Fok Yiu-man drove his old car all the way around Kowloon, but whenever he saw a ghost blowing lantern propaganda rack pictorial in front of a bookstore or newsstand, he would stop for a few minutes to observe whether the pedestrians around him paid too much attention to the poster on the propaganda shelf.

At noon, Ming Tsai, who was sitting in the passenger seat, yawned deeply, tears flowed out of the corners of his eyes, raised his hands and rubbed his face, glanced at Brother Yaowen, who was still energetic while driving the car next to him, and said puzzledly: "Brother Yaowen, you stopped at the door of the bookstore all the way and didn't go in, how can you know if your book is selling well?" Or let me get out of the car and ask, so that I can know how much it has been sold." ”

Huo Yaowen glanced at Ming Tsai while driving, and pointed to a few ghost blowouts in the back seat: "Let you ask, don't buy me a few more books and come back, I sold books to them, not to go to them and buy them back." ”

Ming Tsai glanced back at the four or five books on the back seat, and said with an embarrassed face: "I don't want to buy so many either, but if I don't buy books, the boss will tell me how many copies I have sold." ”

"Then you're going to buy it? If you were to ask the bookstores in Kowloon one by one, wouldn't you have to buy hundreds of copies? I've only sold 5,000 copies in Kowloon, and you're going to buy one-fiftieth of my stuff right now. Huo Yaowen stepped on the brakes and slowly parked the car on the side of the road, turned off the engine and pulled the handbrake to pull out the key, and said sideways: "Okay, let's get here first, get out of the car and let's go to dinner, and then we will take a boat to Hong Kong Island to have a look." ”

The two got out of the car and walked into an ice house on the side of the street, it was a meal at this time, there were still a lot of people who came here to eat, but there was still a table in the back that was vacant, Huo Yaowen led Ming Tsai over, and when he sat down, he ordered two barbecued pork rice from the boss.

The waiting process was a little boring, Ming Tsai saw Brother Yaowen take out a small notebook from his arms to record something, and he also picked up the newspaper left by the guests at the front table at the table and read it.

"Extraterrestrial Graveyard:

Since the murder of Professor Peida, the truth is unbelievable, and I have not only wondered, is there more good people or bad people in this world?

I threw this question to Bai Su, thinking that she would talk to me about some big truths that would make my heart feel a lot better, but she just gave me a blank look and said to me: Why do you bother so much? Good people and bad people are all part of this world, and there can be no forever good people and no forever bad people.

Bai Su's words are very straightforward, and I can understand it, but I still don't want to believe that a great scientist like Professor Pei Da is actually secretly experimenting with a living person, but the truth of the investigation is indeed the case, so is Yakun's crime an alternative justice, or is it an excuse for the crime?

This matter kept me wrestling for days, until I received a transnational package containing a letter in addition to a strange helmet. The letter's name is Yabulidas, and he writes in the letter that he is an Egyptian archaeologist in charge of protecting a newly destroyed unknown tomb in Egypt, and that the helmet that was mailed is a replica, and the prototype is still in their archaeological team......

Ming Tsai unconsciously looked a little fascinated.

At this time, the waiter brought over two barbecued pork rice, Huo Yaowen, who was sitting opposite, took the written notepad into his arms, picked up the chopsticks on the table and was about to eat, glanced at Ming Zai, who was still reading the newspaper in front of him, and knocked the upright newspaper with the top of the chopsticks, making a "rubbing" sound: "It's time to eat, I'll be reading the newspaper later." ”

Ming Tsai put down the newspaper and said with excitement on his face: "Brother Yaowen, Ni Box also wrote about tomb robbery!

"Ni Frame writes tomb robbery?" Huo Yaowen raised his eyebrows, took the newspaper from Ming Zai's hand, saw the word writer Ni Box written on the column, and glanced at the title "Alien Tomb" , a quick glance at the content of the text, mainly about Wesley received a package from an Egyptian archaeologist, and then became curious about the 3,000-year-old Pharaoh's tomb that resembled a motorcycle helmet, and flew to Egypt with equipment, just arrived at the moment when the archaeological team met with the archaeologist who wrote to him, the "motorcycle helmet" placed in the archaeological team disappeared! Even two scholars in the archaeological team unfortunately contracted the curse of the pharaoh and died.

Interesting! Huo Yaowen didn't expect Ni Frame to follow the trend and write a story of tomb exploration, but perhaps to get rid of the tomb robbery genre and tomb robbery techniques he wrote in such detail and almost realistic, Ni Frame directly shifted the target and wrote a foreign Egyptian pharaoh's ancient tomb, and explained the curse of the pharaoh in the ancient tomb that has been rumored for a long time as a special virus produced in the body after the death of aliens will cause huge physiological diseases on earthlings, resulting in the quiet death of people who come into contact with the pharaoh's tomb, but this virus is not contagious, so it will not be transmitted to other humans。

Although the plot is more cliché, this is only a relatively old-fashioned plot for Huo Yaowen, but in the eyes of the current readers, it is full of creativity, and the writing is very good, and the first-person substitution will make the reader feel immersive.

