Restart life

Chapter 128, page 0125: [A wildly popular autograph session]

Li Xunhuan, with his unorthodox methods, even chose a unique location for his autograph session.

These days, traditional authors usually hold book signings at the Xidan Book Building. For example, Yu Qiuyu and Liu Xinwu held book signings there in 2004.

If it's foreign language translations or financial books, I'd choose the China World Mall.

For youth literature and parenting books, choose New World Department Store.

Li Xunhuan, however, rented a space in Oriental Plaza, where the rent was even more expensive than the previous ones!

This was unprecedented; even the invited reporters thought the address was wrong.

Chen Guiliang arrived nearby early to put on makeup; he had even styled his hair yesterday, and the clothes he wore were borrowed from Li Xunhuan.

In order to make money, Chen Guiliang obediently followed orders.

Bian Guanyue sat next to him, looking at Chen Guiliang after he finished his makeup, and thought he was incredibly handsome.

"What if there aren't enough people?" Bian Guanyue asked worriedly.

Li Xunhuan smiled and said, "Don't worry, I've gathered quite a few people from the Sprout Forum. There are also people who have signed up in advance from other forums and Tieba. Oriental Plaza has a large flow of people, and some passersby will also join in. If we can get 1000 people in line, we'll consider today's mission accomplished."

"Don't other authors make several thousand yuan at book signings?" Chen Guiliang really didn't know much about this.

"How can there be so many?"

Li Xunhuan said, "Guo Xiaosi's fans are the most enthusiastic, but there are only four or five thousand people at his book signings. Han Han's are even fewer. When he signed books for 'Triple Gate' in Beijing and Shanghai, there were only about two or three thousand people, and only one or two thousand in second-tier cities. Last year's 'Chang'an Chaos' was even more dismal, with only about a thousand people at a single event. The thousands of people queuing up in the newspapers are all fabricated; it's just exaggerated publicity to sell books."

"That's alright." Chen Guiliang felt relieved.

Li Xunhuan's phone rang. After answering for a few seconds, he asked in surprise, "Are there really that many?"

……

Hu Zhenyu is a sophomore at the University of International Business and Economics.

He had just finished his exams a couple of days ago, and most of his roommates had gone home. But he stayed at school and even dragged one of his roommates along to buy books.

Yes, he was Cao Cao, the lord of that day.

After tormenting Chen Guiliang for more than half an hour, Hu Zhenyu said to the other players, "Give him a quick death, my exam time is almost up."

The traitor Hua Tuo, however, said, "I still have enough peaches."

Hu Zhenyu had no choice but to run away, quitting the game and rushing to the examination hall.

When he returned to his dorm after the exam, he read posts on the Three Kingdoms Kill forum and learned that Chen Guiliang had been thoroughly defeated for a full 70 minutes. Not only did he not run away, but he also chatted with other players the entire time, bragging and making everyone feel good before it ended.

Then, Chen Guiliang was moved to another room and continued to be abused...

Through this incident, Hu Zhenyu felt that President Chen was a good person. He specifically read the serialized content of "Those Things of the Ming Dynasty" online, and then called on everyone on the forum to attend the book signing event.

Although there weren't many respondents, there were still a dozen or so, and they even made plans to have dinner together afterward.

Just consider it an offline gathering for fans of the card game "Three Kingdoms Kill".

Upon arriving at the scene today, Hu Zhenyu immediately raised his sign.

It was made from scrap cardboard, with five crooked characters written on it: "Three Kingdoms Kill Forum Friends".

"Damn, this is so embarrassing, there are so many people watching," said his roommate, whom he had dragged along.

As soon as I raised the sign, a girl rushed over and said, "Are you talking nonsense?"

Hu Zhenyu asked, "Who are you?"

The girl patted her chest and said, "I can break rocks with my chest."

"A woman?" Hu Zhenyu exclaimed in surprise.

The girl retorted, "Can't a woman be called 'breaking a boulder on her chest'? I'm from Beijing University of Chemical Technology, what about you?"

Hu Zhenyu laughed and said, "What a coincidence. I'm from the University of International Business and Economics, right next to yours."

"Really? That's too close."

"I'll come visit you when I visit Beijing University of Chemical Technology."

"Sure. What's your phone number?"

"..."

The two got more and more into their conversation, leaving their roommate feeling left out.

Just then, someone else held up a sign: Sprout Forum.

People kept gathering around that sign, and most of them were quite young, mainly high school and junior high school students.

The banners for the book signing event had already been put up, and several roll-up banners were placed next to the table.

A roll-up banner's slogan has several lines:

Professor Shang XX, Doctoral Supervisor, Department of History, Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; Researcher and Academic Committee Member, Institute of History, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; Vice President, Chinese Ming History Society.

Wang XX, Professor and Doctoral Supervisor of the Department of History at Peking University, Member of the Council of the Chinese Historical Society, and Vice President of the Chinese Ming History Society.

Cao Wenxuan, Deputy Director of the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at Peking University, Vice Chairman of the Beijing Writers Association, and Visiting Professor at the Lu Xun Academy of Literature.
A masterpiece recommended by three scholars to kick off 2005.

The other banner features recommendations from many well-known young writers such as Han Han, Guo Jingming, and Annie Baby.

There was also a roll-up banner printed with serialization data from various websites. It also featured slogans in bright font such as "Humorous yet rigorous," "Interesting yet factual," "Knowledge is also a trend," "Fashionable reading," and "A must-read masterpiece."

The last banner is a complete introduction to Chen Guiliang.

"Dear book lovers, please line up here! Dear book lovers..."

