Chapter 21: Looking for Editing

"Hey, Mr. Qin, are you still in Hebei?"

Qin Yun looked at the caller ID—it showed the name of the Hebei Baoding Traffic Police Brigade.

"Sorry, I've already left Hebei. What's this about?"

The other side let out an immediate sigh of disappointment: "We were planning to invite you here to hold an award ceremony for your act of bravery, but since you're not around, we'll just mail you the medal."

"There's a medal too?"

"Not just the medal—there's also a cash reward, but the financial approval process takes longer; we'll contact you once we have news. Where should we send the medal?"

Qin Yun immediately gave his hometown address in Zhoushan.

"Mr. Qin, I've noted it down. Thank you again for lending a hand and saving several families. Also, the families of the accident victims want to thank you—would you mind…?"

Qin Yun quickly refused: "No need, no need, absolutely don't reveal my contact information."

"Understood. We won't give out your contact details without your permission—rest assured."

After hanging up, Qin Yun didn't ask how much the reward was—he hadn't saved lives for the money.

Today was the second day after the rock climbing.

He hadn't felt particularly tired while climbing, but once he descended the mountain, his body reacted. It wasn't physical exhaustion—it was the intense mental focus that left him utterly drained.

He only recovered after a good sleep.

Now, recalling the entire climb, except for the first twenty or thirty meters, every other section was a life-or-death crisis. Had he not shed all his fears and relied on the skills that gave him complete control, his old psychological state would have been insufficient.

Though after reviewing it, he saw many areas for improvement, he could still take pride in having completed his first free solo climb at the risk of his life.

This wasn't a carefree climb—it was a death-defying act.

Watching the full video replay, he couldn't help but say to himself: "Awesome!"

He imported all footage from the four cameras into his computer, but stared at the material, unsure what to do. Though his photography skill was now master-level, he'd never learned editing.

Fortunately, basic editing was simple—he downloaded Jianying, studied it for hours, and soon learned how to cut and delete clips.

Of course, how to make it visually appealing or how to stitch shots together dramatically? He had no clue.

Looking at the computer screen filled with footage like a mundane ledger, Qin Yun sighed—each craft has its specialists, and understanding comes at different times: "Forget it—I'll ask in the class group later if anyone knows someone who can help."

What Qin Yun didn't know was that a surveillance camera near Shanzi Cliff at Mount Taishan had recorded his leap and grip on the rock ledge. Though the distance made details unclear, it was unmistakably a human figure.

At the monitoring center, the security team stared at the footage, dumbfounded and speechless.

"C…Captain…isn't this AI? I heard AI's gotten really powerful these days."

"AI your head—it's our own surveillance footage, not AI."

Captain Hu, furious, immediately ordered more surveillance cameras installed—no such incidents would be allowed again. If someone got stuck on Mount Taishan, it would hurt the scenic area's revenue.

The scenic area's revenue was the security team's revenue; the security team's revenue was Hu Daming's revenue.

Qin Yun had lunch at the hotel, then set off again, planning to drive straight through Shandong and Jiangsu into Anhui.

But as soon as he got on the highway, he received a WeChat voice call from Su Huan.

"What? You're still in Shandong? It's been five or six days already—how come you haven't even left Shandong? Is Shandong more fun than our big Hebei?"

When Qin Yun said he was still at Mount Taishan, Su Huan was speechless.

"It's okay, pretty fun."

"Pfft! What's there in Shandong besides Mount Taishan?" Su Huan defended big Hebei.

"Where's the best excavator training?"

Su Huan blurted out: "Blue翔 in Shandong, China!"

Then she sighed: "I give up."

"Hahaha…" Qin Yun laughed. "I'm on the highway now—planning to drive straight to Anhui today. If all goes well, I'll reach Hangzhou tomorrow."

"Fine. Call me when you get to Hangzhou—I promised you Xihu vinegar fish, and I'll deliver."

"I'll change course right now."

"You dare!"

They chatted and laughed for a few more minutes; when Qin Yun hung up, his car had already entered the Beijing-Taiwan Expressway.

As he drove, he pondered his path in self-media.

Rock climbing was definitely a direction—especially free solo climbing like his, which would surely attract traffic. But such dangerous acts could only be occasional; too many times, if luck ran out, he'd die.

Rock climbing has many forms, though—it doesn't have to be unprotected. Like the Dawn Wall—no one does free solo; everyone uses protection. Even so, globally, very few can truly summit the Dawn Wall.

Free solo climbing can be done—but not often.

Qin Yun made up his mind.

"Now that I have the rock climbing skill and botanical knowledge, could wilderness challenges be a good alternative?"

Rock climbing gave him superior physical fitness; botany let him easily find edible plants in the wild—perfect for wilderness challenges.

"Or maybe I could try learning from Bear Grylls or Bear Grylls-style survival? But besides my physical fitness and botany, I lack other wilderness knowledge—biology, medicine, cooking, and other essential survival skills. With just these two, I wouldn't make it."

After all, danger lurks everywhere in the wild—a single insect bite could send you vomiting and diarrhea.

After thinking it over, Qin Yun decided wilderness challenges sounded unreliable.

For a moment, his head ached from overthinking.

"Forget it—I'll take it one step at a time. First, upload the first video and see how it goes."