After reading it, Huo Yaowen threw the newspaper to the corner of the table, picked up the chopsticks and said to Ming Zai: "Eat, eat." ”

Ming Tsai picked up the chopsticks and ate a thin slice of barbecued pork on the bowl of noodles, pulled a few mouthfuls of rice, and said vaguely: "Brother Yaowen, I didn't expect Ni Frame to write the story of tomb robbery, or write about alien tombs, I always thought he would only write science fiction!"

"That's science fiction. Huo Yaowen smiled at the corner of his mouth, he didn't care much about Ni Frame's story of following the trend to write about the tomb exploration, and in his opinion, Ni Frame's story was strictly a science fiction theme, after all, even the alien tomb came out, how could it not belong to a science fiction theme?

......

In the afternoon, Fok Yiu-man sent Ming Tsai back to the pier and asked him to go back by boat alone, while he drove back to the publishing house in Central, Hong Kong Island.

As soon as I got upstairs, I saw my younger sister Huo Tingting and my cousin Zhang Wanjun looking inside the publishing house at the door.

Huo Yaowen was about to say hello and ask why the two of them came, but seeing the sneaky appearance of the two, he didn't open his mouth to speak, but quietly walked behind them and coughed twice "cough cough"

"Ahh

"I'm in pain, okay!" Huo Yaowen rubbed his aching chin, which was a little sour, and he was speechless, he looked at Huo Tingting and Zhang Wanjun and asked, "How did you two know that you two came here?"

Huo Tingting rubbed the back of her head, pursed her lips and said: "My cousin and I were a little bored at home, just a few days ago I heard Lao Dou tell me the address of the publishing house, so I took a boat after lunch with my cousin." ”

Huo Yaowen glanced at Zhang Wanjun, saw her blushing and nodded, and also said: "You two girls don't come so far in the future, you have to take a car and a ferry, do you know that it is dangerous to run so far?"

"I know Cousin Yaowen. Zhang Wanjun peeked at Huo Yaowen, and saw that he was staring at the two of them with clear eyes, and couldn't help but blush.

"Let's go, take you both inside. ”

Huo Yaowen led his second daughter into the publishing house, and the publishing house was very different from when he first came, not only the desks, chairs, and office equipment that should be there were all complete, but more than a dozen employees were also busy working at their desks.

In recent days, in addition to the publicity and distribution of "Ghost Blowing the Lantern", the matter of co-organizing extracurricular tutoring books that had been negotiated with several professors and teachers of the University of Hong Kong has also been largely completed, and three extracurricular textbooks and examination papers of Chinese, English and mathematics have been compiled.

"You two are sitting in my office, and I have some business to attend to. Huo Yaowen threw the two girls into his office, then turned around and walked towards the editor-in-chief's office, and before leaving, he specially told Huo Tingting not to go outside to make trouble and disturb other people's work.

"Knock Knock"

Wu Liande, who was sitting in the office, was looking at the financial statements handed in by the employees in his hands, as well as the bookstores and newsstands where the ghost blows out the lanterns and cooperates in Hong Kong, when he suddenly heard someone knocking on the door outside, staring at the report and saying casually: "Come in." ”

Huo Yaowen pushed the door in, saw Wu Liande sitting there wearing a pair of reading glasses and looking at something carefully, walked over and sat opposite him, and asked with a smile: "Is the work of Editor-in-Chief Wu going well?"

Wu Liande heard a familiar voice, raised his head and took off his glasses and said with a smile: "President Huo, your idle meal is not delicious, and the situation of the publishing house is very bad." ”

Huo Yaowen was stunned for a moment, seeing that Wu Liande's face was more solemn, and he also frowned: "What's wrong?"

"From the establishment of the University of Hong Kong Press to today, the total expenditure of the publishing house is more than 250,000 yuan, but the profit is not a cent, and it is understandable that the start-up expenditure is large and there is no accounting, but now in addition to President Huo, your ghost blowing the lamp, the extracurricular tutoring books compiled by the publishing house in cooperation with several professors and teachers of the University of Hong Kong can be printed and published, which is very unfavorable to the publishing house in the long run. Wu Liande has just joined the publishing house for a few days, and he doesn't know much about many things, and what he said is just about his two days of watching the company's finances and some housekeeping work.

Huo Yaowen shook his head: "Wu Laocai may not be very clear about the publishing house a few days ago, the purpose of my joint publishing house with the University of Hong Kong is not to publish books, but to win the publication of textbooks and academic books of the University of Hong Kong. ”

Wu Liande frowned, if only these two types of books were published, the publishing house would not be able to hold on for a few days, so he opened his mouth and persuaded him: "Then you can't get any money, when the University of Hong Kong ran its own publishing house earlier, it was just like you, only printing school textbooks and some academic books compiled by professors and teachers, and few people bought them, so they could only close their doors and go out of business." ”

Huo Yaowen casually picked up the pen holder on the table, played with it, raised his head and said, "I know, so I came to Wu Lao this time to talk about something." ”

The Education Department doesn't know what the situation is, although 20 million yuan has been allocated for the construction of government primary schools in Kowloon and some teaching equipment for various primary schools, but it has been almost a month, and there has been no news about the textbook order.

It wasn't until yesterday that Huo Yaowen made a phone call and asked his eldest uncle, Huo Chengzhi, that he knew that the Education Administration was planning to invite major publishing houses and printing houses to invite external tenders in early March, so as to reduce the financial situation of the Education Department.

......