Chapter 344 Adding fuel to the flames

Chapter 344 Adding fuel to the flames

Chapter 344 Adding fuel to the flames
Kadokawa Shoten's headquarters moved from Minato Ward to Chiyoda Ward.

Even the physical publishing industry - records, anime Blu-ray discs, comics, and books - has been in a visibly overall decline.

Everyone knows the wall of masterpieces, right? The sales volume of IS series 33813 is such that even masterpieces can hardly break the wall.

To get back to the point, the impact on Kadokawa Shoten is not that big.

"President Inoue, the Chinese geniuses have returned, and we..." Zhecheng reported.

If you are good at flattering, you will definitely be promoted. Look at Zhecheng, who was a small editor five years ago and is now the editor-in-chief of Kadokawa Sneaker Library.

"Should I be worried?" Inoue asked back, "Five years ago, he didn't win. How can he win now when physical creation is in such decline? What are you worried about?!"

Baka, didn't you ask me to check the whereabouts of that Chinese genius from time to time? I just received the news and came to report to you, but now you are being arrogant. Zhecheng wanted to expose the true face of this old immortal in front of him.

He lowered his head and said, "President Inoue is the eagle of Kadokawa Shoten. He controls the voyage of our ship and has far-sightedness. I cannot compare to him."

President Inoue's face was full of wrinkles, and there was no change at all, but his tone had changed, "Why did Gu Lu suddenly return? He is 22 years old this year."

"It seems so." Zhecheng was not quite sure either.

"He was born in 23. Oh, this year should be the rd, and his birthday is in February." President Inoue touched the ring on his finger, and no one knew what he was thinking about.

Good fellow, you know it too well, Zhecheng only has a vague idea. This is your enemy, who knows how powerful you are.

"The news came from Bai Tongshe that they have returned after five years." Zhecheng said, "They have started to contact the translator. Should we..."

"The last book with two million sales was published three years ago." President Inoue shook his head. "I said a few years ago that human beings cannot go against the tide of the times."

"Then should we keep our troops in place?" Zhecheng asked.

"How's Katsudane Maru's new book going?" President Inoue asked again.

"I'm still thinking about the ending. I'll be there soon..."

"Humph, you're going to a red-light shop or a club again." President Inoue looked down on Katsutauchi Maru. His works after he became famous were worse and worse, and there was no improvement at all. But then again, he was the one who made him famous.

"Help Baitongsha promote the new book so that Katsutauchimaru's new book can be released later." President Inoue said.

The amount of information is a bit too much, what does it mean? Zhecheng is waiting for the follow-up.

"Although Gu Lu cannot resist the wheel of history, it is still easy to smash Katsutauchi Maru." President Inoue knocked on the table, "As long as Katsutauchi Maru does not release a new work, then Gu Lu's opponent when he returns will be "Shoot a Bullet at the Sun."

Kadokawa may be able to create another book as a "nationally recommended book", but he is only the president and he does not have complete control over the Kadokawa Group.

Zhecheng understood that he should make the publicity of Gu Lu's return bigger, so that Shengduo Neiwan would become popular again and more books could be sold.

"Then Bungo Stray Dogs..." Tseguro brought up another matter.

Bungo Stray Dogs is a manga published by Kadokawa Shoten's monthly manga magazine "YOUNG ACE". The author, Kafka Asagiri, was originally a die-hard fan of Gu Lu. Gu Lu's shadow can be seen in his debut work "Manmanlai Youmu and the Cthulhu Mythos which is very scary when you understand it".

Asagiri Kafu also wanted to learn from Kuroko's Basketball and Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma to get a good start and put Gu Lu (also an idol) in. However, at that time, Kadokawa Shoten was competing with Shiratsusha, so this plan was stopped.

"Given the current popularity of Bungo Stray Dogs, is it still necessary to ride on its popularity?" asked President Inoue.

"Asagi Kafka particularly liked Gu Lu's works." Zhecheng explained.

"That's fine. We at Kadokawa Bookstore are very liberal and open-minded." President Inoue said, "Use the third-level promotion to help boost the popularity of Gu Lu's comeback work."

Kadokawa Bookstore's promotion is divided into level 1, level 2, level 3, and level H. H stands for huge, and only great writers will use it. Simply put, level 3 is already the level of bestseller promotion.

What if Gu Lu's new book surpasses...

Zhecheng quickly suppressed his terrible idea. One person could not resist the tide of the times.

