I wrote novels in the Republic of China

September 15th of the lunar calendar, Wednesday.

Sang Jingyun got up in the morning and went to the well to wash as usual.

After washing up, she simply tied her hair up, and saw Lu Ying coming down from upstairs holding Sang Jingli.

It's only around five o'clock now, still very early, but the two of them went upstairs to sleep at six or seven in the evening, and now that they woke up, they had enough sleep.

As soon as Sang Jingli came downstairs, she took the shuttlecock and started kicking it. Even though she could only kick one or two at a time, she never got tired of it.

Lu Ying was sewing something with scraps of cloth beside her.

When Sang Jingyun saw this, he asked curiously, "Mom, what are you doing?"

Lu Ying said: "I'm making sandbags."

Sang Jingyun found this toy from the original owner's memory.

Sew a pocket the size of a ping-pong ball with scraps of cloth, fill it with sand and seal the mouth, and it becomes a sandbag, which is one of the common toys for girls.

Usually many sandbags are made at a time and can be thrown and played with in many different ways. Some people even play with them like juggling.

Sang Jingyun was also not interested in such toys, but Sang Jingli was looking forward to it.

Sang Jingyun glanced at Sang Jingli who was playing with the bamboo dragonfly, and said to Lu Ying, "Mom, when we go to the county town later, you can take Jingli out to play, and buy some more eggs. Buy more."

Their family had moved here for more than half a year, and Sang Qian often bought food from nearby farmers.

Although farmers can carry eggs and vegetables to the county town to sell, the county town is quite far away and they cannot go there every day. They would be delighted if Sang Qianshi came to buy from them.

Lu Ying took the money to buy eggs from them, and their attitude towards Lu Ying must have been good.

"I...I can't..." Lu Ying hesitated.

Sang Jingyun looked at Sang Qianshi: "Grandma, tell mom how you used to buy eggs."

Sang Qian immediately told Lu Ying about it.

Sang Jingyun took out the manuscript he had written yesterday and started to revise it.

After finishing the revision, she gave the manuscript to Sang Xuewen to copy, and then went to eat the breakfast that Sang Xuewen had prepared.

The staple food was thick porridge, the side dishes were fried soybeans with pickles, and a large plate of cold-mixed radish sprouts. There was also a boiled egg for each of the four children.

The radish seedlings are now 20 centimeters tall and are a bit too old to eat. I won’t eat them anymore and will keep them to grow radishes.

These two dishes were also made by Sang Xuewen. Now Sang Xuewen is very good at doing housework.

After dinner, Sang Xuewen was locked in the room while the others went out together.

After Sang Qian left, she locked the gate and gave the key to Lu Ying: "I'll take you to a house I know. You can play with Jingli there. If you can't stay there, go home. If you can stay, we'll pick you up when we come back."

Lu Ying whispered "OK".

Sang Jingyun added: "Mom, don't forget to buy eggs. Let Dad make egg fried rice tomorrow morning."

Lu Ying responded in a low voice again.

Those farmers got up early. Sang Qian took Lu Ying to an old lady whom she thought was easy to get along with. She asked the old lady to look after Lu Ying for a while, and then she went to the county town with Sang Jingyun and the others.

Sang Qianshi also agreed with Sang Jingyun's decision to let Lu Ying leave.

When her daughter-in-law first married into the Sang family, she was very timid. She didn't dare to speak loudly to her daughter-in-law for fear of scaring her.

Later, the daughter-in-law gradually became bolder and dared to take the children shopping alone, and she also made a few friends.

But in the past two years, everyone in the family was in a panic, so Lu Ying stopped going out again.

This won't work. Lu Ying isn't young anymore. In a few years, she'll be a grandmother. How can she not even dare to go out to buy an egg?
The four separated after arriving in the county town.

Sang Jingyun and Sang Qianshi first went to Lanxin Clothing Store, then went shopping for groceries, and finally went to Hongxing Paper Shop.

When Sang Jingyun arrived today, Shopkeeper Hong was very excited: "Ayun, come and read the New Novel Newspaper!"

