I am a Big Player
Chapter 318 - 316, Return to the Old Place (Third Update)_1

Chapter 318: 316, Return to the Old Place (Third Update)_1

Liu Erbao’s team, upon returning to China, immediately headed for Tibet. For them, filming at an altitude of 7,400 meters was a first-time endeavor. They enlisted the country’s most renowned climbing team to escort and safeguard their mission. After all, they weren’t aiming for the summit but to stay at the camp at an altitude of 7,400 meters with no significant dangers involved. Should anyone in the team suffer from ill health, they would be promptly evacuated to a lower camp for treatment.

All this effort was merely to witness Ren He once again successfully challenge the record. The video didn’t require editing or exquisite production; they just needed to time Ren He with precision for professional speed measurement, then chronicle it all on video.

It was all to shatter the perception within the ski descent community that Ren He wasn’t the foremost in their field.

The current leading figure in ski descending gained fame from challenging a 2,300-meter-altitude snowy ridge in the Alps, descending a vertical drop of 600 meters.

However, this time Ren He was taking on Mount Everest’s steeper North Slope with a vertical drop of 3,000 meters. In this endeavor, Ren He would not regulate his speed but free-fall at full velocity, dodging shallower rocks at the highest possible speed.

If it were the rocky South Slope, he certainly wouldn’t dare do that, but with snow on the North Slope accumulated to more than a person’s height, anything smaller than particularly large rocks protruding wouldn’t significantly affect Ren He.

Therefore, regarding altitude, vertical drop, or speed, as long as Ren He’s challenge was successful, it would crush all idle chatter.

If you’re going to play, then be the best at it!

Meanwhile, he needed Liu Erbao to rely on professional climbers to capture detailed topography of the North Slope and send it to him, so he could plan his skiing route. For others, merely looking at photographs might not be enough to remember their intended path during descent, but Ren He had an extraordinary memory; he would engrave the route in his mind.

From the beginning, he was acutely aware of how crucial route selection was for speed skiing. For instance, the current speed skiing champion spent a full 12 hours just preparing before completing the 600-meter descent challenge.

This made it evident how risky it had been for Ren He to leap down from Mount Everest without any preparation—it was a stroke of sheer luck that he survived.

The plan was set, but when Liu Erbao and his colleagues reached the base of Mount Everest and gazed up at the majestic and vast peak, something in their minds snapped: "No, I can’t just film Ren He’s fleeting figure passing by at 7,400 meters altitude. That would be a lifetime regret!"

The brothers in the team agreed with him: "I think it would be better to produce a dedicated promotional video. That’s a brilliant idea!"

"Just think," Liu Erbao said excitedly, "when Ren He charges down from the summit, the snow trail behind him forming a beautiful curve, his diminutive figure against the grandeur of the mountains appearing so prominent, so thrilling. If we don’t capture it on camera, won’t we regret it for a lifetime?"

"Yes!" they all said in unison.

"But considering our physical fitness, we simply can’t go up there, right...?"

"No, we don’t need to go up!" Liu Erbao thought for a moment and said, "Didn’t we hire a climbing team? Above the third camp at 7,400 meters altitude, there are more camps, and we don’t need them to summit. They just have to place battery-operated high-definition cameras at spots Ren He will pass, and later bring the cameras down. That’s also not dangerous! We can increase the payment until they’re willing!"

"Haha, good, as long as there are no fatalities, more money will do the trick."

The auction ended at a price of $140,000. Liu Erbao and his team waited at an altitude of 7,400 meters, while the climbing team was responsible for setting up one camera at 8,600 meters and another at 8,400 meters. The lens of the camera at 8,600 meters was pointed directly at the starting point of the summit!

In fact, Liu Erbao had never been a stingy person; whenever he recorded videos for Ren He, he would spend generously. This time, compared to using a helicopter in the past, it was truly cost-effective.

It was just that the air at Mount Everest was too thin for a helicopter to fly up...

After everything was ready, which was half a month later, all the camera equipment was sealed at the base camp below the mountain. Once Ren He confirmed the climbing date, both parties would contact each other via satellite phone and climb at the same time.

It was at this time that a group of young mountaineers set off from the Sherpa town. Ren He met with everyone here, An Si went to pick up the airplane, and then a team of six set off, reaching the 6,000-meter altitude camp after a journey of three days and a short period of acclimatization.

At this point, the effects of the Qinghe Club’s persistent training for half a year became evident. Below the elevation of 6,000 meters, they even had more energy than An Si, which was significantly more. In fact, there was a saying: the younger you are, the higher the success rate of summiting. For example, in the past life, there was a 15-year-old girl who became the youngest person in history to summit Mount Everest.

Of course, it refers to youths older than 15, not suggesting that a 3-year-old child could climb it.

In their youth, individuals have far more energy than adults, as well as better memory, learning ability, recovery ability, and physical functions.

Sometimes, ailments developed in youth do not show any impact at the time but become evident in middle age. It’s not that there was no effect at the time, but the ailments could be utterly negligible then.

That’s why Ren He dared to take them on this journey, to add a significant entry to their life experiences. If any of them wanted to study abroad, the experience of a murder game might not be flashy enough, but summiting Mount Everest would certainly gain the recognition of any school’s interview.

Of course, by that time, no one would be foolish enough to mention the hundreds of thousands of US dollars they spent on hiring Sherpas to escort and protect them...

By the time they arrived at the 6,000-meter camp, Smeier and his team were still there, and his team members had all been replaced. The original members had reportedly all reached the summit on their second attempt and had gone back.

When Ren He’s team arrived, they were quite conspicuous; the number of Sherpas accompanying them was even greater than the number of team members, making many people annoyed. It really seemed like the big bosses had come to play at climbing the mountain. Were they actually planning on having the Sherpas carry them up?

Ren He washed his face, changed into a new hardshell jacket, and wore a thick windproof mask. Nobody could recognize him as Knight, and who would have thought that Knight would return to Mount Everest at this time? It was utterly unexpected!

However, Jiang Haoyang, Liu Bing, and Li Yifan, the three who had always been following Knight’s moves, had some ideas, because Ren He had used the name An Si the last time he climbed, and as a result, An Si had a short burst of fame on the internet afterward.

Moreover, there was plenty of his image data available; he naturally liked attending various activities, and when he became popular, photos of An Si were all over the internet. So when Liu Bing and the others saw An Si coming to pick them up at the airport, they were taken aback...

...

Bonus update for reaching the donation goal