Chapter 40: Hunidao

Hu Fen walked out of the building, chatting and laughing with a few colleagues.

Suddenly she saw a familiar figure standing in front of a car, and a smile immediately spread across her face.

"My son is here to pick me up. You all go on ahead."

"Your son's back? Where is he? Let me see?"

Seeing his mother come out, Qin Yun immediately went to meet her: "Mom, we're not eating at home tonight. Let's eat out."

Hu Fen nodded, first introducing him to the women beside her: "This is my son Qin Yun. Xiaoyun, this is Aunt Su Xin, this is Aunt Aunt Hong Lan. You've met them before."

"Hello, Aunt Su Xin. Hello, Aunt Aunt Hong Lan." Qin Yun smiled and greeted the two middle-aged women.

The looks in both their eyes were full of envy. Aunt Su Xin said: "Ah Fen, how did you give birth to him? Your son is so tall and handsome, way better than my stinky boy."

"Right." Aunt Aunt Hong Lan chimed in as well. "Xiaoyun, your mom has bragged about you in front of us plenty."

Qin Yun just smiled without saying anything. Hu Fen gave the two a push: "Off you go. Don't hold up me and my son going out to eat."

After Qin Yun drove off in the Land Rover with his mother, Su Xin and Aunt Hong Lan were still there sighing in admiration.

"Tsk tsk, that car isn't cheap. I remember it costs over a million. Ah Fen's son must be doing pretty well for himself in Beijing."

"Need you even ask? That daughter-in-law of his is pretty too. I saw the photo on Ah Fen's phone, and she has Beijing hukou. Once they have a kid and register under Beijing hukou, getting into college will be easier than in other provinces and cities."

Envy was plain in both their eyes. Clearly they had no idea that Qin Yun had already gotten divorced and slinked back home.

"Mom, how about hotpot?"

"Sure. There's a Shu Hero in Kaihong, the flavor's pretty good. Let's go there."

"Sounds good."

"How was it? Did you have fun at Mount Putuo? There shouldn't be many people this time of year, right?" Seeing how full of energy her son looked, Hu Fen thought to herself that Song Ya really had no eye for people — one day she'd regret it to no end.

"It was great. The weather was nice these past two days, and there weren't many people. Very comfortable."

As he spoke, he shared with his mother everything he had seen and heard over the past two days. Of course, he didn't mention the rescue on the way back.

His mother was an ordinary person too, so the first thing she'd care about was her son's safety. So there was no need to bring up something like that.

……

That evening, Qin Yun watched the car-repair video Fang Nan had sent. As always, it was excellent, but after all it was just a process, so there wasn't much entertainment value. Then he organized the footage of the carving — there wasn't much to organize, just one complete video.

Just as he was about to send it to Fang Nan, he opened Douyin and checked his backend, only to find the message count had gone back to 99+. And several comments on his first video's comment section caught him by surprise.

"Came over from the carving one. Why does the video creator only have one video here? But this rock climbing is seriously awesome. Found a treasure. Hope the creator posts more."

"Everyone says it's you. Don't know if it's true or not. Come out and confirm."

"You can carve too?"

Qin Yun wondered whether the videos those people had taken while he was carving last night had been pushed by Douyin.

He followed the clues in a few comments and quickly tracked down the source of the video. Sure enough, it was the process of him carving the Buddha statue on the rooftop of the guesthouse.

Qin Yun thought for a moment. Since it had already been posted by someone else, there didn't seem to be any need for him to edit and polish his own video.

So he simply chose to publish it, putting up the carving process he had filmed himself.

【Since many netizens said they wanted a clearer view, I didn't edit it either. I'm just putting up the full forty-minute process. Anyone who's interested can take a look.】

His follower count had already reached one hundred thousand, and his first video had racked up an impressive number of likes — over eight hundred thousand. A single video blowing up like that was rare even on the Douyin platform.

But a mere hundred thousand followers was nothing on today's Douyin platform. In fact, even a video with tens of millions of views hadn't earned him a single cent.

That wasn't all that unusual on today's Douyin platform.

That was also why more and more creators were moving toward livestreaming. Because the platform today was no longer like in the early days, when views equaled money.

He didn't really mind. If he wanted to rely purely on views to make money, all he'd need to do later was sign up for a few of the platform's programs. But in the early stage, building up followers and locking in his niche was what mattered.

For example, if he took on commercial deals and did ads in the future, a single post might fetch a quote of several hundred thousand. These petty little gains now, he didn't take to heart.

Once the video was posted, he stopped paying it much attention.

He turned off his phone and began carving the sandalwood Buddha pendant he was making for his mother.

The next morning, when he got up, his mother had already made breakfast and gone to work. Qin Yun ate, went out to the balcony, and continued what he had been doing.

Around ten o'clock, Su Huan called him on a voice call.

"Hey, what are you up to?"

Qin Yun's hands didn't stop: "I went to Mount Putuo, got a piece of Indian old-growth sandalwood, now I'm carving a Buddha statue. Aren't you going to work? It's pretty late."

"I took the day off today. I'm not feeling well, seems like I've caught a cold." Su Huan did sound a bit nasal. "What's old-growth sandalwood? Some kind of wood?"

"Then drink more hot water." Qin Yun said something that was both funny and exasperating, then couldn't help laughing himself. "As for old-growth sandalwood, it's a type of sandalwood — a pretty fine sandalwood material."

"Straight man!" Su Huan said. "Your Douyin account already has a hundred thousand followers. Have you thought about taking on commercial deals?"

"Of course I've thought about it. But with this few followers, I probably can't land any valuable commercial deals, right? Let's wait until I have more followers."

