Chapter 409 “What kind of idiot publishing house is this?!”

“How much is this magazine of yours?”

“Twenty-four cents, you won’t suffer much loss.”

“That’s fine.”

Yu Hua’s “Harvest” is a little more expensive than this “People’s Digest”, but when I think about the long journey ahead to the capital, I think it will be a long way off.

This is a long “road”. If I don’t change, it would be too boring to read “Harvest”, which I have read three times along the way.

I simply exchanged it for this copy of People’s Digest and started reading it in the waiting room.

As soon as I read it, I found that this magazine was not quite the same as what Yu Hua had imagined.

This is not a “pure literature” magazine!
In this issue of People’s Digest, the only columns that can be considered pure literary works are “Golden Short Stories”, “The Finale”, “Memory and Story”, and “Poet’s Space”.

In Yu Hua’s view, the rest has nothing to do with literature.

Such as “Exhibition on Paper” and “Rhetoric in Art”. These columns are about art criticism and appreciation of dance, music and painting.

“Local narrative” focuses on the various aspects of contemporary China.

“Cover China”, “History’s Breath” and “Field Archives” are about digging into historical records and humanistic memories.

In addition, “Material Life” and “White-Collar Notes” actually convey fashion trends and trend information.

This small magazine can be said to cover everything.

The key is that there is also a column called “Overseas Information”!
I can’t stop watching Yu Hua.

Nowadays, the overseas works that Yu Hua can access are nothing more than those of world-famous writers such as Tolstoy and Kafka, and Yu Hua has basically read all of their works.

However, the works published in People’s Digest are not taken from famous writers.

Rather, these are works that have just been published overseas and whose authors are relatively unknown.

These works are directly selected from famous European and American magazines such as The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Playboy, and Harper’s.

It may not be literary enough.

But the main point is freshness!

“Fresh!”

“This is so fresh!”

Yu Hua’s eyes lit up as he looked at it, and he was quite surprised.

I didn’t expect that after exchanging things with that brother, I would actually get this treasure in return.

He looked up and was about to thank the old man, but found that the old man had left at some point.

“What about people?”

Yu Hua searched around for a while, then suddenly thought of something and slapped his thigh.

“my car!”

We hurried as fast as we could and finally didn’t miss the train.

Yu Hua carried his luggage and hurriedly sat down in his seat. Without even taking a breath, he impatiently opened the People’s Digest and started reading.

He read the essays of Wang Zengqi and Feng Jicai and the fairy tales of Zheng Yuanjie. He was not interested in current political affairs, but he enjoyed reading “Stewardess” by writer Wang Shuo.
“Can a novel be written like this?”

“interesting.”

“How can I see the full version in Contemporary Magazine next month?”

After reading “Stewardess”, the next thing to read is the comic. Yu Hua has seen the things drawn in the comic. This is the popular program of this year’s Spring Festival Gala: the skit “Eating Noodles” co-starred by Chen Peisi and Zhu Shimao.

It is not easy to broadcast this program.

At that time, the Spring Festival Gala crew invited Chen Peisi and Zhu Shimao to stay in the hotel to write the script. The two stayed for a week and showed the finished script to the crew.

The result was not passed.

The two brothers thought that they had to pay food coupons to eat in the hotel, the crew was also in a difficult situation, and they were young and energetic and could not stand the repeated revisions.

Let’s get it together and go!
The Spring Festival Gala crew hurriedly went to find the two people to come back and write.

This went on repeatedly, and the two brothers ran away three times in total. Half an hour before the Spring Festival Gala was broadcast, the leaders of CCTV did not dare to agree to approve “Eating Noodles”.

Finally, the Spring Festival Gala director Huang Yihe stood up and withstood the pressure and forced the two brothers to go on stage.

Famous overnight.

Yu Hua also watched the skit and was amused by the jokes in it. At this moment, he saw that the cartoon only took a few strokes to bring Chen Peisi’s funny appearance to life.

Just by looking at those pictures, he could recall in his mind the wonderful performances of Chen Peisi and Zhu Shimao on the Spring Festival Gala, and he couldn’t help but smile again.

In addition to the skits in this year’s Spring Festival Gala, a passage from the crosstalk “Cosmic Brand Cigarettes” performed by Ma Ji in this year’s Spring Festival Gala was also selected and written into the magazine.

Just by looking at the lines of text, Yu Hua could imagine the tone of the Tangshan accent in his mind.

“If you don’t smoke my cosmic cigarettes, you won’t have a happy family! You young people won’t be able to find a partner! You students won’t be able to get into college! Everyone here will have a bad New Year!”

