Chapter 46: The Power of Bow and Arrow

Coming out of the matchmaking corner, Qin Yun sighed that getting married these days wasn't easy either — the dry ones die of drought, the waterlogged ones drown in flood.

For someone like him, divorced, if he had no money in the future, probably no one would marry him. No matter how good his external conditions were, it would be useless; what he'd attract would probably only be some shallow people.

"Right, Qin Yun, so where are you planning to look for work? Zhoushan's not an easy place to find a job."

Coming out of the park, chatting as they walked, Wang Lili suddenly asked.

Qin Yun shook his head; he had long given up the idea of looking for work: "Planning to do self-media, see if I can make a living at it."

"Self-media, huh." Wang Lili wasn't really surprised by this answer — nowadays everyone wants to do self-media, after all self-media looks like easy work with decent income.

Moreover, Hangzhou is a big city for self-media; out of ten people, eight have this kind of idea.

But once you actually get into it, you'll know this industry values your own abilities even more.

Don't say things like "even giao哥 made it, why can't I?" You have to know that before giao哥 made it, in his videos and livestreams he was like a dog — the guy could throw himself out there, put aside his pride. Can ordinary people do that?

So hearing Qin Yun say this, she just took Qin Yun as one of those people who only saw the glamorous side of self-media and didn't know the difficulties within.

But then she thought, Qin Yun had been in Beijing for so many years, maybe he had his own ideas; if she rashly said something, it would be speaking too deeply on too shallow an acquaintance. After all, the two hadn't seen each other in years, and their relationship couldn't be called that close.

"That's good, then good luck to you."

Qin Yun didn't care about her idea; reaching the intersection, he waved at her: "See you, I'll treat you to a meal when I come to Hangzhou."

"Mm, see you."

Watching Qin Yun's tall back, Wang Lili pressed her lips together and muttered: "What a pity, he fits my aesthetic — if only he had money."

Qin Yun didn't go straight home; he went to the market and bought some vegetables, made himself a basin of fried rice cakes, then prepped the dishes for the evening, waiting until about the right time to start cooking, planning to let his mom have a taste of his cooking.

Eating rice cakes and scrolling Douyin, Qin Yun suddenly saw an official invitation notification pop up in his backend.

He took a look and found it was inviting him to join the Creator Partner Program; he tapped in and looked at it carefully.

The Creator Partner Program, formerly the Mid-video Partner Program, is currently Douyin's most important way to monetize traffic — it calculates money for you based on your views.

Qin Yun's three videos all had decent traffic, but not a single cent, precisely because he wasn't qualified enough yet.

Now, unexpectedly, Douyin's official side took the initiative to invite him to join — looks like his content got recognized. But he figured it was most likely because of that livestream. Otherwise, one carving video and one motorcycle-repair video wouldn't warrant this.

Tapping into the Creator Partner Program, he found that among the conditions to join, one of them he hadn't met — it required publishing more than 20 pieces of content. But for some reason, it showed above as already met; the invited ones really do get treated differently.

Besides that, there were two other conditions: one was age, one was follower count.

The follower count required over fifty thousand — this one was probably the hardest to meet.

Soon, he submitted for review; in less than a minute, the backend showed he had successfully joined the Creator Partner Program. In other words, from now on, every view on the videos he published would bring him a certain amount of income.

He searched on Douyin and found that the money from views wasn't fixed; broadly speaking, it could be understood as monetized views multiplied by the unit price, and the so-called monetized views weren't equal to total views — the platform would filter out effective views based on watch duration, interaction, etc., only then would there be income.

Moreover, this unit price was dynamic, set by the platform — no one knew how much it was anyway.

"Not bad, that's one more way to make money."

At his current follower stage, making money would definitely rely on commercial orders; pure views probably wouldn't amount to a few bucks. But if in the future his followers grew and he became some kind of ten-million-follower big internet celebrity, that would be different.

If every video got tens of millions of views, the income would absolutely be solid.

After eating and washing the dishes, Qin Yun was idle anyway, so he went out again — this time riding his motorcycle.

He didn't have a specific destination, just wandered around here and there, strolling about. Just like a social vagrant, doing nothing like a proper loafer.

Riding from Lincheng to Dinghai, then from Dinghai to Xiaosha, riding and riding he ended up at Cezi Island. After going round and round, from Cezi Island he circled back again to Dinghai's Haishan Park.

He had just found a parking spot and parked the bike when a phone call from Hebei suddenly came in.

"Yes, it's me, hello... haha... it should be... that much?... thank you... mm... right... this email... alright, I'll send it to you in a bit... goodbye."

A phone call from Hebei made Qin Yun overjoyed.

After hanging up, he logged into his email backend and indeed saw an email. Following the link in the email, he jumped to Alipay, filled in his information including bank account details, confirmed and submitted — only then did he stroll happily into the park.

"Three hundred thousand... tsk tsk... truly unexpected, didn't think it would be this much."

That earlier call was from Hebei — his medal for bravery had already been sent out, and the bonus review had also completed the process and could be disbursed at any time. The bravery award amounted to three hundred thousand, and it was tax-free.

With this, all his assets combined would exceed six hundred thousand.

From being kicked out empty-handed, penniless, to now having savings over six hundred thousand, he only spent two months — averaging ten thousand a day.

"So sweet — once the DJI payment hits the account, that'll be just over seven hundred thousand, haha, unprecedented wealth."

Walking a distance deeper into the park, he suddenly saw two women not far away holding bows and arrows, shooting at a target ten meters away, with people occasionally stopping to watch.

Out of curiosity, Qin Yun walked over. Only then did he clearly see the shape of the bows in the two women's hands — they were compound bows.