Sang Jingyun hurried over and saw Manager Hong taking out a page from a newspaper and giving it to her.

The first thing Sang Jingyun saw on the newspaper was the four big words "The Two-Faced Demon Lord".

Her novel appeared in the newspaper!

Today's printing equipment is not very good, so the words on newspapers are larger than in later generations, and some newspapers even have very few words.

The font size of New Novel is relatively small and dense; after all, it is a newspaper that specializes in publishing novels.

Sang Jingyun was excited, looked at the content below, and then opened his eyes wide in surprise.

She actually used punctuation in her novel when it was published!

Although not all punctuation marks are used, commas and periods are present, which makes her novel look refreshing and easy to read.

Sang Jingyun was sure that there were still no punctuation marks in yesterday's "New Novel".

Today, the New Novel Newspaper actually made a change!
"Ayun, is this the book you wrote?" Sang Qian asked curiously.

"Yes!" Sang Jingyun opened his mouth and read his novel seriously.

Her novel is definitely the best one she has read since she started reading New Novel!
As for whether readers like it... everyone has different tastes in reading, but she feels that her novels should be in line with the preferences of readers who love martial arts novels.

This newspaper only published her novel, which was about three thousand words long. In addition to her novel, there were also some advertisements.

Sang Jingyun couldn't put the newspaper down and read it over and over again, then went to look at other pages of the New Novel.

After seeing this, Sang Jingyun noticed that the other novels had no punctuation marks, and they were still in their original form, with the original layout unchanged.

Her novel is like giving an extra copy of the New Novel to the customer when they sell it.

This also shows the uniqueness of her novel and the importance that the New Novel Newspaper attaches to her.

Sang Jingyun was filled with joy, and finally said to Sang Qian: "Grandma, let's go buy some newspapers. I want to buy three."

This was her first novel, and she wanted to collect all the newspapers.

As for why I bought three copies... one for collection, one to keep at home and read occasionally, and the remaining copy can be taken to school by Sang Jingying to read with classmates.

This will allow her work to be seen by more people and also enhance Sang Jingying's relationship with her classmates.

You can buy newspapers from newsboys or from fixed stalls.

When Sang Jingyun didn't see the newsboy, he went to a newspaper stand on the street and said he wanted to buy three copies of the New Novel.

"New Novel" is a newspaper dedicated to publishing novels. In addition to serialized novels, it also publishes short stories, anecdotes and jokes.

Compared with other newspapers with time limits, this newspaper can be sold even if it is expired.

Some people buy it just for entertainment and don't care whether it came out yesterday or today.

Therefore, more newspaper sellers bought copies of the New Novel.

He handed three copies of the New Novel to Sang Jingyun and asked curiously, "Little girl, why did you buy three copies of the same newspaper at once?"

Sang Jingyun said: "Today's newspaper is different."

The newspaper seller didn't quite understand, so after Sang Jingyun left, he took out a copy and opened it.

He wanted to see what was different about today's newspaper!
When he flipped through it, he found that there was an extra page in today's "New Novel".

The content published here is different from others. Some symbols are used to separate the articles.

"The Two-Faced Demon"? This name is a bit strange. Could it be about ghosts?
The man looked curiously.

This newspaper seller spent several years studying in a clan school when he was young.

He couldn't sit still and couldn't concentrate on learning anything. After learning to read, he stopped studying.

At that time, people could still take the imperial examination, but it was not easy and not everyone could take it. Most of the people in their clan school only studied for a few years and then stopped studying.

Because he didn't read much, he didn't like to read newspapers even though he sold them.

But this story is different... The newspaper seller actually read it carefully.

More than 3,000 words were quickly read. The man looked at the words "To be continued" and felt anxious to read the sequel.

When he gets the New Novel Newspaper tomorrow, he must read this story first!
The man even wanted to take this newspaper out from the one in front of him and keep it, but if there was one less newspaper in the ones he sold, he would lose his credibility.

The man thought about it and finally put a newspaper aside.

He wants to keep this newspaper for himself and won’t sell it!
Sang Jingyun has already discovered the difference in today's "New Novel", and others naturally have discovered it as well.