“If you want to collect a set of my designs, the Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea set, you should at least buy eight cartons of cigarettes from me; buy twelve cartons of the Twelve Beauties of Jinling; buy thirty-six cartons of the Thirty-six Scenes of Suzhou and Hangzhou; buy one hundred and eight cartons of the One Hundred and Eight Single Generals; buy five hundred cartons of the Five Hundred Arhats; and I still have a million strong armies marching south of the Yangtze River!”

The more Yu Hua read, the more excited he became.

This “People’s Digest”, every section and every corner of every page.

They all look good!

Don’t miss it!

Even the small blank space above the page number is not spared, and a line of small words must be written:
“When I was a child, my mother told me that the sea is my hometown”

Putting the pages together, they form the lyrics of this year’s popular song “The Sea, My Hometown”.

interesting!
Yu Hua turned to the last page with a sense of unsatisfied desire and found that there were still a few puzzles.

Sudoku game guess riddles.
The editorial department said so.

Readers are welcome to send their answers to their editorial office. Their magazine will select a few lucky readers from the letters to give away prizes.

“One first prize winner, prize: a Forever brand bicycle.”

“Three first prize winners, prize: a pair of white Warrior high-top sneakers.”

“10 second prize winners, prize: a box of premium fruit.”

“30 participants will receive a prize: one copy each of the next issue of People’s Literature and People’s Digest.”

Oh, and give away bicycles!

Yu Hua became excited.

Forever brand bicycle!
He can’t even ride this well!
This method has been overused in later generations, and customers have become accustomed to it and are too lazy to pay attention to it.

But nowadays it is a strong medicine.

Such a young and innocent market has never seen such brutal marketing methods.

Oh my god, I’m willing to give away even the bicycle!

Isn’t this editorial department going to lose a lot of money? !

Yu Hua was immediately interested, but unfortunately he was not good at math. He couldn’t even understand the Sudoku questions, and he couldn’t guess the riddles correctly. He pondered for a long time and came up with several answers, but he couldn’t decide on any of them.

For a moment, I lost interest in the prizes and became more curious about the correct answers to these questions.

Unfortunately, the answer will not be announced until the next issue of the magazine.

In other words, if you want to know the answer for sure, you have to buy the next issue of People’s Digest first.

“Isn’t this just tantalizing?” Yu Hua was so curious that his teeth were itching.

He wrote down all his answers in a notebook and took a look at the address for the letter, which was in Cuihua Hutong in the capital.

“I don’t know how far it is from “Capital Literature”.” Yu Hua muttered to himself.

He thought that if it was not far, he could go over and ask for the answer, which would save him the money to buy the next issue of the magazine.

However, this magazine is indeed well-run. Although its literary quality is not as high as that of literary journals, it is suitable for all ages and is particularly suitable for relieving boredom and killing time. Yu Hua thought that he could talk to his unit and ask them to order a few copies to see if they could see.

But that was all after I returned from the capital.

Wang Shuo has been squatting in front of the Xinhua Bookstore for several days.

He is excited.

Although this was not his first time publishing a novel, he was still excited. After all, he had only published one or two articles before, and they didn’t cause any waves, and it had been such a long time.

At this moment, he was at best a rookie in the literary world.

So after the People’s Digest was published, he immediately went to the entrance of Xinhua Bookstore to wait and see what kind of response his article “Stewardess” would get.

“Hello, comrade.”

“What’s the matter? What do you want?”

“Oh, I’m fine. I just wanted to ask you, have you bought People’s Digest?”

“.none of your business.”

At the entrance of Xinhua Bookstore, Wang Shuo stopped a young girl, pulled her aside, and before he could ask her a few questions, she rolled her eyes and walked away, leaving him standing there alone, feeling awkward.

Just as I was feeling awkward, I heard a shout.

“The surname is Wang!”

Wang Shuo looked in the direction of the voice and saw his girlfriend Shen Xujia walking towards him angrily with her hands on her waist.

Before Wang Shuo could speak, Shen Xujia started to attack him:
“I was wondering why you were so energetic these days, and why you ran outside so early in the morning before the sun rose. Well, today I understand! You are quite capable, and you know how to find the time and place to commit crimes. I am now enlightened. You ran to the entrance of Xinhua Bookstore so early in the morning! You are the best in the whole capital! Why, if someone takes a liking to you, you, a poor scholar, would be ready to shake off all the artistic bacteria in your body on the spot?”

“What are you talking about!”

Wang Shuo was furious and yelled at her, “I just came to Xinhua Bookstore to see if anyone wants to buy People’s Digest!”

“Don’t fool me, who would believe me?”

“Believe it or not, my mind is all on my novel. Do I have the energy to play with Guoer?”

“.”

