After Waking Up I Inherited the Earth [Interstellar] – CH90

Chapter 90

Ever since learning from the system that deep-processed products didn’t count toward the sales total needed to light up the collection, Xie Xingchen took a trip to the tropical plantation on Qiong Island and personally led the robots there to expand the orchard. After that, he went to the places he’d previously marked where fruit trees grew, to see whether any of them had borne fruit.

Unfortunately, aside from the coconut trees, the other fruit trees didn’t produce fruit in winter—or rather, the fruit they did produce was still too green and unripe, with a taste completely unsuitable for sale.

If he wanted to change that situation, high-tech solutions would do the job.

So after buying the necessary equipment, Xie Xingchen led the robots to make some simple modifications to the trees’ growing environment. Only then did he return to the Chang’an Workshop.

The other half of Chang’an City connected to the workshop was still wrapped in thick fog.

From the high walls, looking out across the distance, the antique-style Chang’an Workshop—aside from that eye-catching fog—had only one truly striking feature: the tall ginkgo tree in the center of the workshop grounds.

In the era Xie Xingchen once lived in, ginkgo trees were called “living fossils.” They had excellent ornamental value, economic value, and medicinal value. Yet at the same time, they were an endangered species, a top-level nationally protected plant, rare across the world.

Xie Xingchen knew about ginkgo trees not because of their protected status, but because of one person—someone who, thousands of years ago, had planted a ginkgo with his own hands: Emperor Taizong of Tang, Li Shimin.

Back in school, whenever his teachers taught Tang history, they couldn’t help mentioning that ginkgo planted by Li Shimin.

Because of that, Xie Xingchen always felt that ginkgo trees were inseparable from the glory of the Tang.

Ginkgo trees take a very, very long time to mature; generally, they need nearly forty years before they can bear fruit.

That long wait made many would-be growers back off—and it also made Xie Xingchen uneasy.

Because if he wanted to light up the collection by selling ginkgo nuts, then he’d need to find 40,000 × 10 ginkgo nuts.

Right now, the only ginkgo tree he knew of was the one in front of him. But how could a single tree provide 400,000 ginkgo nuts?

So if he wanted that many, he could only hope that the Chang’an City under construction contained large numbers of ginkgo trees—or that one day he’d discover more in the wild. Otherwise, he’d have no choice but to sell ginkgo saplings to light up the collection.

After all, ginkgo trees needed forty years of age before fruiting. Selling young trees, on the other hand, only required a few weeks of mental energy infusion.

Once he made up his mind, he didn’t feel so pressed anymore.

Either way, there were only two options. He could just close his eyes and pick one—easy.

The only thing was: to prepare for the worst-case scenario where he truly had to sell ginkgo trees, he needed to start propagation work now.

Ginkgo seeds are called “white nuts.” These have extremely strong medicinal value, and they’re also the fruit of the ginkgo tree.

Back when he discovered the ginkgo tree, Xie Xingchen collected a batch of white nuts when it fruited. But since he might need to sell white nuts later, for this round of propagation he chose to prioritize cuttings, with seed sowing as a supplement.

He selected healthy branches about 1 cm in diameter from the mature tree trunk, cut them into 20–30 cm lengths, then soaked those similar-sized cuttings together in plant growth solution and plant nutrient solution.

Once he saw the cuttings become plump and vividly green, he inserted them into soil and maintained them with routine watering and fertilizing.

As for sowing, that was easy too—just follow the standard steps.

Ginkgo trees didn’t require flat land, so Xie Xingchen picked a small barren slope that he could see from the workshop walls and got to work there.

After several days of nonstop effort, he finally got the ginkgo cuttings and white nuts planted.

Two more days passed. Once they began to root and sprout, Xie Xingchen finally relaxed. The newly planted ginkgo had adapted to the soil; from then on, he only needed to occasionally go over and infuse some mental energy. Fertilizing and watering were handled by planting robots.

That day, Xie Xingchen was unusually free. Lying on his bed, he opened the player storage that came with the system and started sorting through what he’d left inside.

