When Huo Yaowen came out of "Oriental Newspaper", it was already more than four o'clock in the afternoon, and the scorching sun had gradually dissipated, and the sun was setting, and it was dusk.

In 1968, Hong Kong was far from being as prosperous, clean and full of high-rise buildings as it was in later generations. On the contrary, the streets are full of dirt and mess, especially the curbs on both sides of the street are full of cigarette butts, sundries, and broken leaves.

However, if you abandon these and don't look at them, the streets of Hong Kong at this time have a different charm, the billboards written in traditional Chinese characters are densely hung on the top of the shops, pedestrians hurrying by on the road, and a few children squatting on the side of the street looking at the doll book in their hands, quite a feeling of coming to the Hong Kong movies in the 80s.

While walking, Huo Yaowen was thinking about writing for "Oriental Newspaper".

At present, "Oriental Press" is still only a start-up, and its influence is certainly not as good as that of long-established newspapers such as "Ming Pao" and "Ta Kung Pao", but Fok Yiu-man understands that in the future, "Oriental Press" will not only surpass "Ming Pao" and "Ta Kung Pao" in sales, but also become the first newspaper to sell first in Hong Kong for 29 consecutive years.

These are the later achievements of "Oriental Newspaper", although Huo Yaowen knows, but he will not take such a long-term view, where he is now submitting to Ma Rulong, what he values is not the future of "Oriental Newspaper", but the lack of things that can increase newspaper sales.

At present, Hong Kong's newspaper industry, except for specialized newspapers such as the Book of Horses, and the Book of Dogs, basically invites some famous literati to write articles for the newspaper, from novels to essays, and the subject matter is not limited.

As long as the content of the novel or article can attract readers and ordinary people to buy newspapers, then it will be fine.

However, this is not a completely absolute thing, the newspaper is not a book, its role is more to provide people with current affairs information, news highlights.

Why is it that in less than nine years since its establishment, Ming Pao has been able to surpass Ta Kung Pao and Hong Kong Wen Wei Po, which have been established for more than 20 years, to become one of the top three newspapers in Hong Kong in terms of sales for a long time?

In addition to the famous columns of the supplement, it is more about the positioning of "Ming Pao" itself.

In 1959, Jin Yong cooperated with his friend Shen Baoxin and jointly funded the establishment of "Ming Pao". In the early days of the magazine, Shen Baoxin was in charge of business, and Jin Yong was in charge of the editor-in-chief.

At the beginning, thanks to Mr. Jin Yong's personal reputation as a martial arts celebrity, as well as the martial arts novels he wrote, he was able to sell one or two thousand copies a day, barely maintaining the balance of the newspaper's income and expenditure.

But when the paragraph of "The Condor Heroes" was written, it can be said that it exploded in the readership, and the sales of the newspaper fell from one or two thousand copies to several hundred, and in the end, it ended up with no one ordering.

That year, Ming Pao suffered a serious loss!

In other words, it is the author who is poisoning the book!

Or highly toxic!

What kind of poison that killed instantly!

It wasn't until this part of the plot passed, with the appearance of the climax of "The Condor Heroes", that this poison was finally slightly alleviated, and with Shen Bao's new business methods, the advertising business of "Ming Pao" rose steadily, and it turned a profit.

It is precisely because of this incident that Jin Yong saw that newspapers cannot rely entirely on articles to attract people, so he changed the positioning and direction of "Ming Pao", no longer relying solely on articles and novels written by famous writers to attract readers, but moving towards an elite newspaper with "independent speech" and "impartiality".

Therefore, in 1962, when a large number of people from the mainland were smuggled into Hong Kong and intercepted by the Royal Hong Kong Police at Wutong Shan in Sheung Shui, Ming Pao took the lead in speaking out in the newspaper, ignoring this sensitive topic, and won the support of most of the scholars and intellectuals at that time.

In this way, Ming Pao changed its style from a "small citizen newspaper" focusing on martial arts novels, sensational news and horse classics to an authoritative and independent intellectualist newspaper.

Like Ming Pao, Oriental Press did not make a good profit in the early days of its founding, and it could not sell a few newspapers. However, as Ma Rulong changed the positioning of the newspaper, hired a famous writer to write the Book of Dogs, and with the help of his influence in the underworld, he tried his best to get some horse classics and tips that other Ma Jing newspapers did not know, which made him gain a foothold in Hong Kong, where the newspaper industry is full of newspapers. (Tips, foreign word, Tips in English, here refers to grapevine)

However, no matter how to change the positioning style of the newspaper, the most basic fiction articles are essential content, especially an attractive novel, which can not only drive the sales of the newspaper, but also cultivate more or less loyal readers to buy the newspaper for a long time.

Huo Yaowen submitted to Oriental Newspaper because he liked that it had just been launched, and even the first newspaper had not yet been published, so he must need some attractive novels and articles to quickly open up the market, just like Ming Pao back then.

The book "Ghost Blows the Lantern - Notes on Tomb Robbery" integrates the essence of countless tomb robbery novels in later generations, and Huo Yaowen believes that once it is published in the newspaper, it will definitely be able to attract the attention of the general public more than the martial arts novels that have almost reached the bottleneck at the moment.

The book contains all kinds of ghosts, folk rumors, mountain and wild miscellaneous theories, as well as the addition of some real archaeological processes, and enough tomb robbery techniques to withstand scrutiny, which not only makes ordinary readers and citizens lively, but also can attract the attention of those history lovers and archaeology lovers.

While thinking about it, he walked, and when he was about to leave Guizhou Street and came to the bus stop, Huo Yaowen was stunned and remembered that Mr. Zhang's family seemed to live on Guizhou Street.

glanced at his watch, it was a quarter past four o'clock in the afternoon, thinking about this point to visit Mr. Zhang, should not be pulled by the other party to stay for dinner.

Thinking of this, Huo Yaowen happened to see a vendor selling fruits at a stall across the road, and walked over.

When the vendor sitting on the ground selling fruits saw someone coming over, he quickly got up from the ground, patted the dust on his buttocks, and said enthusiastically: "Sir, may I buy something?"

may be because Huo Yaowen is dressed as a scholar and has a polite temperament, and even the hawker unconsciously uses the title of "sir".

"Here's a watermelon. Huo Yaowen looked at the hawker cart in addition to watermelons, there were pineapples, grapes and other common fruits in summer, thought about it and said, "Another pound of grapes." ”

"Okay. ”

The vendor hurriedly patted five or six large watermelons in front of him, found the heaviest one as much as possible, and said after a long scale: "One catty and five millicents, a total of fourteen catties......"

...

"The falling flowers cover the moonlight,

Borrow a cup of recommended phoenix on the platform,

The emperor's flowers are fragrant with tears,

May I die and thank my father,

Sneak look, sneak look,

He was sad with tears and tears......"

Following the route in his memory, Huo Yaowen carried the big watermelon and a pound of grapes he bought, and just came to the floor where Mr. Zhang lived, he saw that Mr. Zhang was lying comfortably on a rocking chair by the aisle, holding a palmetto fan in his left hand and a small ceramic teapot in his right hand, while listening to the Cantonese opera classic "Imperial Flower" written by Cantonese opera writer Tang Disheng in the 50s on the old-fashioned radio, while humming along with his mouth.

PS: Has anyone read this book? In addition, "Imperial Flower" is really good, I recommend one or two.