Literary Master 1978.

Chapter 382 International Registered Mail

Li Tuo, along with a few friends, used a calligraphy piece written by Lin Chaoyang to stir up the Chinese literary world. Such ability to stir up trouble is admirable.

In Chen Jiangong's words, as a writer, Li Tuo has done an excellent job in everything except creation.

This is of course a joke between bad friends. In fact, Li Tuo is also an outstanding writer. It's a pity that in comparison, his friends are even more outstanding. Under the shadow of these people, his creative achievements become overshadowed.

As the public opinion storm caused by Li Tuo and his friends' performance art continued to ferment, the third issue of "Huacheng" was released as scheduled, and the second part of "Chuang Guandong" was finally released after countless readers waited for more than two months.

Within two months of the publication of the second issue of Huacheng, a sales miracle of 258 million copies was achieved, which not only broke the sales record of Huacheng itself, but also became a sales myth in the Chinese literary magazine industry.

Putting aside the sales of those popular literature magazines, sales of over 200 million copies are undoubtedly the ceiling of the Chinese literary journal industry.

Due to the explosive sales of the previous issue of the magazine, Huacheng Publishing House has placed great hopes on the third issue of "Huacheng" which will publish the second part of "Crossing the Guandong".

As it turned out, the sales of this issue of the magazine did not disappoint the publisher's expectations.

The third issue of "Huacheng" sold over 10 million copies just 100 days after it was released, which was three days faster than the second issue.

Such an amazing result is also reasonable. After all, the first part of "Crossing the Guandong" has been published for two months. As word of mouth continues to ferment, a large number of new readers will definitely come.

With the hot sales of the third issue of "Huacheng", the craze of "Crossing the Guandong" continues to rage in the Chinese literary world. Not only has it not subsided with the passage of time, but it has a tendency to become more and more intense.

No matter how popular the novel was before, only half of the content was released. Now that the entire novel has been published, it goes without saying that readers are very excited.

Critics have always been generous in praising "Crossing the Guandong", but because the content of the novel has not been published in its entirety, critics have remained basically restrained.

Now that the 600,000-word content of "Crossing the Guandong" has been published in its entirety, everyone can finally speak freely.

In just half a month, many publications with wide influence in the literary world, such as "Wenyi Bao", "October", "Literary Review" and "Yenching Literature", published literary reviews of "Crossing the Guandong".

"The Epic Nature of Contemporary Literature - On the Artistic Achievements of "Crossing the Guandong", "A Secret History of a Nation - On the Narrative Landscape of "Crossing the Guandong", "The Aesthetic Value and Cultural Significance of "Crossing the Guandong"..."

Almost all of these literary reviews are written by well-known domestic critics. The articles provide incisive and insightful analysis of the novels, and what is even more rare is that they are all unanimously positive.

To receive so much unstinting praise and positive reviews is undoubtedly the highest recognition of the artistic achievement of the novel "Crossing the Guandong", and the speed at which these more heavyweight literary reviews appear is accelerating.

If there were people who were curious enough to compile the information, one would find that after the publication of the second part of Crossing the Guandong, one could read one or even several reviews or reading notes almost every day in newspapers and magazines across the country.

It is true that literature is hot these days, but the level of attention and discussion on "Crossing the Guandong" is not only unique in the literary world, but also unparalleled in the entire Chinese cultural world.

It can be regarded as the most dominant phenomenal literary work in Chinese literary world in 1984!

Time flies and it is already July. The video hall jointly opened by my elder brother-in-law and younger brother-in-law opened for business, located at the south gate of Yanda University.

The timing is not very good, as the students will be on vacation soon, and these people are the main consumers of the video hall.

Fortunately, there are many colleges and universities near Yanda University, and there are many viewers in the video hall even during the summer vacation. It is crowded at night and the business is booming.

That evening, Lin Chaoyang and Tao Yushu brought Xiao Dongdong back to the Tao family for dinner. Usually the whole family was there, but today Tao Yucheng and his wife were not there.

A video hall had just opened recently and business was booming. In order to save money, Zhao Li not only worked as a ticket seller herself, but was also responsible for cleaning up, and was very busy.

The school is on summer vacation and Tao Yucheng has nothing to do recently. Due to the booming business, he now stays in the video hall to help out every day.

The couple gets up early and goes to bed late every day, full of energy.

When talking about the video hall during the meal, Tao's mother looked relieved. She and Tao's father had not approved of Tao Yucheng opening a video hall.

On the one hand, it was because he understood his son's temperament and knew that he was not someone who could endure hardship.

On the other hand, I might take advantage of my nephew in this matter.

Unexpectedly, Tao Yucheng took a different approach. Instead of going into the industry himself, he persuaded his wife Zhao Li to do so and opened a video hall without asking his parents for money.

In this case, Tao's father and mother naturally could not object anymore, but the old couple were still worried about their son and daughter-in-law.

Fortunately, judging from the current results, things are developing in a good direction.

"Zhao Li said that the business is good now and it is estimated that the investment will be recovered in three or four months. I feel relieved now."

Tao Yumo continued, "Mom, you didn't see when my brother first opened the video parlor. The most he earned in a single day was 300 yuan. It's a pity that in just a few months, there are more and more video parlors on the street."