Though “sorting” was really just “admiring,” because the few things he owned didn’t even fill one-tenth of the warehouse.

Still, even if it wasn’t full, he felt happy opening it. He could spend half an hour just reading item descriptions—until the neighboring system shop hit midnight, refreshed, and started its new-item event, at which point he hopped over.

The system shop’s midnight flash-sale event—something Xie Xingchen had once loved and hated—had always run on schedule, day after day, without fail.

But since most daily new items were available for purchase for 24 hours, and he’d subscribed to system reminders, he gradually stopped camping it.

Now that the initial excitement had passed, he simply glanced each morning before getting up: buy if needed, ignore if not.

Today just happened to be a special case—otherwise he would’ve done the same thing and checked in the morning.

Today’s refreshed items were very different from usual. There were still overpriced, flashy-but-useless things, but there were also two peculiar items—special products that glowed faintly.

[Name: Mental Energy Recovery Potion
Effect: Restores part of the player’s mental energy
Price: 50,000,000 star coins (50% discount)]

[Name: Plant Growth Potion
Effect: One drop increases a plant’s age by one year
Volume: 100 drops
Price: 30,000,000 star coins (70% discount)]

After reading the descriptions, Xie Xingchen immediately bought the Plant Growth Potion.

As for the Mental Energy Recovery Potion, he hesitated for a moment—then bought it anyway.

The description said it only “restores part of the player’s mental energy.”

But… it was glowing.

So he figured he should buy it. A special item that glowed was probably something good!

Gritting his teeth, he spent fifty million star coins and got the small bottle of faintly glowing Mental Energy Recovery Potion.

Only after holding it did he realize how pitifully little it contained—smaller even than his tiniest essential oil sample bottle.

And the most amazing part was that it really was glowing!

The liquid inside emitted a soft golden halo, like someone had added special effects to it.

Xie Xingchen: Emmm.
To be honest, he suddenly didn’t dare drink it.

Suspicious, he asked, “Xiao Mo… can this thing really be consumed?”

It looked like mercury with a different color and a visual effect slapped on. No normal person would dare drink that.

And, conveniently, Xie Xingchen was a normal person—so he didn’t dare.

[System: Please rest assured. The Mental Energy Recovery Potion is a normal, drinkable potion.]

A normal, drinkable potion?

Xie Xingchen stared at the glowing “golden mercury” again and asked a question from the depths of his soul: “Are you sure?”

The system could make mistakes, and system mistakes might be patched with a bugfix.

But he only had one life. If it was gone, it was gone—no reloading.

[System: Confirmed.]

[System Friendly Reminder: Please drink it promptly. The earlier you drink it, the better the effect.]

Xie Xingchen: ?
Xie Xingchen: Fine then!

Since the system insisted, Xie Xingchen—wearing an expression like his worldview was collapsing—raised the glowing bottle with hesitation.

Then he steeled his heart and downed it in one go.

Afraid any liquid might cling to the inner walls, he even strategically shook the bottle twice.

Only when he saw there was no glowing liquid left did he lower it.

Just as he opened his mouth to say something—

Clang.

Xie Xingchen collapsed.

When he woke up again, it was the morning of the third day. He realized he wasn’t in his bedroom. Instead, Get-Rich, Prosperity, and Long-Life had carried him into the medical pod on the starship.

Seeing him open his eyes, Get-Rich darted over and said anxiously, “Boss, you’re finally awake!”

Xie Xingchen was completely confused. He looked at Get-Rich and asked, “What happened to me?”

All he remembered was: he drank the Mental Energy Recovery Potion, everything went black, and then nothing.

Get-Rich sighed. “Boss, you were out for three days. The day before yesterday we went to your house to check on you—you’d fainted on the bed. We brought you here for tests. After the tests, Long-Life said you were fine, so we didn’t take you to see a doctor.”

Meaning: if Long-Life had said there was a problem, Xie Xingchen would be in a hospital right now.

Hearing that, Xie Xingchen was extremely satisfied. He solemnly patted Get-Rich’s shoulder and praised him. “Good, good, good. You all did well! You handled this properly—keep handling things like this in the future!”

