Fantasy Writers 1860

12 Irwin Road, St. George, Londinion, inside the editorial office of the Morning Star.

"You mean, our newspaper sales dropped again last week?"

Inside a luxurious office, a young man with one shirt button undone and his jacket casually tucked into his waistband sat casually in a high-backed leather chair, having just taken his feet off the desk.

He read the report carefully, as if trying to glean something from between the few words on the few sheets of paper in his hand.

"Yes, President Braden..." the middle-aged man serving at the table replied somewhat reluctantly.

Just a month ago, he wasn't sitting here as a dissolute young nobleman.

At that time, the respected Mr. Julian Emerson was in charge. Under his leadership, relying on truth and conscience, the Morning Star steadily and surely grew from an unknown small newspaper into a major brand that ranked ninth in sales in Lentinion.

However, the overly straightforward Mr. Julian inexplicably offended a nobleman's son, and as a result, the Morning Star was acquired by his family, and he himself, as the founder, was ousted.

The young man now sitting in the president's seat is none other than the playboy he once offended, Braden Lawrence.

"What's going on? Do you guys even know how to do your jobs?!" Braden slammed the several pages of report he was holding onto the table in anger. "Sean! Is your editorial team deliberately trying to mess with me?! How come everything was fine when Julian was here, but sales plummeted as soon as I arrived?"

While Braden was indeed foolish and knew nothing about newspaper management or business operations, it would be unfair to say that he halved sales in less than a month after taking over.

To put it bluntly, he's only been here a short time; he hasn't even had a chance to cause any trouble yet.

The Morning Star had already reached a bottleneck. Some problems had already emerged when Mr. Julian was in charge, but he was ousted before he could address them.

Now it's in Braden's hands that things are finally coming to a head.

"Absolutely not, Mr. Braden. Our editorial team has always worked diligently for the newspaper and has never meant anything against you. After all, if the Morning Star really went under, we would all lose our jobs." The veteran editor, Sean, wiped the sweat from his brow with his sleeve. "We can't control sales, and we can't control changes in readers' tastes. We can only adapt as quickly as possible."

"On the other hand, some of our competitors have recently emerged and taken away many of our original customers."

"Take, for example, that *Lentinion Weekly*?" Braden said flippantly. "I saw in the report that they've been serializing a novel recently, which has caused a surge in sales. Don't we have a section for serialized novels?"

"Yes, sir, we always have."

"Then why did their sales skyrocket while ours plummeted?"

"Not all novels can be compared. Their serialized works are more popular than ours... I have compiled the current content of 'The Million Pound Stamp,' which is in the appendix at the end of the report. You can take a look."

Braden then noticed that there was an attachment at the end of the report, and quickly picked it up from the table to read it again.

The article was short, the language was down-to-earth, and the plot was easy to understand, so Braden, who was somewhat educated, finished reading it quickly.

When he reached the last page, he instinctively flipped to the next page, only to find that there was nothing more. He muttered to himself, "That's it?"

Immediately, he put down the attachment in his hand and said to the editor-in-chief, Sean, "It's not that well-written either. The plot is simple, neither profound nor thought-provoking, the writing is barely readable, there's no beauty in the rhetoric, and it doesn't quote any ancient sages... It's just ordinary... Isn't this kind of crude, sloppy writing something anyone can do? Can't our writers write something like this?"

This can't be called having no profound thoughts at all?

I only glanced at it at first and I could tell that the author was satirizing the current state of society where money is everything. How could you not see such an obvious satire?

Editor-in-Chief Sean was in a bit of a bind. He hadn't expected this young master to have such low literary literacy without even realizing it. He couldn't understand it himself, yet he criticized the other person's writing for lacking depth.

Of course, for someone born into his family, this probably doesn't seem ironic at all.

In his eyes, the supremacy of money is probably still an irrefutable universal truth.

"The trash we signed can't even write a novel of this caliber, what kind of writers are they? If our newspaper is full of garbage like this, how can the content quality be good? How can the sales be good?" Seeing that Sean hadn't said anything, Braden, who thought he was too intimidated to speak, slammed his fist on the table again, trying to make a deafening sound.

"Open all of them! I want to find some truly talented people to write!" Braden shouted.

Sean was startled upon hearing this.

"President, this won't do!" he quickly dissuaded. "First, the contracts with those writers haven't expired yet. If we fire them now, it'll be a breach of contract, and we'll have to pay penalties. Second, if we fire them all at once, we won't even be able to fill the pages of the next issue of the Morning Star..."

Sean knew that many of the veteran writers who had worked with the Morning Star were struggling financially, with their families relying on meager royalties to make ends meet.

When Mr. Julian was still alive, he often helped us out. If he terminates the contract with just a word, even if we pay the penalty, it will be hard to sustain us for long.

At that moment, a heavy sense of responsibility welled up in Sean's heart, and he suddenly felt the weight of life on his shoulders—he didn't want to see his old friends again next time at the crematorium.

Besides, their novels are not bad either. It's just that the recent emergence of a great author in the Lentinian Weekly has made them pale in comparison.

Braden rested his chin on his hands, elbows on the table, and pondered for a long time before reluctantly saying, "That's right. These things should be done slowly. At least until we find someone who can truly replace those useless people, we should keep them to fill the space for now."

"Let's treat this as a long-term strategy. As for the short term..." Braden racked his brains and quickly came up with a good idea:

"I've got it! Instead of improving myself, I'll mess with others."

"Here's what you'll do: have your columnists write some scathing critiques of 'The Million Pound' and 'Lentinion Weekly,' claiming they deliberately spread erroneous values ​​detrimental to the Empire's stability, poison the minds and bodies of Imperial citizens, deny the Empire's achievements, and accept 50 denarii from the Iris Republic to tarnish the Empire's image. Then, anyone who reads them won't be a Britannian!"

Sean: ?

While this is indeed a tactic in business warfare, given the current situation...

"If we had done it this way from the beginning, it might have had a good effect, but now, this novel has become very popular and widely circulated. If we criticize it rashly, it might have the opposite effect of publicity..." Before Sean could finish speaking, Braden rudely interrupted him.

"Are you the boss or am I the boss? Just listen to what I say!"

"Of course, our newspaper alone can't ruin him. But don't worry, I'll get my uncle who works at Time to join in the criticism, drive them bankrupt, and then, when that writer of 'The Million Pound Note' is at his lowest point, we'll offer him a small favor and get him to write novels for us... Excellent, perfect!"

At this point, Braden was so impressed by his own amazing wisdom that he couldn't help but stand up and applaud himself.

"Okay, I'll arrange it right away." Sean rolled his eyes, sinking into a strange despair.

It's a kind of despair that comes from watching helplessly as something you cherish gradually falls into the abyss of destruction, and you are powerless to stop it.