It was already past four in the afternoon when Huo Yaowen left Oriental Daily News; the scorching sun had gradually receded, and the setting sun marked the arrival of dusk.
Hong Kong in 1968 was far from as prosperous, clean, and filled with skyscrapers as it would be in later generations. Instead, the streets were dirty and chaotic, especially the curbs along both sides, which were littered with cigarette butts, debris, and fallen leaves.
However, if one ignored these sights, the streets of Hong Kong at this time had a unique charm. Advertising billboards written in traditional Chinese characters hung densely above shops, pedestrians hurried by, and a few children squatted on the roadside, engrossed in their comic books, giving one the feeling of being in a Hong Kong movie from the 1980s.
As he walked, Huo Yaowen thought about writing for Oriental Daily News.
Currently, Oriental Daily News was still in its initial stages, and its influence was certainly not comparable to established newspapers like Ming Pao and Ta Kung Pao. However, Huo Yaowen knew that in the future, Oriental Daily News would not only surpass Ming Pao and Ta Kung Pao in sales but would also become the first newspaper to hold the top sales position in All of Hong Kong for 29 consecutive years.
These were the later achievements of Oriental Daily News. Although Huo Yaowen knew this, he would not look so far ahead. His current submission to Ma Rulong was not focused on Oriental Daily News's future, but rather on the fact that the company currently lacked content that could boost newspaper sales. To put it simply, Huo Yaowen was considering the issue of manuscript fees.
In Hong Kong's newspaper industry at the time, unless a paper specialized solely in news, horse racing, or dog racing, most would invite some literary figures and renowned writers to contribute articles to the newspaper, ranging from novels to essays, with no restrictions on subject matter.
As long as the content of the novel or article could attract readers and encourage ordinary people to buy the newspaper, that was sufficient.
However, this was not entirely absolute. A newspaper was not a book; its primary function was to provide people with current affairs information and key news points.
Why did Ming Pao, in less than nine years of its establishment, manage to surpass newspapers like Ta Kung Pao and Wen Wei Po (Hong Kong), which had been founded over twenty years earlier, to consistently rank among the top three in All of Hong Kong's newspaper sales?
Aside from the celebrity columns in its supplements, a major reason was Ming Pao's own positioning.
In 1959, Jin Yong collaborated with his good friend Director Shen, jointly investing to establish Ming Pao. In its early days, Director Shen managed sales, while Jin Yong was responsible for the Editor-in-Chief's affairs. At that time, it published a daily broadsheet, which was a folded newspaper, totaling four pages.
Initially, thanks to Mr. Jin Yong's personal fame as a great wuxia master and the martial arts novels he wrote, it managed to sell one or two thousand copies daily, barely maintaining the newspaper's financial balance.
But as he wrote to the part about Little Dragon Girl in the return of the condor heroes, it caused an uproar among readers. Suddenly, newspaper sales plummeted from one or two thousand copies to a few hundred, eventually reaching a point where no one subscribed.
That year, Ming Pao suffered severe losses!
In modern terms, it was like the author was poisoning the book!
And it was highly toxic!
The kind of poison that causes instant death!
It wasn't until this part of the plot passed and the climax of the return of the condor heroes appeared that this 'toxic' point was somewhat alleviated. Coupled with Director Shen's management skills, Ming Pao's advertising business steadily rose, finally turning losses into profits.
It was precisely this incident that made Jin Yong realize that newspapers could not rely solely on articles to attract people. Thus, he changed Ming Pao's positioning and direction, no longer simply relying on articles and novels by famous writers to attract readers, but moving towards an elite newspaper with "independent commentary" and "impartiality."
Therefore, during the "refugee crisis" in 1962, when large numbers of people from the mainland smuggled into Hong Kong and were intercepted by the Hong Kong Royal Police at Wo Tong Shan in Sheung Shui, Ming Pao, disregarding the sensitive nature of the topic, was the first to loudly advocate in the newspaper, winning the support of most scholars and intellectuals at the time.
Through this, Ming Pao transformed its character, elevating from a "commoner's newspaper" that focused on martial arts novels, sensational news, and horse racing to an authoritative, independent intellectual publication.
Oriental Daily News, like Ming Pao, also struggled with poor revenue in its early days, unable to sell many newspapers. However, as Ma Rulong changed the newspaper's positioning, hired famous writers to pen dog racing tips, and leveraged his influence in the underworld, he managed to acquire horse racing tips and insider information that other horse racing newspapers didn't have, thus establishing a foothold in the competitive Hong Kong newspaper industry. (Tips, a loanword from English, refers to insider information here)
However, no matter how the newspaper's positioning and style were changed, essential content like novels and articles remained indispensable. Especially an engaging novel could not only boost newspaper sales but also, to varying degrees, cultivate loyal readers who would consistently purchase the paper.
Huo Yaowen submitted his manuscript to Oriental Daily News precisely because it was newly founded and had not even printed its first newspaper yet. It would undoubtedly need some appealing novels and articles to quickly open up the market, just like Ming Pao did back then.
The book ghost blows out the light—The Grave Robbers' Chronicles, which synthesized the essence of countless tomb-raiding novels from later generations, Huo Yaowen believed that once published in the newspaper, it would definitely attract the attention of the general public even more than the martial arts novels, which had almost reached their bottleneck at the time.
The book's various ghosts and monsters, folk legends, wild tales, and the inclusion of some real archaeological processes, along with sufficiently plausible tomb-raiding techniques, not only provided entertainment for ordinary readers and citizens but also attracted the attention of history enthusiasts and archaeology enthusiasts.
While thinking and walking, when he was about to leave Guizhou Street and arrived at the bus stop, Huo Yaowen suddenly remembered that Teacher Zhang's house seemed to be on Guizhou Street.
He glanced at his watch; it was 4:15 PM. He thought that visiting Teacher Zhang at this time should not result in him being dragged into staying for dinner.
With that thought, Huo Yaowen happened to see a hawker selling fruit across the road. He quickened his pace and walked over.
The hawker, sitting on the ground selling fruit, saw someone approaching and quickly got up, patted the dust off his bottom, and said enthusiastically, "Sir, what would you like to buy?"
Perhaps seeing Huo Yaowen's scholarly attire and refined demeanor, even the hawker unconsciously used the respectful address "Sir."
"A watermelon," Huo Yaowen said, looking at the hawker's cart which, besides watermelons, also had pineapples, grapes, and other common summer fruits. After a moment of thought, he added, "And a catty of grapes."
"Alright!"
The hawker quickly patted five or six large watermelons in front of him, trying his best to find the heaviest one. After weighing it, he said, "One catty is five mao, a total of fourteen catties…"
...
"Petals fill the sky, obscuring the moonlight,
A cup offered in tribute on the Phoenix Terrace,
"the legend of the princess chang ping", with tears, offers incense,
Wishing to die in gratitude to my parents,
Stealing glances, stealing gazes,
She, with tears, with tears, secretly grieves…"
Following the route from his memory, Huo Yaowen, carrying the large watermelon and a catty of grapes he had bought, had just arrived at the floor where Teacher Zhang lived when he saw Teacher Zhang comfortably lying on a rocking chair by the corridor. In his left hand, he held a palm-leaf fan, and in his right, a small ceramic teapot. He was listening to the cantonese opera classic "the legend of the princess chang ping", composed by cantonese opera playwright Tang Disheng in the 1950s, playing on an old radio, while humming along.