Then he switched topics. “Right—where are Prosperity and Long-Life?”

Get-Rich answered honestly. “Since Long-Life said you were fine, the three of us took shifts watching you. This morning I’m on duty. Prosperity went to deliver pasture grass, and Long-Life went to plant ginkgo trees.”

Hearing that, Xie Xingchen nodded even more approvingly.

As expected of his robots!

His robots had real potential!

Not only were they calm in an emergency—they even didn’t waste time. Beautiful work!

Xie Xingchen praised Get-Rich again, plus Prosperity and Long-Life who weren’t back yet. A few sentences later, Get-Rich was beaming and full of energy, ready to keep working.

Once the medical room was empty, Xie Xingchen impatiently opened his status panel.

He felt all his questions would be answered there.

[Player Status Panel]
Name: Xie Xingchen
Species: Human

Territory: Earth

Level: LV6
Companion: Fat Bunny (Feifei) [+]
EXP: 100/60000
Plant Affinity: ? +1
Mental Energy Rank: A (?)

Game Progress: 0.5%
Collection Progress: 0 (lighting an achievement card increases this by 0.5%)

Infrastructure Progress: 0.5%
Active Task: Infrastructure Task (1) Warm-Up

It wasn’t his imagination—his mental energy really had increased!

On the panel, his mental energy rank had changed from A-minus to A!

So what exactly was that Mental Energy Recovery Potion?

Did “restores part of the player’s mental energy” actually mean restoring a person’s rank?

Xie Xingchen couldn’t help sinking into thought.

His gaze hovered over the words “restore,” “player,” and “part.”

In the end, he arrived at a shocking conclusion:

His (the original owner’s) mental energy wasn’t B-rank. It might have been higher than A—possibly S or even SS.

This conclusion had logic behind it.

First, the potion’s effect was explicit: it only restores part of the player’s mental energy.

And what counts as “part”? In ordinary language, for something to be called a “part,” the whole is usually divided into at least three or more segments, and only one segment is “a part.”

Now, after restoring just “a part,” his rank rose to A. Above A is A-plus, and above A-plus is S.

If restoring a “part” raises him by one minor tier, and that “part” is, say, one-third, then adding the remaining two-thirds back would likely push him beyond A-plus.

Second, on his panel, his mental energy rank had a “(?)” after it. Xie Xingchen already understood that symbol to mean “can be increased.” If he stretched that logic a bit—was it possible the system actually had items that could increase mental energy?

If such items existed, and combined with the potion restoring his original mental energy, then it was perfectly reasonable to infer that his final rank wouldn’t stop at A-plus. Even in the worst case, it could reach S.

Thinking of that, Xie Xingchen was thrilled.

If he could be strong, who would want to be weak?

If he could truly reach S rank, not only would work become easier, his value would be far higher.

And given enough time to grow, he could become a pillar—so even if someone discovered something odd about Earth, they wouldn’t be able to do anything to him!

Eyes sparkling, he asked, “System, do you have more Mental Energy Recovery Potions? If you do, put another one up for sale!”

[System: ……]

[System: The shop has not refreshed. Please monitor the shop.]

In other words: get lost, there isn’t any.

Xie Xingchen was deeply disappointed. Something that effective, and the system didn’t sell more? What a waste!

He felt like the system had missed out on ten billion.

Such a perfect money-making chance, and it didn’t seize it—what a tragedy.

The next day.

After his mental energy rank stabilized, Xie Xingchen stood on the walls of the Chang’an Workshop.

Staring at the Chang’an City next door, where the fog was growing thicker and thicker, he pressed the “Robot Rental Service” button.

As soon as he tapped it, a box popped up.

[System: Please select a service.]
[1. Labor-only package 2. Labor + materials package 3. Labor + materials + design package 4. Full-service package]

Without thinking, Xie Xingchen chose [4]. Another box popped up.

[System: Please select a road style.]
[1. Cobblestone road 2. Tree-lined path 3. Standard road 4. Extra-wide road 5. Fully designed by a designer/engineer]

Believing professionals should handle professional work, Xie Xingchen chose [5].

