Leisurely Traveler with Check-in System

Chapter 301 - 133: Going Home: Little New Year’s Happiness [6,300 Words]

The little Shengjiang, which was just a month old, was still quite small, but that was in relation to adult horses.

Although it wasn’t yet at the age where it could be ridden, once it started playfully hopping around, it was already beyond the control of someone like Xiaowang, who was a relatively lean horse-riding coach.

Everyone said that a horse isn’t raised through building a relationship but through training. No matter how good the relationship is between you and a horse, if you don’t train it, you won’t be able to ride it.

No matter whether this statement held any truth, Li Younan had already begun using his extensive horseback training experience (crossed out, system skills) to train little Shengjiang.

Training at this age was indeed somewhat of a stretch, but Li Younan had begun letting little Shengjiang grasp some commands.

When he first started doing this, most people at the equestrian base were skeptical of his methods; indeed, no one else had tried training a horse at such a young age, and Li Younan’s training method was unlike the conventional approach taught by other coaches.

This was indeed somewhat challenging for the just-month-old Shengjiang.

But a few days later, when Li Younan tried to get little Shengjiang to move left or right according to his commands, the few people who came to watch were a bit surprised.

This little incident gave a small boost to Li Younan’s vanity.

During this time at the horse ranch, naturally, there were other things to attend to as well.

The ranch’s chef was an uncle of Lan Yiyi, a distant relative, doing it part-time.

In terms of ingredients, Li Younan really had no complaints.

Lan Yiyi’s horse ranch would take a pickup truck to the city to purchase enough weekly ingredients, ensuring meat at every meal and very fresh vegetables.

In this weather, even without refrigeration, nothing would spoil in a week.

But northern people prefer eating noodles, and moreover, this obviously Northeastern cooking style, primarily salty in flavor, was, overall, quite bland.

Occasionally eating it for a while to change the flavor is alright, but eating it for a long time would inevitably make one miss Mapo tofu, explosive kidney flower, spiced beef...

One day, Lan Yiyi’s distant relative needed to take a two-day leave for some urgent matter, leaving the kitchen without a cook, and everyone prepared to endure for two days.

But for Li Younan, it was a rare opportunity, and he offered to take over the cooking.

Originally thinking it was a chance to improve the food, Coach Xiaowang jumped in, confidently saying, "Brother Li, there’s no need for you to get tired, my family owns a restaurant, I can handle it."

Initially, Li Younan thought Xiaowang was volunteering out of hospitality, not wanting him to work hard, so on the first day, he didn’t insist, leaving Xiaowang to do the cooking.

The result was a famous Northeastern dish, hot pot soup...which was still bland.

But it was later revealed that Xiaowang’s real reason was simple; his confidence in his own culinary skills and skepticism of Li Younan’s cooking ability.

The evidence was a comment Lan Yiyi made to Xiaowang, overheard by Li Younan: "It’s okay, let him waste it if he wants...he’s a guest, as long as he’s happy."

At first, Li Younan didn’t get it, but eventually, he understood and immediately got angry.

And the consequences of his anger were serious.

The next day, under Li Younan’s assertive manner, everyone got a profound taste of the shock brought by a professional chef from Sichuan.

As expected, when Lan Yiyi’s distant relative returned from his leave, he found his job was... gone with the wind.

During this period, he certainly didn’t forget to take photos. Photography is quite important to a traveler, and there were many moments worth capturing during this time here.

Since acquiring photography skills, Li Younan grew more fond of human-interest photography.

The subject in the picture and the atmosphere and emotions it brought were always the focus Li Younan tried to capture.

During his brief stay at the horse ranch, there were countless beautiful moments to capture.

Whenever he wasn’t feeding or training horses, Li Younan would wander around with his camera.

Of course, from others’ perspectives, he seemed like a bit of an artsy youth.

Coach Xiaowang had often teased Li Younan, "Brother Li, you should stop trying to play the photographer."

In Coach Xiaowang’s view, someone like Li Younan, who was so good at archery and horseback riding, didn’t seem to fit with photography, as they seemed to be two different extremes appearing in one person.

Li Younan didn’t explain either, as Coach Xiaowang hadn’t seen his photos, nor did he allow Li Younan to photograph him.

However, Li Younan secretly snapped a few photos of Xiaowang riding a horse... originally planning to delete them if Xiaowang didn’t like them.

But later, Lan Yiyi noticed an introduction board for coaches in the horse ranch’s living room and decided to organize it.

Li Younan went around helping to take portrait photos of all the riding coaches present, which were then printed and hung up with a text description of each coach below.

When Xiaowang returned and saw this scene, he felt like his world was collapsing, as his spot was the only one left empty.

This left him full of confusion, unable to understand how the others’ photos came to be.