I wrote novels in the Republic of China

On the night of the 24th, Sang Jingyun slept very well.

When she woke up early in the morning on the 25th, she felt a little cold. She opened the door and went out, only to find that it was drizzling outside.

Seeing that it was raining, Sang Jingxiong was unwilling to go to the county town to work, and his face was full of reluctance.

Seeing this, Sang Qian said, "I'll take you there."

Sang Jingxiong acted coquettishly towards Sang Qianshi: "Grandma, carry me on your back."

Sang Jingyun quickly asked, "You are already ten years old, and you still have the nerve to let your grandma carry you?"

In the end, Sang Jingxiong did not let Sang Qianshi carry him. He put on his clogs and followed Sang Qianshi to the county town.

The so-called clogs are actually two thick wooden boards with teeth on the bottom.

They all wear cloth shoes and wooden clogs here, and tie thick wooden boards to their feet while wearing cloth shoes. They can go out on rainy days, and they don't have to worry about getting their cloth shoes dirty even if they walk on muddy roads.

It’s just a bit tiring to walk like this.

Sang Jingxiong went out reluctantly, while Sang Jingyun and Sang Jingying moved the eight-immortals table at home to the door and continued writing.

The sky is gloomy today, and even if the table is moved to the door, it is still a little dark.

After Sang Jingyun wrote a paragraph, he would look at the scenery outside and relax his eyes.

The Sang family only had wooden clogs to wear on rainy days, but Fei Zhongxu and Hong Yongxiang wore oil boots.
These boots are made of leather and coated with waterproof tung oil. When you wear them outside, you don’t have to worry about your shoes and socks getting wet even on rainy days.

As agreed yesterday, Hong Yongxiang came to find Fei Zhongxu and treated him to Cantonese food.

As soon as Fei Zhongxu saw Hong Yongxiang, he took out a 90-yuan note and said, "I have the manuscript fee!"

Silver dollars were not light in weight, and if the bookstore paid for the manuscripts more than fifty silver dollars, they would give them as banknotes.

They deposited silver dollars into a money shop and received a banknote. Those who received the banknote could then go to the money shop that issued the banknote to cash in the silver dollars.

Although there are banks nowadays, some people still trust the old-established money houses.

But there are also some problems with money houses, such as their strong regional nature.

The banknote in Fei Zhongxu's hand was issued by the largest money house in Shanghai. This money house had shops in the International Settlement, the French Concession and Shanghai County, and could cash in all of them. However, outside of Shanghai, money houses and banks in other places would not recognize this banknote.

"How did Brother Fei do it?" asked Hong Wenxiang.

Seeing that there was no one around, Fei Zhongxu whispered what he had done.

Hong Wenxiang was a little worried: "If your editor-in-chief finds out something is wrong, will it implicate you?"

Fei Zhongxu said, "Two yuan per thousand words is not a high fee, but it's just that newcomers can't get it. Even if the editor-in-chief finds out about this in the future, he will at most say a few words to me. What's more, he wanted to publish the book "The Two-Faced Demon Lord". If "The Two-Faced Demon Lord" is well received after being published in the newspaper, I'm afraid he won't say anything to me."

This morning, after reading "The Two-Faced Demon Lord", the editor-in-chief came up with the idea of ​​publishing this book and asked him to say a few good words for Nancheng Bookstore in front of Yun Jing.

After all, their Nancheng Bookstore is just a small bookstore in Shanghai and cannot be compared with the Commercial Press.

After hearing what Fei Zhongxu said, Hong Yongxiang felt relieved.

He knew that Fei Zhongxu loved drinking, so in addition to ordering dishes, he also asked someone to serve a pot of Shaoxing rice wine. Sure enough, Fei Zhongxu was very happy.

After dinner, Fei Zhongxu went to the editorial office of New Novel Newspaper to help Sang Jingyun submit his manuscript.

People in the editorial department of "New Novel" knew Fei Zhongxu.

Not long ago, Fei Zhongxu visited their newspaper office and asked for the contact information of an author, hoping to publish the author's novel serialized in the New Novel Newspaper.

When the editor-in-chief of the New Novel News saw Fei Zhongxu, he immediately greeted him and asked the newspaper's copywriter to make tea for Fei Zhongxu.

"Editor Fei, which novel in our newspaper did you like?" the editor-in-chief asked curiously.

Fei Zhongxu drank some wine at noon, his face was a little red, and his breath smelled of alcohol, but because he didn't drink much, he was still clear-headed: "I'm here to help someone submit an article. As you know, vernacular Chinese and punctuation are being promoted now. A writer I know wrote a comic strip for children, so I asked for it to be published by our bookstore. Later, she learned that I knew you, so she gave me a martial arts novel she wrote and asked me to help submit it."

As he spoke, Fei Zhongxu took out the manuscript of "The Two-Faced Demon Lord" and gave it to the editor-in-chief: "You can take a look first."

If a stranger submitted a novel, the editor-in-chief of New Novel would certainly not take it seriously.

But the person who submitted the article today is Fei Zhongxu.

Fei Zhongxu even went to the author to ask for the book!
The editor subconsciously thought that this novel was written by a famous person.

When he got the manuscript and saw the punctuation marks, he was even more certain of this.

This novel must have been written by a modern writer of some fame.

The chief editor of the New Novel Newspaper himself is also a novel lover. In addition, he is exposed to various novels every day, and his ability to appreciate novels exceeds that of Hong Yongxiang and Fei Zhongxu.

He knew it was a good novel after reading the beginning.

