Li Younan dumped the entire process of his Sword Forging and all the subsequent testing footage over to Liu Li.
When he sent it to her it was morning on his side, and without a doubt, it was nighttime back in China.
But Liu Li hadn’t gone to bed yet; she replied quickly, just a bit puzzled: "This isn’t travel content, it’s a blacksmithing video. What’s the selling point of this one?"
For a moment, Li Younan didn’t even know what to say.
When it came to collaborating on this stuff, Liu Li could cut travel content really well, but with a Sword Forging video like this, she just couldn’t get what was supposed to be satisfying about it.
Having her edit it was honestly making things hard for her.
Still, it wasn’t a big deal. Li Younan said, "No worries, just send it to your brother and let him handle it personally."
After explaining the relevant details to Liu Li, he got ready to head for the competition’s base camp.
The T-Rex’s pickup bed was loaded with some gear, though overall it was still pretty lightweight.
The competition was being held at a ranch called Gorlenson.
They called it a ranch, but it actually included the surrounding mountains, canyons, streams, and Indian Hill terrain. The whole area was even larger than the region he’d been in for Alone in the Wilderness in Canada.
And during Alone in the Wilderness, if nothing special was going on, you wouldn’t really move around much. This hunting competition was the exact opposite: not only did you have to camp out in the wild, the course itself ran across dozens of kilometers of wilderness.
In a sense, it was basically on par with Alone in the Wilderness in terms of how hardcore it was.
But the more hardcore it was, the more he liked it.
Next, Li Younan had about an hour and a half of driving on paved road.
During that time, Liu Li sent the edited video back.
Taking advantage of a bathroom break midway, Li Younan posted the video to several of his international accounts’ home pages.
At the moment, each of his international accounts only had a single video, the earlier surfing clip.
But surfing has a bigger audience abroad than at home, and even with just a few days of traction, it had already netted him a six-figure like count.
Across several platforms his followers had already broken the 100,000 mark, and that was just from his first video.
Then, Li Younan checked the video Liu Li had just sent him.
He had to admit, one look and you could tell it was her brother’s work. The guy obviously knew exactly what male viewers liked to see most.
The video opened with a slow-motion montage of brutally chopping through pig bones, contrasted with a regular blade chipping when it hit the bone, followed by close-up shots detailing the patterns on the blade.
Just that first ten seconds of clips was enough to make most male viewers stop scrolling.
Li Younan was very satisfied with the video content and uploaded it to several of his international accounts’ home pages without hesitation.
Of course, he didn’t forget his domestic accounts either. But in comparison, the domestic version had an extra 20-second ad spliced in by Liu Li’s brother. On that point, there was nothing he could do; it couldn’t be helped.
The price for a single ad was 500,000 yuan. He was short on cash right now, so if there was an ad to take, he had to take it.
The videos on the international accounts, on the other hand, were clean, pure enjoyment versions.
Once he hit publish, Li Younan stopped paying attention to his media accounts and continued on toward his destination.
Dozens of minutes later, he finally arrived at Gorlenson Ranch headquarters.
The ranch’s main camp provided lodging, and it also had a garage where you could park your car.
Under the guidance of the event staff, Li Younan parked his vehicle and was then informed that unless he chose to quit midway, he wouldn’t be allowed to use any motorized vehicles for the duration of the competition, though he could opt to ride a horse.
Afterward, the staff checked the relevant documents he’d brought, told him the time for dinner that night and the assembly time for the official start the next day, and then left him alone.
Once he’d sorted out his things, Li Younan strolled around the area at leisure.
In the United States, the core defining feature of a ranch is that it’s super big.
Here, an extra-large ranch could cover over a thousand square kilometers, spanning multiple states, and the ranch he was currently at, while not the very top tier in the United States, still ran into several hundred square kilometers.
The ranch radiated outward from the headquarters complex as its center.
Right now, he was in the headquarters complex itself, built in a traditional American ranch style.
The main house was a luxury estate, and besides that there were all sorts of auxiliary buildings: guest rooms, offices, a restaurant, and a garage.
Since it was still early, he wandered around aimlessly and even came across the livestock production house, the hay and feed storage, the stables, and so on.
It was worth noting that the roofs here were all fitted with solar PV panels and BYD energy storage stations; the place was basically energy self-sufficient. That caught him off guard a bit—he hadn’t expected to see BYD showing up in American life in this form.
There were crisscrossing roads between the buildings, and cowboys on horseback patrolling the ranch and checking on the livestock—that was the real deal, actual cowboys.
He had to admit, this kind of extra-large ranch in the United States was an extremely novel experience for him.
It had vast, boundless natural scenery as well as a fully functional building complex. The headquarters area was comfortable and luxurious, the production facilities were scientifically laid out, and the entire ranch had carefully planned roads, fencing, and water systems.

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