Since the reason why Wang Xiaobo did not agree to sign the contract was related to housing, now that Ruan Xiaohu's housing has been basically solved, his problem will naturally be solved.
"After you go back this time, I will take you to see Lao Wu and finalize the contract." Bi Feiyu said.
Wang Xiaobo did not refuse this time. He nodded and said, "Okay, I've already made a good decision. There's another apartment on the fourth floor with a very good location. It's above Yu Hua's house, and it's not far from Mo Yan's house."
Hearing Wang Xiaobo talking about the location of the house, Yu Dong and the others looked at each other and laughed. Wang Xiaobo sometimes thinks very differently from ordinary people. He is unconstrained and unconstrained, like a master who does not eat fireworks from the world.
, but at this time it seems extremely realistic.
Even before the contract was signed, he had already inspected the house.
Yu Hua and Mo Yan gave a thumbs up almost at the same time.
Mo Yan smiled and joked, "Xiaobo, this is called preparing for a rainy day."
…
The first stop for Yu Dong and his group's autograph signing this time was not New York, which was voted first, but Chicago, the third largest city.
At four o'clock in the afternoon on August 10th, local time, Yu Dong and the others came out of the Chicago Airport and headed to the Hilton Hotel where they were staying - a five-star hotel located north of Michigan Avenue, known as the Magnificent Mile, with luxury stores everywhere nearby.
and hotels.
Needless to say, the name of Michigan Avenue goes without saying. As soon as they entered Michigan Avenue, they saw the old water tower that looked like a castle.
Michigan Avenue is very lively now, with people on the road bustling with people of all colors everywhere.
Every August, Michigan Avenue is very lively, because at this time, various activities, fashion shows, food events, concerts... and the most attractive shopping carnival are held here.
As for Yu Dong, they will make their first stop in Chicago, not only because Michigan Avenue is so busy in August, but also because Amazon Bookstore has opened its first physical bookstore in Michigan.
As Amazon's first bookstore, Amazon and Deep Space Company have put a lot of effort into it, and it took a year and a half from location selection to decoration.
The bookstore was renovated last month, but it has not been opened yet, just for Eidong and others to come over and warm up the bookstore.
The car had just passed the "Old Water Tower" when Yu Haiguo suddenly pointed out the window and shouted: "Mom, there are Chinese characters."
Chen Hong was still discussing the architectural style of the "Old Water Tower" with Fu Jing next to her. When she heard her son calling, she turned to look out the window. Fu Jing also followed her and looked outside.
A huge poster was posted on the outer wall of a shop on the roadside. There were two very conspicuous Chinese characters on the blue background poster: old book.
Next to the "old book", there is a line of numbers: 40000000.
Fu Jing laughed when she saw the Chinese characters on it, "It's true."
Everyone else also looked over. The poster was very conspicuous. Even after the car had walked for a long time, it could still be seen clearly.
Wang Xiaobo said, "This should be the Amazon bookstore."
Bi Feiyu nodded, "I guess so, these two words are big enough."
Mo Yan sighed, "Not only are the characters big, but the string of zeros after them is also long enough."
Yu Hua smiled and said, "This poster can still be used when the sales of "Old Book" reach 400 million in the future. Just add a zero at the end."
"Tsk tsk, four hundred million, you really dare to think about it. But these two words look a bit familiar."
"It's bad if you're not familiar with Chinese characters."
"No, I'm talking about this deal."
Green, who was in charge of greeting them this time, first signaled the driver to slow down, and then said to Yu Hua and the others with a smile: "The teachers guessed it right, this is Amazon's first bookstore, and these two words are also based on YU
The handwriting is enlarged, so Teacher Yu Hua will find it familiar."
Yu Hua suddenly said: "Let me just say, these two characters are familiar. It turns out to be the handwriting of a member of the Communist Party of China. However, most people here don't recognize the Chinese characters. Will it be discounted in publicity? I'll look at the two Chinese characters below.
There’s no English translation either.”
