Chapter 89
C-Chang’an City?
Xie Xingchen stared at the faintly glowing architectural blueprint in front of him, completely stunned.
Sure, he already had the Chang’an Workshop—but that didn’t mean he’d ever imagined owning an entire ancient city someday!
He pinched his cheek and said blankly, “Xiao Mo… am I dreaming? Did I not wake up?”
Otherwise, how could he suddenly have a whole Chang’an City?
[System: Beep. After detection, the player is currently awake.]
The system was brutal. It flashed a blue light like a simulated scan, then tossed out what felt like a failing medical report.
[System: Beep. After detection, the player is advised to take deep breaths to avoid fainting due to excessive excitement.]
Xie Xingchen: ?
Fainting?
What a joke—would he faint?
But—
Listening to his heart pounding wildly, he fell silent.
Fine. If he kept getting this excited, maybe he really would faint.
So he tried hard to suppress his excitement.
But the moment he closed his eyes, the images in his mind became even clearer—the vast, magnificent ancient city seemed to materialize in front of him, making him even more excited.
Xie Xingchen: 0.0
Forget it. If I faint, I faint. As long as nothing major happens!
He opened his eyes again and couldn’t resist tapping the Chang’an City thumbnail in the achievements panel.
Grand. Silent. Splendid. Ancient.
The Chang’an City that once welcomed emissaries from countless lands, that once overflowed with prosperity, now stood quietly before him.
This ancient city silently declared its existence, quietly radiating its charm.
Staring at it, Xie Xingchen felt as if he were piercing through the void—suddenly he could hear the bustle of the streets: vendors hawking their wares, children playing… young women in beautiful high-waisted dresses drifting through the streets, dancers in exotic costumes spinning freely in taverns and teahouses, scholars drinking and dancing with swords—then dipping brushes in ink, letting their writing sweep across paper like dragons and serpents…
That was the glorious Chang’an of memory, the flourishing holy land in the eyes of poets.
Thinking of it made his excitement surge even higher—until it hit a certain point and then… calmed.
Like the ocean pressing its raging waves deep beneath the surface—while he pressed everything down in his heart.
“Xiao Mo, why is there a small piece missing here?” Xie Xingchen suddenly asked, pointing to a notch at the edge of the thumbnail.
[System: Beep. After detection, this area corresponds to the Chang’an Workshop.]
“Huh? Chang’an Workshop? You mean my Chang’an Workshop?” Xie Xingchen’s eyes widened.
So it was a composite blueprint?
[System: Correct. The two are one integrated structure.]
The two are one?
Wait—
A bad feeling crept up.
Xie Xingchen panicked. “Xiao Mo, what do you mean by ‘composite’? Does it mean this Chang’an City must be built where the Chang’an Workshop is, and the missing section must lock onto the workshop?”
Like a jigsaw puzzle—once one piece is fixed, everything else must connect from that fixed position.
[System: Yes.]
Xie Xingchen: QAQ
He exclaimed in shock, “Why didn’t you say something this important earlier?”
He was beyond stunned.
Seriously—what kind of trap was this?!
Something this important and there was no warning beforehand?
“Then what now? My flower fields are already expanding right up to the Chang’an Workshop!”
Was he supposed to bulldoze the flower fields?
Bulldozing wasn’t the issue—how much would he have to bulldoze?
Would he have to clear out an area as big as the city itself?
He couldn’t even stay excited anymore. His whole soul turned cold.
To be blunt: if it really had to be like this, should he even activate this achievement reward or not?
[System: Chang’an City can be rotated freely. The Chang’an Workshop will serve as the fixed anchor point, allowing a full 360-degree rotation.]
Xie Xingchen said unhappily, “That’s it?”
That still meant he had to clear out flower fields!
By the system’s logic, the “best solution” was to expand in one direction with the workshop as the rear boundary—making the workshop basically half of the city’s back gate.
But—
Chang’an City was enormous.
The Chang’an Workshop could at most occupy half the size of the back gate, meaning he would still have to clear at least an area the size of the workshop to build the other half of the gate and surrounding structures.
His heart bled at the thought.
Was he clearing flower fields?
No. He was clearing his heart.
The land wasn’t the important part—the flowers were. Unless he was rich enough to throw them away, the transplant project alone would exhaust him to death.
[System: Player request received. Searching for a solution.]
[System: Searching… Beep. After detection, the player meets the conditions to unlock the System Robot Hiring Program.]
