Chapter 47: A Friend from Heilongjiang

Back home, Qin Yun began preparing to cook. Although his culinary talent was only so-so, in the few years since getting married, Song Ya had never once set foot in the kitchen—it was all handled by him. Even if he didn't cook, Song Ya would just order takeout.

After such a long stretch of practice, cooking a meal and preparing dishes came effortlessly to him.

Less than an hour later, just as the last dish was about to come out, the sound of the door opening rang out—Hu Fen was back from work.

The moment she stepped inside, Hu Fen caught the aroma of food. Seeing the busy figure in the kitchen, she smiled.

"Son, what are you making?"

Qin Yun turned to look at his mother and poured the water from the bowl: "Mom, just one last soup, we can eat right away."

"Alright then, Mom will have a taste of her son's cooking today."

She made up her mind—no matter how bad it tasted, she would say it was delicious.

Still, she had confidence in Qin Yun; those practiced movements alone showed he hadn't done it rarely.

Thinking of this, she grew even more annoyed with Song Ya. As a woman, she didn't necessarily have to know how to cook, but the problem was Qin Yun hadn't known how to cook before either—so they had started on equal footing.

My son is willing to put in the effort, what gives you the right not to? Good riddance leaving him.

Soon, Qin Yun ladled the soup from the pot, brought out the dishes one by one, and set a bottle of drink in front of Hu Fen.

People from Zhoushan love to have something to drink before a meal—either beer or milk, that sort of thing.

Qin Yun and his household were naturally no exception.

"You've worked hard." Hu Fen smiled. "Let me try how your cooking is."

Saying so, she picked up a piece of braised peeled fish meat, put it in her mouth, chewed once, and her eyes lit up slightly.

"Son, it's really good."

Qin Yun laughed heartily, quite proudly: "Not bad, right? My cooking skills are pretty solid now."

Hu Fen gave a thumbs-up, and mother and son ate and chatted as they went.

Hearing Qin Yun say that his commercial quote had reached fifty thousand per single video, Hu Fen was so shocked she couldn't speak.

"The main thing is my follower base isn't big enough yet. If I hit a million followers, it'll be even higher—tens of millions, needless to say."

"That's already a lot." Hu Fen remarked, "If it's ten videos a month, wouldn't that be five hundred thousand coming in?"

"Mom, it's not that simple. People have to be willing to place ads, and not every video can land one. Companies like DJI have very high quality requirements for videos."

"That's still quite impressive." After her surprise, Hu Fen was very happy—this meant her son had already found a new career.

But on the other hand, she was a bit worried; after all, having watched one of her son's livestreams, it had simply been too dangerous.

One livestream session, and while her son was fine, she had nearly had a heart attack.

After the meal, his mother went to clear the dishes. Qin Yun cut some fruit, and just as he sat down on the sofa, his phone rang.

Qin Yun glanced at the caller ID and couldn't help but smile.

Picking up the call, he said directly: "I tell you, Director Gao, a man who's become an official really is different, isn't he? It's been so long and you haven't even bothered to contact your brother."

Gao Feng, a college roommate, though not from the same major.

The guy had gone straight back to his hometown right after graduation, passed the civil service exam and joined the national ranks, becoming a section officer in the city. Last year he had been sent down to the grassroots level, showing signs of being groomed for promotion.

"Look at you talking, isn't it just because I've been too busy? You think the grassroots level is that easy?" Gao Feng complained. "If you're just lying flat, it's paradise here. But if you've got ambition, you can really be busy to the point of not sleeping."

"Also, please don't call me Director Gao—call me Mayor Gao, thank you."

"Holy shit…" Qin Yun was startled. "When did you become a town mayor? Your backing is that solid?"

"That's called outstanding political achievements—you don't know a damn thing."

"Goodness, Mayor Gao, you're gunning for the future Harbin mayor seat, aren't you?"

"Believe it or not, that's exactly my plan."

Qin Yun quipped: "Tell you you're fat and you start panting. Spit it out—you, this busy man, calling me must mean something. Hurry up, so this commoner can hang up and not hold you up."

Gao Feng replied leisurely: "Although I can't bear to rub salt in the wound, as a brother, if I didn't tell you about getting married, I'd always feel a bit bad about it."

"Married?" Qin Yun was stunned for a moment. "You're getting married? I could've sworn you didn't even have a girlfriend?"

"Get lost, who says I don't have a girlfriend? I've been with mine for two years already."

"Goodness, you hid it deep enough." Qin Yun sighed. "So you're here asking for a red envelope? You know I'm both unemployed and divorced."

"Cut the crap. Wedding's October 3rd, come quick. The best man spot is reserved for you—blame it on being divorced and single. And I've saved the other best man spot for Hu."

"Haha, alright, definitely coming. I'll go buy a plane ticket in a bit."

"Mm, that's all then. We'll chat in detail when you get here—I still have to notify everyone one by one."

"OK, see you then."

After hanging up, Shen Hu had already sent him a message on WeChat about Gao Feng getting married.

"Which day are you planning to head over?"

Qin Yun calculated: "I might not be able to get a ticket on the first, so I'll leave tomorrow."

"Alright, I'll head over tomorrow too."

After setting a meeting time with Shen Hu, Qin Yun waited for Hu Fen to come out and told her about going to Harbin tomorrow.

"That skinny, tall young man, right? I remember him."

When Qin Yun got married, the male side's best men were also Shen Hu and Gao Feng—Hu Fen had met them once back then.

"Yeah, that's him." He hadn't expected that after so long, his mother still remembered; it was somewhat beyond his expectations.

"Is your other friend married yet?"

