Chapter 2
Xia Anran stared at the two black boxes, locked in a standoff for several minutes before cautiously reaching out with a nearby cup and giving one a gentle tap.
It was solid. It moved. It didn’t explode.
Emboldened, she poked it with her finger, only to have it slide effortlessly across her rough plastic table.
It was as if it had no friction.
Just as it was about to fall off the edge, Xia Anran reflexively caught it with her hands, then snatched them back a second later. The surface was smooth and cool, feeling like metal and plastic at the same time. It was also absurdly light, weighing no more than a sheet of paper.
While she was still inspecting these two mysterious objects that had appeared from nowhere, her phone buzzed with a text message. She pulled it out to see a bank transfer notification: 150 yuan had been deposited into her account.
The exact price of the fruit she had sold.
If Xia Anran had thought it was just an elaborate prank during the livestream, seeing these two trans-dimensional black boxes now planted a ludicrous theory in her mind.
Had she somehow connected to an alternate dimension’s livestreaming platform?
A thought struck her. She navigated to the app on her phone and saw that it had indeed changed. It was no longer the one she had downloaded. The icon was now a dark red planet, and the app’s name was a simple, blunt “Livestream.”
She opened it and found the interface had changed as well. There were only two pages: one for streaming and one for her personal profile.
Her profile showed she was currently Lv. 1, with only the permission to stream for ten minutes a day unlocked. Many other permissions below it were grayed out and unreadable, clearly not yet available.
Xia Anran’s mind was reeling. She even wondered if she was dreaming from lack of sleep. Could something like a “golden finger” from a novel really happen to her?
She sat down and took a moment to calm herself, deciding to first pack the fruit the viewers had ordered according to the instructions on the boxes. The two black containers were square, about the size of small speakers. Xia Anran held the five pounds of cherries and felt a surge of doubt. Could this thing really fit it all?
Trying to pack them in their original containers was impossible. Instead, she tried pouring them in. To her amazement, the seemingly shallow box never filled up. The cherries she poured in seemed to vanish into another dimension, disappearing into its depths. Even after putting in all five pounds, they only formed a thin layer at the bottom.
How incredible. What kind of black magic was this?
Xia Anran packed the other order the same way. After closing the lid, the box beeped and a green light flashed on. A screen, like an LCD display, appeared on the lid, showing a dialog box asking her to confirm if the packaging was complete.
She tapped “Yes.” The two black boxes beeped twice more and then, just as they had appeared, vanished into thin air.
Her entire worldview upended in the span of half an hour, Xia Anran now focused her full attention on studying this livestreaming app, determined to figure out what this divine—or demonic—thing truly was.
What she didn’t know was that her brief broadcast had just unleashed a tidal wave across human civilization nearly ten thousand years in the future.
….
In the year 3550 of the Earth Calendar, a planet’s orbit shifted, causing it to explode near Earth. Humanity was forced to hastily initiate the Interstellar Drift Project. After drifting through the cosmos for years, they left the Milky Way and found a new, habitable planet.
This new planet was part of a vast star system, with other planets inhabited by Beastmen, native interstellar species, and more. Humans settled on a world with water and oxygen, but on this new home, none of Earth’s other life forms existed. Plants and animals became a permanent memory.
Over ten thousand years had passed since that great migration. Through long years of integration with their various neighbors and evolutionary development, humanity’s territory had expanded to nearly ten planets, now known as the United Star System.
The few seeds and saplings brought from Earth during the hasty evacuation were lost during the initial struggles for survival against their interstellar neighbors. From then on, the flora and fauna of their mother planet vanished completely, existing only in history textbooks.
To the common person, plants and animals were now just symbols, relics of a bygone era, viewed much like people of the past viewed dinosaurs. They knew they existed and had a vague idea of what common ones looked like, but they were ignorant of any specific academic details. Only those in ancient history research and the Science Academy were more familiar.
Humanity had never given up on re-cultivating plants and animals. The Science Academy had ongoing projects dedicated to it, but too much time had passed. The data was incomplete, and the projects had stalled.
….
Cheng Cheng, a researcher at the United Star System’s Life Science Research Institute—the Science Academy for short—had also been scrolling through streams as she was getting ready to rest after work when she stumbled upon Xia Anran’s channel.
As it happened, Cheng Cheng was currently assigned to the Plant Revival Project. She recognized at a glance that the things in the host’s room were Earth’s lychees and cherries!
She had seen restored photographs, and they looked nearly identical. Her first reaction was also that it was synthesized imaging. The current United Star System government used synthesized images of plants to beautify cityscapes, and the technology was strictly controlled. Private broadcasting of such images was forbidden. When she had accused Xia Anran of breaking the law, she wasn’t bluffing.
Getting caught could lead to a prison sentence of at least ten years.
Just as Cheng Cheng was about to contact the moderators, she saw the host actually open a lychee and eat it! Before she could even type a comment, a purchase page popped up. She frantically clicked to order, but in the end, she only managed to snag five pounds of cherries and two pounds of lychees.
After her impassioned purchase, she slapped her forehead. It could still be a technological synthesis! And she had already spent her Star Coins!
She felt like she’d been scammed.