[System Robot Hiring Program: The player may pay a certain amount of revenue to hire system robots to complete flower-field transplantation. Hiring fee: 100,000 star coins per 24 hours. Hiring quantity: system-determined.]
Xie Xingchen: ?
What is this—an alternative form of fleecing?
100,000 star coins per day, and the number of robots is decided by the system?
Xie Xingchen: )
He had a “mmp” in his heart that he didn’t know whether to say out loud.
He waited forever and this was the solution?
He felt like dying.
But no matter what he said afterward, the system refused to budge. In the end, he could only pray the system robots were insanely capable—ideally solving everything in a single day.
Sighing, he paid 100,000 star coins in revenue and rushed to the Chang’an Workshop to personally see whether his money was well spent.
When he reached the boundary where the workshop connected to the flower fields, he pressed the [Summon] button.
In an instant, thick white fog appeared out of nowhere.
Within thirty to forty seconds, visibility dropped to near zero. Xie Xingchen couldn’t even see anything one meter away.
A few minutes later, he heard the distinctive sounds of machines—along with the lively, chirpy voices of robots.
Clearly, that energetic bunch of tiny robots had come again!
Soon after, he heard other voices mixed in—many deep voices speaking words he couldn’t understand.
And in the fog, if he focused, he could occasionally catch a streak of silver light flashing past—then vanishing like lightning.
Xie Xingchen: 0.0
Mysterious system robots!
This system was unbelievable.
He hired the system robots, yet even he—the employer—couldn’t see their full forms.
Excluded from the action, Xie Xingchen backed away until he reached the workshop’s city wall. He stared unblinking at the fog-shrouded flower fields for a long, long time.
Eventually he yawned, struggled internally, and finally headed back to the residence inside the Chang’an Workshop.
It was only a little past four in the afternoon. In that case, he’d sleep for two hours—wake up at six, eat dinner.
With zero participation, he muttered a prayer and left.
Holding a powerful oil-paper umbrella he’d bought from the system, he walked home step by step.
Snowflakes drifted down, slowly covering his footprints—cold yet gentle, hiding every trace.
The Xie residence inside the Chang’an Workshop had long since been renovated by him.
With an intelligent butler system, anyone willing to spend money could enjoy the most comfortable, human-ideal temperature even in bitter snow.
Outside, he felt the wind slice to the bone. Inside, it was spring-warm.
He rolled around a few times in the soft, fluffy blankets, and soon fell asleep.
Two hours later, he woke up feeling extremely refreshed.
He casually threw on the protective coat hanging on the rack, stepped onto the hoverboard in his bedroom, activated protection mode, and glided out.
Before returning to the starship to eat, he stopped again on the wall and carefully observed the fog.
Then he realized—with surprise—that in just two hours, the fog had expanded countless times, even swallowing up nearby wasteland.
Xie Xingchen couldn’t help exclaiming, “Whoa!”
“Whoa—system robots work this fast?!”
At this pace, they might actually finish the flower fields tonight!
That was… unbelievable.
His eyes shone as he watched the occasional flashes of silver inside the fog. He even started thinking—could he rent system robots again after this?
These robots were insanely efficient! Anyone would be tempted. Anyone would want them!
His mental abacus clicked loudly—now he just needed the right chance to see if he could fleece the system a little.
After a quick dinner, Xie Xingchen returned to the wall to look out.
Most of the endless flower fields were already covered, yet the fog continued to expand outward at a steady rate.
Awestruck, he praised, “Xiao Mo, your robots are really useful.”
Praise always has a reason.
Right now, Xie Xingchen was trying to get friendly, then act pitiful, then negotiate—hoping to turn this robot rental from a one-time special function into a regular service.
But he couldn’t say that directly. He feared that without groundwork, the system would coldly reject him instantly, so he needed to probe its attitude first.
However—
His plan was beautiful. Reality was not.
The system wasn’t human. It didn’t do small talk.
Since it detected his words didn’t strictly require a reply, it let him deliver rainbow-flattery into the cold wind for half an hour—without making a single sound.
Xie Xingchen: angry pufferfish.jpg
Fine. Hard target. He’d try again later. For now, water break.
He pulled out a high chair, set it down, and sat. One foot up on the chair, the other hanging loose, he leaned forward over the wall, eyes unfocused as he looked toward the endless flower fields.
He was breathtakingly handsome—so refined he looked like a doll sculpted with care. When he lifted his head, his large eyes seemed filled with starlight. Whether he looked at people or things, his gaze always seemed to sparkle.
