Chapter 104: Departure, Heading to the Desert

"Comrade Qin Yun, I'm truly grateful—if it weren't for you, those poachers would have succeeded in taking the forest musk deer again."

The police team leader was a middle-aged man around fifty, weathered and worn, named Ju Eben; after handling the matter, he gripped Qin Yun's hand in thanks, his awkward Mandarin sounding strange to the ear.

Qin Yun smiled: "Just luck—I happened to be there. These men are desperate and likely have blood on their hands; you must interrogate them thoroughly."

Ju Eben understood Qin Yun's implication and assured him repeatedly that he would conduct a strict interrogation.

Under the escort of several officers, as Qin Yun exited the police station, he saw an elderly man, tall but haggard, rushing in from outside.

Qin Yun felt he recognized him, and glanced again.

The young police officer beside him, Dong Zhou Jiacuo, whispered: "Comrade Qin, he's Dong Eluo—the forest ranger from the area where you encountered the poachers—and he's also the grandfather of the young man among the four poachers."

Qin Yun suddenly understood—no wonder the poachers headed straight for their target; they knew the musk deer's habitat range. There was a traitor inside.

…

The next day, Qin Yun continued driving, not rushing straight to his destination despite the system's check-in task.

Today was November 3rd; twelve days remained until November 15th. Excluding the five days required to complete the system's check-in task, he still had seven days left.

Seven days to tour Qinghaihu and the Qilian Mountains grasslands was more than enough.

In fact, he estimated he would arrive at the Qaidam Desert even earlier than planned.

Yesterday, he carefully analyzed this check-in task: travel to the Qaidam Basin Desert and survive five days in the wilderness—Survival succeeded means the task is completed (no equipment allowed except a drone, one dagger, a backpack, and a set of clothing).

The Qaidam Desert is a high-altitude desert, extremely arid, cold, with shifting sands; food and water are the greatest obstacles to survival. The system requires surviving five days in the desert, and at the end of those five days, Survival succeeded must be achieved.

It seems simple, but the difficulty is maxed out.

The danger level may even exceed summiting Yaomei Peak. Due to his own abilities, the main danger of summiting Yaomei Peak lies in sudden severe weather; the actual difficulty remains within his capability.

But surviving in the desert is different.

For ordinary people, the Qaidam Desert's high altitude first brings altitude sickness, extreme day-night temperature differences—carelessness leads to headaches, vomiting, hypothermia, frostbite.

Second, the Qaidam Desert receives less than 50mm of annual rainfall but loses 3000mm to evaporation; surface water is nearly nonexistent. Though salt lakes are scattered everywhere, their high salinity and toxic substances make them undrinkable—risk of death emerges after just 24 hours without water.

There's also complex terrain: soft sand zones, where stepping in causes instant sinking—the more you struggle, the deeper you sink; solo self-rescue is nearly impossible. Salt crusts are hard and sharp as knives, easily cutting through soles and lacerating limbs. The entire desert is riddled with gullies and ravines, making navigation extremely easy to lose; ordinary people cannot determine direction.

Beyond that, there are countless other lethal dangers that cannot be ignored.

For Qin Yun, the system imposed further restrictions on this check-in task: apart from the drone, dagger, backpack, and one water bottle, absolutely nothing else could be carried—the difficulty was truly maxed out.

He glanced at the map's navigation: from his current location to the Qinghaihu Scenic Area, nearly seven hundred kilometers, requiring a full nine hours on the highway.

He planned to drive to Qinghaihu today, stay overnight there, and begin sightseeing tomorrow.

Around noon, Qin Yun received a call from Han Wei.

"Comrade Qin, is now a good time for a call?"

"Yeah, I'm on the highway—hands-free. Go ahead."

"So, yesterday I contacted Douyin—they actually had the same idea and are willing to buy out the playback rights for the Yaomei Peak episode in a co-creation format, for a total of 1.5 million."

"That high?" Qin Yun was startled. "Isn't that price too steep?"

Han Wei laughed: "They don't do losing deals. After analysis, they'll re-edit the two days of footage into ten episodes for broadcast. The 1.5 million is a buyout fee—any further profits are none of your concern."

"Still, it's unexpected income—thank you." Qin Yun was delighted. "When I go to Shanghai, I'll treat you to dinner."

"I'll hold you to that. I've already sent you their contact—add them and sign the contract to finalize the process."

"Got it."

The next service area wasn't far; after ending the call with Han Wei, Qin Yun exited the highway.

At the service area, after adding Douyin's official contact, he signed the contract and handed the matter over to Su Huan.

"Thanks for this—there'll likely be plenty more follow-up work."

"No trouble at all—if a little trouble can earn me 1.5 million, I'd welcome more of your problems."

"Haha, true enough." Qin Yun ate his burger and asked, "How've you been? Still busy with work at the company?"

"Uh… fine, just the usual stuff."

As soon as he finished speaking, his phone vibrated. He looked down—it was Fang Nan's WeChat message, and its content made his pupils contract slightly.

【Brother Yun, Sister Huan quit her job at Alibaba. Did you know about this?】

He didn't reply to Fang Nan. Instead, he took a deep breath, gripping his phone: "Su Huan, Fang Nan just sent me a WeChat."

The other end fell silent instantly.

Su Huan's expression froze, then she smiled bitterly: "That blabbermouth, Xiao Nan."

"I quit voluntarily—it's no big deal. With my experience, finding another job is a snap. I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to worry."

Listening to the confident tone over the phone, Qin Yun laughed: "Of course it's a snap—but finding someone else who can spare time to help me? That's unknown. Why not just work for me full-time?"

"..."

Seeing no reply, Qin Yun continued: "My income's growing steadily, and your role is so crucial—I can't trust it to anyone else."

