Studying at Western University starts with a knife-forging competition

When Lin Yuan turned off the video player, the screen was still frozen on the moment the final champion was announced.

He leaned back in his chair and went over the key operations he had just performed in his mind again—the rhythm of forging, the timing of water quenching, and the moment when the cloud-like patterns appeared after acid pickling.

He was satisfied with every frame, not because they were perfect, but because those operations were already his limit at that time.

He picked up his phone and glanced at the time. Less than half a day had passed since the video went live, and there should already be activity on domestic video websites. He opened his browser and typed a few keywords into the search bar.

"Lin Yuan, the Sword Forging Competition"

The moment the search results popped up, his fingers holding the phone paused for a moment.

At the top of the list is a reposted video titled "Holy crap! Chinese contestant completely crushes foreign judges in sword-forging competition! They're stunned!" It was uploaded six hours ago and already has hundreds of thousands of views. The comment section has over a thousand comments, and it's still scrolling up.

He clicked in and glanced at it. The video was just a recording of a program, without any editing or narration. The image quality was compressed and a bit blurry, but the screen was filled with colorful text floating from right to left, so dense that the image was almost impossible to see.

"Holy crap, what a pattern!" "Chinese people are awesome!" "The three guys on the other side are totally dumbfounded!" "This is a real swordsmith!" "Started learning at nine? I was still playing in the mud when I was nine!" "Look at that water quenching technique, he's an old blacksmith!" "The judges' eyes are practically glued to the screen, hahaha."

Lin Yuan turned off some of the bullet comments and fast-forwarded through the video from beginning to end. The person who uploaded it must have just recorded the screen and uploaded it directly without any further processing, not even translating the English subtitles. But this didn't affect the atmosphere in the comments section at all.

He scrolled down through the comments.

The top comment, which had over 20,000 likes, read, "Finally, a Chinese person has participated in the sword forging competition after all these years, and they're the champion!" Below it were a string of replies like "Awesome!", "A real source of pride!", and "Giving foreigners a little bit of Chinese shock," stacked up several times over.

The second comment was written by someone who seemed to know a little about the industry: "Pay attention to his quenching section. Everyone else uses oil, but he uses water. Quenching high-carbon steel with water is extremely risky; the blank can crack if you're not careful. The fact that he dares to do this shows that he has thoroughly mastered the process." Under this comment, some people were asking for technical details, while others were saying, "I don't understand, but it sounds very impressive."

The third comment only has one sentence: "When did he open his account? I want to follow him."

Lin Yuan took a screenshot of the comment and continued scrolling down.

He watched several reposted videos. One of them was a compilation of his performances on the show, set to a traditional Chinese background music, with the title "Chinese Student Uses Family Tradition to Conquer American Judges." It had more views than the first one, and the comments section was filled with memes like "The national team has stepped in," creating an atmosphere as lively as a party.

Another example is a segment where the water-quenching process was cut out and slowed down, with a large title that reads "This is Chinese sword making." The moment the steam bursts from the anvil in the video is slowed down by four times, and the light from the flames refracts into a brief rainbow in the water mist. The comments section is full of "So cool!" and "The frame rate is too low!"

Lin Yuan watched for a while, and the corners of his mouth unconsciously turned up.

Few of these comments truly understand forging; most are just watching the spectacle, stirring up trouble, and venting their emotions by using the "Chinese people won" argument.

But he doesn't mind it. The domestic knife community is small to begin with, and the number of people who can actually distinguish between 1085 and 1095 is probably less than a fraction of those in the comments section, but that's not important.

The important thing is that these people are willing to spend time watching his videos, willing to type those words in the comments section, and willing to click the follow button and share.

These people are paving the way for him.

He noticed a phenomenon. Under several reposted videos, people were asking the same question—does this contestant have any domestic social media accounts? Does he have a Bilibili account? What about Douyin? Weibo? Some people tagged the official accounts of various platforms in the comments section, asking them if they could invite this contestant to create an account.

Lin Yuan put his phone on the table, leaned back in his chair, and thought for a moment.

Matt had previously told him about the influencer strategy, which focused on overseas markets—Instagram, YouTube, and possibly TikTok.

They never even mentioned domestic platforms, not because they didn't want to, but because they didn't understand them. Matt doesn't understand Chinese and has no concept of the Chinese internet ecosystem. In his eyes, the logic and algorithms of those Chinese-language platforms are completely different from those in the West, and rushing in might not even make a splash.

But now, he doesn't need to actively seek him out; domestic audiences are already looking for him.