The so-called compound bow uses a pulley system; the bowstring goes through pulleys to save effort, and once fully drawn, you only need to maintain a few tenths of the draw weight. It's a type of competitive sport and is also used for hunting.

Many of the bows used in Olympic events are recurve bows — the two are different.

Clearly, the bows in those two women's hands were beginner-level — at a glance, they wouldn't exceed 30 pounds; any adult woman with a bit of training could easily draw them. Needless to say, these two were definitely newbies among newbies.

Because a distance of ten meters was really too close for this compound bow's range.

Most of these compound bows have a range of over fifty meters.

*Snap! *

A crisp sound of the bowstring whistling, then the arrow in the left woman's hand shot out with a *whoosh*, and successfully missed the target.

Qin Yun seemed to hear quite a few "boo"s.

Then the girl on the right also shot — more accurate than the middle-aged woman on the left, at least she hit the target.

"Mom, I hit the target!" The girl jumped up happily.

The woman also praised her a couple of times, then, refusing to accept it, drew the bow and nocked an arrow again — and then once again... missed the target.

"Mom, don't rush, you can definitely do it."

Qin Yun thought to himself that her mom was a complete newbie — distance judgment, strength, hand form, all wrong one after another; it'd be a miracle if she hit the target.

Quite a few of the onlookers watched for a while, found it boring, and left.

Only Qin Yun stayed, watching the woman shoot arrow after arrow — she shot about ten arrows in total, until her arm was sore and she was running out of strength.

"Lingling, mom's going to rest for a bit."

Cheng Ke felt she really had nothing better to do — why on earth had she agreed to sign up for archery lessons with her daughter? Wouldn't it have been nicer to spend that time playing mahjong?

Now look at her — every week she had to be dragged out here, under the fancy label of "mother-daughter bonding."

She had just sat down on a bench nearby when a voice came from the side: "Sis, can I have a try?"

Cheng Ke looked up, and her eyes lit up slightly — it was an outrageously handsome young man, tall and upright, with firm, strong arms.

She didn't refuse, smiling as she handed the bow beside her over: "You know how to shoot?"

Qin Yun took the bow and arrows, saying modestly: "Learned a little."

After speaking, he walked to the side, directly facing the target. The moment the girl beside him let one arrow fly, he drew the bow straight open. As expected, this compound bow's draw weight was indeed only a little over 20 pounds — to him, it was as light as nothing.

And the instant the bow was raised, a subtle, mysterious feeling suddenly rose in his heart. Almost on instinct, his whole being sank down in an instant — his breathing slowed, and his heartbeat steadied along with it.

Even the direction of the wind and the humidity of the air could be easily judged through the sensation on his skin.

His gaze passed through the bow toward the bullseye — present and absent at once — and in his awareness it was nothing more than a void: the bullseye was both in his line of sight and not in his line of sight.

The instant he released, he could feel neither his hand nor the bow, as if his consciousness had attached itself to the arrow itself.

*Thwack—! *

The arrow hit the bullseye dead center, and Qin Yun instantly snapped out of that profound, ineffable state of perception.

The girl beside him stared at the scene, her mouth slightly open, looking at him with a face full of astonishment.

Qin Yun, however, shook his head — too close, ten meters, what's the difference from right under your nose? So he walked up to the target, lifted it, and dragged it back — a full thirty meters, stopping only when the distance reached forty meters.

"B-big brother… that far… can you hit it?" the girl asked, looking at him with deep suspicion.

Qin Yun smiled and said: "You'll know once you try."

By now several people had gathered nearby, all wanting to see whether Qin Yun's arrow could hit the target.

Cheng Ke also stood up, thinking that at such a distance, the target looked no bigger than a palm.

*Whoosh—thwack! *

The arrow drove straight into the red heart, the tail still swaying violently — enough to show just how much force was behind it.

"Awesome!"

Someone shouted loudly.

On impulse, Qin Yun picked up the arrows beside him and fired several more in quick succession — every single one planted in the red heart. His Archery Skill LV1 had already brought him to a master level in this one skill.

At this distance, and with a compound bow, it had no effect whatsoever on the steadiness of his hands. Still, the draw weight of this bow was too light — he couldn't feel a thing.

Qin Yun estimated that even a hundred-pound bow should be a breeze for him.

After playing for a while longer, Qin Yun, in a rare fit of generosity, corrected the mother-and-daughter duo's form, greatly boosting their hit rate within the ten-meter range.

Although they still couldn't hit the red heart, this dramatic improvement in their hit rate was enough to leave the two of them thrilled.

Seeing the two of them caught up in their excitement, Qin Yun quietly slipped away.

Following the road through Haishan Park, he kept walking upward. When he reached the very top, a message from Fang Nan came through.

"Brother Yun, the video's done — take a look quick."

Qin Yun had plenty of data left — just one gigabyte, nothing to worry about — so he went ahead and downloaded it using mobile data.

By the time he walked back down from the top to outside the park, the video had already finished downloading.

He tapped play. The very first frame of the cover was an image of tremendous impact, and combined with the exaggerated text-title design, it grabbed your attention at a single glance.

No matter how hard he worked himself to death on CapCut, Qin Yun could never have produced this kind of feel.

And the footage that followed went without saying — paired with multi-angle drone shots cutting between cameras, every spot conveyed just the right sense of crisis, and with the sound effects and score layered in, an hour of raw footage had somehow been cut down to forty minutes of pure essence.

He sat on his motorcycle and watched the whole thing through with hardly a second missed, only snapping back to himself when the final credits popped up in bold black text: "Special thanks to DJI."

"Awesome work, Fang Nan — the editing is gorgeous."

"Haha, it's all because your footage was good, Brother Yun — otherwise I couldn't have cut it either."