Chapter 22: Touring Shouxian

Su Huan downloaded the video, originally thinking it was just a travel scenery clip.

But to her surprise, the person appearing in the frame was none other than her old classmate, and his first words nearly made her slide off her chair.

"Hello everyone, my name is Qin Yun. I'm currently at the north side of Fanzi Cliff, at the bottom of Qingtong Ravine. I'm an outdoor adventure enthusiast skilled in instrument repair, vehicle maintenance, photography, and rock climbing. This time, I'm going to challenge myself to free-climb Fanzi Cliff without any protective gear—my goal is one hundred meters…"

After saying those two sentences, Qin Yun began a series of maneuvers that made her heart nearly leap out of her chest.

She zoomed in on the video and confirmed there was absolutely no protective equipment on Qin Yun—he was truly free-climbing.

After watching the video, she was stunned, but at the same time, anger and dread rose from her chest, and without hesitation, she called Qin Yun.

As soon as the call connected, she shouted: "Qin Yun, have you lost your mind? How could you do something so dangerous?"

"What dangerous thing…"

The voice on the other end sounded drowsy, which made Su Huan even angrier.

"Have you ever thought what would happen if you fell? What if something went wrong—how would your mother cope? Haven't you even considered that?"

Qin Yun was jolted awake by her rapid-fire questions and instinctively pulled the phone away from his ear.

When she finally finished yelling, he held it to his ear and said: "I thought you were going to say something else. Turns out it's just this—don't look at it as dangerous; for climbers like us, it's simple."

"Bullshit!" Su Huan couldn't hold back her curse, "Do you think I'm stupid? I do parkour too."

"Uh… parkour and rock climbing are different."

"You bastard."

Su Huan hung up, stared at the video on her computer, and felt an inexplicable irritation.

After a long while, she calmed down.

"Hmph, if he falls to his death, good riddance—none of my business. Why should I even care?"

She forwarded the video to Fang Nan's email and then left for the day.

Meanwhile, Qin Yun, disturbed by Su Huan's outburst, had lost all sleepiness. Her words weren't without reason—he wasn't an ungrateful fool, and he wouldn't hold a grudge just because she yelled at him.

After scrolling through some videos, he was about to go back to sleep when suddenly a system voice echoed in his ear, and the system interface appeared before his eyes.

【Check-in Task: Please travel to Shouxian, locate a local tofu workshop, participate in the complete traditional process of tofu-making—including selecting beans, grinding pulp, and coagulating curds—personally make intangible cultural heritage ancient-method tofu, and take a photo with your finished product to complete the check-in.】

Qin Yun glanced at the task, closed the interface, and quickly fell asleep.

At the same time, in a rented apartment in Hangzhou, Fang Nan, who was scrolling on her phone in bed, heard the download completion alert from her computer and immediately got up.

Her slender frame carried a physique no ordinary person could match—long legs longer than most people's life lines, paired with exquisite features, she looked every bit a goddess.

She opened the video, and the screen instantly displayed a scene: a handsome guy was stretching his body while speaking.

But when she clearly heard what the guy in the video was saying, her mouth dropped open in disbelief.

For the next forty minutes, she witnessed what truly qualified as insane stunts.

"Whoa… is this even human? How bold can you get?"

Fang Nan couldn't believe the man in the video had truly climbed one hundred meters up Fanzi Cliff without any protection. One hundred meters might not sound like much—but this was a near-vertical cliff face; one mistake meant life or death.

Yet no matter how closely she examined the video's details, she found not a single trace of AI manipulation or post-production editing—by her professional standards, she could confirm the man in the video had truly free-climbed one hundred meters without any gear.

"My god, that's insane… if this goes on TikTok, it'll go viral for sure."

No sooner had the words left her mouth than Fang Nan suddenly jolted, a vague thought flashing through her mind.

Since quitting her job at Alibaba, she'd become obsessed with self-media—but after a year of trying countless content niches, she'd failed every time, and if she kept going, she'd likely end up on the ultimate borderline path.

She had confidence in her looks and figure. Even without any filters, her face and those long legs were more than enough to succeed on TikTok's borderline niche.

But she refused to do it—she thought borderline content was meaningless.

Although borderline videos, with their revealing clothing, suggestive movements, and implied language, could quickly grab user attention and easily achieve high likes, comments, and shares—quickly accumulating massive followers—

she looked down on this kind of low-grade sensory stimulation and its fleeting traffic.

"What if… what if I could…"

Staring at the frozen frame in the video, Fang Nan's eyes grew brighter, and she immediately reached for her phone to call Su Huan—but the next second realized it was already midnight.

After hesitating, she put the phone down.

"Tomorrow. I'll contact Huan-jie tomorrow."

…

The next morning, Qin Yun woke up in his hotel bed, pulled back the curtain, and saw a light drizzle—the rain had started sometime during the night, and water droplets clung to the windowpane.

After picking up a promotional brochure for Shouxian tourism at the front desk, Qin Yun decided to first visit the ancient city wall of Shouxian.

Shouxian's ancient city wall is the only one in China preserved intact from the Song Dynasty; since he'd come all this way, how could he not go? Standing atop the wall to gaze over the scenery inside and outside the ancient city would surely be uniquely fascinating.