In a teahouse in the concession, a storyteller had just opened the New Novel.

In the past, many storytellers were illiterate.

They will tell stories they have heard or passed down from mouth to mouth, and they will also make up stories of their own.

But nowadays, there are more storytellers who can read, and this person can read.

Because he could read, he could tell more stories.

Not to mention "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "Water Margin" and the like, now that we have newspapers, he can also tell people stories directly from the newspapers.

Today, he got up early in the morning and told a story for an hour to those who came for morning tea.

At the moment he was a little tired and his throat couldn't take it anymore, so he sat aside to rest and read today's "New Novel Newspaper" by the way.

Recently, he has been telling people stories serialized in the New Novel Newspaper, and sometimes he would pick out some short stories from it and read them to others.

While drinking tea and reading the newspaper, the man realized something was wrong.

Why is there an extra copy of the New Novel today?
Lord Two-Faced Demon, what does this mean?
Demons and monsters... "魔" means ghosts and monsters. Is this a story like "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio"?

The storyteller then realized that this was a martial arts story.

This story is very gripping from the beginning.

This story is also easy to read!

He would read many stories in the newspaper twice and think carefully before reading them. He would also change some words when reading.

But this book, because of its good punctuation, he felt he could read it directly!
The story is well-written. Just from the beginning you know whose story it is about, and it makes you feel like you are there.

In addition, the things discussed in it were also novel. He had never heard of the concept of internal strength before.

The storyteller held the newspaper in his hands, unable to let it go. After thinking for a while, he called his grandson and asked him to buy him another copy of the New Novel.

He will definitely read this newspaper several times in the future. There is only one copy, and it will be troublesome if it gets dirty or lost accidentally!
There are many students in Zhang Zhuangmao's middle school who buy newspapers to read.

The teacher also encourages them to read newspapers.

Therefore, every morning, there would be newsboys coming to the school gate to sell newspapers.

Zhang Zhuangmao was well-off and was one of the students who would buy newspapers every day. He made an agreement with several classmates that each of them would buy a different newspaper, and after returning to school, they would read their own copy first, then exchange the copies with others, and finally put the newspapers on the shelf at the back of the classroom for the whole class to read.

In addition to buying newspapers with the highest sales volume and which publish news, such as Shenbao, they also buy some newspapers for entertainment, and Xin Xiaoshuo Bao is one of them.

The person in charge of buying the New Novel was a short boy whose family was in the grain business. He loved the New Novel very much, and recently he talked about a martial arts story in the New Novel every day, so much so that most of the students in the class were following this story.

After spending money to buy the "New Novel Newspaper" and returning to the classroom, the short young master couldn't wait to read the story.

At this time, someone who was on good terms with him came up to him and asked for a newspaper to read.

This man's family was poor. The money his parents gave him was only enough for food. He couldn't afford to buy a newspaper, so he had to borrow the short boy's newspaper to read every day.

The short boy took out a page from the New Novel in his hand and showed it to the man without hesitation.

The man thanked him, looked at the newspaper in his hand, and exclaimed.

"What's wrong?" asked the short boy.

The man said, "This newspaper is a little different!"

The short boy leaned over to take a look and was also amazed: "This newspaper is just like the Journey to the West comic strip, with punctuation!"

As soon as the short boy said this, other people came over to read the newspaper.

They also took it for granted and looked at the content.

When they saw this, everyone fell silent.

It was not until everyone crowded together and finished reading all the content that someone said, "Meng You is really pitiful."

"Those evil people are really despicable!"

"Can Meng You survive and get revenge?"

"What is inner strength?"

“This sentence looks really good.”

“This book looks comfortable.”

……

A group of teenagers started discussing, and the short boy even forgot about the martial arts novel he had been following for a moment.

Zhang Zhuangmao was not among the first group to read the newspaper, but he was among the second group to read the newspaper.

He noticed that the author of this novel was also Yun Jing.

Zhang Zhuangmao said, "This novel was also written by Yun Jing! I don't know who this Yun Jing is."

