Chapter 19: Angrily Burning the Newsstand
Early that morning, Zhang Xinjie washed up and left for work.
Passing by the newsstand downstairs, he couldn’t help but ask, “Uncle Fu, any explosive news today?”
“Where would there be so much explosive news?”
Uncle Fu rolled his eyes and grumbled, “You’re not interested in entertainment news, and you shy away from gang fights. Hong Kong is only so big, how many things can happen?”
“Even Big Circle Boys robbing gold shops doesn’t happen every day!”
Zhang Xinjie chuckled and simply stopped to browse the newsstand, speaking without formality: “Look at you, talking as if I’m some kind of weirdo, huh!”
As he spoke, he picked up a newspaper from a prominent spot and asked curiously, “What is this Mong Kok News? How come I’ve never heard of it before?”
“It’s probably a new newspaper. You know there are many newspapers in Hong Kong!”
“Why would Uncle Fu put such a new newspaper in such a prominent position?”
Zhang Xinjie asked curiously. At this moment, the front-page headline of the newspaper had already caught his attention: A financial story, golden finger, created based on the Ponzi scheme!
Having attended university, he naturally knew what a ‘Ponzi scheme’ was!
Connecting it to the recently tumultuous ‘Jianing case,’ he immediately became interested and was quickly drawn in by the exciting plot.
“Jie Zai, if you like reading it, buy a copy. Don’t stand here blocking the way!”
Uncle Fu hurriedly said, “It’s a small business, and all the money earned is hard-earned!”
Zhang Xinjie was speechless. He directly paid and took the newspaper, not even bothering to buy his usual favorite Ming Pao, constantly grumbling in his heart about what a miser Uncle Fu was.
Uncle Fu happily collected the money, feeling pleased with himself.
He certainly wouldn’t shout that Mong Kok News was distributed for free, and every copy sold was his own profit.
He had initially been in a bad mood after several low-level ruffians forced him to distribute them, but when he saw that dozens of copies of Mong Kok News were almost sold out, he couldn’t stop smiling.
He subconsciously picked up a copy to read, and after a while, he made a smacking sound, an expression of disgust on his old face, his eyes fixed on the beautiful Misses in the newspaper’s color pages.
There were quite a few people like Zhang Xinjie and Uncle Fu!
Five thousand copies of Mong Kok News, distributed to newsstands in Yau Tsim Mong, were easily consumed, and some newsstands didn’t even receive any allocation.
This is a prosperous area of Hong Kong. Although it cannot compare to Central, there are still many white-collar workers.
Many white-collar workers who were at work were attracted by the stories in Mong Kok News, privately discussing that it was clearly the plot of the ‘Jianing case,’ just with different main character names and specific company names.
“The ‘Jianing case’ is still in the trial stage. Publicizing it by name at this time could lead to a lawsuit. Doing it this way is very good, it preemptively avoids risk!”
An old hand pointed out, “I don’t know who wrote such a story in the newspaper. It must be someone with inside knowledge of the ‘Jianing case.’ Tsk, tsk, they really dared to write it!”
For a time, Mong Kok News became somewhat famous among the white-collar community.
Not to mention, in addition to the story content of golden finger, the later pages also featured attractive and beautifully dressed Misses.
Not only did the white-collar community enjoy reading it, but the LSP community was even more enthusiastic, with five thousand copies of Mong Kok News not being enough for them.
The newsstand owners reacted the quickest, immediately calling the Mong Kok News newspaper office, hoping they could distribute more newspapers the next day.
“Print more, print ten thousand copies tomorrow!”
Wu Feng also hadn’t expected Mong Kok News to sell so well, so he simply waved his hand and ordered.
He was currently stationed at the newspaper office, which was just two small rented rooms in a Tang Building. This was the location of the Mong Kok News newspaper office, so simple it was appalling.
It can only be said that Hong Kong’s newspaper industry is developed; as long as the news material is edited, everything else can be completed through outsourcing, and there is no need to have one’s own printing factory and corresponding facilities.
Of course, when a newspaper is small, playing this way is fine, but once the newspaper scale becomes large and it still plays this way, it is actively exposing vulnerabilities to competitors.
As for Mong Kok News being entirely free, Wu Feng was losing money with each issue published, but he didn’t care.
The cost of a single newspaper was only a few dimes, so five thousand copies were just over a thousand Hong Kong dollars. Even for ten thousand copies, the cost was only about four thousand, which he could still afford to lose.
At this time, the World Cup had ended, history had not deviated, and the Pampas Eagles still achieved the final victory, with Maradona thereby achieving the title of ‘King of Football.’
Wu Feng made a huge profit of 1.99 million, and his cash on hand was still plentiful enough to withstand his ventures.
There’s a saying in later generations: the free things are the most expensive!
In fact, he was imitating a plot from a certain novel by doing this.
The result was unexpected; the effect was surprisingly good!
Of course, there were problems, but for Wu Feng at this time, they were nothing.
As long as he stabilized the circulation of Mong Kok News, he would at least be the boss of a medium-sized newspaper, with a different identity and status.
The ten thousand copies of Mong Kok News distributed on the second day were not all sold out.
Of course, because it was free, the newsstand owners had no intention of returning them.
As for how many were actually sold, it was not clear due to the difficulty in statistics, but it definitely exceeded five thousand copies!
Wu Feng personally strolled among the newsstands in Mong Kok and also gained some insight.
Given the sensational nature of the ‘Jianing case’ at this time, ten thousand copies of Mong Kok News should have been easily sold.
But the problem was that the time was too short, and Mong Kok News had no prior reputation, so many groups who liked reading newspapers simply didn’t know about the existence of Mong Kok News.
In other words, many people had not seen the story content of golden finger!
This is easy to handle!
The next day, a newsstand on Shanghai Street was completely burned down by a large fire, instantly shocking the entire Yau Tsim Mong District, and then quickly sensationalizing all of Hong Kong through newspaper and television publicity.
There was no other reason; it was simply that this matter was a bit bizarre!
The person who burned the newsstand did not escape and was immediately apprehended by the police.
Then, the reason for his angry burning of the newsstand was also inquired about.
It was very simple: this person had invested heavily in Jianing stocks back then, but when Jianing ran into trouble, he lost everything, leaving his family scattered and him utterly pitiful.
As a result, after seeing the golden finger story in Mong Kok News, he was reminded of the ‘Jianing case’ and his own heavy losses, and in a fit of rage, he burned down the newsstand.
When such a ‘bizarre’ incident was publicized, it naturally caused a sensation throughout Hong Kong.
Just as a dog biting a man is not news, but a man biting a dog is certainly rare.
The most crucial point is that there were quite a few Hong Kong residents who had experienced the same thing as the arsonist!