"You could hire someone more professional..."

Before she finished, Qin Yun interrupted: "Will anyone else care about me as much as you do? You're the only person I trust more than my mother. Of course, if you truly don't want to, I won't force you."

"Who said I don't want to?" Su Huan's heart warmed, but her tone remained stiff. "Since you're begging me so earnestly, refusing would be unkind. Besides, you're right—no one else will care about you like your old class monitor."

"Then I, your chairman, entrust myself to you, CEO."

"Smooth talker—we're just two people in a studio, and you're talking chairman and CEO."

Qin Yun thought: "How about we add a few more people? Don't outsource finance anymore. Hire your own assistant. The rest you decide."

"You don't need to worry about that—leave it to me." Now that she'd dropped her reserve, Su Huan didn't hold back. "I'll rent a new office. My salary? Twenty thousand a month. Okay?"

"No."

Su Huan froze, about to speak, when the phone said: "Twenty thousand won't cover anything. Whatever you made at Alibaba, keep it. Bonus included. Don't save money on yourself."

"Fifty thousand is too much!"

"Not enough." Qin Yun chuckled. "You're the CEO—I think fifty thousand is too little. If I weren't broke, I'd pay you five hundred thousand a month."

"Yeah, right."

Su Huan didn't put on airs either—she'd carefully calculated Qin Yun's income too, and paying her this salary was nothing more than a drop in the bucket.

The two quickly settled the matter.

After hanging up, Qin Yun sent a reply to Fang Nan, then got back in the car and hit the road again.

At seven that evening, he finally arrived at the hotel he'd booked in advance—Yunmei View Hotel. This hotel was only one kilometer from the main gate of the Qinghaihu scenic area, making travel extremely convenient.

……

In November, Qinghaihu had shed the bustle of summer and autumn; looking out, there was nothing left but a blue so still it reached the extreme.

The lake water was deeper than ever, like a giant sapphire. It stretched from the shore all the way to the horizon, joining the snow line of the distant mountains, so that you couldn't tell where the lake ended and the sky began.

The lake was beautiful, but the grassland was withered yellow, not green.

At this season, Qinghaihu was in its tourist off-season—no crowded throngs, no noisy chatter, only the wind, the soft slap of waves against the shore, and the vast, bleak emptiness of Qinghaihu.

That kind of emptiness made Qin Yun feel as if his whole state of mind had been emptied out in an instant.

Clean, biting, lonely—and yet so beautiful it was suffocating.

He'd never experienced this kind of beauty before; the moment he encountered it, he was utterly captivated. He strolled along the lake shore, gazing out over the boundless water. Occasionally a few waterbirds unwilling to migrate south skimmed low across the surface, like a delicate oil painting.

He'd originally planned to head to Chaka Salt Lake that afternoon, but the whole day he was immersed in Qinghaihu's chill, unable to pull himself away.

Only when the horizon dimmed and the starry sky emerged did he let out a long breath and gather himself back in.

Over the next few days, he rode the little train at Chaka Salt Lake, went to the Qilian Mountain grasslands to experience Tibetan culture and the smoke and fire of herding life, and also went to Gangshika Snow Peak for an impromptu session of extreme skiing.

Finally, on November 8th, his figure quietly appeared at a local helicopter rental company, ready to charter a helicopter into the heart of the desert.

Because the Qaidam Desert was so vast, trekking across it on foot would take an extremely long time; but if you just walked in from the edge, the first several dozen kilometers were all roads and villages—far too low-key. That was a completely different thing from going wilderness-surviving in the Greater Khingan Range.

So from the start he had to go deep into the uninhabited area of the Qaidam Desert, not just enter the desert and pretend to be in distress.

After chatting with the staff for a moment, Qin Yun rented a Bell 408GX helicopter, priced at 17,000 per hour, with the high-altitude skydiving gear extra.

Once the price was agreed and the payment made, Qin Yun headed back to the hotel.

Helicopters aren't like cars—you can't just take one whenever you want. You have to file a flight route; otherwise, if you fly around blindly, you could easily be shot down as an intruder.

That same evening, he received a message from the rental company at the hotel: the filing had been approved, and they could take off at four o'clock the next afternoon.

The time slot was a bit late, but he didn't take it to heart. He immediately told Su Huan about it, then set up a livestream preview on his backend.

【November 9th, 4 p. m., coordinates: Qaidam Desert. Continuing the legendary saga of the wilds—see you there, rain or shine.】

The moment this preview went up, countless fans of Qin Yun rushed to spread the word. In less than an hour, his livestream reservations broke a million—for an ordinary person, that was an absolute ceiling-level figure.

Even many A-list celebrities would struggle to have his kind of buzz.

Tieba 【Qin Ye】

"Qin Ye doesn't even have a Weibo, that's rough—not even a place to chat."

"Qin Ye's off to the desert this time. Anyone know anything about this Qaidam Desert? I only know the Qaidam Basin."

"Looking forward to it. One day without watching Qin Ye's livestream, one day of suffering."

"Gan!"

"Qin Ye's a real man—the ad-hoc wilderness survival expert is coming online."

"Hahahahaha."

Lying on the hotel bed, Qin Yun looked at the message Su Huan had sent, thought for a moment, then downloaded Weibo, registered, and verified his real name.

Unfortunately, the verification would take two or three days.

The Weibo name he registered was "The Versatile Qin Yun." He'd originally wanted to just go with "Qin Yun," but Weibo wouldn't allow it because it was already taken. On Douyin, by contrast, duplicate names didn't matter.

Once registered, he posted the preview there as well.

Netizens are resourceful—they didn't even need Qin Yun to promote it; before long, people were showing up at his door.

"The real Qin Ye?"

"Fake, right?"

"Checking in first!"