Then the system popped up yet another small box listing many designer names.

The third name on the list was someone Xie Xingchen knew—Engineer Xiao Xiao.

Above Xiao Xiao were Fang Fang and Yuan Yuan.

Xie Xingchen: [thumbs-up.jpg]
This naming skill was even stronger than his.

But jokes aside, other than Xiao Xiao, he didn’t recognize anyone.

And Xiao Xiao’s name was greyed out, with a tag behind it that read: [Working hard right now]

So Xie Xingchen knew he couldn’t pick Xiao Xiao this time. He shifted his gaze to Fang Fang and Yuan Yuan above.

He didn’t know who they were, but if they ranked above Xiao Xiao, they had to be at least as capable—maybe even more capable. Otherwise, that lively Xiao Xiao would’ve already gone to the system to argue about it.

With no resumes, no portfolio, no info—just names—Xie Xingchen couldn’t decide who was better.

So he said directly, “Xiao Mo, can I choose two engineers to handle the north and south sides separately? One engineer per area would speed up the infrastructure work.”

Maybe the word “infrastructure” triggered the system again.

The system hesitated suspiciously, then agreed—turning a single-choice into a multi-choice.

[System: Engineer Team Fang Fang and Engineer Team Yuan Yuan are on standby. Please pay 500,000,000 star coins in revenue immediately.]

Xie Xingchen: [puts on a mask of pain.jpg]
Five hundred million?

Where was he supposed to get that?

His balance was only a bit over four hundred million. Even if he counted everything, he still had a shortage of nearly sixty million.

He tried negotiating. “Xiao Mo, look—construction teams usually accept installment payments, right? We should keep up with the times. You can see my balance. I really don’t have that much right now. Can you make an exception? Because if you don’t, we can only wait until I earn enough to start the infrastructure.”

His tone was sincere and gave the system two options:

Installments, or wait until he had enough money.

Xie Xingchen wasn’t afraid, because he felt the system loved infrastructure.

That choice practically forced the system into picking option one.

However—

[System: Installment payment requires interest.]

Xie Xingchen: ?

For that sixty million, he could earn it in two days, and it still wanted interest?

He was dumbfounded.

He asked, “How much interest?”

[If 60,000,000 star coins are paid in installments, the interest is 6,000 star coins per day.]

Xie Xingchen clicked his tongue. Expensive.

But thinking about it—two days would only be 12,000 star coins in interest. Compared to the system team’s speed, that amount… didn’t really matter.

After thinking for a bit, Xie Xingchen decided to go with installments.

[System: Hiring engineering team ×2. Full-service total cost: 500,000,000. 440,000,000 has been deducted. The remaining 60,000,000 will be deducted as 30,000,000 per day for two days. Installment interest: 12,000 star coins.]
[System: Please confirm the bill.]

Even though there was interest, it was small enough that Xie Xingchen didn’t care.

Compared to the 12,000, he was far more curious what kind of roads the system’s engineering teams would build.

He pressed [Confirm], and the payment notice arrived instantly.

[System: Transaction completed. 440,000,000 star coins have been deducted. Balance: 168,957 star coins.]

Unlike what Xie Xingchen expected—paying and immediately seeing the engineer teams appear—this time, after payment, the system acted first.

It scanned three areas on the system interface: the flower fields, the pasture, and Qiong Island’s map.

Then it subdivided those areas further, drawing rivers, mountains, farmland, buildings, and more.

One minute, two minutes, three, four, five—

In under five minutes, Xie Xingchen received an extremely detailed “activity-area map.”

With modern technology, such a map wasn’t hard to obtain, but it was still difficult to match the system’s speed and level of detail.

After generating the map, it suddenly disappeared.

But not long after it vanished, Xie Xingchen not only received that map—he also received two detailed road-construction blueprints.

Public roads of various sizes, leisure paths, scenic footways—everything was designed logically. At a glance, it looked perfectly suitable.

But when he compared it point-by-point against the original map—

Xie Xingchen was stunned.

You wouldn’t know until you compared: it was like bare skin putting on makeup.

