ABSTIWTVMST Chapter 145

When Jing Yicheng got up, he even claimed that he was a professional in treating insomnia, and told Xu Chenghao to come to him in the future instead of bottling things up alone.

Xu Chenghao: “……”

Xu Chenghao rubbed his waist and made it clear he didn’t want to talk to him.

After breakfast, under normal circumstances, the usually free Xu Chenghao would accompany Jing Yicheng to the research institute. But today was different—today was chili harvest day!

To Xu Chenghao, this day was of utmost importance. After all, he’d been waiting anxiously for a whole fifteen days, and now the results were finally in. He was beyond impatient and only wanted to go see his peppers! As far as he was concerned, nothing—and no one—was more important than those chilies today!

So, Xu Chenghao turned down Jing Yicheng’s invitation to go out together and cheerfully announced that he would be heading to the chili base on his own.

Jing Yicheng was stunned for a few seconds, then tried to reason with him: “It’s only 9:47 in the morning. Your peppers aren’t due to ripen until 4 in the afternoon. Going this early is pointless. Why not spend more time with me instead? I’ll go with you later to harvest them.”

But Xu Chenghao refused to be rational: “Nope, I’m going. I want to see the chilies.”

Jing Yicheng stared at him silently, his dark eyes full of grievance: “So you’re not planning to have lunch with me?”

Xu Chenghao retorted, “If I don’t have lunch, would you really let me starve?”

“…No,” Jing Yicheng already guessed what he was going to say.

 

As expected, Xu Chenghao said gently, “Then I’ll just wait for you at the chili base with the lunch you bring. That way, we can still eat together.”

Jing Yicheng: “……”

In the end, Jing Yicheng was defeated. He had no choice but to temporarily part ways with Xu Chenghao and head to the research institute. The whole way there, he kept a stern face while mentally reviewing how much work he had left—he needed to finish quickly so he could go accompany Haohao.

On the other side, Xu Chenghao also arrived at the chili base by car and sat quietly in the surveillance room, watching the state of the chilies in all the greenhouses.

The entire chili base was managed automatically by a central control system, requiring very little human involvement. The only two positions needed were a gatekeeper and an electrician, but they would never appear in the planting area. So after watching for a short while, Xu Chenghao realized—the surveillance footage looked like a still image, with absolutely no changes.

Truly, literally no changes—after all, there wasn’t even a breeze inside the greenhouses.

Xu Chenghao leaned back in his chair, eyes fixed on the monitor, but his mind had already wandered and he started poking at the system: System.

The system ignored him.

Xu Chenghao tried again: System, are you sure the seeds you gave me really have a ninety percent success rate?

Still no response.

Xu Chenghao kept complaining: Have you been hacked or something? Ever since I got together with Jing Yicheng, you’ve changed. You’re no longer that serious, businesslike system I used to know.

【……】

As Xu Chenghao continued rambling, he suddenly had a revelation: Could it be that I messed up all three storyline routes, so the system glitched and started going off the rails?

【Ding—Strictly speaking, Host has completed the second one, the ‘chrysanthemum pain’ storyline.】

Xu Chenghao thought back to last night’s “domestic violence” incident and couldn’t help but clear his throat awkwardly: Then why is there still the high-stakes gamble?

【Ding—What you’re meant to change is the ending. It has nothing to do with which storyline you complete, remember? Besides, you chose the third one—‘face hurts’ storyline—so the other two were automatically discarded and aren’t included in system evaluations. Therefore, I can’t offer you any feedback from those routes.】

Xu Chenghao: ……

That’s actually really logical… I have no way to argue with that.

After a long silence, Xu Chenghao suddenly asked: Then, System, do you want me to win or lose?

The system was silent for a moment, then gave a single response: 【Heehee】

Xu Chenghao: ……

Xu Chenghao had no idea why, but those two characters—“heehee”—sounded especially provocative, mocking, and just plain cheeky at that moment. His hatred meter shot straight to the max, and he seriously wanted to drag the system out and slap a big fat “heehee” right across its face.

So this basically meant the system didn’t want him to win, huh.

With that thought, Xu Chenghao’s anxiety surged dramatically. To avoid feeling irritated and uneasy, he tried to distract himself by turning his attention back to the surveillance screens and started seriously and solemnly counting how many little white flowers there were. Then… Xu Chenghao got so dizzy from counting that he slumped in the chair and fell asleep.

【…………】

When Jing Yicheng arrived carrying lunch, he saw the other curled up and fast asleep. He felt both amused and exasperated. Originally, he wanted to carry him to the break room, but the moment he wrapped his arms around him, Xu Chenghao snapped awake and defensively braced his hand against Jing Yicheng’s chest.

They stared at each other for a moment before Xu Chenghao finally relaxed and buried his face into Jing Yicheng’s chest. “You scared me.”

Jing Yicheng gently patted his back to soothe him. “Didn’t sleep well?”

“Mm, probably just an uncomfortable position.” After a brief pause to collect himself, Xu Chenghao perked up again. “You got here really early.”

“Of course. I was worried you’d be hungry.” Jing Yicheng looked at the little ingrate and had the urge to spank him. “Next time if you’re sleepy, go to the break room. Don’t sleep like this.”

Xu Chenghao gave a couple of noncommittal grunts, then opened the lunch boxes one by one. Seeing the two pairs of chopsticks, he immediately knew Jing Yicheng hadn’t eaten yet either and called out, “Come eat, come eat.”

Jing Yicheng pinched his earlobe. “You’re brushing me off again. If you don’t behave next time, I’ll twist your ears.”

