The interstellar network, commonly known as the Star Network, was the kind of fully immersive holographic network that A-Wu had dreamed of having in her original life.
The original owner could barely leave the house. The only reason she had not developed severe social isolation was because of the Star Network. Fortunately, her parents had bought her a permanent Star Network pod. It was extremely comfortable and came with lifetime free access to the network. Otherwise, the original owner probably would have been unable to afford the network fees long ago.
A-Wu enjoyed this benefit as well.
She comfortably lay down inside the Star Network pod. After closing the hatch, she felt something briefly touch her spiritual sense.
The next moment, A-Wu appeared in a sea of flowers.
At the end of the flower field was a vast, endless ocean.
A-Wu calmly sat down on the ground. The surface was soft and comfortable, almost like a sofa.
This was the original owner’s personal space on the Star Network, designed in the typical romantic style of a young girl.
Perhaps because A-Wu’s soul was different, her Star Network appearance was exactly how she had looked when she was in Bixue Palace.
Even her clothes were the same lake-blue uniform worn by the female outer disciples of Bixue Palace.
She played around with the many decorations hanging from her belt, then explored the various functions of her personal space.
She soon discovered that changing the style of the space or changing her appearance both required credits.
These credits were not some meaningless virtual currency. They represented real money.
A-Wu glanced at her account.
The glaring zero balance hurt her eyes.
She quickly closed the balance display.
Out of sight, out of mind.
Besides, the original owner did not have any friends anyway. Even if someone recognized her ID, she could simply say that she had spent credits to change her appearance.
It was already the end of the month. The Federation’s subsidy would arrive in a few days, and the results of the pill test should be coming soon too.
She would have credits!
She would have energy stones!
Once she understood how everything worked, A-Wu opened the Star Network map.
She tapped the famous pharmaceutical planet, SY-1.
With that single touch, her figure disappeared from her personal space.
A-Wu felt her spiritual sense become lighter.
Everything in front of her turned completely black.
It seemed as if she had passed through a quiet, almost deathly silent space.
The feeling was extremely mysterious.
Before A-Wu could examine it carefully, she had already left that strange space.
Light returned to her vision.
She had arrived on SY-1 within the Star Network.
The teleportation point A-Wu chose was one of SY-1’s famous commercial streets.
Here, she could buy all kinds of pharmaceuticals, as well as the raw materials and equipment needed to make them.
The street was crowded and noisy.
There were beautifully decorated high-end shops, as well as simple roadside stalls made from two wooden boards.
Shouts from vendors rose one after another.
If A-Wu had not clearly known that her current body was only a projection of her spiritual sense, she might have thought she had transmigrated into another world again.
A-Wu began walking down the street.
Everything she saw was fascinating.
After being a low-level cultivator for so many years, A-Wu instinctively went toward the roadside stalls.
It reminded her of wandering through cultivation markets in the cultivation world.
Those grand, luxurious shops were never where A-Wu expected to find bargains.
Most of the roadside stalls sold pharmaceutical ingredients, and most of them were very common and ordinary materials.
There were occasionally a few medicines for sale, but they were only simple and common treatments for minor injuries.
As A-Wu walked around, she carefully examined the ingredients.
Some were herbs.
Others were medicinal minerals.
She recognized some of them, while others were completely unfamiliar.
A-Wu stopped in front of one stall and picked up a Seven-Leaf Grass.
It was one of the main ingredients used to make Qi-Replenishing Pills.
She carefully sensed its properties.
The appearance was the same.
The medicinal power was also the same.
Since she had been able to travel from the cultivation world to this place, perhaps the two worlds had some special connection.
If that was the case, it also explained why so many of the medicinal plants here resembled those from the cultivation world.
Tao She had been sitting at his stall on the Star Network for almost the entire day, but he had not sold a single medicinal plant.
So when a customer finally showed up—and she seemed quite interested in his plants—his spirits immediately lifted.
He wanted to sell this plant to her as quickly as possible.
And there was another reason.
His customer was a beautiful woman.
Even if she had probably paid to create such a beautiful appearance, that did not stop him from appreciating it.
Seeing the satisfied expression on A-Wu’s face, Tao She immediately began promoting his products.
“Miss, what do you think? My medicinal plants are pretty good, right? Let me tell you, these were collected by professionals. Hardly any of their medicinal properties were lost, and they’re still very fresh. The prices are cheap too. If you want to buy a lot, I can give you a discount!”
A-Wu glanced at the price tag.
It really was cheaper than the other stalls.
The medicinal power had suffered a little, but it was not a serious problem.
The only problem was…
She had no money.
She reluctantly put the Seven-Leaf Grass back on the stall and gave Tao She a small smile.
“Thank you. I don’t need it right now. I’ll come back to you when I need some.”
Seeing her smile, Tao She’s ears quietly turned red.
This woman’s face was really beautiful.
“Ahem.”
He awkwardly cleared his throat.
“Sure! But I don’t come here every day. How about we add each other as contacts? Whenever you need medicinal plants, just contact me!”
This was the first time Tao She had ever asked someone for their contact information.
He sounded calm and casual on the outside, but inside, he was incredibly nervous.
It was even more nerve-racking than going onto the battlefield to fight the Zerg!
The medicinal plants at Tao She’s stall were of good quality, and the prices were reasonable.
A-Wu did not think much about it. She added him as a contact, planning to buy some from him once she had credits.
She did not stay at the stall any longer.
After saying goodbye to Tao She, she entered one of the shops.
She specifically wanted to see the various high-tech devices that interstellar pharmacists used to make medicines.
Tao She watched A-Wu’s retreating figure.
He continued watching until her graceful figure disappeared into the crowd before reluctantly looking away.
He dropped back into his chair.
