A week later.

Fleet Street, The Times Headquarters.

The editor-in-chief, George Earl Buckle, was in his office, with his feet on his desk, swaying leisurely, and the black tea on the table was swirling in circles.

He held a newspaper in both hands,

The newspaper is only half the size of the Times,

In other words, it's tabloid.

On the other side of the desk, a clerk looked cautiously at Buckle and asked, "Editor-in-chief, is it okay this time?" ”

Bakker's frown slowly stretched,

"Barely reasonable."

"Reluctantly" indeed,

Because the newspaper's coverage is still less than that of the Mirror,

Just look at the title,

The "Mirror" is "The Thames: London citizens have no time to dive", and their own side is "Thames Water Quality Retest!? 》

Compared with each other, the gap is too big!

The article is in front of you, and the reader will choose which one to choose, and he knows the result with his knees.

Buckle sighed,

"By the way, has the name of the newspaper been decided? You have to dissociate yourself from The Times, but not too much. ”

This is an outrageous request.

The clerk touched his nose in embarrassment, but did not dare to speak.

Bakker also knew that it was difficult to do, and said: "Don't be nervous, think slowly." ”

As he spoke, he threw the sample of the tabloid back on the table, then picked up the black tea, took a sip and drank it, making a "snoring" sound, which was very pleasant.

The clerk was puzzled,

"Editor-in-chief, why don't we print it today?"

Soldier is fast,

This is especially important in journalism.

Moreover, newspapers all over London are now in a race against time to become the second tabloid to be published after the Mirror.

The earlier it is issued, the more likely it is to occupy a favorable market position.

Taking a step back, if the tabloid's road doesn't work, it's not a bad thing to accept the test of the market early, as the saying goes, "early death and early overbirth"~

Bakker glared at the other,

"Pig brain, you!? Publish a new newspaper today? Are you worried that you're not dying fast enough? ”

He stood up, pressed the back of the clerk's head to the window, pointed not far from Fleet Street, and said, "Look! Your eyes widened and you took a closer look at me! The entrance to the "Mirror" is almost fenced off! ”

The clerk was criticized by his boss and did not dare to speak.

Buckle continued: "Any idea why? Lu is new today! Do you dare to go toe-to-toe with the Mirror at this time? ”

The clerk said "hmm",

"Hug ...... Sorry......"

Rubbish!

Bakr shook his head, then said, "You guys go and get ready." Strive to be able to ...... this week Not ......"

Halfway through his words, his gaze sank slightly, and the corners of his mouth drew a sinister arc,

"Listen, you've got to settle the tabloid matter in two days! We can also borrow Lu's east wind to release new books. ”

The clerk nodded again and again on the surface, but in his heart he scolded,

I don't know who just said don't worry.

He bowed and said, "Then I'll go first." ”

Bakr waved his hand,

"."

The clerk exited the room.

Bakr stood by the window with a teacup in his hand, looking at the crowd in the Mirror newspaper,

Suddenly, he drank all the black tea in his cup, then put on a trench coat and a bowler hat, and walked straight out of the office towards the newspaper office of the Mirror.

The sky is overcast,

A misty drizzle fell, striking the brim of Bakker's hat with a slight sound.

The leather shoes stepped on shallow water marks, and the coolness poured in along the gaps in the shoes, making the soles of the feet feel a little cold.

For the service industry, there is an old saying: "Half the wind, all the rain." ”

For example, opening a café,

If there is a strong wind on the day, the turnover will be cut in half;

If it rains, it will inevitably fall out.

But this does not seem to apply to the Mirror,

The drizzle could not extinguish the enthusiasm of the readers, and the more Buckle went to the newspaper, the louder he heard the discussion about Lu's new book.

"Did you buy it?"

"Nope. But I've heard that Lu's new book seems to be in the fantasy genre. ”

"Huh? I thought it would be the story of Detective Poirot~"

……

Fantasy story?

Bakker was confused in his heart,

Admittedly, The Hobbit is a brilliant work that even changed the way fantasy is created,

But the influence of "Roger's Mystery" is much greater than that,

What's more, "The Return of Sherlock Holmes" has just ended, and it is a good time to use the same type to continue the detective popularity, and writing fantasy is a pure thankless effort.

Got money or not?

Lu Shi is afraid that he will be ill with Wenqing.

The corners of Buckle's mouth curled up and muttered to himself: "Heh, writer~"

He squeezed into the crowd.

