Studying at Western University starts with a knife-forging competition

After dinner, Matt drove Doug back to the forge. Doug carefully placed the knife in the passenger seat, even wrapping it twice with the seatbelt, before saying goodbye to Lin Yuan and Matt and driving away.

After Doug's taillights disappeared at the end of the road, Lin Yuan and Matt stood in front of the forge for a while.

The nights in South Carolina in March were still a bit chilly. The wind blew through the hickory grove across from the parking lot, carrying the scent of pine needles mixed with a faint smell of dust.

Daniel had already left. Before he left, he wiped the workbench again, put the cover on the quenching tank, turned off the ventilation fan, and even rearranged the pliers on the tool rack according to their dimensions.

Lin Yuan locked the gate and put the key into the side pocket of his backpack.

Matt started the car, and the car stereo automatically connected to the playlist on his phone, playing the same classical rock album.

The volume was turned down compared to when we arrived, and the lead singer's voice hummed faintly in the quiet carriage.

The light from the streetlights streaked across the windshield, transitioning from the old industrial area where the forging workshop was located to the commercial street near the school, with the shadows of the roadside trees sweeping across the car body in streaks.

Neither of them spoke much, and the ten-minute drive passed in the blink of an eye. Soon, they were back at school.

Back in his dorm, Lin Yuan put his backpack on a chair and sat down on the sofa.

Matt went to the kitchen and got two cans of Coke. He placed one on the coffee table in front of Lin Yuan, opened the other can, took a sip, and sat down at the other end of the sofa.

The TV wasn't on; the only sounds in the living room were the low hum of the refrigerator compressor and the occasional sound of the door closing in the next room coming from the hallway.

Lin Yuan took the envelope out of the side pocket of his backpack.

The envelope was the standard business envelope that Doug brought, off-white, without a logo, with Lin Yuan's name written on the front in ballpoint pen, the handwriting messy but with great pressure, the strokes pressed into the paper fibers.

He opened the envelope, took out the $50,000 cash check, and examined it closely in his hand.

The check was on crisp paper, with Doug Maqueda's name at the top and "50,000.00" written in the amount field. The signature was as illegible as on the envelope, but the amount was clearly written.

Lin Yuan ran his thumb along the edge of the check, leaving a very fine, sharp trace on his fingertip.

This was the first time in his life he had earned such a large sum of money.

Fifty thousand dollars.

It wasn't a scholarship, nor living expenses from his family, nor hourly wages from odd jobs—it was something he created by standing alone in front of the furnace, hammering away one hammer blow at a time, all through his own skills.

Every layer of forging, every quenching, every fine grinding, finally transformed into the short horizontal sword with flowing blue-gold cloud patterns in Doug's hand, and into the phrase Doug posted on social media, "Ten times better than I expected."

He flipped the check over; the back was blank and had not been endorsed.

Lin Yuan stared at the blank space for a few seconds, and the image of his father's desk at the Longquan factory came to mind.

The table was always piled with blueprints, orders, and half a pack of cigarettes, while a few handfuls of cash wages waiting to be paid to the workers were locked in the drawer.

His father spent most of his life forging swords. When he took over the factory from his grandfather, he still owed the bank a loan for equipment, which took five years to pay off.

The most expensive custom-made sword in the factory sold for 80,000 RMB. It was forged by his father himself over a month and a half. The sword was decorated with traditional hand-folded patterns. When the customer came to pick up the sword, he looked at it three times and finally said, "It's worth it."

80,000 RMB.

A little over ten thousand US dollars.

The check he has in his hand is for $50,000.

Converted at the exchange rate, it amounts to nearly 300,000 RMB.

His father's sword sold for 80,000, while his short horizontal sword sold for over 300,000.

His dad took a month and a half, while he took less than two weeks.

It's not that he's so much better than his father—this thought popped into his head for less than half a second before he suppressed it.

He knew his father's skill level well. If the old man was willing to spend a month and a half hand-forging a sword, and sell it in America, the price wouldn't be lower than what Doug offered.

The problem is that his father's market is in China, and the domestic market for high-end custom swords is only so big. There are only a small number of people willing to spend more than 100,000 RMB to buy a sword, and most of these people already have fixed artisans working with them. For new faces to squeeze in, it's not a question of whether their skills are good enough, but whether the artisans will recognize them.

That's why his parents didn't object when he was tinkering with anime and manga merchandise at the factory back then.

There are at least dozens of factories in Longquan that make traditional swords. They all make similar styles, have a highly overlapping customer base, and are engaged in fierce price wars.

As for anime and game merchandise—those exaggeratedly designed swords and other items—traditional craftsmen either disdain making them or want to but don't know where to begin.

Lin Yuan was a high school student at the time. He frequented several anime forums online and discovered a phenomenon: many people were willing to spend a lot of money to buy a highly accurate game weapon model, but they couldn't find a reliable source.

The toys sold on Taobao are either cheap plastic toys costing a few dozen yuan, or iron sheets that are supposedly "purely handmade" but have completely wrong shapes.