Feeling excited, he immediately sent a message to the only group chat in his contact list.
Tao She: Brothers, I think I’m in love!!
A whole stream of replies appeared almost immediately.
Luna: Hehe. Another idiot successfully brainwashed by the Population Management Bureau…
Fatty: Hehe +1. I almost got brainwashed too!
Skinny: Fatty, is your mom still arranging blind dates for you?
Fatty: No more blind dates this time. She directly gave me a list of egg donors and told me to choose one. Crying
Luna: Poor thing~ patting his head
Skinny: Big Tao, are they arranging a blind date for you too?
Fatty: Big Tao, did you meet your true love? Excited
Tao She clicked his tongue.
Did he look like someone who needed a blind date?
Big Tao: You guys are the ones being forced into blind dates. I fell in love at first sight on the Star Network, okay? Disdain
Luna: Eww~ What’s the point when the face is just something they created? Disdain
Skinny: Be careful with online relationships~
Fatty: What? Big Tao is dating someone online?
Tao She could not be bothered to deal with these idiots.
At the same time, he silently gave himself thirty-six likes for escaping the Population Management Bureau by coming to the Star Network to sell medicinal plants.
Tao She lazily sprawled in his comfortable chair and looked at the name in his contact list.
“Lin Wu, Lin Wu… What a nice name~”
If he had not experienced it himself, even Tao She would have thought this was ridiculous.
But he really had fallen for her.
The sudden increase in his heartbeat had been impossible to fake.
This had to be fate!
Tao She decided that during this vacation, he absolutely had to get her name added to his household registration.
Meanwhile, inside the largest pharmaceutical equipment chain store on SY-1, A-Wu was staring at all kinds of convenient high-tech equipment with sparkling eyes.
She had no idea that someone was already thinking about her.
Instead, she was clutching her chest and silently crying inside.
Why was she still so poor even after changing worlds?!
—From A-Wu, who had always been unable to afford a good pill furnace.
Heartbroken, A-Wu left the Star Network.
She decided that until her subsidy arrived, she would not come back to the Star Network.
Being poor was too painful.
On the other side, Tao She waited until A-Wu’s contact status went dark, confirming that she had logged off the Star Network.
Only then did he secretly send her a message, trying not to make himself look too eager.
By then, his sudden emotional excitement had already settled down.
After all, he was a soldier who had fought on the Zerg battlefield. His self-control was far beyond that of an ordinary person.
However, his desire to communicate with A-Wu and meet her was still there.
That made him even more certain that he had truly fallen in love with her at first sight.
In the interstellar era, humanity had undergone several stages of evolution.
As a result, people’s physical abilities and lifespans had increased dramatically.
Originally, this should have been a good thing.
However, no one knew whether something had gone wrong during the artificial evolution process or whether there was some other reason.
Most of the new humans had very low sexual desire.
It was not that they had completely lost their desires.
Rather, most people simply found neither the opposite sex nor even the same sex particularly attractive anymore.
Love at first sight was almost unheard of.
Many married couples treated each other like ice-cold strangers for years.
When they wanted children, they simply used artificial insemination and had the babies developed outside the body.
Some people even chose never to marry or have children at all.
As a result, the birth rate fell sharply every year.
There had even been several decades when the birth rate was practically zero.
The Population Management Bureau was created under these circumstances.
It was responsible for population-related matters.
Its main job was now to encourage adult men and women to date, get married, and have children.
For those who absolutely refused to marry, the bureau would strongly persuade them to have a child through artificial external gestation.
Because Tao She and his fellow soldiers spent most of their time fighting on battlefields outside the stars, they became prime targets for the Population Management Bureau whenever they finally received leave.
Every time, Tao She was harassed until he could barely stand it.
This time, he had simply hidden himself on the Star Network.
Hehe!
From now on, he would finally be free from all that harassment!
Tao She was secretly delighted.
He felt like he had returned to the days when he was a young boy in middle school.
As soon as A-Wu logged off the Star Network, she received a message from the stall owner.
Tao She: Are you free tomorrow? I only finished scanning several more medicinal plants onto the Star Network tonight. Come tomorrow and see if there’s anything you need.
A-Wu curled her lips into a smile.
She was quite pleased.
This man really had good business sense!
He even knew how to invest in a potential customer early.
He was much better than that greedy merchant she had worked with before.
A-Wu decided that once she started producing pills, she would give him priority when selling them.
At that moment, the alchemist A-Wu had absolutely no idea that Tao She had been affected by the natural charm she unconsciously released through her cultivation technique.
Because of that, whenever Tao She faced her, his hormones surged, causing him to experience what was essentially “love” from a biological and biochemical perspective.
A-Wu politely replied:
Lin Wu: Thank you for the invitation. I have some things to take care of recently, so I won’t be able to come onto the Star Network for a while. I’ll contact you later.
It was already very late.
As someone who had only reached the first level of Qi Refining, A-Wu felt extremely tired.
After washing up, she went to bed peacefully.
That night, A-Wu dreamed that she had successfully refined all kinds of pills.
Her medicines became wildly popular throughout the entire galaxy.
She had more credits than she could ever spend.
She bought every piece of equipment she could possibly use.
Expensive medicinal herbs were piled into mountains, far more than she could ever finish using.
Several young assistants served her.
One controlled the fire.
One sorted the herbs.
Another stood beside her and waved a fan for her.
Even her bed was built entirely from supreme-grade spiritual stones…
A-Wu almost laughed herself awake.
How many years had it been since she last dreamed?
And when she finally dreamed, it was such a beautiful dream.
Sigh~
The next morning, after waking up, A-Wu was still thinking about that huge bed made entirely of supreme-grade spiritual stones.
She decided to make it her new life goal.
After all, a person needed dreams.
What if one day it actually came true?