Besides, Shouxian also housed the Baoen Chan Temple and the Confucian Temple, both originally built in the Northern Song Dynasty—both worth a visit. In short: since he'd come, he might as well see everything.

He parked his car in the lot, opened his umbrella, and walked to the entrance of Binyang Gate. Looking up, the Song Dynasty city wall appeared especially heavy in the misty rain—the bluish-gray bricks darkened by water, faintly bearing numerous weathered carvings.

Shouxian's ancient city wall has four gates: Binyang Gate to the east, Dinghu Gate to the west, Tongfei Gate to the south, and Jinghuai Gate to the north. The northeastern gates are ancient relics; the southwestern ones were restored in modern times.

Since he was here to see history, he'd focus on the authentic parts.

Binyang Gate was surrounded by a moat, its waters shimmering now, complementing the ancient wall in a uniquely captivating way.

At the staircase leading up to Binyang Gate, Qin Yun waited in line, paid ten yuan for a ticket, and successfully ascended the wall.

In ancient times, a commoner like him would never have been allowed to climb the wall—getting beheaded would've been the least he'd deserve; but now, times had changed: as a commoner, Qin Yun had paid only ten yuan to climb the wall and could freely admire it without fear of being killed.

On the rainy wall, there weren't many people—just a sparse few.

Qin Yun turned to look into the city and saw gray-tiled roofs stretching like fish scales, eaves arranged in orderly tiers—as if the entire ancient city's layout and a thousand years of vicissitudes had suddenly rushed toward him, threatening to pull him into China's most prosperous feudal era.

Qin Yun walked along the top of the wall, admiring the distant rolling Baga Mountains, absorbing the ancient city's atmosphere. With each step, his mood improved; occasionally he pulled out his phone to photograph the beauty before him.

"Brother, could you take a picture for us?"

Qin Yun turned at the voice and saw a young couple standing in the rain under oil-paper umbrellas, holding a camera.

He nodded—this time, he would reclaim the dignity he'd lost on the Great Wall.

"Of course."

He took the camera the boy handed him — a Nikon.

"Big bro, you just need to press the shutter button. I've already adjusted all the parameters."

Afraid Qin Yun would mess things up, the boy gave him a reminder.

Qin Yun made an OK gesture and grinned: "Leave it to me, don't worry."

Then, once the boy turned around, he instantly readjusted every parameter to suit the current rain, thoroughly scrambling the original ISO, white balance, and the rest.

Setting up the umbrella, Qin Yun looked left and right, then picked three suitable angles.

"First, one shot with the old city as the backdrop — you two stand right here. Yes, hold the umbrella a bit forward, miss, lean a little closer to your boyfriend… good…"

"Perfect. Now move over here — from this spot the framing will pull in the sky and the mountain ridges, the mood is extraordinary… come on, stand properly, tilt the umbrella a little, handsome, don't be so stiff — what kind of expression is that?"

The boy and girl had only meant to find a tool to press the shutter for them, but instead they'd landed themselves a wedding photographer. That string of instructions on posing left the two of them utterly dumbfounded.

Only when the shoot was done, the camera handed back, and the man had walked off into the distance did the two of them finally react.

The boy let out a wail at once: "Oh no — he definitely changed the parameters I set."

The girl, however, was in no rush; she pointed at the camera: "Let's take a look first."

The boy tapped the album to review. The instant the photo popped up, his expression changed completely. He looked at his girlfriend — she was the same. The two stared at each other.

"Did we… just run into a master?"

The mood of the photo was steeped in stillness, ease, and a poetic charm — a quality the pictures they'd taken themselves could never have captured.

When they looked up now, there was no trace of that person anywhere; he had already vanished into the fine rain.

Leaving aside the two's mixed feelings of wistfulness and pleasant surprise, Qin Yun descended the city tower and headed toward the inner ring road. When he reached Dasi Lane, a long, drawn-out bell chime drifted over, as if welcoming him.

Vermilion gates, a thousand-year-old ginkgo, bronze bells beneath the eaves of the temple jingled in the wind — mingling with the rain and the bell, the air was full of Zen.

Just as Qin Yun was touring Shouxian, Su Huan, who had arrived at the office, received a call from Fang Nan.

"Free? What do you mean?"

Su Huan was caught off guard by what Fang Nan said.

"I want to work with him. He can't edit, right? But I can."

Fang Nan was a little worked up — the idea from last night, after a whole night of fermenting, had him unable to hold back.

Su Huan reminded him: "Yesterday's video did have real viral potential, but he can't be free-climbing every time. That wouldn't be extreme sports anymore — that would be risking his life. Besides, this was just a spur-of-the-moment thing on his trip."

Talked down by Su Huan, Fang Nan calmed a little, but was still itching to act: "Help me ask him if he's thought about doing self-media. If he is, I can handle the video editing side for him."

Su Huan rolled her eyes: "Didn't you say you wanted to partner up and start a company?"

Fang Nan: "Heh, doing self-media on my own isn't going to work, but if I can be part of one, that's not off the table. As for the company, I'd just be a technical shareholder — no need to worry about all the other headaches."

"Fine, I'll ask him for you. If he's willing, I'll give you his contact. If not, then forget it."

"Thanks, Sis Huan."

After hanging up, Su Huan sent Qin Yun a WeChat message and relayed everything Fang Nan had told her. Seeing that Qin Yun never replied, she didn't pay it any more attention.