None of the books like The Prince at That Time, Flowers for Algernon, The Wandering Earth, and Hyouka could beat him.

Thus, with Baitongshe's publicity and Kadokawa Shoten's promotion, the news of Gu Lu's return after five years spread throughout Japan in no time.

Neon, this little place, always loves to investigate.

Didn't this also publish a:
"Are you looking forward to Gu Lu's return work?"

Thirty-two percent are looking forward to it, 45 percent don't care, and the rest don't expect it.

……

Dinner.

This dinner was invited by Li Guyuan because Gu Luzhong had started publishing a new book. Tangyuan was very happy and insisted on treating him to this dinner.

"Among our twin stars of No. 8 Middle School, one must stay!" Li Guyuan clinked glasses with a smile.

"Speaking of which, Tangyuan, why don't you continue to create?" Gu Lu was also curious. He stopped serializing after entering university.

Hearing this, Li Guyuan picked up two peanuts. If he had eaten fewer peanuts and drank more wine, he would not be so sober now.

"After entering Tsinghua University, I really realized that there is a huge gap between talent and genius," Li Guyuan said. "If I lose my ambition, I won't be able to write anymore."

Tsinghua University and Peking University are indeed full of geniuses. Li Guyuan is a genius in Gu Lu's eyes. He can plan everything very well and find a faster way. I don't know what Li Guyuan encountered after attending Tsinghua University.

"You, Gulu, are a first-rate talent no matter where you are." Li Guyuan put down his chopsticks. "And I think chemical engineering is a good fit for me."

Sometimes I really envy people who can comfort others. Gu Lu looked at Tangyuan who was feeling a little depressed and could only raise his glass.

Although Gu Lu couldn't drink much, it was mainly because of the existence of his original father that he kept a distance from alcohol. Therefore, he would never get drunk.

Alcohol is really addictive, just like Gu's father, no matter how determined he is to quit drinking, he will not succeed. He no longer has a headache when drinking, but he is sober when drinking, and has a headache and dizziness when not drinking.

This indirectly proves that Gu's mother's choice of divorce was correct, but she was too cruel to the original body. She is not worthy of forgiveness.

Tonight, I drank a lot of Tangyuan. Gu Lu knew that it was not only because of his dream of writing, but also because of the graduation season. After graduation, whether to stay in the city or go back to the foggy city was a very troublesome matter.

Li Guyuan didn't often come to him to complain, but occasionally during their chats she would reveal that things were not going well at work.

“You’re celebrating this for me.” Gu Lu smiled and shook his head, becoming a drunken glutinous rice ball.

Fortunately, it was quite close to where he lived.

Go home and visit Gu Lu’s house in Sijiu City.

It is over 130 square meters, with three bedrooms and two living rooms. The decoration style is a common Nordic style, with a large carpet and a long floor-to-ceiling chandelier, which looks quite formal.

Because this apartment was for a place to stay, Gu Lu didn't put much thought into it. He didn't even change the iconic living room into a "study room".

The only thing the owner paid attention to was the decorations on the light-colored shelves, which were all the peripherals of the Little Prince. It is worthy of being the king of peripherals in fairy tale books, and the rest of the fairy tale works combined cannot compete with it. The entire shelf is full of different peripherals, scattered and quite spectacular.

After putting the drunken glutinous rice balls on the bed, Gu Lu went back to his bedroom. He drank two bottles of beer and was fine. He also wrote more than 10,000 words that night.

Gu Lu regained his typing speed in a day or two. Of course, his typing speed was not as fast as when he was fifteen or sixteen years old.

The next day, it was gray outside the window, and Gu Lu got up around eight o'clock. Because he had participated in the teaching project, he had more freedom in class.

Walking around the room barefoot, the floor was really cold, Gu Lu went to the second bedroom to take a look -

Li Guyuan had cleaned the second bedroom very well, and the bed was neatly made. He even flushed the toilet outside. It was estimated that Li Guyuan was not sure whether he had vomited yesterday.

"Why are my slippers in the living room? Could it be that Li Guyuan is also drunk and is looking for shoes in my room in the middle of the night?"

Gu Lu thought that it might be possible that he wanted to cool down yesterday, so he opened his phone to check his schedule.

"I have to report to Professor Lu this afternoon." Gu Lu did not slack off in college. At least he worked harder than he did in No. 8 Middle School.

The biggest thing I did was to take Professor Lu Jianming as my teacher.