"No, still dating his girlfriend, but I'd guess it's within the next year or two—he's almost thirty after all."

After chatting for a while, Qin Yun opened his phone to check tickets and found there were no flights directly from Mount Putuo to Harbin—only from Hangzhou Xiaoshan Airport.

Looks like he'd have to drive to Hangzhou first, then fly to Harbin from there.

Just as he was about to lock in his seat and buy the ticket, he suddenly wondered whether Gao Feng had invited Su Huan.

The moment this thought arose, a WeChat voice call notification popped up on Qin Yun's phone—speak of the devil and he appears.

"Hey, class monitor."

Su Huan said: "I just got Gao Feng's call—he's getting married during the National Day holiday in a couple of days. So sudden."

Qin Yun nodded. Indeed, sudden. When other people get married, friends and family at least know about it two months in advance. This guy, on the other hand—four days on the countdown.

"So are you planning to go?" Qin Yun asked.

Su Huan countered: "What about you?"

But the moment she finished, she laughed first: "Wrong question—when are you heading over?"

"When you called, I was just looking at tomorrow's tickets. The flight still has to go through Xiaoshan Airport."

Su Huan's eyes lit up: "That's great then—when you come over tomorrow, swing by and pick me up on the way. I'll go with you, alright?"

"Sure." Qin Yun had no objection, of course. "Then send me your ID number. I'll buy the tickets together in a bit."

"Okay."

The vaguely heard voice struck Hu Fen as somewhat familiar. Without showing any reaction, she said: "Son, is that the Miss from last time?"

Qin Yun nodded: "Mm, just a classmate from Hangzhou, my old college class monitor. She's doing incredibly well at Alibaba now."

Hu Fen didn't care about that. She put on a curious look: "Do you have photos on your phone? I don't really remember her. Did she come to your wedding?"

"She did." Qin Yun opened his phone album, found the photos taken last time in Hangzhou, and pointed at Su Huan, beaming like a flower: "This one. Any impression?"

"Mm, a bit of an impression. A very pretty Miss. Is she married? What's her name again? I remember the surname Su."

"Mm, Su Huan." The moment he said it, Qin Yun suddenly caught on, and he couldn't tell whether to laugh or cry: "Mom, what are you doing? No need to be that eager, right?"

Hu Fen chuckled: "Mom was just asking casually. You're overthinking it."

Qin Yun shook his head, feeling quite helpless. Fortunately, his mom was still fairly easygoing—if she were like other parents, desperately pushing for grandkids, that would really be the death of him.

Once Su Huan sent over her ID info, Qin Yun immediately logged into the ticketing app and bought two tickets for tomorrow night at 9:30, leaving himself plenty of buffer time.

Gao Feng wasn't in the same major as him, but he had crossed paths with quite a few people in their class.

Su Huan was one of them.

After buying the tickets and letting Su Huan know, Qin Yun lay down on the sofa and turned on the TV.

Around nine o'clock, his mom went off to get ready for bed and play on her phone. Qin Yun uploaded the video Fang Nan had edited to his Douyin account.

The video itself came with built-in traffic. The moment it was uploaded, fans who got the app notification tapped in right away.

Five minutes later, he refreshed and found that the video's likes, comments, and saves were all starting to climb.

"Wow, I just opened the video and found the master already uploaded the pure-video version. What a surprise."

"This video is really well-produced. Although it lacks the direct thrill compared to the livestream, the visual imagery is even stronger."

"The master is awesome."

He told Li Rui about the upload, and the budget prepared on that end immediately started being put into traffic.

After all, this was a video with a commercial nature—merchants investing in Dou+ was basic practice.

Fortunately, Qin Yun's agreement with DJI had no requirements on the numbers.

This had its good side and its bad side.

After all, having data requirements naturally meant better returns.

After posting the video, Qin Yun kept an eye on it for about half an hour, then started packing his随身 clothes and some equipment.

He figured this trip to Harbin would surely come with a new mission. Following the system's pattern, going to a new place meant a mission would naturally arrive.

So the filming equipment had to be carried on him.

If Harbin weren't so far away—driving was really inconvenient, and time was tight—he would actually have been willing to drive over.

Carrying that much equipment on him meant preparing a large suitcase; he probably couldn't even bring two changes of his own clothes.

The temperature in Harbin right now wasn't high. He checked the weather app—although the National Day holiday was all sunny, the average temperature was only seven degrees.

……

Early the next morning, Qin Yun opened his eyes, checked his phone, and found a WeChat message from Fang Nan.

"Brother Yun, the video blew up. In one night it hit 1.2 million likes. Huge explosion, massive explosion."

He checked the send time—it had been sent at five in the morning. So Fang Nan hadn't slept all night.

He opened Douyin, and sure enough, his video had exploded. The likes had reached 1.3 million and were still climbing.

The comment section was incredibly lively, with most expressing shock—after all, this kind of niche barely existed on Douyin.

The backend didn't even need mentioning—private messages for all kinds of commercial collaboration requests came in like snowflakes. He simply couldn't get through them all.

Sitting up in bed, Qin Yun picked a few comments to reply to, then looked through the various collaboration messages. By the end, he simply gave up.

It was really too hard to sift through.

"No rush. There'll be bread, and there'll be milk too. The initiative is with me, the advantage is with me."

He muttered a couple of times, got up to wash up. By then, his mom was already preparing breakfast.

After eating, Hu Fen said before heading out: "Let Mom know when you get to Harbin."

"Mm, okay, Mom. Be careful on the road."

Around eight-thirty, Qin Yun had everything packed and sat down in the car.