beginning, his plan was to let the robots maintain it and deal with it more when he had time.

At this point, freesia was the last plant that truly required his close attention.

Its vitality was neither strong nor fragile. Easy? Not really. Hard? Not exactly. Just… mediocre.

Since it was still a seedling, he didn’t do any seed selection. He also didn’t immediately move it from the pot into the fields. Instead, he fed it mental energy first, waited until the root system developed enough, and only then transplanted it.

From that moment on, his focus shifted heavily toward freesia cultivation.

The freesia work went smoothly—but “smoothly” didn’t mean fast. It was steady, at the usual pace.

And maybe because six plants were a lot at once, Xie Xingchen felt dizzy with busyness, like he could barely keep up.

That night, lying in the healing pod, he thought about solutions.

How could he improve early-stage planting efficiency?

Earth had only one planter—him. Actually, no—Earth had only one human. Everyone else was robots. Wasn’t that terrible for early development?

Recruit people?

Xie Xingchen shook his head.

Recruiting was hard. Earth had too many secrets. Without stronger ways to protect himself, he didn’t want to bring outsiders to Earth.

Lost in thought, Xie Xingchen didn’t even realize he’d accidentally triggered the system’s repeated-notification function.

[Ding-dong, congratulations! You discovered “corn poppy.” Corn poppy unlocked.]

[Ding-dong, congratulations! You discovered “blue lotus.” Blue lotus unlocked.]

[Ding-dong, congratulations! You discovered “freesia.” Freesia unlocked.]

Six consecutive chimes—his recent achievements.

But—

Hearing those repeated chimes didn’t make him proud. It only strengthened his resolve to find a way to boost early-stage efficiency.

Because the time gaps between those unlocks were way too long.

So much time. He had basically chained himself to the flower fields.

And even then, he still hadn’t reached the sales stage. Meaning he still hadn’t truly “lit up” the collection page—he’d only unlocked the entries.

With these six plus the hydrangea from earlier, he still had seven collection flowers that were not yet listed for sale.

Was it that he didn’t want to light them up?

No.

He didn’t dare sell them because the quantities were too small.

Fans were already traumatized by Earth Trading House “squeezing out” tiny amounts like toothpaste—he was traumatized too.

So he could only keep planting and wait until the numbers were high enough for fixed-quantity sales.

Given their placement on the collection page:

• Corn poppy was on the first row, which suggested he needed to sell 10,000 plants to light it up.
• Blue lotus was on the second row, needing 20,000.
• Mini daisy, peony, and hydrangea were on the third row, needing 30,000.
• Gardenia and freesia were on the fourth row, needing 40,000.

Corn poppy and blue lotus were manageable. The middle row wasn’t too hard. Even gardenia was okay.

But freesia?

Forget 40,000—he probably didn’t even have 4,000 yet.

So no matter how many thoughts he had, he had to shelve them.

Fine. He’d cultivate everything properly, then list them all at once.

As long as he listed enough varieties, being a bit low in quantity wouldn’t be a huge issue.

What he feared most was having few categories and low quantity—because then his Starblog would definitely get mobbed again.

He closed his eyes, resting and thinking, but fell asleep before finding any solution.

The next day, he woke up refreshed and went straight back to work.

After finishing for the day, he returned to the healing pod at dusk and started thinking again.

On the third day, while the butler was reporting, he suddenly mentioned something.

“Young master, a familiar business partner asked whether we want to hire planters.”

Xie Xingchen: a pillow delivered right when you’re sleepy?

He nodded, then said with a troubled face, “Yes, we do. But I don’t want to bring them to Earth. I want them to help with early-stage seed selection and producing green-substance potions.”

The old butler froze slightly, because the request was… unusual.

When people hired planters, they usually wanted to keep them right under their nose—for three reasons:

1. Planters were hard to find, and bosses feared someone would poach them.
2. Planters were expensive, so bosses wanted to “get their money’s worth,” and believed supervision made them work harder.
3. Crops worth hiring planters for were important, and bosses worried about spies from competitors—so they monitored them.

So while planters had high status in the Star Alliance, they weren’t exactly free.

They were respected, but still supervised and controlled—softly, maybe, but it was control.

Of course, that mostly applied to new planters or those with weaker mental power. Truly powerful planters didn’t have to obey those unspoken rules.

The old butler thought for a moment, then confirmed again and again that his young master truly meant it.

After confirming, he offered an extremely simple solution.

“Young master, if you don’t want them going to Earth, you can hire planters to work at the estate. Our estate on the Central Planet is quite large,” the old butler said with a smile.

“Quite large” was an understatement. The Xie family estate on the Central Planet was so massive it was enough to make most people burn with envy.

For many people, even if they struggled their entire lives, they would never be able to buy even a small estate on the Central Planet.

Hearing this, Xie Xingchen’s eyes lit up like a door to a new world had opened.

Right! He couldn’t invite people to Earth, but he could invite them to the estate.

He could even use the villas and estates he owned on other planets that hadn’t been sold yet!

Those were assets the Xie family had left him.

The old butler asked, “So, young master, should we post recruitment ads now?”

Xie Xingchen nodded hard. “Yes. Absolutely yes.”

The old butler smiled. “Very well. I’ll handle it immediately. Young master, wait for good news.”

Xie Xingchen nodded happily. “Mm-hmm.”

The problem he’d been agonizing over was solved so easily by the old butler that Xie Xingchen decided he’d treat the old butler even better from now on.

Because without a seasoned, shrewd butler holding the fort, he wouldn’t dare recruit randomly. He feared people might secretly research Earth’s plants.

But with the old butler in charge, it was different.

First, he gained a strong supervisor he could trust. Second, with the old butler present, people couldn’t—and wouldn’t dare—openly research Earth plants at the estate.

With that burden lifted, Xie Xingchen fell asleep quickly.

In the following days, he split his time between planting, listing items, and waiting for planter applications.

So far, the number of applicants was zero, but Xie Xingchen had already prepared himself mentally, so he wasn’t sad.

Right now, what mattered most was lighting up the system’s collection page!

In the past three days, corn poppy, blue lotus, mini daisy, hydrangea, and peony had already been lit up.

The remaining gardenia and freesia were expected to be lit within three more days.

Those three days felt like years.

But as the glow on the collection page grew brighter and brighter, Xie Xingchen felt that even if each second felt like a year, it was still worth it.

On an unremarkable but unforgettable afternoon, Xie Xingchen finally heard the system notification that sounded like heavenly music.

[Ding-dong, congratulations! You have successfully lit up Collection Page 01. The Achievements Bar is now unlocked. Unlocking… please wait.]

[Ding-dong, Achievements Bar unlocked. Congratulations! You have obtained an achievement reward: “Blueprint of Ancient Huaxia Cities: Chang’an City.”]

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