The success was largely due to the fame of the writer, but King Gollum also contributed a lot.

His teacher Lu Jianming is a real expert, and his research direction is "modern Chinese syntax, modern Chinese function words, teaching Chinese as a foreign language..."

How specialized is it?
As the president of the National Society of Chinese Linguistics, the president of the World Association of Chinese Language Teaching, etc., Professor Lu can really be said to be the standard for modern Chinese based on his research.

At school, Professor Lu was also the director of the Peking University Linguistics Research Center, and Gu Lu put in a lot of effort.

"But what about Jiajia?" Thinking of school, Gu Lu thought of his sister. She was only in the first year of high school when the accident happened. It would be too difficult for her to go to college directly. Going back to high school was not a good idea. Gu Lu thought about whether to send her to study abroad. Of course, he did not make the decision directly, but just provided such an idea to his sister.

The phone call interrupted King Gollum's deep thoughts.

"Hey, Mr. Gu. If you have a good article, please submit it. Our magazine is still alive."

The caller was the editor-in-chief of People's Literature - oh, now the deputy editor-in-chief Liu Yong.

Many magazines ceased publication at that time, but People's Literature, which represented the pinnacle of domestic serious literature, is still doing very well, and the corresponding royalties have also increased compared to before.

"I read People's Literature every day, and I know that the sales are good." Gu Lu responded, "But how did Editor Liu get the news?"

Tangyuan, the girl with super strength and others knew that it was the person himself who said it.

"Why do you have to hide your return? The news came from Japan." Liu Yong said cheerfully on the other end, "The news was reported in the Global Times, how could I not know? After so many years, I still remember the surprise of "New Interpretation of Liaozhai"."

Global Times! Gu Lu was stunned. Do I have such a big reputation?

"If you find a suitable manuscript, please submit it to me." Gu Lu then said.

"Then I'll be looking forward to Teacher Gu's masterpiece." Liu Yong also hung up the phone.

The call from the deputy editor-in-chief of People's Literature was just the beginning, because soon Gu Lu received calls from President Jian and President Wang.

The core of the conversation between the two presidents was that they were very happy that he could start writing again, and they also discussed how to publish the long novel published in Japan in China.

More than a dozen phone calls, including from the editor-in-chief and responsible editors.

People all sent "congratulatory messages", and to be honest, it caused a huge stir, and it felt like half of the publishing industry was alarmed.

Many young students feel that Gu Lu is so long gone that the talented writer has become a thing of the past.

But those in the publishing industry who have worked with it feel the glory days are just around the corner.

"It hasn't been a long time since I last visited. Didn't I spend the New Year at Uncle Jian's house last year?"

Gu Lu hung up the phone and then realized that he seemed to be "wrongly accused". It was not like what President Jian said, we haven't seen each other for a long time.

"Global Times - what did it report? I'll buy it and read it later."

It was almost noon when King Gollum's phone stopped ringing, but the crisp knocking sound on the door started again.

Who?
Why are there so many things to do in the morning?
Gu Lu opened the door and saw a foreigner. Gu Lu knew him. He was Mr. Dubo, the French ambassador to China. The two were quite familiar with each other and had met several times.

It’s just that King Gollum doesn’t want to see him, because every time he sees him, Dibo will ask for more than a dozen autographs.

I have no idea what he is doing with so many autographs. Logically speaking, given Dibo's status, he can't be a middleman selling autographs. The key is that he has been silent for five years and his autographs can't be sold at all!

Dibo gave Gu Lu a hug very warmly.

"I just came from France and brought you some gifts. They are all specialties from France."

Indeed, the foreigner was holding two bags in his hands. Gu Lu led him in. They were Dior men's wallets. It seemed that Dior was also a French luxury product?

"So Mr. Dibo, why are you here today?" After dealing with him so many times, Gu Lu knew very well that this foreigner would never come here for no reason.

"What could be the matter? Gu, you are one of my favorite writers, and I have made great contributions to the publication of the French version of The Little Prince." Dibo said, "Is there nothing wrong? Can't I come to see you?"

Gu Lu put down the paper cup after hearing this. He was going to pour water for Dibo. But the last time he heard something similar, he sat at the table and signed 31 signatures.

This time he even brought a Dior men's bag! It was terrifying, and Gu Lu became cautious.

"Do you know what time is July 7th? Gu." Dibo put down his bag and asked the question first.