Green pushed up his glasses and explained: "When I was designing this poster, someone did raise this issue at the meeting. We also discussed it seriously and finally concluded that it would not be the case. First of all, the two Chinese characters for old book
It can be said that it has become the two most familiar words to the American people, because they can see it in many places this year. Secondly, it can also arouse the curiosity of others. Of course, the reason why we came to this conclusion is not only
It was discussed out of thin air and tested."
"Can this still be used as an experiment?" Chen Hong hugged Yu Haiguo and asked curiously.
Green nodded: "Well, we tried to release this poster on Amazon's official website first, and the feedback we received exceeded our imagination. After browsing the photo, 10% of the people asked about the two people on the photo.
The meaning of Chinese characters.”
"Ten percent doesn't seem like much."
"It's already a lot. Not many people speak on shopping websites. This ratio has completely exceeded our expectations."
"So, that's indeed the case." Wang Xiaobo nodded.
Green smiled and continued: "In addition, some time ago, Amazon's official website also held an event called a survey on the popularity of vocabulary in various languages. 'Old book' not only became the most familiar vocabulary among Americans, but also had a huge number of votes.
It exceeds the most popular words in Spanish, French and other languages."
In fact, there is something Green didn't say. Amazon's voting event this time is unfair. Only five words in each language were selected for netizens to vote for.
Regarding Chinese characters, except for "old books", other words are not very competitive. When voting for Chinese characters, almost all voters voted for the familiar "old books".
When it comes to other languages, none of the words provided by Amazon are hot words, and the popularity is about the same, so the votes will be scattered.
In addition, Amazon has been promoting "used books" for some time, and Amazon's users are relatively familiar with "used books". The combination of these reasons has resulted in "used books" taking over the market.
But ordinary netizens don't know. They only know that the result is that "old book" has not only become the most familiar Chinese character for Americans, but also the most familiar foreign language vocabulary for Americans.
People like to follow the trend, whether they have read "Old Books" or not, seeing that the two Chinese characters for "Old Books" are recognized by so many people, they naturally do not want to lag behind and want to know these two characters.
Therefore, the word "old books" has become even more popular in the United States during this period, and you can hear people discussing it everywhere.
…
When Yu Dong and his car drove past the Amazon Bookstore, a boy and a girl on the roadside were looking up at the huge poster on the outside wall of the bookstore side by side.
"Jessica, do you know what these two Chinese characters mean?" Hasson asked with a smile.
"Hardison, please don't test me with questions like this that even my grandma knows the answer to."
Hardison smiled and said: "I am actually learning Chinese recently, and the teacher also taught us these two characters. He also told me that the two Chinese characters on this poster were handwritten by YU... Of course, I mean
Yes, after YU wrote it, someone else enlarged his handwriting."
Jessica glanced at Hardison and felt that the second half of his explanation was confusing. No one really thought that such big words could have been written by YU himself.
In fact, Los Angeles is also a stop on YU's book signing tour this time, and the second stop after Chicago is Los Angeles. However, Jessica and Hardison still flew two to three thousand kilometers to Chicago, in addition to wanting to see YU earlier.
In addition, I also want to check out Amazon, the first offline bookstore.
To open a bookstore next to an old water tower and on such a large scale, I have to say that Amazon is indeed very bold.
It is not easy to make money by opening a bookstore of this size on Michigan Avenue, where land is at a premium and is surrounded by luxury stores and high-end hotels.
However, it can be seen that Amazon does not want to operate this bookstore as an ordinary bookstore. For Amazon, this physical store is more like a promotional tool. It can be said to be unique on Michigan Avenue, with huge posters from old
You can see it from a distance. When people mention the old water tower in the future, they will most likely mention the Amazon bookstore.
In addition, after the Amazon bookstore came out, a lot of announcements about activities in the bookstore were also issued.
YU's book signing is a good start, and the Amazon Bookstore will hold various activities in the future. The ones currently scheduled include book signings for George Martin, Rowling, Mark Levy and Oates.
Speaking of Mark Levy, I have to mention one thing.