Books that are popular among the common people are all good to read. Some widely circulated novels were even first told by storytellers.

"Seven Heroes and Five Gallants" is the "Longtu Case" told by a storyteller during the Daoguang period. After being recorded, it was sorted, added to and adapted several times before it was finally published as a book.

This novel is very easy to read.

It was also extremely innovative. In previous martial arts novels, there were no settings of internal strength, evil cults and death squads. It was also something he had never seen before.

He had never seen these settings before, but as he followed the author's instructions, he didn't find them awkward.

The key is that this book is catchy.

For some books, he would just read them and not be in a hurry to read the sequel, but for this book, he was scratching his head and wanted to read the rest. The books written by this famous writer are different!
Fei Zhongxu said: "Her pen name is 'Yun Jing'. This is a new pen name, but you can't pay her according to the standard for a newcomer."

The royalties for New Novel Newspaper are divided into three levels: one yuan, two yuan, and three yuan.

For manuscripts by new authors or of average quality, the salary is one yuan per thousand words. For manuscripts that are quite good, the salary is two yuan per thousand words.

There was only one highly respected author, and they offered three yuan per thousand words.

"Yun Jing" was a newcomer, so he should have been paid one yuan per thousand words. However, with Fei Zhongxu's intervention, the editor-in-chief paid him two yuan per thousand words and said, "After it's published, if the response is good, I'll raise the fee to three yuan per thousand words."

Now that the novel has not been published yet, he is offering three yuan per thousand words right away, which will make other authors unhappy.

But if the article gets good response from readers after publication, no one will say anything about increasing the manuscript fee.

Fei Zhongxu was very satisfied with this: "Okay! I have more than 20,000 words of this manuscript, and the author still has some. She said that if it is published, she will provide at least 3,000 words a day and will never delay or stop writing."

The editor-in-chief was delighted when he heard this: "Good! Good!"

The best writer in their newspaper, who was paid three yuan per thousand words, had a smoking habit, that is, he smoked opium.
His biggest problem is procrastination in submitting his manuscripts.

The editor-in-chief hates this, so he is naturally overjoyed that an author has promised not to delay submitting his manuscript.

Sang Jingyun didn't know that Hong Yongxiang's friend had helped him get a good amount of royalties by using his eloquence.

Currently, she is writing "The Two-Faced Demon".

"Journey to the West" was a one-time deal. She received royalties after writing it, and the book had little to do with her.

But "The Two-Faced Demon" is different.

This book is unique to her. After publishing it in the newspaper, she can submit it to a publishing house and have it published.

If anyone wants to reprint the book in the future, they have to continue to pay her royalties.

She enjoyed writing the book even more.

The plot of this book is also interesting. In the early stage, she suppressed the protagonist, but now, the protagonist has to show his skills and use various means to control the cult!

What Sang Jingyun wanted to write about was not the real Demon Lord.

She doesn't like to write about evil protagonists. She prefers to write about protagonists who are indomitable in the face of adversity and ultimately have a bright future.

Just as she is now.

She can't eat meat now, but she will work hard to live a good life.

Therefore, after Meng You takes control of the Demon Cult, he will use ruthless means to eliminate all those evil people in the Demon Cult.

Those who were not guilty of crimes punishable by death would stay and help him with his work.

Meng You even taught the "Nameless Secret" to those secret guards like him so that they could repair the damage in their bodies.

In the past, these secret guards were under control and had to obey the orders of the previous leader, but when Meng You became the leader, they were willing to sacrifice their lives for Meng You.

This is a thrilling plot. After being suppressed in the early stages, the protagonist finally soars to success.

And now, Sang Jingyun is writing this plot seriously and carefully portraying the people around Meng You.

Sang Jingying was writing "Journey to the West" nearby.

He was a little anxious, fearing that he would not get the royalties.

Their family is really short of money right now. If they can't get the royalties, how are they going to live in the future?
But when he saw Sang Jingyun writing seriously, the anxiety in his heart quickly dissipated like smoke encountering the autumn wind.

It rained for two days in a row, and the temperature dropped a lot. The vegetables planted in the Sang family's yard also grew a lot taller.

This day is the 27th, which is also Sunday.

Of course, people living in Shanghai’s county towns have no idea what Sunday is, after all, they don’t go to church.

It's not raining today and the sun is out.

But because the road was muddy, Sang Jingxiong still had to wear wooden clogs to go to the pastry shop in the county town.

He complained softly and followed Sang Qian out the door.

Sang Qian was going to the county town to teach Lu Ying some handicraft work, and to buy some tofu and salted fish to eat as a dish at home.

She thought it was okay to eat pickles, but Sang Jingyun said that they needed to eat some meat and soy products every day to be healthy, so she went to buy them every day.

She also couldn't bear to see her children eating pickles all day.

Before leaving, Sang Qian locked Sang Xuewen in the house, while Sang Jingyun and Sang Jingying were still writing at the door.

As the two were writing, there was a knock on the door.

Sang Jingyun was about to move around, so he stood up and opened the door: "Grandma, you're back?"

She thought it was Sang Qian who came back, but when the door opened, the person who appeared in front of her was the apprentice from Hongxing Paper Shop.

The man smiled when he saw Sang Jingyun: "Miss Sang, our young master Yongxiang has returned from the concession and brought your royalties."

At this moment, the apprentice, who was almost as tall as Sang Jingying, looked extremely tall in Sang Jingyun's eyes.

Her royalties finally arrived!
(End of this chapter)