“A bit familiar—” Gu Lu remembered that he had learned this in history class, mainly because he had memorized this knowledge for the exam.

"The anniversary of the Bastille?" Gu Lu guessed.

"That's absolutely right! Gu, you are indeed knowledgeable." Dibo continued, "July 7th is also our National Day. On July 14th, 1789, the people of Paris captured the Bastille, a symbol of feudalism, and this day became the most important day for us in France."

"This year is the 230th anniversary," Dibo said. "Gu, I saw that you have started your writing career again in the Global Times. Can you write an article about France, like The Immortal Fugitive and The Battle for Antarctica?"

You asked me, a Chinese, to write a praise for your French affairs. Are you awake? Gu Lu looked at the foreigner with a strange expression.

"No, no, Gu, don't look at me with such strange eyes." Di Bo explained immediately, "Every time there is a National Day like this, every ten years, countries will send congratulatory messages. Just like October 1st in China, if it is a full ten or five days, we in France will also send a congratulatory message."

"Because this is something worth celebrating," Dibo said.

"So?" Gu Lu asked Di Bo to get to the point. Actually, it wasn't a signature, so he was quite relaxed.

"Gu, you can write us an article on behalf of China's diplomatic department." Di Bo said, "Ten years ago, during the National Day, China also gave us a panda."

"It wasn't a gift. I remember it was rented to a zoo in France." Gu Lu corrected. As soon as he mentioned it, he remembered the incident.

"The pandas at the Beauval Wildlife Park are very cute. I've been there many times," Dibo said. "But your article is like a panda."

Such a compliment? Gu Lu stroked the non-existent beard on his chin. Pandas are quite popular abroad, so this compliment is quite valuable.

The Beauval Wildlife Park is one of the foreign zoos with the largest number of pandas, with five in total.

You know, panda diplomacy is also a strategy, and the fact that France can welcome so many pandas shows how much China values ​​France.

"Gu, I have taken care of all the details. I hope you can consider our friendship, the friendship between France and China." Dibo said.

"Why..." Gu Lu didn't understand why he had to write an article. To be honest, France had produced so many great writers that there was no shortage of people to write odes to praise them.

Dibo gets angry when talking about this, and his Chinese becomes worse when he gets angry. It was hard to understand the sentence sequence, and he could only speak clearly after he controlled his emotions.

Originally, five years ago, at the cultural exchange meeting to celebrate the anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and France, Di Bo hinted and made it clear that he hoped Gu Lu would come.

But…Dibo was heartbroken.

On the other hand, France has many great writers, but can the good articles written for our own country have the same value as the praises for geniuses from other countries?

It's different! That's why Dibo took this opportunity to do this.

How is France inferior to Spain and Norway?

After hearing what happened, Gu Lu sent Di Bo away. His response was that if someone from the domestic government invited him, he would not refuse.

Going out to write articles praising other countries and taking on national missions, the former is a bit too much of a public intellectual, so Gu Lu chose the latter.

Dibo left with satisfaction. He was already sure, but he came to ask out of respect for the writer.

Now, Gu Lu was the only one left in the room. His cell phone stopped ringing.

"People's Literature... wait until I finish this novel and the French manuscript before taking any action." Gu Lu made up his mind.

Since plagiarism has started again.

Then he had to continue his short story career. He and the Super Girl had set a small goal together (although she didn't know it). She had become the Secretary-General of the Global Model United Nations and had already reached the position of Youth Secretary-General of the China Model United Nations. However, he was making slow progress in becoming the most famous short story writer in the country.

"Seriously speaking, the most famous short story writer on Earth in modern times should be Mr. Wang Zengqi, right?" Gu Lu pondered.

Forget it, don’t think about anything else, just do the real work first.

During the next two hours of typing, the most urgent task was to write down the suspect as quickly as possible.

The Suspect created a sales miracle on Earth, earning Keigo Higashino the title of "Best-Seller". Even though this title spread to China, it became a derogatory term due to the decline in the quality of his later works.

In a parallel world, it shouldn’t be bad either.

……

I went to school in the afternoon and worked on a project with the professor. In fact, Professor Lu Jianming, who was born in the 1930s, is already very old this year. This project, as well as Gu Lu, are almost his last research and apprenticeship before retirement.

When leaving the school gate, Gu Lu was stopped by a sophomore.

"Teacher Gu Lu, may I have a few minutes of your time?" Xiaoze asked.

(End of this chapter)