Leisurely Traveler with Check-in System

Due to the lingering effects of the previous online sensation, this new wave continued to ferment and brought Li Younan an increase of several hundred thousand followers.

But after surpassing 3 million followers, there’s an interesting psychological phenomenon: no matter how rapidly the follower count increases, the emotional impact isn’t as significant as before.

Reflecting on when he first started in this business, gaining even ten to twenty thousand followers would have him checking his phone daily to look at the backend data. Yet now that his achievements are improving, his threshold has risen as well.

Thinking back, Li Younan can now understand the saying by a certain famous businessman: ”The happiest time is when you earn your first ten to twenty thousand.”

The following day, Li Younan idly started a livestream at home.

The livestream didn’t have a specific goal; it was just an open chat with his fans.

Nowadays, when he starts a livestream, it’s easy to attract tens of thousands of viewers online, with comments rapidly scrolling through the chat, making it overwhelming.

Li Younan could only select questions that interested him, and some people felt that their repeated questions were ignored, leading to complaints—a common occurrence in his livestream.

Most of his fans are naturally friendly and supportive of him.

What people were most curious about was the experience of climbing Gongga Mountain. Many sent messages asking him for detailed specifics. Li Younan patiently explained without deliberately mentioning Zhu Qingyue.

Unlike himself, Zhu Qingyue is an amateur, and she’s a network novel author. Authors in this female-dominated genre, before becoming top tier, don’t easily reveal their pen names.

Occasionally, Zhu Qingyue appeared in the video, which he casually glossed over as ”a travel buddy.”

After parting ways with Zhu Qingyue that day, Li Younan reached out to check on her cold.

Fortunately, it was just a simple cold. Though it was tricky in the highlands, early treatment led to no aftereffects, and she’s been much better these past couple of days.

What was regrettable for Zhu Qingyue was not finding her aunt’s relics.

Also, she didn’t visit all the places her aunt had been, which wasn’t surprising—given Zhu Qingyue’s small stature, it seemed unlikely she’d get to those places.

Li Younan compiled some video materials that hadn’t been edited for posting and sent them to Zhu Qingyue, saying, ”Your aunt probably visited these places.”

Li Younan wasn’t certain either, but it was something to ponder.

After sending it over, that night, Zhu Qingyue posted a lengthy series of updates on social media, filled with the aura of a literary youth... this time, she seemed healed, becoming more optimistic.

Videos need time to ferment.

Li Younan’s latest video, with time, began to see traffic surge exponentially.

This came as a surprise to many—after all, mountaineering is a very niche sport.

Even the top domestic mountaineers get only a few thousand, sometimes less, likes on their videos.

However, Li Younan’s video amassed millions of likes within just a week, becoming his most viral video yet.

Analyzing this, it’s traceable.

The video begins with a narrative of everyday life: Li Younan searches for edible wild vegetables outdoors, joking that if domestic hunting were permitted, he could catch a few wild rabbits or chickens for a feast; the cooking details unexpectedly make people feel comfortable.

Midway, the formal mountaineering began, but the video didn’t exaggerate the seriousness of climbing Gongga Mountain.

The initial goal wasn’t to reach the peak; the camera simply saw a high point and mentioned the scenery might be better there, so he went up a bit, moved to the next target, up a bit again, repeating the cycle until unconsciously reaching the summit, seeming quite effortless.

This ”since we’re here” mentality playfully conquered one of the country’s most treacherous peaks, Gongga Mountain, creating an effect that was strikingly viral.

Furthermore, thanks to editing, the entire video was filled with vitality.

The script was written optimistically, even playfully.

In this increasingly oppressive era, where everyone feels weighed down by life’s pressures and surrounded by hostility, Li Younan’s optimism touches viewers inexplicably.

This single video brought him a hefty six-figure income.

Perhaps due to his astonishing mountaineering talent showcased in the video, or perhaps because of the playful antics of netizens, the Chinese Mountaineering Team really noticed Li Younan.

Li Younan received contact from the Chinese Mountaineering Team.

However, he didn’t immediately consider mountaineering as a task.

He didn’t commit, just said they could collaborate if there’s an opportunity later.

The core nature of the Chinese Mountaineering Team is a national-level professional climbing team, featuring sports competitions, scientific expeditions, and national mission implementations.

Li Younan values the functionalities of scientific exploration and national mission execution.

As a young man with a cause, if the country needs him, he certainly wouldn’t hesitate.

These thoughts were naturally conveyed to the leaders of the National Climbing Team.

However, there are no large-scale tasks requiring the National Climbing Team at the moment.

Subsequently, many fans discovered that the official account of the National Climbing Team had followed Li Younan.

In fact, many official accounts follow Li Younan.