As a result, a person next to him said dissatisfiedly: "Hey! Be careful! ”

Baker lowered his head and saw that the people around him were trampled on by himself, so he raised his head and subconsciously prepared to apologize,

But when he saw the other party's face, the whole person was stunned,

"Dr. Doyle?"

Doyle:!!!

Quickly pull down the hood of your raincoat and hide your face into the shadows.

An eerie silence hung between the two.

Buckle tried to hold back a smile and said, "Doctor Doyle, do you like Lu too?" How? Didn't buy today's Mirror? ”

Doyle tilted his head, pretending not to hear.

Bakker continued: "You and Lu...... Hehe, the writers really cherish each other......"

These words exude a strange air of yin and yang.

Doyle's face darkened, and he sneered and counterattacked: "Mr. Backer, it seems that you also have a sympathy for Professor Lu." After all, both The Mirror and The Times are best-selling newspapers, selling more than 100,000 copies a day. ”

Bakker followed with a black face.

In fact, the Mirror may have sold more than 100,000 copies a day.

The emergence of tabloids has completely changed the newspaper landscape,

It never occurred to people that newspapers could be rolled up in rolls and tucked under their armpits without having to sit down to read, and they could read them wherever they had time.

And the content of "Mirror" is very close to the people, and the style is also eye-catching, which makes people want to stop.

On the streets of London, it was even called a "civilian newspaper".

Almost all newspapers were hit.

"Dr. Doyle, I don't think the Mirror is selling as many 100,000 copies a day as it advertises," Buckle said. ”

The corners of Doyle's mouth hooked,

"Don't believe me? Hmph, too, after all, the Times cheats when promoting sales, counting those sold overseas and those with overstock, and then lying on the ground and saying that they are very good. ”

Doyle is familiar with Herbert Greenhoff Smith, the editor-in-chief of Seaside Magazine, and knows the unspoken rules of the industry.

When he said that, he purely complained that Buckle lived the belly of a gentleman with the heart of a villain.

Bakr was speechless.

At this moment, a motorized carriage slowly approached and stopped at the entrance of the newspaper office of the Mirror.

A man jumped out of the carriage at the front, and it was none other than Scott.

He shouted and waved,

"Let it all go! Ladies and gentlemen! Stop blocking the door! ”

Of course no one listened to him.

Readers in front of the newspaper hall surrounded the wagons, holding coins or bills in their hands, shouting that they wanted to buy the newspaper.

Scott had no choice but to nod to the coachman,

The coachman understood, and moved a box down, which contained the freshly printed "Mirror".

There is no way, the newspaper is so good that it must be constantly reprinted, and it will be shipped to the newspaper as much as it is printed, and then it will be sold out within two to three hours.

After that, reprint and buy again,

Cycle.

Lu Shi also wants to expand the scale of printing, but the purchase, transportation, and commissioning of printing presses take time.

The Manchester Guardian, The Scotsman, and the Royal Publishing Office themselves have their own printing tasks, and there are not enough printing presses that can be dispatched, so they can only make this decision, printing as much as they want, and selling as much as they want.

Therefore, the daily average of 100,000 is not the sales ceiling of the Mirror, but the printing ceiling.

Scott yelled to maintain order,

"Don't rob it!"

Instead, these words became a reminder,

There are many readers who finish the newspaper, throw down the money and run away,

Mountains of coins were piled up, interspersed with the occasional banknote, including a shilling.

The newsboys were much more ruthless than the average reader, opening the messenger's bag they carried, emptying the rest of the newspaper inside, and then desperately stuffing the Mirror into the bag, as much as they could.

Buckle and Doyle also squeezed desperately into the crowd.

It took a while for them to grab the newspaper and run to a nearby roof.

Doyle pulled the newspaper out of his bosom, flipped to the page, and read it greedily.

Buckle looked at the drizzle outside and said, "Doctor Doyle, aren't you afraid of getting the newspaper wet?" That's what we've managed to ......."

The voice did not fall,

"Don't talk!"

Doyle solemnly interrupted Buckle.

It was as if the newspaper had cast a spell on him, and Doyle's attention was all focused on it.

Baker looked around and found that there were not a few people like Doyle around,

Some even threw their bodies in the rain curtain, put the newspaper under the eaves, and lifted the raincoat they carried with them to cover the newspaper, and the double insurance was made to ensure that they would not get wet.

Is this really that godly?

Buckle couldn't help but be curious, and leaned over to Doyle's side.