It was still the same buildings, farmland, and scenery—just with roads added—but the whole place suddenly looked dramatically better.

And every road on the blueprint felt right. He couldn’t find a single flaw. In some areas, they’d even casually adjusted nearby plants and structures—those “offhand touches” made his eyes widen.

At first, he thought five hundred million was too expensive.

Now he felt five hundred million was a bargain!

This wasn’t just building roads!

This was beautifying the environment as much as possible while building roads!

Honestly, if the condition for hiring robots hadn’t been “road construction,” and if the system hadn’t planned resources and pricing based on road-building materials, he would’ve suspected those two robot teams were trying to build him a city—an earthly paradise.

Without a single moment of hesitation, Xie Xingchen excitedly approved the first draft design.

Once approved, the two engineering teams officially began infrastructure work.

From that moment on, Xie Xingchen issued an order: unless there was essential fieldwork, all robots were forbidden from leaving the Chang’an Workshop.

He wasn’t worried that ordinary robots would discover something strange about the system.

He was worried they would interfere with the system-hired robots’ work.

And more importantly—

When system robots worked, thick fog appeared!

So aside from system robots, anyone else—people or ordinary robots—would be affected by the fog. Working in mist so dense you could barely see your own hand would obviously destroy efficiency. In that case, it was better to just give everyone a break.

Of course, giving everyone a complete break was impossible. The robots he’d bought from the system or received as rewards were still sent out to routine activity areas for simple work like watering and fertilizing.

By the third day, Xie Xingchen had paid off all remaining fees, and the roads around the flower fields were fully completed.

The finished flower fields formed countless square plots arranged in a grid-like pattern.

The central crossing roads were broad main avenues—wide enough for multiple vehicles to drive side by side. The surrounding roads were a bit smaller, but still wide two-way lanes.

Between one flower plot and another, some connections were standard roads, while others used “cobblestone roads” paved with the newest Star Alliance materials.

These roads balanced beauty and practicality.

First, these “cobblestones” didn’t hurt your feet at all. The material had a certain elasticity, and it was also anti-slip. Walking on it felt comfortable.

Second, these “cobblestones” also had water-storage functions. When it rained and they contacted water, they stored part of the rain inside. When temperatures rose, they released that stored water back onto the road to cool it down.

When Xie Xingchen learned that interstellar civilization had such a “ridiculous” material, he was stunned. Once he recovered, he immediately asked them to expand its usage as much as possible.

But since it had a load-bearing limit, it couldn’t be used on main roads—only on smaller paths.

What surprised him most, though, was a valley on Qiong Island hidden within that treasure-like mountain.

It had been scanned in by the system too. And because the ancient valley was beautiful, Engineer Fang Fang used leftover building materials to construct a small courtyard house there.

A stream murmured, butterflies fluttered, greenery flourished, flowers bloomed… it felt like a secluded paradise.

There was no noise, no worries—only nature’s beauty and calm.

The moment Xie Xingchen saw it, he was captivated.

All they’d done was add a simple, rustic house; dig a well; plant climbing flowers all over the walls; build a trellis for vegetables and fruit—yet the quiet, empty valley suddenly felt alive.

Xie Xingchen even couldn’t resist going to live there for two days.

That leisurely feeling—watching clouds rise and drift—slowly settled his restless heart from recent weeks.

On this day, as usual, he brewed a pot of strong tea and sat in a lounge chair.

His chair faced the open courtyard gate. From where he sat, he could see fluttering butterflies, busy bees, and all kinds of flowers and grasses swaying in the wind.

Sip tea, glance at the scenery.

When he refilled his cup, he suddenly froze.

A cold wind blew in from afar. By the wall corner, wintersweet blossoms fell one after another. In the instant the faint fragrance drifted over, it also carried red plum-blossom petals along with it.

But what surprised Xie Xingchen wasn’t the plum petals—it was the flower that came with the cold wind.

It was small, with five petals forming each bloom, slightly off-white in color. The calyx was rusty-hued and covered in fine fuzz.

If Xie Xingchen remembered correctly, this should be…

Loquat blossoms?

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