Chapter 654 - 292: Secondhand Boat, Guesthouse, Photographic Works (4)

As for this place, honestly, if you don’t consider anything else and just stay here comfortably, it’s quite a nice experience.

The pace of life on the island is slow, and the native islanders speak in soft Wu dialects. There are extremely relaxed cafes, windmills, lighthouses, forests, and reed fields. Anything that might interest young artists can be found here.

Every day, she has plenty of time to play.

On this not-too-crowded island, she strolls through the forest daily, kicks stones on the riverbank, or rides a bicycle around the island with Liu Li.

Recently, she got two pairs of roller skates and a skateboard, and every day she and Liu Li practice in the courtyard of the bed and breakfast.

Since Liu Li is in her early twenties, she is very interested in these fresh and exciting activities. In just a few days, she had mastered some basic skateboarding techniques and wanted to show off in front of Li Younan.

She stylishly jumped onto the skateboard, and then... unsurprisingly fell.

She fell quite hard; she cried while clutching her butt.

Honestly, it even startled Li Younan at the time. He carried Liu Li to the room and, without another word, pulled off her skirt...

He carefully examined her based on his understanding of the body’s muscles and bones, confirmed it was only a soft tissue injury, and finally breathed a sigh of relief.

In the following days, Liu Li became less boastful. Every day, Li Younan applied medicine to her, and the girl shyly buried her face in the quilt: "Annoying, don’t keep staring."

"Ha... quite round."

"Li Younan! I, I’m embarrassed..."

However, Li Younan was not taking advantage of anyone’s vulnerability; he was simply applying medicine to Liu Li, with very gentle movements.

Later, as the yacht design plans gradually improved, Li Younan began to be less busy.

In a blink of an eye, he had stayed for quite a while at Jing Chaoyi’s guesthouse, becoming very familiar with everything here.

Li Younan naturally noticed that Jing Chaoyi’s guesthouse wasn’t doing well business-wise.

As things on his hands gradually subsided, he even started to feel a bit bored.

Come to think of it, humans are indeed a bit tricky; when busy, they long for rest, but once truly resting, sometimes they feel idle and restless.

Initially, during his leisure time, Li Younan would quietly stroll alone on this island, randomly walk along the Yangtze River, or wander into a local village to watch a few old men playing chess under a tree.

In this era of information explosion, there are too many stimulating things, gradually raising people’s emotional threshold to very high levels, like several floors high.

But truly slowing down and quieting down, watching a few lousy chess players arguing red in the face over a game is actually quite interesting.

In the following two days, Jing Chaoyi’s guesthouse completely stopped operating, and Jing Chaoyi still didn’t seem to care much.

Li Younan was a bit speechless.

After all, staying here is quite interesting; if Jing Chaoyi’s shop truly went out of business, there would be no other place to stay on this little island.

Living in Jing Chaoyi’s guesthouse, Li Younan hadn’t spent a penny, so if Jing Chaoyi actually had to close the shop, he would feel a bit guilty, too.

Of course, attracting visitors to Jing Chaoyi’s place is quite simple. As a big influencer, a couple of casual videos would bring plenty of people to follow suit.

However, attracting customers this way would only result in a temporary surge; once the hype passed, no one would care.

In such a case, it would be more convenient to directly give Jing Chaoyi the money.

The better way would be to make Jing Chaoyi’s guesthouse inherently attractive.

But achieving this is quite challenging; so far, there’s no clear path to making Jing Chaoyi’s guesthouse continuously appealing...

Another thing was the plan to go surfing by the sea, which hadn’t been possible, since neither Changxing Island nor Hengsha Island had ideal surfing spots.

One day, Liu Li’s injury healed quite quickly, and she didn’t skateboard anymore. She took Li Younan’s camera and photographed Jing Chaoyi, then went to an island photo shop to develop them.

When she returned, besides a few photos of Jing Chaoyi, she also had a photo Li Younan had previously taken on Highway 318.

This was the photo Li Younan had taken at Ranwu Lake, depicting a mountain in golden sunlight.

Undoubtedly, this photo was at a master level.

In Li Younan’s camera, there were nearly a hundred photos of this caliber.

After all, back in Rikaze, one of the tasks was for him to capture fifty master-level photos.

In addition to those fifty task photos from Rikaze, the photos he took along the way and retained were genuinely master-class photography pieces—at least seventy to eighty, if not more.

Liu Li merely picked one she liked, and she named it "Morning Light at Ranwu, Golden Peaks."

The picture uses the rule of thirds for precise division: the bottom third of the clear deep blue water of Ranwu Lake and the upper two-thirds of the majestic peaks of the Gangrigabu Mountains, with a film of mist as thin as a cicada’s wing spanning between heaven and earth.

For Liu Li, the photo was very pleasing to the eye, but for a professional photographer, it was not just about being pretty.

It was an extreme unity of technical precision, artistic influence, and humanistic depth.

Every detail concealed a master-level concept, both professionally critique-proof and capable of piercing the viewer’s soul.

Most wonderful was the godly grasp of the light’s usage.

Back when Li Younan took this photo, he waited for several days to capture those few minutes of golden light.

This light rendered the image in quad-layer gradients of gilt gold, warm orange-pink, and soft-blue-gray, with exposure precisely controlled to the tiniest fraction.

This latitude of high-light non-overexposure and shadow detail is something many photographers may never fully grasp in a lifetime.

Moreover, this picture transcends scenery with an elevated artistic concept, transitioning from view to sentiment.

When Jing Chaoyi saw this photo, she was astounded.

She had some foundation in photography, having helped Younan sign up for photography competitions before.

Now she realized Li Younan’s photography skills had advanced again.

This photo was just outrageous; though it was a scenery shot, it had a narrative feel. Could you believe it?

The photo showcased technical flair at every corner but transcended mere technical landscape work, allowing even ordinary people unfamiliar with photography to find emotional resonance, pondering the bond between humanity and nature.

Liu Li chuckled and said, "Accidentally printed an extra, thought I’d just bring it back with me."

Li Younan casually nodded, "Mm."

These photos were printed without any frames; after taking a look, Younan nonchalantly tossed them onto the table in the guesthouse.

Seeing his carelessly leaving the photo on the table, Jing Chaoyi momentarily hesitant to speak.

She sighed lightly and prepared to put the photo away.

Just at that moment, a guest walked into the guesthouse.