Doyle's head is full of black lines,

￣□￣｜｜

"Didn't you grab it just now? Look at yourself, hey! ”

Bakker smiled and said with the spirit of a dead face: "Let's just watch one of them." ”

Doyle wants to curse,

"You! *@￥#%……”

Bakr waved his hand,

"Ann~"

Then he focused his attention on it,

"The Lord of the Rings?"

Just by looking at the name, you can tell that it is fantastical.

It begins with a poem:

The elves of the world cast three rings,

The dwarves of the earth have seven commandments,

Shouding mortals hold nine precepts,

Mordor Demon Realm Shadow Shadow,

The Dark King sits on the Supreme Ring.

The supreme ring, the ring of the people;

The supreme ring, the ring of the people,

The Lord of the Rings,

Imprisoning the Rings in the Dark,

The Demon Realm of Mordor is in the shadows.

……

Bakir raised his eyebrows and said, "What is this?" ”

Doyle said solemnly: "Haven't you read "No One Survives"? The use of nursery rhymes and poems at the beginning can set up suspense well. Perhaps, this poem is similar to a prophecy in "The Lord of the Rings". ”

Buckle thought of "No One Left Alive",

, all the characters who appear die as described in the nursery rhyme,

This technique is the so-called "nursery rhyme killing".

Buckle said: "You mean that this Lord of the Rings will be like No One Survives, with the plot following the poem? ”

Doyle sighed,

"Stupid!"

Bakel: ???

"What did you say!?"

Doyle replied: "In Roger's Mystery, Lu uses narrative trickery, to put it bluntly, to take advantage of the inertia of human thinking, because the reader will subconsciously think that the 'I' in it is not the murderer. Maybe it's the same with "The Lord of the Rings", which uses the inertia of thinking to make people think that the poem at the beginning is the same as the nursery rhyme of "No One Survives". But the two can be very different. ”

Buckle couldn't help but give Doyle a blank look,

"I think you're thinking too much."

Doyle looked up,

"How?"

"It's fantasy, it's not reasoning," Bakker said. ”

After speaking, I didn't forget to add a word:

"Stupid!"

Dalton was speechless.

Buckle smiled, continued to look back, and immediately spotted the name "Bilbo Baggins", and knew that "The Lord of the Rings" was the story after "The Hobbit".

A total of three chapters were serialized,

Bilbo Baggins left the Charles during his 111th birthday party, and his cousin, Frodo Baggins, inherited the Ring.

Thinking that the ring might be the One Ring, Gandalf traveled to Minas Tirith to consult Esidor's scrolls, and upon returning to the Shire, he asked Frodo to take the Ring to Rivendell for advice from the lord of the land, Elrond.

So Frodo and his three friends, Sam, Merry, and Pippin, set out on their journey.

Doyle is a writer, Buckle is an editor,

The two read quickly.

But even so, because it was so exciting, there were many places worth chewing and digesting repeatedly, which caused the two to read it for a long time.

By the time they put down the newspaper, it was already dark,

The rain is no longer a drizzle,

The raindrops the size of beans fell, smashing against the stagnant water on the ground, making a crackling sound.

Bakker showed a stunned expression,

"This ...... This ...... Ahh ”

He sneezed.

Doyle, who was on the side, also felt chills all over his body at this time, and hurriedly stomped his feet, wanting to warm up his body through exercise.

As a result, as soon as his feet hit the ground, he found that water had entered his shoes at some point, causing his socks to be clammy and cold, and sticky to the soles of his feet, which was very uncomfortable.

Doyle looked around,

I didn't expect someone to be reading the newspaper in the rain, because it was too monographic, and I didn't notice that it was raining heavily.

Doyle sighed,

"It's over...... That's it? ”

Buckle nodded and said, "I feel that this book is much better than 'The Hobbit'." And, judging from the beginning, it seems to be a real fantasy epic, and the worldview of the story is extremely grand, as if a real fantasy world has been created. ”

The two looked at each other,

"That's what you think too?"

"You too?"

They all felt that Lu Shi's creation was not serialized, but would be cut and serialized after being written in a traditional way.

Doyle calculates time,

"How long has it been since The Hobbit ended?"

Bakr said: "About three months? It shouldn't be. ”

Trimester......

The two of them shifted their eyes to the Mirror, and at the same time showed expressions of disbelief,

Can anyone really write like that?

“Fxxk！”

They couldn't help but curse in unison.

(End of chapter)