Uncle Zhou was in a bad mood, and he planned to find a punching bag.

The real world.

Times Square, New York.

The so-called Times Square is nothing more than the intersection of Broadway Avenue and several other streets. It's better to say it's a square, but it's a street entrance. Because this place is too small, too cluttered, and there are a lot of people.

The buildings around the square are covered with neon billboards, flashing all day long. The original name did not mean 'Times Square', but 'Times Square'.

Because the New York Times Group had its headquarters here in 1904. Although the headquarters changed several times over the next hundred years, the New York Times remained close to the square.

Now 12/24/93, Christmas Eve.

Wind and snow are moving south from Canada, covering most of the United States. Rich food and gifts were prepared to have a peaceful and peaceful day with their families.

But Mr. Bratton, the editor-in-chief of the important news section of The Times, was still sitting in the gray building on the 18th floor of the headquarters, looking out through the glass window at the snowstorm and a small number of homeless people.

The secretary had left work half an hour earlier, and along with the Christmas Eve greetings, he also gave Bratton a gift, a large square box with a beautiful ribbon tied.

Bratton was in an irritable mood and simply sat down to open the gift box. When the wrapper is opened, there is a very conspicuous 'Light Under the Skirt' logo on the box.

"Oh hell, it's this thing again."

The VCD from the other side of the ocean is still produced by the sanctioned 'Holy Light' group.

"This thing is not legal at all!"

That's right, it's not legal, it's very illegal.

The Times reporter has recently been investigating this incredible case - not long ago, a batch of VCDs appeared in major supermarkets in the United States and went on sale publicly.

For ordinary people, no one cares about sanctions or not, they only care about whether the goods meet their needs. I have to admit that VCD is a revolutionary advancement in audiovisual equipment. It's much stronger than a video recorder.

Americans were initially skeptical of the product, but they soon began shouting 'it smells good' — and blacks near supermarkets learned new livelihood skills and peddled pirated CDs.

It's too profitable, and it's safe.

VCDs cost thousands of dollars in the United States, which is no cheaper than in the place of origin. But people still flock to it, because although the machine is expensive, the platter is cheap and extremely rich.

As long as you buy a VCD, the promoter will point out where the customer should go to buy the disc they want. Not to mention the high copyright awareness of foreigners, in the face of a dazzling array of CDs, no one is not moved.

Hollywood movies, TV series, concert videos, and even books — books in the United States are so expensive that they cost tens or hundreds of dollars at every turn. So much so that the second-hand book business in the school is very prosperous.

'Holy Light' also manufactures 'optical drives' for computers, which are designed to provide inexpensive knowledge information to technicians. Nowadays, the capacity of hard disks is too small, and a disc can store a small library, and the search convenience is too strong.

By solving the pain points of users, VCD has begun to be popular all over the world. 'Holy Light' is not only sold in the United States, it is dumped all over the world, making huge excess profits.

In Southeast Asia, in Central Asia, South Asia, in Eastern Europe, Southern Europe, in Africa and South America, where these regulations are not sound, VCDs are completely popular.

Because of the foreign exchange that can be earned, the factories of 'Holy Light Audiovisual' in the provinces have simply reduced their domestic supply and focused on exporting. Far from being blamed, the move was greatly appreciated.

But the experience of this thing in Europe, the United States, Japan and other places is different, from the beginning of the attack by law enforcement agencies, but the more you investigate, the more you find that the water behind it is very deep.

All customs import documents provided by dealers are completely fake. Unless you go to the customs office to retrieve the original file, no one can easily tell the difference.

At first, the U.S. Customs thought that there was an internal ghost on its side, and the maritime smuggling officers also tried to trace the smuggling route. However, the investigators soon discovered that the 'Holy Light' was not a smuggling syndicate, and their smuggling path could not be traced.

With his professional sensitivity, Bratton decided that this was big news, and there must be an inside story behind it that could set off stormy waves. But after several months of investigation, the editor-in-chief of The Times did not make any breakthroughs.

By forging various import and shipping documents, 'Holy Light' sold at least 100,000 VCDs and 5 million pirated CDs in the United States in '93. And this is only half a month's current production capacity of 'Holy Light'.

The gift was halfway opened, and Bratton felt bored. He sat down and flipped through the "Shengguang Economic Weekly" at hand. This publication has been published in many Chinese languages, and its influence is increasing.

In the December '93 issue of the "Weekly", the year-end sales estimate of "Holy Light Audiovisual" and the production outlook for the next year were published. The subsidiary was able to build a factory across the ocean at a very fast pace and built up a strong production capacity in a short period of time.

According to public reports, 'Shengguang Audiovisual' sold 1 million VCDs in 93 and has built 12 production lines with an annual production capacity of 1.5 million units. The company intends to increase its production capacity to five million units next year.

As for the production of VCD discs, the magazine did not say. But Bratton himself estimates that the number of surreptitious sales of 'Holy Light' will soon exceed 500 million per month.

This figure comes from the recent increase in the export of polycarbonate in chemicals from Japan and South Korea.

"Bypass the regulations of various countries and sell the goods directly to the final market. How exactly is this done? ”

Mr. Bratton has arranged for a number of veteran journalists to investigate, seek clues within the police and even bribe local gang members to act as informants.

As far as we know, 'Holy Light' has a very efficient underlying sales channel. After not being able to sell it publicly, it skillfully found local gangs to sell it.

100,000 units are sold in one place in New York that has not yet been fully distributed in the near future. According to the consumption power of the United States, the annual sales of the entire United States will definitely not be less than five million units.

Due to the extremely hot sales, local gangs can even fight for the supply of goods. But no one can say exactly where the source of goods came from.

At one point, an informant provided Bratton with a simple message that the goods would appear directly at the warehouse in New York Harbor and that the gang would just drive them to deliver them.

By the time Bratton wanted to know more, his informant had been publicly executed, and even he himself had received multiple phone calls and mail-mail threats to stop the investigation.

But Bratton scoffed at these threats, considering only the proceeds of the sale of VCDs by Holy Light — even if the gross profit of one was only 20 percent, it would be enough to make the U.S. sanctions against the group a joke.

"There must be an unknown means of transportation behind this."

The editor-in-chief of Bratton decided this, put down the "Weekly" that he had read more than a dozen times, moved his sedentary numb buttocks, and decided to get up and go to the bathroom. Even squatting on the toilet, he was pondering.

Then, ....., there was a sudden series of low, muffled noises under the toilet.

"Oh God! This damn toilet squirts. ”