Although Mark Levy is not very well-known in the United States, his novel "If This Is True" became popular all over the country as soon as it was published in France. It even suppressed "Old Books" that had dominated the list for a long time, and once became the best-selling book in France that month.
Top of the list.
In just a few months, "If This Is True" has already sold the rights to more than a dozen countries, and Spielberg also spent 2.2 million US dollars to buy the film and television adaptation rights of this movie.
I want to make it into a movie.
A few days ago, when Spielberg was chatting with Jimmy, they also talked about this book and Yu Dong by the way. Spielberg expressed his sincere admiration for Dong's vision.
From George Martin to Rowling, and from Rowling to Mark Levy, anyone who is valued by YU seems to be successful, and not just ordinary success.
Mark Levy has just come out, and his results are very good at the beginning. It’s hard to tell what will happen next, but the results of Rowling and George R.R. Martin are real. In the book market in recent years, they can be compared to the existence of these two people.
Very few.
Of course, Yu Dong, who excavated them both, was one of them, and he was the one standing at the top.
Jessica looked at the old water tower next to her, then looked at the direction of the bookstore, and then said to Hardison: "Let's take a stroll around the area before the autograph session starts today."
Hardison nodded heavily, then took out a map from his backpack and drew on it with his hand: "I have already studied it. We are now at this location. Let's go south from here..."
…
Yu Dong and the others arrived at the hotel, took a short rest, and then went to a nearby restaurant to have a meal together.
After eating, a group of people casually walked around Michigan Avenue.
Michigan Avenue is very lively at night, with shops one after another and tourists passing through, all enjoying the excitement and prosperity under the neon lights.
Unlike others, Yu Dong and the others don't pay much attention to the rows of buildings and the dazzling array of products in the windows. Instead, they pay more attention to the various tourists. They don't do it deliberately, but it can be regarded as an occupational disease.
I have been writing novels for a long time, and I always involuntarily want to observe and study people.
People's behaviors, people's motivations, people's laughter, joys and sorrows, all of these may appear in their writings inadvertently.
As they walked, they came to the bottom of the old tower.
Compared with during the day, there were not many fewer people under the old tower at night, and there were more activities. When Yu Dong and others arrived, they heard a burst of saxophone sound. They thought it was a street artist performing, but after listening for a while, everyone felt
Something's wrong, the saxophone playing is really not flattering, it's not even as pleasant as the barking of Feng Ming's dog.
Several people followed the sound and looked closer. It turned out that it was an old white man practicing the saxophone, and there was a music sheet in front of him.
Yu Dong and others listened for a while, but they couldn't accept it anymore, so they continued to move forward.
After walking past the old water tower, we arrived at the Amazon Bookstore which has not yet officially opened.
Although the bookstore is not open, the facade is brightly lit, and the posters on the outer wall are also illuminated, so you can see them from far away at night.
Yu Dong and the others stood outside the glass wall and looked inside for a while, but they didn't see anything special. It was just like an ordinary bookstore.
Walking around the glass exterior wall to the door, everyone was surprised to find two young people sitting on the steps.
These two young men, probably in their early twenties, were wearing caps late at night and were talking with their heads down.
Sensing someone approaching, the two young men moved closer to the door, as if someone wanted to steal something from them.
Wang Xiaobo glanced at the lock on the door, stepped forward and asked, "Hello, are you waiting for the bookstore to open? But we heard that the bookstore will not open until tomorrow."
One of the young people raised his head, glanced at the lower half of Wang Xiaobo's face along the brim of his peaked cap, and said, "We know the doors won't open until tomorrow, but we want to get the first signature, so we're queuing up here."
Wang Xiaobo first grinned in surprise, and then asked with a smile: "Are you just worried that we would take your place?"
The young man smiled sheepishly, "Yeah."
Bi Feiyu, who was standing behind, translated the conversation between Wang Xiaobo and the young man for Yu Hua and others. Then Yu Hua exclaimed: "Tsk, tsk, these two people are really good. It's not even nine o'clock now. They need to at least be there."
Chapter completed!