He stopped overthinking, pressed the accelerator deeper, and the car's speed gradually increased.

Three and a half hours later, the car entered Jiangsu; less than an hour after that, he crossed into Anhui, arriving in Huabei.

When it came to Anhui, 99% of Chinese people only knew Huangshan.

But Qin Yun had specifically researched Anhui in high school, because Anhui held a special place in Zhoushan.

Zhoushan people weren't exactly discriminatory—when they saw someone messy or unkempt, they'd say: "Looks like Anhui Ning." On one hand, there were many Anhui people in Zhoushan; on the other, Anhui's GDP was indeed low, especially with severe regional imbalance.

But after researching Anhui in high school, Qin Yun's impression of it was different.

Anhui has both the majestic wonder of mountains and rivers, and a cultural lineage stretching back to ancient times.

The mountains here are unrivaled under heaven for their four absolutes: "Pine, Strange Rocks, Sea of Clouds, Hot Springs." The waters here surge eastward, nourishing the fish-and-rice land of the alluvial plain along the river. The cultural lineage here carries a thousand years of depth.

When it comes to tourism, Anhui is not inferior to any place in the country.

But honestly, after Qin Yun got off the highway and wandered around for a bit, he found that Anhui's development was really just so-so, nowhere near comparable to Zhejiang. No wonder so many people from Anhui leave home to seek their fortunes in the Jiangsu-Zhejiang-Shanghai area.

Qin Yun didn't stop, driving all the way to Huainan City before finding a hotel to stay at.

Speaking of Huainan, many people surely only know Huainan beef soup. Qin Yun was no different, but he also knew the tomb of the King of Huainan, Liu An, who is said to have invented tofu. So Qin Yun planned to go to Shou County tomorrow to take a look and snap some photos along the way.

For dinner, a bowl of beef soup, a bowl of Bagong Mountain tofu, and a Machang chicken—quite a taste of the local specialties.

But he found that the beef soup here was nothing like what he'd eaten in Beijing. The broth here is slow-simmered over an open flame for over eight hours, fragrant and savory, growing richer with every sip. The one he'd had in Beijing, on the other hand, was salty as well as fragrant.

He asked the shop owner, who said that the soup base outside the area is basically mixed with artificial flavoring—there's no way it's slow-simmered like theirs.

After dinner, he returned to the hotel, sat down at the computer, and began studying Jianying.

But in his college group chat, he asked casually: "Anyone have a channel for video editing? Paid!"

Unexpectedly, the first person to respond was Su Huan.

"You have video that needs editing?" Su Huan got straight to the point. "It wouldn't happen to be footage from your trip, would it?"

Qin Yun replied: "Yeah, footage from Mount Taishan."

Su Huan was still working overtime at that moment, sitting in a brightly lit office, utterly speechless, her ten fingers flying across the keyboard: "Are you so flush with cash you're burning a hole in your pocket? You're actually paying to edit travel footage? Are you out of your mind?"

Qin Yun glanced at the video of himself hanging off a cliff on Jianying and thought, well, I guess this counts as travel footage.

"Cut the crap. Just asking if you have a channel. Paid."

Su Huan: "Give me a moment, I'll ask. I'll get back to you in five minutes."

"Okay."

Su Huan thought for a moment, then sent a WeChat message to a former subordinate at the company: "Xiao Nan, are you still doing self-media?"

The other side first replied with a question mark, then answered: "Sister Huan, I don't do it anymore. I only know editing, not operations or planning. I couldn't think of any fun track to get into, so I just stopped for now. Recently I'm planning to partner up with a few friends to open an advertising company."

"Oh, a friend of mine shot some travel footage and wants to get a video cut. Can you take this on?"

"Sure, what kind of travel footage? How many minutes do you want it cut to? Any special effects requirements, or just plain editing?"

"Uh... let me ask. Roughly what price range?"

"For ordinary travel footage, a thousand will do it. If the requirements are higher, the price goes up accordingly."

"Okay, hold on a sec."

After wrapping up the WeChat with Fang Nan, Su Huan switched over to Qin Yun's chat window.

"Asked for you. For ordinary travel footage, a thousand yuan will do it. Send me the materials and I'll pass them along to ask about the specific price."

Qin Yun thought for a moment—the full footage was too large, definitely couldn't be sent over: "I'll export a rough cut first, send it to him to take a look."

"Send it over."

Qin Yun immediately exported the video from Jianying—a full fifty minutes of footage, and the export itself took over ten minutes.

Su Huan looked at the file size of the video in her email and was instantly speechless: "Bro, 15 gigabytes—what did you even shoot?"

"Just ordinary camera shots, everything's in there."

"Fine, I'll download it first."

Su Huan was done with Qin Yun. Watching the download speed, it was obvious it wasn't going to finish anytime soon. So she simply stopped paying attention to it and went back to handling her own work.

Meanwhile, on Qin Yun's end, he kept getting private messages from a few people in the college group chat, but he turned them all down on the grounds that he already had someone introduced.

Around eleven at night, Qin Yun, half-asleep, was woken by the phone ringing.

He swiped his phone screen, and instantly a roar came from the other end: "Qin Yun, are you out of your mind? Something that dangerous and you actually dared to do it."