Although Shen Xujia is a talkative person, he is actually the type of person who is tough on the outside but soft on the inside. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be so cowardly as to watch Xu Jinglei move into his house.

“I don’t know, and you didn’t tell me. Don’t be angry. Is there anyone who wants to buy it?”

“How would I know? I just pulled a girl over and asked her a few questions, and she scolded me.”

“This is so uncultured!”

Shen Xujia loved Wang Shuo so much that he became very unhappy when he heard Wang Shuo being scolded.

“Okay, stop yelling, let’s go in and take a look.”

Wang Shuo took Shen Xujia and went into the Xinhua Bookstore together.

Most bookstores nowadays do not sell books on the shelves. The salesroom hall is lined with counters along the walls, and behind the counters are tall bookshelves. Readers must buy books across the counters. The process is roughly as follows:

When a customer buys a book at the counter, the salesperson issues a sales receipt. The customer takes it to the cashier to pay, and then returns to the counter with the receipt to pick up the book he or she wants.

The store Wang Shuo went to was the Xinhua Bookstore in Wangfujing.

As mentioned before, the Xinhua Bookstore in Wangfujing implemented open shelf book sales a few years ago.

But it was only open for a while and then closed.

It can’t be opened!
Books are very valuable now. Once the books are opened, everyone has to touch them. The hygiene conditions are poor now, so the books are all dirty.

This is not bad.

Those with less quality would have it stolen from their arms.

There was a period of appeal in the bookstore, and the situation improved, but within a few months, it returned to its old ways.

So until now, all Xinhua Bookstores are still closed, with thick counters surrounding the bookshelves.

“Comrade, what book do you want to buy?” the salesperson looked at Wang Shuo and asked.

“Well, I won’t buy it.”

“Not buying books?”

“Well, here’s the thing.”

Wang Shuo smiled shyly, “Guess what I do?”

“What’s going on?”

The salesperson looked at him warily and said in a bad tone, “Let me tell you, we are only two blocks away from the police station.”

“Ha ha ha ha.”

Shen Xujia almost got a stitch in his side from laughing so hard.

Wang Shuo scratched his head. “Comrade, you misunderstood. I am a veteran. How can I do such a thing? Besides, I have to go to the savings bank to do such a thing. I am a writer. I just want to see if my articles are popular with readers.”

“Oh, you should have said it earlier.”

The salesperson breathed a sigh of relief, “What kind of novel do you write?”

“People’s Digest.”

“People’s Digest?”

The salesperson was surprised, “Isn’t that a magazine?”

“What I mean is that my novel was published in People’s Digest,” Wang Shuo explained.

“Oh.”

The salesperson suddenly realized and said helplessly, “I don’t know if your novel is popular, but the People’s Digest magazine is selling very well. All the copies in the library have been sold out in the past two days. Yesterday and this morning, people kept asking about it. It’s really giving us a headache.”

“Oh, really? They’re selling so well?”

“Yes!”

The salesperson was really depressed, and simply complained to Wang Shuo, “I don’t know what the higher-ups are thinking. For such a popular magazine, the salesperson only got 100 copies, and didn’t think to order one more. As a result, we can’t afford it, and the customers can’t buy it. Aren’t we the tellers the ones who suffer in the end? We are almost scolded to death by customers.”

As he was speaking, two more customers came over and started asking questions.

“Comrade, does People’s Digest have it?”

“People’s Digest is gone, but People’s Literature is still available. Do you want it?”

“Oh, why are they gone again? I’ve been to several bookstores this morning! How do you do your job at Xinhua Bookstore? Why are you always not getting what I asked for? It’s so annoying. I’m going to complain to you.” The customer left cursing.

Wang Shuo finally came to his senses.

Just now he was asking that girl about People’s Digest. Why did she scold him?

Didn’t you buy People’s Digest?

Isn’t he full of resentment?

At this time, Wang Shuo came over and brought up something that was not related to the topic.

Now, the girl took out all her anger on him.

“What’s going on? It’s been two days, and our Wangfujing store hasn’t been able to approve even one copy of People’s Digest? What’s going on over there at the distribution office?” In the office on the second floor of the store, the bookstore manager was anxiously calling the distribution office.

On the other end of the phone, the person from the issuing office also felt very aggrieved.

“Why are you so mad at us? We have already contacted the publisher and called them non-stop, but they can’t even produce a single copy. What else can we do?!”

When the manager heard this, his blood pressure rose a few points.

“Which publishing house? How can they be so unreliable? I’ve never heard of a publisher wanting to place an order but finding that there’s not a single copy in stock! Their quality is so low, don’t order from them anymore!”

“This is not okay”

The comrade from the publishing office said quietly, “That’s the Writers Publishing House.”

(End of this chapter)