Su Huan said: "If you want, I can introduce you to a few. The price won't be very high, probably a few thousand yuan."

The file in Qin Yun's hand paused, and he set down the wood: "What kind of commercial deals? If it's the kind of ads, forget it — like a certain melon app, a certain Zhuan app."

"Not those." Su Huan said, "DJI. I know the regional marketing head at DJI in Hangzhou. I could try talking to them."

Qin Yun was instantly interested: "That'd be great, but would they even be interested in me?"

"So you need to give me something concrete, like what the commercial video would be about. That way I can go talk to them."

Qin Yun thought for a moment. With all his skills, if he were to do an ad for DJI, the most fitting would probably be rock climbing. Maybe he could find a free-climbing route in Zhoushan to test the waters.

"Alright, once I have an idea, I'll let you know."

The two chatted a few more lines, then ended the call.

Qin Yun continued carving, but Su Huan's words kept lingering in his mind.

He realized that although he had many skills, if he went into short video, he knew nothing about business or operations. If Su Huan hadn't brought it up today, he might have had to figure out taking commercial deals on his own, bit by bit, as his follower count grew.

Things like how to negotiate with clients, how to set prices — these were all unfamiliar territory.

He couldn't just take any ad. It was best to take on commercial deals that didn't disrupt the overall viewing experience of his videos. Otherwise, if a video suddenly cut to an ad read in the middle, the visual experience would be terrible.

When he himself was scrolling Douyin, encountering this kind of ad-pushing, he'd basically just swipe past it directly.

So, in this respect, he still had his standards.

"Forget it, as the saying goes, a good video can break ten thousand techniques; no use thinking about all this now."

Sweeping aside these worries, Qin Yun threw himself wholeheartedly into carving. And just as the time was approaching four-thirty in the afternoon, an unexpected check-in task was suddenly issued.

【Check-in task issued: Please proceed to the East Cliff, complete the traditional climbing route of Dragon-Slaying Slash; reaching the summit counts as check-in complete】

Qin Yun's heart skipped a beat, but after looking carefully he breathed a small sigh of relief.

Thought it was another unprotected free-climbing type again; looks like the system doesn't want to kill him every single time.

But even traditional rock climbing isn't something an ordinary climber can handle. Traditional climbing means the climber needs to temporarily place protective gear in the natural cracks of the rock face—things like chocks, mechanical cams, pitons.

The demands on route planning and crack risk assessment are extremely high; one misplaced piece of gear could cause it to fall off, and a careless slip could easily mean a fatal fall.

But compared to unprotected free climbing, for Qin Yun this was a piece of cake.

He'd just been talking to Su Huan about sponsored content, and here it was right now.

But this matter could wait; they'd talk after getting back from Huni Island.

He packed up his things, swept the debris off the ground clean, and the sound of the outer door opening rang out.

"Xiaoyun!"

"Mom, I'm here."

Mother and son packed a few changes of clothes and set off; the two put on helmets, rode the motorcycle, and soon arrived at the dock. His uncle had received a last-minute notice and gone out on the boat again, so he couldn't make it.

From Shenjiamen to Huni Island, they first had to take a speedboat to Xiashi Island, then take a small boat from Xiashi Island to Huni Island.

Xiashi Island is a big island, but Huni Island is hardly worth mentioning—very little development value, almost only the elderly left on the island, not a single young person to be seen. In a few more years, once the old people passed on, it really would be a deserted island.

After an hour and a half boat ride, mother and son set foot on the ground of Huni Island.

From landing to reaching Qin Yun's maternal grandparents' house, they still had to walk another half hour.

The two carried their things, and along the way ran into familiar elderly people everywhere.

Seeing Qin Yun, they all curiously asked a few questions—after all, Qin Yun's bearing had changed enormously now. His eyes were bright and spirited; that natural confidence couldn't be faked.

Soon, the two saw the grandparents' courtyard; the yard was filled with nonstop clucking and chirping.

Hu Fen patted the iron gate: "Dad, Mom, Xiao Yun and I are here to see you."

After a while, the iron gate opened, and an old man looked out. He first saw Hu Fen, then saw Qin Yun, and immediately a delighted smile spread across his face.

"Xiaoyun's here." Grandmother stepped past Hu Fen to take Qin Yun's hand; this scene made Hu Fen a little jealous, and she could only walk into the courtyard by herself.

"Grandma, how's your health? Still doing okay?"

The reason his aunts and uncles felt at ease letting the two elders live on the faraway Huni Island was, in part, that the two had always been in robust health.

"Doing great! What good stuff did you buy for grandma?"

Entering the courtyard and setting things down, Qin Yun looked around: "Grandma, is Grandpa out in the field? Why don't I see Big Black either?"

"Big Black followed your grandpa to the vegetable plot to hoe. Go take a look yourself; your grandpa's been talking about you these past couple days too."

Hu Fen had told Qin Yun that, regarding his divorce, apart from his youngest aunt, she hadn't told anyone—so naturally his grandparents still didn't know either. But now, of course, there was no need to hide it.

"Then I'll go see Grandpa."

Saying so, he stepped out the door, but before he'd gone two steps, he heard Grandma's scolding voice ring out from inside the house.

"gie zhong sa la nue… lan pie… zhi rou… (Zhoushan cursing; those who know, know)"

Qin Yun shook his head, letting Grandma carry on scolding, while he strolled leisurely toward the vegetable plot.

The vegetable plot wasn't far from Grandpa's house—only about two hundred meters.

Before he could get close, a big black dog came running toward him, barking as it ran.

"Wang Wang… Wang Wang…"