Her words made Tao's mother worried again. Lin Chaoyang had said before that the video hall was not a long-term business.

Listening to her concerns, Lin Chaoyang said, "Mom, what I'm saying is that the huge profits won't last long. This video hall of my brother and sister-in-law will definitely be able to make money at least in the next few years.

Our country is not importing foreign films on a large scale, nor is home video recorders popular, so there is no need to worry in the next few years."

His words convinced Tao's parents that their son-in-law's judgment had a reliable basis in reality and was certainly correct. "Brother-in-law, what you mean is that when home video recorders become popular, or when the country imports foreign films on a large scale, the video parlor business will come to an end, right?"

"Ah."

"How many years do you think it will be?"

Lin Chaoyang smiled and said, "I'm not a god, how would I know?"

Tao Yumo now has a tendency to blindly worship Lin Chaoyang. She felt a little disappointed when she didn't get an answer.

After finishing their meal, Lin Chaoyang and his wife held hands and were about to go out. Just as Tao Yumo was about to leave, she felt her legs suddenly tripped by something.

When she looked down, she saw that it was the chubby little Dongdong who was hugging her thigh.

"Aunt, hug me!"

The little baby, who was only twenty months old, uttered these three words extremely clearly and fluently, with a firm look in his eyes.

Tao Yumo complained angrily: "Why didn't you let your parents hold you when they left?"

Xiao Dongdong looked at her with confused eyes, tears slowly accumulating in her eyes. Seeing that this little thing was about to release the water without saying a word, Tao Yumo could only admit defeat and surrender.

She leaned over and picked up Xiao Dongdong. "Eat less next time. You look so fat!"

After saying that, she was still not satisfied and kissed Xiao Dongdong's chewy face twice, then she hugged him and left.

Tao Yumo is on summer vacation, Dehua is officially online, and Lin Chaoyang is naturally relieved.

Tao Yumo put Xiao Dongdong on the crossbeam. Because she was carrying a child, she didn't dare to ride too fast and could only ride slowly.

He didn't forget to mutter: "You two are so cool!"

It was only when passing by the south gate of the school that Tao Yumo saw the shadows of Lin Chaoyang and his wife. At this moment, the two of them were standing at the door of the video room. On the sign at the door were five big characters "Fenghui Video Room" and two small characters "Three Parts" below.

In order to cope with the rapidly emerging competitors, Du Feng started to expand his territory. The video hall near the south gate of Yanda University is already the third one, and he is now planning to build two more video halls.

If this trend continues, there will be at least ten Fenghui video halls in Yanjing City by the end of the year.

"Oh my! I never thought that working in a video hall would be so tiring, with endless work to do in a day.

Selling tickets, cleaning, showing movies, maintaining order, handling disputes... it's just too much work, your sister-in-law and I are a little overwhelmed, I think we should hire someone in the next few days."

Tao Yucheng was complaining to Lin Chaoyang. Zhao Li, who heard what he said, immediately scolded him: "Hire people, hire people, you only know how to hire people. You haven't even made back your capital yet, and you still want to hire people? Do you want me to burn some incense to worship you?"

Listening to his wife's words, Tao Yucheng did not dare to refute. Zhao Li still managed most of the video hall's business.

After leaving the video room, Lin Chaoyang said, "Have you noticed that since the video room opened, your sister-in-law has become more and more assertive?"

How could Tao Yushu not understand what he meant? She smiled and said, "Women hold up half the sky. My sister-in-law holds up more than half the sky in the family. It would be strange if my brother dared to be presumptuous!"

"Look at how gloating you are. If someone doesn't know, they would think your sister-in-law is your real relative." Lin Chaoyang teased.

The next morning, Lin Chaoyang was sweeping the yard when a postman came to his house and said there was an international registered letter from Hong Kong.

"A letter from Xiangjiang?"

Lin Chaoyang's first reaction was the letter from Ming Pao Publishing House. He didn't have many friends in Hong Kong, and the only contact he had was Ming Pao Publishing House.

After he signed for it, he took the letter and saw that it was indeed sent by Ming Pao Publishing House and the writer was Dong Qiao.

"Brother Chaoyang Wen said: It's like meeting you in person. It's been more than a year since we last saw each other..."

Dong Qiao's letter-writing style is typical of that of a literati, half literary and half vernacular. He started with a few polite words, then asked about Lin Chaoyang's recent situation, and then reported to Lin Chaoyang on the sales of "The Death of Van Gogh" in Hong Kong in the past six months.

"The Death of Van Gogh" was published in Hong Kong last year and sold more than 1 copies in half a year, bringing Lin Chaoyang a royalty income of HK$7.

Now, another half a year has passed, and the sales of the novel have reached more than 3 copies, which means that the sales in the past six months are around 1 copies.

For a purely serious literary work, it can sell more than 3 copies in the Hong Kong book market in a year. It should not be a problem to sprint to 5 copies in the next one or two years. This is definitely the level of a best-seller in Hong Kong.

After all, Hong Kong's population and market size are there. With a population of just over five million, the fact that "The Death of Van Gogh" has achieved such a result has already defeated the vast majority of Hong Kong's local writers.

What's more, Lin Chaoyang had no fame in Hong Kong before, and the sales of "The Death of Van Gogh" were entirely supported by word of mouth among readers.

(End of this chapter)