He told his dad about this request.

After hearing this, his father was silent for a while, then said, "Try it if you want."

Lin Yuan bought a cheap 3D printer and spent a month learning the basics of modeling software online. His first order was for a longsword from a domestic game. The design wasn't too outrageous, and the hollowed-out patterns on the sword couldn't be made with traditional casting, so 3D printing was perfect for it.

He made two versions of the sword. The first version was out of proportion and the client was not satisfied, so he readjusted the model and made another version. After sending it out, the client posted a picture on the forum, and his private messages exploded that day.

Since then, the factory has never stopped receiving orders for anime merchandise.

The volume is not large, and orders are accepted one by one, but the profit margin is frighteningly high. Customers of traditional swords are picky about materials, craftsmanship, and heat treatment, and none of them can be ambiguous. Customers of anime merchandise only care about one thing: how similar it is.

As long as the design is exactly the same as in the game, they don't care whether the material is iron or steel, or whether it's sharpened or not. In fact, many people request that it not be sharpened, for fear of being investigated.

These types of orders are quick to process and profitable. The only hurdle is modeling and 3D printing, and he has successfully overcome that hurdle.

Although his father didn't say it, Lin Yuan knew that the old man approved of it.

It's not that he approves of the aesthetics of those anime merchandise items—his dad's expression when looking at those exaggerated game weapon screenshots is no different from his expression when looking at plastic toys sold in supermarkets—but rather that he approves of the logic behind this path.

The traditional market is already too crowded to enter. Instead of competing with dozens of peers for a limited number of customers in a red ocean, it's better to forge a new path.

This is why Lin Yuan's father didn't object when he suggested hiring a modeler later on—it's really profitable.

Now he's in the US, facing the same logic, but the market size is completely different.

A short knife worth $50,000.

Doug paid without hesitation, without even haggling. Nielsen had mentioned in the restaurant that he had worked on the show for several years, and with his income level, his maximum budget was only twenty or thirty thousand US dollars.

But that's because Nelson's income comes from shows and teaching; he's not a collector, he's a knife maker.

The truly wealthy collectors and practitioners—like Doug, who have both the purchasing power and knowledge of knives—are willing to pay far more for a truly top-tier piece than the average knifemaker can imagine.

It's not that he's much better than other knife makers, it's that his work is different from theirs.

The precision of maintaining clear patterns even after 8,000 layers of forging with cloud-patterned steel, silver-iron alloy, and other processes is something no one in the American forging industry can achieve.

It's not that others don't want to do it, it's that they can't.

Nielsen has been on the show for so many years and has seen all kinds of works, but when he saw the dagger, his first reaction was not to comment, but to fall silent.

When Doug held the sword, he said, "This shouldn't be used for testing; it should be in the hands of a real warrior"—that wasn't for the sake of the show; it was a genuine reaction.

Because there are no competing products on the market.

The thought swirled in Lin Yuan's mind, causing him to flip the check back to the front and look at the number again.

Fifty thousand dollars.

When Doug paid the check in person today, he said, "When your orders are booked until next year, you'll thank me for giving you a good start today."

This isn't just polite talk; it's a prediction made by someone who's spent most of their life in the knife-making industry about a young craftsman just starting out.

Doug has witnessed the rise and fall of too many knifemakers. He knows what kind of craftsmanship can retain customers and what kind of works can make a craftsman's name spread in the circle.

Lin Yuan placed the check on the coffee table and leaned back against the sofa.

Matt was drinking his Coke next to him, glancing at the check without saying anything, but there was a faint smile on his lips.

Lin Yuan stared at the water stain in the corner of the ceiling for a few seconds, then suddenly said, "This money needs to be taxed."

Matt placed the Coke can on his lap, turned to look at him, and said, "You finally thought of that."

"I've been thinking about it." Lin Yuan stretched out his legs and moved his ankles. "For the past two years, I did my own tax filing. It's usually simple for international students. I don't have to report the living expenses my family gives me, and I just fill out the forms for the little income from odd jobs. But it's different now."

This money wasn't wages; it was self-employment income—I made knives and sold them to Doug, and no employer withheld taxes for me; I had to report it all myself.

"And it's not just this one," Matt replied, his tone much more serious than usual. "You'll have many more orders coming in, each one a form of self-employment income, and each one subject to self-employment tax."

Federal taxes, state taxes, and self-employment taxes—these three combined don't amount to a small sum.

"I know." Lin Yuan picked up the check from the coffee table, glanced at it again, and put it back in the envelope. "So I was thinking of hiring an accounting firm to do the reporting. I can't figure it out myself, and rather than getting fined by the IRS for making a mistake, I might as well pay a professional to do it."

Matt nodded, took a sip of his Coke, and placed the can on the coffee table.

He paused for a few seconds, as if organizing his thoughts, and then spoke with a more serious tone than usual: "I have an uncle who runs an accounting firm."

Lin Yuan turned to look at him.

Matt's expression wasn't his usual lazy and casual one; instead, it carried a sense of certainty that said, "I have good reasons for making this suggestion."