Xu Chenghao was completely unfazed by this kind of threat and skillfully changed the subject. “You leaving in the afternoon?”

Jing Yicheng sat down beside him. “Staying with you, so you don’t end up with a stiff neck again.”

Xu Chenghao: “……”

It’s not like he fell asleep on purpose! That position was already super uncomfortable for him!

Unhappy, Xu Chenghao snatched a chicken wing from Jing Yicheng, took a few bites, then said, “Why don’t you go check the research base for me? If there’s traffic on the way back, I might not make it in time for the harvest.”

Jing Yicheng considered the distance—it really wasn’t close—so he nodded. “Alright, but it’s still early. Let’s eat first.”

Xu Chenghao nodded silently.

The two chatted while eating, and after lunch, they even took a walk through the greenhouses to help with digestion. But once it was past two o’clock, Xu Chenghao began to get anxious and kept urging Jing Yicheng to hurry over to the research base and make sure all the harvested chilies would be delivered on time.

Jing Yicheng had no choice but to leave. Once there was no one around to distract him, Xu Chenghao grew incredibly restless in the surveillance room. He paced back and forth, unsure how much time had passed, until finally—he heard the long-awaited alarm he had set when he planted the chilies. The moment it rang, it meant it was time for the harvest!

Xu Chenghao snapped his head up, staring intently at the surveillance feed.

Inside the greenhouses, countless vibrant green chili seedlings, originally adorned with beautiful little white flowers, began to transform. One by one, the flowers were replaced by bright red chilies. In less than three seconds, the entire view turned into a blazing sea of red. The central control system, pre-set to activate at this exact time, automatically triggered all the greenhouse machinery to begin harvest mode.

Seeing this, Xu Chenghao immediately headed to the warehouse to wait for the chilies to be delivered.

Because the yield was far greater than usual, it took a full ten minutes before the conveyor began to move. One bag after another was transported in. The robots, stationed in the corners, lit up at once and entered into full-on work mode.

Xu Chenghao held up his phone, temporarily using the memo app to record the numbers being reported.

“Task complete. Left side: 28,530. Right side: 39,731. Report complete.”

“Task complete. Left side: 9,088. Right side: 22,103. Report complete.”

“Task complete…”

Xu Chenghao did his best to keep up, recording all the figures as they came. Only when the conveyor belt finally stopped and the robots had finished sorting everything did he let out a long breath and shake out his hand… This was honestly the first time he had experienced such a grand-scale operation.

He glanced at the long string of numbers in his memo, silently saved and backed it up just in case of an accidental deletion. Then he returned to the surveillance room, pulled out the calculator, and started adding and subtracting.

Final result: 7.62 million chilies…

Xu Chenghao frowned, feeling uneasy about the current situation. Out of a target of forty million chilies, due to the crop cycle, there were only two chances to reach it. The minimum passing line was at least twenty million. Originally, he thought each of the two bases would average out to about ten million, making it possible. But now that the chili base had underperformed, who knew how the research base was doing…

On the other side, because the planting at the research base had been done a bit later, it was only just ramping up when Xu Chenghao finished his part. The downside of large-scale sowing was an equally heavy harvest workload. Fortunately, Jing Yicheng had prepared well—every robot and machine was deployed at maximum speed to harvest all the chilies and load them onto trucks.

That’s right—the quantity was so massive they needed trucks for transportation!

Worried that Xu Chenghao might be getting anxious, Jing Yicheng called him on the way to explain the situation and assured him that he would arrive soon.

Xu Chenghao quickly said, “I’m not in a hurry. Drive safely—don’t make calls while driving.”

Jing Yicheng replied, “There’s a driver. Don’t worry.”

Only then did Xu Chenghao feel relieved and told him everything on his end as well. With a furrowed brow, he said, “I’m really counting on the chilies you bring. If the numbers still fall short, I might have to use your pretty face to keep expanding the territory.”

Jing Yicheng comforted him, “It’s okay. If you need more land, just tell me.”

Xu Chenghao didn’t stand on ceremony and agreed immediately. Once they met up and tallied all the chilies, Xu Chenghao was hit with a headache—just as he feared, they were still short. The batch Jing Yicheng brought totaled 11 million chilies. Combined with the 7 million from the chili base, they only had 18 million. But the pass line was 20 million—they were short by a whole 2 million chilies.

Xu Chenghao stared at the final figures, feeling like his scalp was about to explode. He realized that if he wanted chilies, he’d have to throw money at the problem. Buy land! Buy a ton of land!!

Based on the data so far, the two chili bases were still 4 million chilies short of the target result. Even calculating at 50,000 chilies per mu of land, they’d need to buy a lot of land.

Xu Chenghao pulled from his own pocket and began expanding outward from the research base’s land, buying up as much as he could. If people wouldn’t sell, he’d lease for two weeks. The cost didn’t matter—what mattered was having the land now. Immediately. With extra money!

Jing Yicheng also contacted the research base and rented every available patch of land they had. After cobbling everything together, they finally scraped together 100 mu of land and sowed the chili seeds.

Then disaster struck—they ran out of seeds.

Having just resolved the land crisis, Xu Chenghao was hit by another wave of suffocating panic. After thinking it over, he stubbornly poked the system awake and righteously declared: I’m out of seeds. I demand a redistribution of seeds.

【……】

Xu Chenghao: Even though we’re standing on opposing sides in this high-stakes gamble, you’re not the kind of system that would refuse to provide support during the process and even kick me while I’m down, right?

【……】

 

The author has something to say:

System: Take a wild guess—do I seem like that kind of system to you?