Due to the National Climbing Team’s follow, many network users began digging deeper.

Some even made a special sliced video, discovering that a lot of local cultural and tourism departments’ official accounts followed Li Younan.

Previously, Li Younan helped Nanchang make a video promotional film, which was quite effective, setting an example, leading many local cultural and tourism promotion departments to follow Li Younan.

After resting for a few days, Li Younan started feeling a bit itchy again.

He couldn’t live without traveling anymore and was increasingly in love with it.

Staying in one place for too long felt somewhat boring.

He began to plan where to go next.

He wasn’t planning on mountain climbing again—having just climbed a rather tall mountain, it seemed time for a change of pace.

Li Younan took out a map to see which check-in spots were close to him.

He noticed that several places’ cultural tourism official public accounts were sending him high-intensity messages.

Li Younan was actually a bit speechless, because his homepage clearly already featured a collaborative WeChat account.

With too many private messages, it was hardly possible to see messages on video platforms.

If sincere about cooperation, they should naturally chat on WeChat.

A few days ago, a person claiming to be a protector of non-material cultural heritage added him as a friend on WeChat.

This somewhat ambiguous self-introduction was something Li Younan originally wasn’t planning to heed. After all, if one were truly a protector of non-material cultural heritage, they should clearly state whether as an individual or organization.

But the other party persistently tried to add him multiple times, which finally caught Li Younan’s attention. After some thought, he approved the friend request.

As soon as Li Younan added the person, a prompt appeared showing that the other party was typing.

He waited for a while, but no message came through, and he moved on to other tasks.

After a while, his phone rang with a message from the person he just added. The other party was quite polite: ”Hello Teacher Li, I’m a recent college graduate looking to contribute my effort toward protecting our country’s non-material cultural heritage. I initially wrote a lot but decided to delete it all. I think I should come meet you in person instead.”

Li Younan looked at this message and hesitated slightly, then thought for a moment and said, ”Perhaps you could start by telling me your name.”

The other party realized the opening was a bit abrupt and quickly said, ”My name is Lu Shihua.”

Li Younan pondered the name for a moment before slowly asking, ”Where are you from?”

The other party quickly replied, ”I can come to you.”

Li Younan chuckled silently: ”No worries, just tell me where you are. If it’s part of my travel plan, I can make it convenient.”

The other seemed to not expect Li Younan to be so accommodating and nervously asked, ”Really? I’m currently in the south...”

Li Younan thought about how he had no plans at the moment and checked that there was a check-in spot in the south.

The south was a county in Sichuan that was actually not very famous, so much so that many Sichuan locals didn’t know the place existed.

And there was a rather famous camping spot called Zhongsheng Lake, which was also a renowned fishing reservoir in China.

Li Younan then said to the person named Lu Shihua, ”Alright then, I might come by in a few days, and I’ll find you then.”

The other party instantly became excited: ”Really? That’d be fantastic, thank you so much, Teacher Li!”

...

The latest season of Wilderness Survival was in preparation.

Although filming was scheduled for around August, recruiting contestants was a preliminary task.

This time, it was also a global recruitment of survival experts, with a prize of 1 million USD.

However, during the recruitment process, they encountered a roadblock.

Honestly, with so many seasons before, they had explored all sorts of survival locations.

To continually earn ratings, such programs must innovate in some aspects to avoid aesthetic fatigue among viewers.

This was why they kept updating the competition locations.

But in the more than ten previous seasons, they had tried basically every imaginable environment, so innovating in terms of environments was somewhat challenging now.

While the planning team considered the issue, a staff member suddenly thought of something, saying, ”Maybe we can brainstorm ideas about the contestants. So far, haven’t we had any contestants from China?”

The Asian planning director indeed furrowed his brow and said, ”Chinese people... do Chinese people have wilderness survival skills?”

Everyone seemed to agree that it was true; Chinese people didn’t seem to have wilderness survival skills, although it was a stereotype, it appeared not far off.

The staff member laughed and said, ”Perhaps precisely because of this, it would be more attention-grabbing.”

The group discussed the topic and reached a consensus: they might give it a try.

The director of the planning team said, ”Then, over the next period, everyone can keep an eye out for any potential contestants from China.”

In fact, their selection of contestants was not through an application process.

To enhance the show’s appeal, choosing several people who were clueless, or complete unknowns without any influence would be a waste of time.

Their criteria for choosing contestants was that viewers should either look forward to seeing them blunder or immediately anticipate that they would shine in the competition, with the latter being more captivating for the audience than the former.

Initially divided and delegating this task, most staff didn’t pay much attention to this small decision.

In fact, most of the staff didn’t expect to find a suitable contestant in China, but that’s okay; this kind of creative work requires trial and error.