Gu Jiaqi knew that learning to use mental power was not something that could be rushed. It would take Nan Qingchuan at least two or three months to master it, and she still needed to find some time to work out a proper plan.
“Ah, what a day…”
A new day had arrived. The only thing that comforted Gu Jiaqi, who had not slept well, was that all the vegetables she had sold in three batches yesterday had now been completely sold out. It seemed she had acquired regular customers, because after the buyers placed their orders, all the goods were to be shipped together.
“A big customer…”
Gu Jiaqi happily had the robots ship out the goods, then collected the payment herself and paid the remaining balance on the house.
Seller: “Dear customer, you only need to wait a few hours. Our sales manager will personally bring the house over and install it for you.”
No matter what era it was, a house was always important. Gu Jiaqi had paid the deposit yesterday and the remaining balance today. Buyers who were this straightforward were the most welcome.
However, when the sales manager, dressed in a suit and carrying the house, arrived, he discovered that this planet was actually covered entirely in garbage. Yet on such a planet, someone could still afford to buy such a high-end, automatically installed house. As expected, appearances could be deceiving. Could it be that the garbage recycling industry was actually making this much money these days?
After the Empire conquered the entire galaxy, it designated hundreds of planets for storing garbage. After that, the Empire’s garbage recycling industry suffered a devastating blow. After all, recycling garbage was time-consuming, labor-intensive, and expensive. Since there were already places to dump garbage, why waste the effort on recycling it?
Of course, the Empire did not stop anyone from going into the business. The hardships involved could only be experienced personally, though. Thus, when the sales manager saw Gu Jiaqi’s shabby planet, he had mixed feelings, and who knew what sort of things he had imagined in his head.
When Gu Jiaqi told him she did not need his help with the installation, he nodded in understanding. In his eyes, a young and beautiful woman like Gu Jiaqi probably did not want others to see how difficult her circumstances were.
The sales manager was conscientious and polite. He carefully taught Gu Jiaqi how to use the automatically installed house and even gave her a set of simple furniture before leaving.
Gu Jiaqi, meanwhile, calmly carried the house to the foundation she had prepared long ago. After all the roots of the steel tree had been dug out, this patch of land could be considered a proper foundation. Although the soil was somewhat hard, she was not going to use it for farming, so the requirements were not that high.
She took the house out of her spatial chip. It was made of compressed materials and did not look very large. After removing the outer packaging, she pressed the construction button. Immediately, the house rapidly took shape before her eyes, taking less than a minute from start to finish.
And just like that, almost as if she were playing around, Gu Jiaqi had her own house. It was a three-story building, with each floor covering nearly two hundred square meters. It was not an especially large mansion, but it was more than enough for Gu Jiaqi herself.
Once the dust had settled, Gu Jiaqi walked into the house. Some simple furniture had indeed been included, and the house had also been lightly furnished. The ceiling and floor were both made from the latest moisture-proof and heat-insulating materials. Since the materials currently used to build houses were all temperature-regulating materials, combined with the effects of the ceiling and floor, Gu Jiaqi’s house was already warm in winter and cool in summer. She had no need to worry about the climate at all.
Her next goal was to work hard to earn money and buy more beautiful and practical furniture. After all, she would be living here for a long time, so she could not be careless.
When Gu Jiaqi walked out of the house, she happened to see the astonished Xiaoshu standing outside the door. Her eyes were wide with disbelief. She could not understand why a house had suddenly appeared.
“Xiaoshu, this is the house Sister just built. Pretty, isn’t it?” Gu Jiaqi said with a smile.
Xiaoshu had just been undergoing treatment with the psychiatrist in the shelter. As soon as it ended, she discovered that a house had appeared on the empty lot that had still been completely bare that morning. By now, she was convinced that Gu Jiaqi was some kind of immortal. If she was not an immortal, how could she possibly accomplish so many miraculous things?
Her gaze at Gu Jiaqi was filled with adoration, but after these past few days of interacting with her, Xiaoshu understood that Gu Jiaqi did not like it when she knelt at the slightest opportunity. So she could only look at Gu Jiaqi with shining eyes, unable to think of anything else to do.
Gu Jiaqi was a little disappointed when she saw that Xiaoshu still had not recovered.
She led Xiaoshu into the house. “Xiaoshu, we’ll live on the first floor. Pick a room.”
The layout Gu Jiaqi had chosen had four rooms on the first floor. Because of Gu Jiaqi’s peculiar “requirements,” one of the rooms had been made into a kitchen with a long, retro-style counter.
Nowadays, anything related to food was expensive. Even if people wanted to eat something good, they would generally go to restaurants or order takeout. Very few people decided to cook for themselves.
But Gu Jiaqi thought that since she was no longer short of vegetables and grain, it would be rather unreasonable not to even have a kitchen. So she searched online for pictures of ancient kitchens and had a room custom-made.
After looking through all four rooms on the first floor, Xiaoshu chose the room on the far right, while Gu Jiaqi chose the one next to hers.
Although there was only simple furniture, Gu Jiaqi still decided to move in first. A little simplicity did not matter. Sleeping in a house was much more comfortable than sleeping in a shelter!
She had only been here for a few days, and she already had a house! Things were not actually that bad!
Cheering herself up, Gu Jiaqi brought Xiaoshu to the second floor. There was a smaller room here, which currently contained only a table. But Gu Jiaqi did not mind. She took out all the toys from her childhood that she had stored in her space, then used the curtain boxes, dolls, and other things she had previously kept on the Capital Star to decorate the room, making Xiaoshu a simple playroom.