Someone said: "He used punctuation in his comic strips and martial arts novels. He even asked the New Novel Newspaper to print an extra newspaper to publish only his novels... This Yun Jing may be one of the new-style writers who often appear in newspapers!"

Everyone nodded, thinking that this person was right.

Whether it is the previous comic strip or this novel, they were probably written by some new-style writer specifically to promote punctuation and vernacular!
"His writing style and word choice are really fluent!" Zhang Zhuangmao praised this man.
He said that Yun Jing couldn't be Sang Jingyun. How could Sang Jingyun write such a novel?
French Concession, Tan Residence.

After Tan Zhenghong washed up and went downstairs, someone brought him breakfast.

We had fried noodles for breakfast, and there was a plate of candied sweet potatoes on the table.

The fried noodles had a lot of ingredients, and the candied sweet potato was also very sweet. Tan Zhenghong ate a lot of it.

After eating, I read the newspaper while waiting for my Chinese teacher to arrive.

There is no interesting news in today's "Shanghai Daily" and it is not very good to read. Tan Zhenghong thought about it and opened the "New Novel Daily".

Although this newspaper was difficult to read, it was more interesting than other newspapers, and he especially liked the short stories in it.

As for serialized stories, some of them had already started serialization when he ordered the newspaper. He couldn't read stories without a beginning or an end.

Tan Zhenghong opened the "New Novel Newspaper" and was planning to find a short story to read when he suddenly discovered that one of the pages was a little different.

There are punctuation marks on this newspaper!

Tan Zhenghong was overjoyed and started reading it immediately. Once he started reading it, he was absorbed in the story.

There was only one beginning, but for some reason, he particularly liked this story.

He thinks that this is what Chinese should be like!

"I don't know if there really is a martial art like "The Nameless Secret". It would be great if it really existed..." Tan Zhenghong read it over and over again several times, then suddenly thought of something and called the servants in the house.

He gave the servant three cents and said to him, "Go buy five more copies of the New Novel Newspaper!"

He wanted to collect this story from beginning to end, and send it to his former classmates who were still studying in Nanyang in the future.

The servant went to buy the newspaper happily.

It only cost him ten cents to buy five newspapers, and the remaining twenty cents was his errand fee.

Their young master is so generous!

As soon as the servant left, Tan Zhenghong's Chinese teacher came.

This is a man in his thirties.

Tan Dasheng was well aware that the times were undergoing great changes. When he hired a Chinese teacher for Tan Zhenghong, he naturally would not hire an old-fashioned scholar. Instead, he hired a new-style scholar who had studied in Japan and was exposed to new ideas.

This person has a good relationship with Tan Zhenghong and teaches very attentively.

Seeing Tan Zhenghong reading the newspaper, he smiled and said, "You are so focused on reading the newspaper today. It's really rare!"

"Mr. Zhang, this newspaper is different!" Tan Zhenghong took the "New Novel" and showed it to Mr. Zhang.

Mr. Zhang noticed the punctuation marks as soon as he saw it.

Is this someone who advocates the use of punctuation and has persuaded a newspaper to use punctuation when publishing?

Really good!
Mr. Zhang was very happy and started reading the newspaper.

He thought that this punctuation-marked article would be an article about new ideas, but without reading it carefully, he discovered that it was a novel.

The novel was written in a fluent and beautiful language and he finished reading it very quickly.

"Great!" Mr. Zhang said.

Tan Zhenghong felt that he had met a soulmate: "Mr. Zhang, you also think this novel is well written, right?"

Mr. Zhang said: "I'm not talking about the novel, but the thoughts of the person who wrote the novel. Through the novel, it is indeed easier for people to accept punctuation."

He didn't like reading the New Novel, but he knew that this newspaper was very popular among ordinary citizens in Shanghai.

Today, perhaps tens of thousands of people have seen this newspaper with punctuation.

"Punctuation is so useful, it should have been used a long time ago." Only then did Tan Zhenghong remember to look at the author's name, and when he did, he saw the two words "Yun Jing".

His eyes lit up: "Mr. Zhang, this author has previously compiled a comic book with punctuation!"

