Leisurely Traveler with Check-in System
Chapter 393 - 195: Episode 1 Released! [Second Update!]
When the staff were about to arrive at Li Younan’s shelter, Li Younan was leisurely sitting on a stump, teasing the Little Fire Dragon in front of him.
The Little Fire Dragon’s leg injury hadn’t naturally healed yet, but thanks to the splint Li Younan made for it, this little creature could already stand up and walk a couple of steps.
Li Younan fed it water and some moss.
During the day, if he was at the shelter, he could leave this little toy unconfined.
Clearly, the little sheep was quite spirited; last night, when it was producing milk, it even yielded a massive three liters of sheep milk.
After it had eaten a good amount of moss, it bleated a few times, looking like it wanted to drink water.
Li Younan turned around to scoop some water for it, suddenly hearing a commotion behind him.
As he turned around, he saw that the little creature had taken the chance to escape but fell after just a few steps.
It struggled to stand up to run again but got slapped on the head by Li Younan and stayed obedient after that.
In his mind, Li Younan was planning that after another week or two, the little thing’s leg injury should improve enough to take it to the usual place by the water to give it a bath...
Just as he was thinking this, the staff had already arrived.
This time, a new group of staff had come. They needed to take care of all the contestants spread out around the lake, so they naturally split into several work teams.
Every time they performed a health check on a contestant, it would be done in rotation.
This time, the team leader conducting Li Younan’s health check was named Henry.
Like the previous John, when he saw Li Younan’s shelter, he had the same reaction—his jaw almost dropped in surprise.
Ah, wait, why is it a house?
Compared to when John did the check before, Li Younan’s shelter was still not fully formed, so the shock he felt was far less intense than this time.
He saw that the camping site chosen by Li Younan had a surrounding area of twenty or thirty square meters, stabilized and smoothened with wooden stakes, and around the house was a layer of crushed stones and drainage channels, almost eliminating the risk of Li Younan’s house being flooded on rainy days.
Li Younan’s house was considered the most luxurious among all the contestants ever.
First, the height—Li Younan’s house reached an astonishing 2.2 meters or more, and the roof had a slanted design typical of traditional Chinese houses, with eaves ensuring no rain accumulation.
The outermost layer of the roof was smooth birch bark, with moss and waterproof cloth underneath, thus eliminating any chance of roof leaks, and it had a good insulation effect.
Following that was the thick, solid-looking earthen wall, which immediately appeared extremely sturdy.
Several staff members exchanged glances, each seeing the incredulity in the others’ eyes.
However, just then, they suddenly noticed Li Younan... playing with a sheep.
Hang on, he’s playing with sheep?
Henry couldn’t help but rub his eyes, confirming that he hadn’t seen wrong.
And over there, Li Younan had warmly waved at him.
...
This health check was likewise very smooth.
Before long, the staff completed the health check for Li Younan.
Henry stood with his hands on his hips, looking at Li Younan with a complicated expression—Li Younan had already led the Little Fire Dragon into the sheep pen, and all the staff, driven by curiosity, followed Li Younan to tour his shelter.
This shelter was incredibly safe.
Inside, the space was at least ten square meters, with a warm fireplace, a spacious area for stacking firewood beside the fireplace, a bed, and a wooden table, with the back door directly connecting to the sheep pen.
Henry no longer knew what words to use to describe Li Younan’s shelter; in modern society, such a shelter wouldn’t count as comfortable, but in the wilderness, it was simply like a villa.
However, listening to Li Younan’s tone, this guy seemed not satisfied, continuously griping about needing to perfect the furniture, making the bed more comfortable, and the windows were too small.
After checking the weight today, Li Younan’s weight had decreased by about 0.5 kilograms.
Upon seeing this data, Henry was just as shocked.
Mind you, at this point, a full two weeks had passed, and a total of three contestants had withdrawn from the show, while the remaining contestants had varying degrees of weight loss.
Except for Pacini, who hunted a sheep at the start, losing only three kilograms, the other contestants had lost over five kilograms in weight. Li Younan’s weight only dropped by 0.5 kilograms—everyone knew what that meant: a person’s weight fluctuates daily, and considering this factor, Li Younan could almost be equated with having no weight change at all.
Regarding other physiological indicators, blood pressure, heart rate, etc., Li Younan maintained a very healthy state.
But upon learning his weight had decreased by 0.5 kg, this guy frowned and said it wasn’t good news. At that moment, Henry even struggled to decide whether this guy was pretending or was truly upset by the weight loss.
Thinking about it seemed valid; while other contestants were anxious about food and drink, this guy was already eating butter—Li Younan had shown them his ghee.
Ghee is very much like butter, the difference being butter contains more than 20% moisture, which doesn’t last as long as ghee.