Her, a respected researcher at the United Star System’s Natural Science Research Institute, duped by such an obvious trick? If word got out, how could she ever show her face again!
Before she could wallow in regret, her mailbox chimed, alerting her to a new delivery.
Could it be the fruit she just ordered? The thought popped into her head, as if by some strange magic. With a nervous heart, she opened her home’s delivery station. Sure enough, inside lay a package wrapped in the thin, flexible spun glass that was now commonly used.
She carefully opened it. Inside, neatly arranged, were real lychees and cherries.
Cheng Cheng froze, her hands and feet stiff, her mouth agape wide enough to fit an egg.
A fresh, fragrant aroma she had never smelled before wafted from the fruit in the spun glass. She couldn’t describe the scent; it was like a sudden rush of oxygen into a deep, gloomy haze.
After the initial shock, she grabbed the box of fruit, burst out of her dorm room, and sprinted towards the research institute.
“Professor! Everyone, come quick! I got fruit!!”
….
Having received his lychees, Yu Yingkai went through the same shock as Cheng Cheng before he couldn’t resist picking one up. Mimicking Xia Anran, he peeled it open and cautiously placed it in his mouth.
The moment the sweet juice of the lychee exploded on his tongue, Yu Yingkai was so blissful he could have cried. From now on, his family tree would have to have a special column just for him, with the four great words: “Has Eaten Real Fruit”!
He couldn’t help but eat two more before carefully storing the rest. He then opened the stream viewing history on his photon-computer, exported Xia Anran’s broadcast, added a title, and posted it directly to the StarNet.
“ANCIENT FRUIT APPEARS! UNBELIEVABLY DELICIOUS!!!”
With its eye-catching title, the video quickly went viral.
“What is that!! WHAT IS THAT!!!”
“Is that really fruit? I regret not paying attention in Ancient Biology class!”
“@UnitedStarSystemLifeScienceResearchInstitute WAKE UP, SAY SOMETHING!”
“Ahhh, I can see the juice! I can’t imagine how good it tastes.”
“Is it really a plant from the mother planet? I’m so excited.”
“This host looks like an unevolved pure-strain human. Does anyone know her?!”
“Someone from the Science Academy, speak up! You post every little thing on the StarNet, this is killing me!”
“Instantly followed the host. Waiting for the next stream.”
The Science Academy, being frantically @-mentioned, was in complete chaos. Several of the nation’s most senior professors were gathered in the top-secret A1 Laboratory, running a full-spectrum analysis on the fruit Cheng Cheng had brought.
When Cheng Cheng handed over the fruit, she had tried to ask if she could keep just one to taste. She was met with a firm, heartless refusal, though they did kindly offer to reimburse her for the purchase.
I should have snuck a bite first! Cheng Cheng was green with regret, watching pitifully as her fruit was carried away.
The test results were quickly processed by the star system’s most advanced instruments. The ancient bacteria found on the fruit’s surface were carefully collected by the professors from the biology department, who treated them like priceless treasures. They placed them in a state-of-the-art incubator worth almost as much as a high-end mecha and walked away, grinning from ear to ear.
After confirming that it was, indeed, real fruit, the group of old professors crowded around the analysis table, unable to look away. They had studied ancient civilizations their entire lives but never imagined they would see real plants and fruit!
In the end, it was the old director of the Science Academy, Director Li, who made the final decision, allocating the fruit to different departments for separate research on structure and cultivation.
The professors who received their portion clutched the isolation containers like precious babies and rushed back to their respective labs. The guards watched, dumbfounded, at their lightning speed. These people were nearly two hundred years old, yet they were still so spry.
….
Yu Yingkai, who had just posted the video, was happily lying in bed scrolling through comments when his smart doorbell suddenly rang.
“ALERT. A VISITOR FROM THE UNITED STAR SYSTEM POLICE. PLEASE OPEN THE DOOR. A VISITOR FROM THE UNITED STAR SYSTEM POLICE. PLEASE OPEN THE DOOR.”
Yu Yingkai shot up from his bed. Baffled, he opened the door, only to have his fruit forcibly confiscated “in support of the Science Academy’s research efforts.” He was left with a compensation of 10,000 Star Coins.
Clutching the compensation funds, Yu Yingkai was on the verge of tears. He could only console himself with the fact that he’d at least eaten a few. He got a taste.
But then, the Star System police officer, who had just started to leave, suddenly stopped and shot a sharp glance back at him. “Sir, has any portion of this fruit been consumed?”
Yu Yingkai: “…!”
Holy crap, they can even tell that?!
…
Far away on Earth, tens of thousands of years in the past, Xia Anran also spent a restless night. The next morning, as soon as the livestream timer refreshed, she logged on and saw that she once again had ten minutes of broadcast time.
And her follower count had skyrocketed to thirty million overnight!
Xia Anran took a deep breath and, with the grim determination of a martyr, hit the “Go Live” button.
The moment the stream started, her screen was flooded with a tidal wave of bullet comments.
“SHE’S FINALLY LIVE!!! THE PLANTS, I WANT TO SEE THE PLANTS!”
“Fruit beauty, I’m here!”
“We want to see the fruit! Hurry up, host!”