He took out a cup of milk tea, shifted posture, held it in his left hand while propping his cheek with his right, and kept chewing the tapioca pearls.
A scene of pure leisure—yet oddly fitting for this ancient city wall.
The system robots were busy working, and the one who hired them was “busy” too—busy eating snacks.
But his stomach had limits. Once the snacks were gone, he had nothing to do again.
With nothing better to do, he opened the system collection page, tapped the Chang’an City blueprint, and studied it carefully. Only then did he notice a tiny green “?” in the top-right corner.
He clicked it in surprise and saw a line of text:
Construction cost: 200 billion star coins in revenue.
Xie Xingchen: ?
What?
Two hundred billion?
Did he read that wrong? Did he count an extra zero?
Ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, ten thousand… ten billion, one hundred billion, one thousand billion—
Xie Xingchen went blank.
It really was 200 billion.
Why doesn’t the system just rob him outright?!
He didn’t even have 200 billion total.
Even with the 20% off coupon, it would still cost 160 billion—this would completely drain him.
He seriously suspected the system was timing it on purpose—so he’d never get to save money. Otherwise how did it keep “coincidentally” emptying his wallet?
Xie Xingchen pouted. “Xiao Mo, can I choose not to build Chang’an City yet?”
Heh. Like it was about wanting or not wanting—he just couldn’t afford it.
But—
[System: No.]
Xie Xingchen frowned. “Why not?”
[System: After detection, the player has sufficient revenue for construction.]
He panicked. “I have enough revenue, but I don’t want to build it right now!”
This time, the system didn’t reply. Instead, it pulled up a document and highlighted a specific clause in red.
It included the handling rule for exactly this situation:
Once the player possesses enough revenue for the construction cost, the player is considered to have agreed to cooperate with the system and complete the achievement construction.
The problem was…
Who the hell reads those long default clauses?!
People just check a box and log in!
He couldn’t even remember if that clause was there back when he checked the box, or if the system secretly added it later.
Xie Xingchen complained, “But compared to a Chang’an City that’s basically just pretty and not very useful right now, I’d rather do infrastructure on Earth or build interstellar routes.”
Earth was still in a wild-growth phase. Right now, aside from a few small paths built by robots for convenience, there was essentially no infrastructure at all.
Maybe the word “infrastructure” triggered a system keyword. The infrastructure-maniac system actually lagged for a moment, then a faint startup sound played.
[System: Beep. After detection, the player has extensive infrastructure needs. The Infrastructure Maniac System welcomes your use. Robot rental service is now unlocked and new related tasks are issued.]
[Robot Rental Service: A system-provided rental service that helps players complete infrastructure tasks quickly and well. (Players may pay revenue to rent relevant robots and large machinery from the system.)]
[Infrastructure Task (1) Warm-Up: Build complete roads in the developed areas within three months. Reward: 1 random draw.]
Xie Xingchen: starry eyes.jpg
Huge win!
Knowing when to stop while ahead, once he got what he wanted, he didn’t care at all about getting drained.
Money was just numbers—spend it!
Money is money only when you use it!
When you don’t use it, it’s just digits in an account.
Compared to what he gained, this spending was absolutely worth it.
He happily watched the fog for half the night. Only when the moon was high did he go back to sleep, still in a great mood.
He slept dreamlessly until morning. When he woke, the system robots had already finished dealing with the flower fields.
[Ding-dong. Flower fields processed. The system has recalled the engineering robot team.]
[Ding-dong. Detected that the player owns the Chang’an Workshop and the Huaxia ancient architecture blueprint: Chang’an City. These form an integrated structure and may be merged. Merge and begin construction now? [Yes] [No]]
Since he couldn’t escape the charge anyway, Xie Xingchen steeled himself and pressed [Yes].
[Ding-dong. Detected that the player has a System Mall 20% Off Coupon. Use the coupon? [Yes] [No]]
He pressed [Yes] again without hesitation.
[Ding-dong. Coupon used. Chang’an City construction cost: original 200 billion, discounted 160 billion. 160 billion star coins have been deducted. Remaining balance: 139,685 star coins.]
After struggling and saving for countless days—back to square one in one morning!
All the money he’d accumulated was wiped out again. Clutching his “money pouch” like it had a million holes leaking cash, he felt his heart turn icy cold.
Not long after the deduction notification, the familiar fog and robots returned.
The engineer in charge of building Chang’an City was still the tiny one Xie Xingchen knew, and the main construction robots were the same bunch that tiny one loved—small, chirpy, energetic little robots.