However, these foreigners didn’t understand the difference between butter and ghee, and Li Younan couldn’t be bothered to explain.
As they were leaving, they couldn’t help but take another look at the little ewe in Li Younan’s backyard sheep pen.
At this moment, the little ewe was sleeping very obediently in the corner. It only lifted its head slightly upon noticing a few people, then continued to sleep, looking very relaxed.
Seeing this scene, their expressions were somewhat complex.
Henry said, "Buddy, you’re going to be the most incredible star of this season—no, to be precise, of this show ever."
He knew very well that as long as this little ewe existed, Li Younan was already invincible.
After all, a milk-producing ewe, even if living solely on dairy products, would be enough for Li Younan to survive for quite a long time.
And in desperate times, he could slaughter the little ewe for meat, which is an even more exaggerated advantage than Pacini hunting a sheep.
After the crew left, Li Younan began to continue his work.
Today he planned to chop enough wood to encircle his shelter with another layer of wooden fence, thereby completely securing his campsite.
While Li Younan was working, the crew returned to the camp, as they did last time, transmitting the footage from Li Younan’s recent time back to headquarters.
That evening, the production team had already compiled and edited all the contestants’ footage into a rough framework.
At this moment, Jeff Kay was looking at the computer screen with a somewhat serious gaze.
Putting together such an episode is a time-consuming and labor-intensive systematic project.
Previously, the strategy was to complete the entire filming before broadcasting each episode separately, but this year the approach was adjusted to broadcast each episode in real-time as it’s completed.
Each episode wasn’t timed-based for production; as long as there were enough highlight moments to edit suspensefully, an episode could be fully crafted.
The first episode would likely showcase the first week of each contestant’s life Alone in the Wilderness. However, to ensure enough redundancy in content and ample time, footage collection would extend to over a week. By the time the second week’s footage was available, the content for the first episode could be smoothly produced for review and broadcast.
At this moment, Jeff Kay and other members of the directors’ team had reviewed the latest submitted footage.
That internet celebrity from China was just as surprisingly impressive as in the first week.
Especially seeing the guy bringing back a live ewe from the bottom of a valley, everyone’s mouth twitched.
They could scarcely imagine how outrageously a milk-producing ewe could trigger reactions.
Subsequently, Li Younan used the milk from the ewe to make butter and curd. Everyone realized this guy had already shown champion potential in just two short weeks.
However, it’s not an absolute thing, as Li Younan had potential competitors, at least two.
Besides Pacini, who hunted a sheep, there was another female contestant Connor, who, although hadn’t hunted large animals, could occasionally catch a rabbit or pheasant with traps—the same woman who was continuously unsuccessful at fishing at the start.
It’s well known that women have a higher fat content than men, which means they can endure hunger better.
Although Li Younan’s start was smooth, with a luxurious shelter providing a more comfortable solitary experience, this was ultimately a food-focused show filled with unknowns and uncertainties.
So whether Li Younan could keep winning to the end was still unknown.
The current biggest problem is that Li Younan’s performance was so good, there were too many highlight moments which would compress the time for other contestants during editing.
However, Jeff Kay already had the perfect strategy for this issue: for those excellent performers, if they could become stars on the show later, producing a director’s cut version of a contestant compilation could bring a further profit.
So in the first episode, all of Li Younan’s performance was composed of highlights, but the duration was controlled to be about the same as the other contestants.
A week later, the first episode finally met the audience.
This episode portrayed snippets of the first week’s wilderness life of all the contestants.
However, it was not strictly presented in chronological order, each contestant faced their own problems, and each contestant’s story concluded at a suspenseful point.
Hence, the timelines of the contestants differed.
Take Pacini for example, he encountered a sheep and then chased after it, and the story ended there.
Whether he successfully hunted that sheep became a significant suspense in the first episode.
Besides Pacini, Li Younan’s stunning performance in the show was undoubtedly the highlight of this episode.
Unlike other contestants, every video clip of Li Younan was so engrossing.
Even random shots while he was on the road were filled with his detailed explanations of various plants like a treasure trove.
In the first episode, there were scenes of Li Younan gathering a large amount of carbohydrates, the process of building the shelter with a cantilever wooden frame structure, and that classic shot of him accurately piercing a trout’s heart in mid-air with a single stab.
This particular shot even became the core highlight of the teaser for the opening of the first episode.
Upon the show’s release, it unsurprisingly garnered a certain level of attention.
However, the impact and attention it garnered abroad were far less compared to the Chinese market.
After all, this show had been broadcast abroad for more than a dozen seasons continuously.
But when the first episode premiered on domestic video websites, Li Younan sent fans who love Alone in the Wilderness and Wilderness Survival shows into a frenzy.