The comments section was flooded with questions like "Does he have an account?"—not just a few, but hundreds. Someone manually added a line to the description of the reposted video: "Currently, the player's social media account has not been found. We will update as soon as we have information." This line itself became a new piece of information, repeatedly quoted and followed up by others.

A blank is being repeatedly mentioned.

If he does nothing, it won't be long before someone impersonates him. It won't be malicious; most likely, a fan will register an account named "Lin Yuan" or "Forging Swords Competition Lin Yuan," post a few copied videos, and the fans will think it's him. By the time he realizes this and tries to register again, the name will already be taken. The platform's process for handling these impersonation accounts often takes months, during which time all the fans and traffic go to someone else.

He had seen too many people in the country suffer the same fate.

He picked up his phone and began registering on one platform after another.

I registered on every platform I could think of: Bilibili, Douyin, Weibo, Xiaohongshu, and Zhihu. My username was consistently "Lin Yuan_Forging Knives," and my bio read, "Champion of the 'Forging Knife Competition,' heir to a Longquan sword-making family." My profile picture was a side-profile work photo taken at the forging workshop—he stood in front of the anvil, holding a forging hammer, the firelight from the furnace illuminating his face.

After registering, he checked each account one by one to confirm that each account had completed the initial real-name authentication process. Then he put his phone on the table, picked up a pen, and wrote a line in his notebook: Domestic social media account registered, content to be determined.

He has the account, but he hasn't figured out what to post, how to post it, or who will manage it.

Matt keeps an eye on his overseas accounts, managing the posting schedule, content direction, and platform algorithms. Although Matt claims to be just a handyman, he's far more professional than him when it comes to managing them.

Domestic platforms operate on a completely different model—Bilibili users prefer long videos and hardcore content, Douyin favors short and fast-paced content, Xiaohongshu values ​​aesthetics and storytelling, and Weibo relies on trending topics and hashtags to generate buzz. Posting the same material to different platforms requires adjustments to the copy, editing, and posting time—one person simply can't handle it all.

He currently has orders for Nelson's Bowie hunting knife, Jason's camping knife, and Matt's God Leather Stitching Needle. All three weapons are being developed simultaneously, and he spends most of his free time at the forge every day, apart from his studies.

Asking him to edit videos, write copy, and reply to comments is not that he can't do it, but that once he does it, he won't have time to hone his skills.

We need someone.

He wasn't a strategic partner like Matt, but rather an operator who understood the domestic internet ecosystem and could help him manage his accounts.

This person doesn't need to know forging—he can handle the technical aspects himself: writing the script, filming, and editing. The other party only needs to be responsible for publishing, operation, and coordinating with the platform to meet cooperation needs.

You don't even need to work full-time; a part-time job of a few hours each week will do.

He also wrote this down in his notebook: Find someone who understands domestic operations.

Then he picked up his phone and sent Matt a message, sending him the screenshot of the comment he had just taken of "When will he open an account?", with the following line: People in China are also looking for me. I've registered accounts on all the major platforms first to prevent others from registering them. I'll discuss the specifics of operation with you later.

Matt's reply came almost instantly. First, a series of exclamation marks, then a voice message. Lin Yuan clicked on it, and Matt's voice boomed from the speaker, filled with an excited "I knew this would happen" vibe: "Bro! I told you the influencer route would work! You registered on those platforms in China, right? Send them to me! We'll study them together later!"

Lin Yuan smiled, sent screenshots of the account homepages from several platforms, then put down his phone and reopened a reposted video.

The video was showing him holding up the championship check, and the comments were scrolling by from right to left, a dense collection of words, with only a few occasionally legible—"Awesome," "Champion," "Pride of China," "He deserves it."

He placed his phone on the table and leaned back in his chair. The fluorescent light overhead hummed, and the sky outside the window was beginning to transition into a grayish-blue hue. He had spent the entire day finishing up the rough work on Nelson and Jason's batch of blanks. All ten core materials of the silver-iron alloy had been forged, and the initial structure of the cloud-patterned steel had been stacked to the fourth layer. Two more layers and it would be ready for heat treatment.

His phone vibrated again. He picked it up and glanced at it; it was a new message from Matt.

"Since you registered a domestic account, why don't you also release a domestic version of your first video? The sword with the God-like stitching technique will definitely cause a stir in the domestic gaming community. The Elden Ring has a larger player base in China than in the US, so if you make a Chinese-dubbed version, the effect won't be any worse than the overseas version."

Lin Yuan stared at the message for a while, then replied with a single word: "Okay."