They appeared in front of him only briefly, then rushed straight into the fog.
Since the Chang’an Workshop was already built, the workshop itself wasn’t surrounded by fog.
Xie Xingchen walked to the boundary between the workshop and the fog. When he reached out and touched the mist, a prompt appeared:
[Chang’an City under construction. Time remaining: 999:40:36]
One thousand hours?
Xie Xingchen was a bit shocked.
He’d thought it would take one or two weeks at most—yet it needed more than a month!
Honestly, after learning that, his anticipation for Chang’an City skyrocketed.
He couldn’t help asking the system, “Xiao Mo… after this is built, is Chang’an City going to be really awesome?”
Otherwise, why would it take a thousand hours?
Even in today’s interstellar era, that was a non-trivial construction timeline.
[System: Chang’an City is under construction. Please wait patiently.]
Xie Xingchen: sigh… same boilerplate.
But the system didn’t deny it, right?
Doesn’t that indirectly confirm it’ll be awesome?
Xie Xingchen, master of reframing, wasn’t discouraged by the system’s coldness. Instead, he happily “parsed” the reply to validate his hopeful guess.
Once the Chang’an City build started in the achievements bar of Collection Page 01, he could finally open Collection Page 02.
Standing before the locked Page 02, Xie Xingchen felt nervous.
He solemnly clicked the heavy shackle sealing the page. In an instant, the lock dissolved into starlight and scattered—Collection Page 02 unlocked.
[Ding-dong. Congratulations on unlocking Collection Page 02. Reward: 1000 points.]
Unlike Page 01, which was filled with flowers, Page 02 was filled with fruit trees.
From top to bottom, they were listed as follows:
01: Lychee tree, longan tree, mango tree, jackfruit tree, papaya tree
02: Peach tree, pear tree, apricot tree, plum tree, pomegranate tree
03: Coconut tree, lemon tree, banana tree, mandarin tree, apricot tree
04: Apple tree, loquat tree, ginkgo tree, chestnut tree, Chinese bayberry tree
05: Passionfruit vine, jujube tree, pomelo tree, persimmon tree, hawthorn tree
Seeing the fruit trees, Xie Xingchen’s eyes widened.
Xie Xingchen: !
He had encountered at least half of the images on Page 02 before!
Especially Row 01—every single one was a fruit tree he’d already discovered!
Nervously, he tapped the lychee entry (02-01-01).
With a crisp “click,” the lychee entry unlocked, and a system chime followed.
[Ding-dong. Player discovered “lychee tree.” Lychee tree unlocked.]
Xie Xingchen: AHHHH!
It really could unlock immediately!
Seeing the lychee unlock in front of his eyes—and hearing the chime—Xie Xingchen was so excited he nearly fainted.
Only someone who’d suffered through the brutal unlock process of Page 01 could understand this feeling!
He repeated the process and unlocked: longan, mango, jackfruit, papaya, coconut, lemon, banana, ginkgo, chestnut, and finally passionfruit.
In total, he unlocked 11 out of the 25 fruit trees—nearly half.
But then he noticed: they were unlocked, yes, but only outlined with a glow—not fully lit.
Confused, he asked, “Xiao Mo, why aren’t these unlocked entries lit up?”
Based on how much fruit and fruit tea he’d sold, at least some should have lit up, right?
[System: By game rules, the lighting-up count begins only after the player unlocks the entry.]
Xie Xingchen blinked. “So… I have to start counting from now?”
[System: Yes.]
He frowned slightly, then suddenly thought of something.
“Do I need to sell the fruit—or the fruit trees?”
Whether fruit or trees, without Earth’s soil and environment, Earth plants would struggle to grow elsewhere anyway, so he wasn’t worried about people experimenting.
He was worried that if the system only recognized selling trees, then lighting up the page would take forever.
A fruit tree can bear countless fruit, but a tree is just one—and it grows slowly.
Thankfully, the system wasn’t trying to kill him. To light up the page, he only needed to sell the corresponding fruit.
But because it was fruit rather than trees, he’d need ten times the original amount to count as completion.
Xie Xingchen: ) smile.jpg
Xie Xingchen: let me say thank you…
Xie Xingchen asked, “Do fruit teas count?”
Fruit tea contains fruit, so it should count, right?
If it counted, lighting up the page would be easy!
[System: Lighting up requires selling fruit or fruit trees. Deep-processed products are not included in the sales total.]
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