“Xiaoshu, you can arrange this box of toys yourself. After all, this is where you’ll be spending a lot of time in the future, so you should do it yourself.”
Gu Jiaqi patted the large box of toys beneath her hand. Raising a child did not seem that difficult after all! Although Xiaoshu really had no blood relation to her, she did not care about that at all. Liking each other was enough.
Besides, being alone on an entire planet would be lonely…
Leaving Xiaoshu to decorate the room by herself, Gu Jiaqi glanced at the sky outside and realized that it was already noon. From when Zhong Hua had come running over to call her in the early hours of the morning until now, another twelve hours had passed.
Gu Jiaqi could not help feeling puzzled. Why had the people from that Desert Plane still not appeared?
Nan Qingchuan’s habit of coming once a day had made Gu Jiaqi feel that the people from these subsidiary planes should be quite enthusiastic. But now that she thought about it, this Desert Plane had no time difference with Latt Star, its resources were scarce, and its people lived difficult lives. So why had no one shown up?
Gu Jiaqi walked over to the black hole and tried once again to touch it with her mental power, but she gained nothing. This black hole was completely different from the black hole in the Ming Country Plane and was completely unaffected by her.
After probing around for quite some time, Gu Jiaqi gave up. She found a table and placed it not far from the black hole. Then she took out the white tea Zhong Hua had given her, found several small bags, and began portioning out the tea leaves.
Something as legendary as tea would definitely have buyers, but only a few tea leaves were needed for each cup. She could not sell it in the same rough-and-ready manner as before. High-end goods had to be presented with greater refinement.
Gu Jiaqi carefully read the storage instructions on the packaging. It turned out that this white tea had to be vacuum-sealed. She took out an air pump as well. Without asking the robots for help, she personally packed all the white tea from the several large metal tins into sealed bags and pumped out all the air.
Do not underestimate these simple-looking bags. They had previously been used to package military rations, and their production cost was not cheap.
After everything was packaged, Gu Jiaqi looked at the completely empty metal tins and felt that they looked very retro. They were quite beautiful and could be used to store miscellaneous things.
It seemed that no matter how far humanity developed, their habit of collecting things could never be changed…
Gu Jiaqi now had less than one hundred thousand star coins left in her account. She definitely could not afford the defensive weapons she had promised Zhong Hua and the others. After thinking it over, she ordered two mental-power shields online. These things were meant to be placed over houses, but Gu Jiaqi guessed they should work over the black hole as well.
One for herself and one for them. Perfect plan.
With that, the star coins in Gu Jiaqi’s hands were empty once again. She always felt as though she had been dreaming these past few days. She kept earning money, one payment after another, yet somehow she could never save any of it. Damn these prices!
With that thought in mind, she immediately put all eighteen packages of tea leaves up for sale on the StarNet, with a starting price of ten thousand star coins per package. Actually, she had considered putting them up for auction, but because she was a beginner-level user, she did not have auction privileges yet. What a pity.
But this time, the situation was completely different. Unlike the several tons of vegetables that had to wait for people to place orders, the moment the tea leaves were listed, someone came asking about them less than two minutes later.
Wealthy Star’s Little Tyrant: “Is this tea real? Can anyone still get their hands on tea nowadays?”
Seller: “Absolutely authentic. It has already been inspected by StarNet.”
Obviously, these days, anything put up for sale on StarNet had to undergo extensive inspection. Counterfeit goods could not even be listed.
Wealthy Star’s Little Tyrant: “Then I’ll buy the whole lot!”
Wow, no wonder his username was Wealthy Star. He really was loaded! But…
Seller: “Sorry, there’s a limit of three packages per person.”
Gu Jiaqi had thought this through long ago. Tea was something that had already been lost to history, so she could not sell it too cheaply. Besides, how could a high-end product have no purchase limit?
Wealthy Star’s Little Tyrant: “There’s a limit? No problem. I have an alt account!”
Three minutes later, Gu Jiaqi discovered that all eighteen packages of the merchant’s tea had sold out.
I miscalculated.
Seller: “Thank you for your patronage.”
Despite saying that, Gu Jiaqi had already seen a faster way to make money. What was so special about selling things that already existed in the interstellar world? To have a market, she had to sell things that everyone desperately wanted, right?
What else did she have that was unique? Gu Jiaqi looked at her spatial chip. It seemed the only thing she had left was that huge pile of meat.
But when she thought about the pork she had, Gu Jiaqi still did not dare take the risk. She could claim that the tea had been painstakingly cultivated from seeds, but pigs had long since been declared extinct. How could pork possibly appear out of nowhere?
Gu Jiaqi suppressed her growing urge to sell the goods and decided it was better to be cautious.
She planned to continue chopping down steel trees, digging up their roots, preparing foundations, and building more houses.
Seriously, if she did not build more houses on her own planet, was she really going to leave it as a garbage planet forever?
Full of energy, Gu Jiaqi had just turned around when she heard a sound coming from the black hole.
“Huh?”
Gu Jiaqi had not expected Zhou Qi to be able to enter as well. He and Lulu appeared at the mouth of the black hole, their entire bodies covered in black cloth. Each of them was carrying a black bag, making them look exactly like two ancient bank robbers.
That impression reached its peak when Lulu handed Gu Jiaqi a bag full of jewelry and gold artifacts.
“Sister Gu, these are what we took from the jewelry store. They’re really pretty. Look, do you like them?”