On-site staff began to greet and guide the book fans who had arrived early to line up and wait.

Before 8:30, there were already seven or eight hundred people in line.

There are shills inside!
Especially those over 30 who arrive early are mostly shills hired by Li Xunhuan. This is a high-end commercial landmark in the Wangfujing business district, focusing on high-end retail and leisure experiences. The people who come here are foreign company employees, urban white-collar workers, business people, and tourists.

Besides selling luxury goods and electronics, there is also the Sanlian Taofen Bookstore (which specializes in high-quality books) here.

This Sanlian Bookstore also sells "Those Things of the Ming Dynasty," and it's displayed in a very prominent position because Li Xunhuan supplies them with the book at half price.

On the bookshelf of a nearby coffee shop, there was also a copy of "Those Things of the Ming Dynasty," which Li Xunhuan gave away for free.

A photojournalist is looking for a subject.

Whenever a "high-end person" picks up a book, they immediately take a picture.

Today is Saturday. Bookstores, cafes, luxury stores, high-end electronics stores... many high-end customers arrived early this morning, as well as many tourists who didn't have money to buy anything but were just browsing.

There's a huge flow of people here!
A female office worker, instead of buying luxury goods, went straight to Sanlian Bookstore.

Hey, people come here specifically instead of visiting affordable bookstores.

"Another new book?" the female office worker said.

The shop assistant was very enthusiastic and introduced the book, saying, "This is a book by a young entrepreneur."

This sentence is enough.

The female office worker thought it was some kind of self-help or business book, just a cover for Ming Dynasty history.

When I pulled the book out, I saw that the book jacket was printed with a string of scholars and writers' names.

Inside the cover is the author's biography.

Current student of Peking University's Yuanpei Program, CEO of ByteDance and Game Science, and a science and technology innovation talent incubated by Peking University Science Park...

The female office worker wasn't interested in history, but the book jacket and the author's biography made her want to flip through it.

Even if you don't understand it, you can still pretend.

To everyone's surprise, the female office worker found the first chapter fascinating, and even though she was historically illiterate, she had no trouble reading it.

"I'll buy all three books." The female office worker paid immediately.

With her salary, she's not really qualified to spend money here. She can't afford luxury goods, high-end electronics, and even coffee is too expensive for her. The only place she can afford to shop is high-end bookstores.

Moreover, browsing bookstores and buying books can also showcase one's taste!
This book, in particular, has been recommended by so many well-known authors and endorsed by three senior scholars. It's both stylish and insightful, and the author is a company owner, yet it's still easy for female office workers to understand.

It perfectly matches her book-buying criteria.

She plans to take it back to her rented apartment to read slowly, take photos, and write her thoughts on the book on her blog.

When paying, the clerk reminded me, "The author is signing books over there today. You can also take your book, which you purchased from our store, to be signed."

The female office worker was even happier; if she could get the author's autograph, it would be even more worthwhile to take a picture and post it on her blog.

When she arrived at the book signing, she found that there were already over a thousand people in line, so she quickly grabbed her book and joined the queue.

A middle-aged man in a suit slowly walked up behind her.

The female office worker turned around and glanced at the man, immediately recognizing him as being decked out in designer brands. She then struck up a conversation, saying, "Sir, you also enjoy 'Those Things of the Ming Dynasty'?"

The middle-aged man said, "I was shopping with my wife and her best friend, and we got tired, so I came here to join in the fun. This book is good; I just read a few pages in a coffee shop and plan to buy it to read at home."

The books in the coffee shop are for viewing only, not for sale. Li Xunhuan gave each coffee shop ten sets (currently, each set contains only three books).

Another person was standing in line behind the middle-aged man; judging from their clothes, they didn't seem to be wealthy.

These are usually tourists who are just browsing the mall, and they're even more strapped for cash than female office workers. While female office workers might at least buy high-quality books, these tourists are all about saving money without spending a dime.

But there are long queues here, and the books aren't expensive, so tourists come to join in the fun and consider it a way to shop in a high-end mall.

There are quite a few tourists like this.

It seems that by buying a book at a book signing event, one becomes a customer of a high-end shopping mall.

They don't care who the author is.

People join the team from time to time, and they come from all walks of life.

There was even a wealthy woman who brought her son to buy a laptop. After buying it, she saw the promotional content on the roll-up banner and decided to buy a set of "Those Things of the Ming Dynasty" for her son as extracurricular reading.

The queue grew longer and longer, and before we knew it, it had exceeded 4000 people.

Of those, only 300 were shills hired by Li Xunhuan. The rest, aside from genuine fans, who knows why they lined up?

All I can say is that there are just too many visitors here, and too many people who are simply bored.

If the event were held at a traditional autograph session location, the number of passersby queuing up would definitely be halved and then halved again.

"Wow, so handsome!"

The people at the very front of the line were all students, and mostly middle school girls.

Chen Guiliang, sporting a new hairstyle and makeup, appeared in a woolen trench coat, immediately eliciting gasps from the young girls.

Chen Guiliang was also startled; there was a dark mass of heads in front of him.

Am I that famous now?

There were so many people who came to the book signing event!
Bian Guanyue, standing a considerable distance away, asked Li Xunhuan, "President Lu, are all these book fans?"

Li Xunhuan nodded and said, "Definitely."

He was also a little surprised. It was a crazy idea to hold a book signing in a high-end shopping mall. Although he expected there would be a lot of people queuing up, it was still a bit outrageous that so many people would suddenly appear.

It's like being at Guo Jingming's book signing event!

Far surpassing Han Han.

Media reporters are snapping photos.

(End of this chapter)