Tan Zhenghong quickly took out the comic book he bought yesterday and showed it to Mr. Zhang.

Mr. Zhang read it and said, "This should be a pen name. I don't know who is behind the pen name, but he must be someone who is dedicated to promoting cultural reform!"

Mr. Zhang has good teacher ethics. When he was teaching Tan Zhenghong, he tried his best not to instill his own ideas into Tan Zhenghong.

But today, he couldn't hold it in any longer and started talking to Tan Zhenghong.

The more Tan Zhenghong listened, the more excited he became.

He lived in Southeast Asia since he was a child. Although his family was wealthy, Southeast Asia was occupied by foreign powers, so he suffered many unfair treatments.

His father was a wealthy man, but when he met the garrison officers of the foreign powers in Southeast Asia, he had to bow and scrape and pay tribute to them every month.

How wonderful it would be if their country could become strong and not fear the great powers!

Thinking of this, Tan Zhenghong touched the newspaper in his hand.

Mr. Yunjing should be a scholar like Mr. Zhang who is seeking ways to save the country.

If he has the chance, he will definitely support Mr. Yun Jing!

How about buying a few more newspapers for Mr. Zhang? Mr. Zhang said that he would send the newspapers to Beijing for his friends to read.

As soon as the servant of the Tan family bought the newspaper, Tan Zhenghong asked him to buy newspaper again.

Things like this happen in many places.

Of course, there were also people who criticized the New Novel after seeing the way it used punctuation.

But even if some people criticize it, the sales of New Novel Newspaper are real.

Huang Peicheng printed a thousand more copies of today's newspaper, so they were not sold out in the morning.

However, at eight o'clock in the morning, many people came to him to ask for more copies of the New Novel. In just one hour, the thousand copies of the newspaper were sold out.

They had already started printing tomorrow's newspaper. Huang Peicheng went to the printing room and looked around. Finally, he said, "Stop printing tomorrow's newspaper. Take out the layout of yesterday's newspaper and print another 2,000 copies."

He felt that his newspaper should be able to sell another 2,000 copies.

There must be a lot of people who want to collect this newspaper.

Twenty or thirty years ago, there were very few newspapers and their sales were also low. Around 1890, Shenbao sold only copies a day.

But in the past decade, the paper used for newspapers has been reformed, from the original rough paper and glossy paper to newsprint, and the printing equipment has become much more advanced, so the cost of newspapers has been much lower.

Since the cost of newspapers is low, the selling price is also much lower, so sales naturally increase sharply.

Today, Shenbao is sold in Shanghai and surrounding major cities, with tens of thousands of copies sold every day.

Of course, the New Novel Newspaper cannot be compared with the Shenbao, which can sell about 7,000 copies a day.

Seven thousand copies were sold, but the number of people who read the newspaper was definitely more than seven thousand. These readers all came from well-off families, so businesses were willing to place advertisements in the newspaper. Advertising revenue accounted for the bulk of the New Novel Newspaper's income.

If their newspaper sales increase, the price of advertising will definitely increase!

If you print more and spread the cost, the cost per newspaper will go down.

After all, it costs twenty-four yuan to hire a typesetter to typeset four newspapers.

As for the rest…newsprint costs one yuan per thousand sheets, and printing costs two yuan per thousand sheets.

Before, each newspaper had three sheets of paper, and the average cost was about a little more than one copper dollar. Their newspaper company sold each newspaper for two copper dollars, and they could make about five thousand copper dollars just from selling seven thousand copies of newspapers.

Now they have four copies of each newspaper, and when spread out, the cost per newspaper has increased.

But advertising can be increased, sales can also be increased, so you can make more money.

Huang Peicheng calculated the accounts and decided that if he takes advertisements in the future, he must ask advertisers for extra money.

Huang Peicheng was just thinking about this when someone else came to his door and wanted to buy a newspaper.

Huang Peicheng was beaming with joy.

Three thousand more copies were printed today, and the total print run of his New Novel has reached ten thousand copies.

If all these 10,000 copies of the newspaper can be sold, then Shanghai’s daily sales of over 10,000 newspapers will have one more copy!
(End of this chapter)