Literary Master 1983

Chapter 150: October and his friends

There was a group of international students from Yenching University who were going abroad, and the education department also invited Yu Qie to give lectures to them.

Sounds a bit abstract?

Yu Qie is still a sophomore, and he is actually giving a lecture?

But it is not very strange, because many of the people studying abroad are not very old. Some of them were sent abroad to study shortly after their freshman and sophomore years. They do not attend classes, take exams, or write papers (questionable), but read foreign books, but domestic schools continue to issue diplomas.

During this period, there was a severe shortage of talent with a Western education background.

The Department of Economics has the most such people. The seniors from the Class of 77/78, ranging from their teens to their thirties, all went to work in key departments of various provinces as soon as they graduated. Some of them were abroad for two or three years, and were entrusted with important tasks after returning. It is simply hard for future generations to imagine.

Yu Qi brought up the three philosophical questions of "Who am I, where do I come from, and where am I going" again.

He talked about the need for social science students to return to China: "We are luckier than the people in the novel. We have been arranged to go somewhere long ago and are welcomed wherever we go... But once we stay abroad, it's completely the opposite. People don't want a Chinese to come to their country to engage in economics, don't you think?"

This lecture was also listed in the "Must-Read for International Students" column. Nowadays, reading domestic novels has become a cheap spiritual food for some international students.

They also brought Yu Qie's novels abroad and tried to translate them for their foreign roommates, especially the Chinese.

It was these "tap water" that helped many domestic writers to become famous in Europe and the United States.

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After reprinting another 500,000 copies, the pulp paper at Yenching Publishing House was no longer sufficient, and Yu Qi's novels had to be published by other publishing houses.

There is not even a drop of thick white pulp left.

The first to be affected was the People's Literature Publishing House, followed by the Hunan People's Publishing House, Jilin Province's Times Literature and Art Publishing House, and the publishing house in Yu Qie's hometown also got a piece of the pie... A total of nine publishing houses obtained the printing rights, and they each set a print quantity ranging from tens of thousands to two hundred thousand.

A best-selling book can sell for dozens or even hundreds of years, and publishers have already discovered which books are easy to sell.

According to the later "Catalogue of Books Published by Some Chinese Publishing Houses with More than 40 Copies in the Past 50 Years", whenever sales were poor, publishers would change the covers of the original bestsellers and sell them again. In this way, pure literature books such as "Dream of the Red Chamber", "Camel Xiangzi" and "Fortress Besieged" sold millions of copies in a few years.

As for the popular novels from Hong Kong and Taiwan, there are two male writers from Sichuan Province who use the pseudonym "Xue Mili" and pirated and "translated" a series of romance novels from Chinese. The actual number of their readers is probably much higher than the rest and is difficult to count.

In the past, October magazine allocated one-tenth of its revenue every year. As October has grown bigger, it has reduced the use of pulp in other areas (popular science, fine arts, teaching aids, etc.).

In some monthly magazines that carry popular articles, October sold 600,000 to 800,000 copies that month, more than double the previous number.

It is truly a miracle that a literary journal that was created out of love could sell so well. Not only did it not lose money, it actually made money.

However, October's most successful product had to be shared by others, and the entire editorial department expressed great indignation towards the publishing house.

The Beijing Publishing House held a "paper pulp" meeting and asked Yu Qie to attend. This meeting was more like an apology meeting.

At the meeting, Wang Shimin, representing October, spoke with deep sorrow: "If there is no pulp, we will go to borrow it and try to distribute it. Should we reject our readers' love for our products with the excuse of 'no pulp'?"

The leaders of the publishing house were very embarrassed: "We still have the Yenching Daily, the Yenching Cartoon, the Science Pictorial, and many science, foreign language, and professional books and reading materials... We really don't have enough pulp. This is really a happy trouble."

Wang Shimin was very angry: "What did you promise me in the beginning? October is a core magazine, a key literary journal, and the most innovative and forward-looking of all categories. No matter what, the publishing house will give priority to the supply of pulp for October... Doesn't that count?"

The publishing leaders felt very aggrieved.

Who knew you could sell like this?

If we continue to sell like this, we’ll change our name to October Publishing House and its friends.

After all, this is not an era of free market, so this strange phenomenon of not making money has emerged.

Even the most popular "Da Saba" could not be published in full by itself, so Yu Qie's previous novels needed help from other publishing houses.

For every 800 copies, Yu Qie received a basic remuneration of yuan, but he had to pay yuan in taxes. At that time, the income tax threshold for royalties was yuan, which was equivalent to the annual income of a senior engineer. This was an extremely high standard.

This month, Yu Qie became a wealthy man with an expected income of one hundred thousand. This money will be sent to him continuously, which will be more than enough to decorate his courtyard house.

The royalties were sent to his home in envelopes through the post office. Yu Qie's royalties kept coming in, and he was too lazy to count them. Zhang Li and Chen Xiaoxu only saw Yu Qie collecting money, and then locking the money in a safe. Looking at the empty envelopes, they lamented, "Oh, I have no money again."

Zhang Li began to doubt whether she could afford to support Yu Qie. Her salary per episode was 80 yuan, which was firmly in the high-income class. But according to this figure, she would have to save for a hundred years to barely match Yu Qi's monthly income.

Yu Qie laughed when he heard her idea.

Chen Xiaoxu doesn't care much about money, but she also thinks Yu Qie's speed in making money is simply outrageous. No wonder he spends money lavishly and eats beef every meal.

To celebrate the success of Yu Che's novel, Zhang Li's election, and to commemorate the separation of the three, the three of them went out to eat every day in the last few days. Yu Che took them to all the restaurants in Yanjing that could be scheduled: Friendship Hotel, Quanjude, Lao Mo, and the last stop was Yuebin Restaurant, which was the earliest private restaurant in Yanjing.

Why are you here?
Yu Qie told the two girls: "The owner of Yuebin Restaurant is richer than me."

The boss Liu Guixian opened a restaurant in the corridor. With the only poultry that did not require tickets to buy - four ducks, he became a millionaire in the early months of 1980. Now he is the largest collector of red sandalwood in the country. His fortune-making experience is much more impressive than that of "Bao Zong" in Shanghai.

Zhang Li seemed to be lost in thought. Chen Xiaoxu didn't know why, but he began to envy Zhang Li for being able to do business for others.

They rode their bikes home again. This time, Zhang Li was reluctant to leave and took the initiative to suggest: "Yu Qie, take us around Yanjing. This may be the last time we do this."

(End of this chapter)