The Pentium Era - South to North

Zhang Chen rode to the intersection of Stadium Road and Yan'an Road and stopped. He decided to go to the International Building on the opposite side of Stadium Road first.

The offices of the International Building are on the eighth floor, just like the Xinqiao Hotel. This is probably to cater to the tastes of Taiwanese and Hong Kong people and to get some luck.

Either eight or eighteen, just like the private rooms of Haicheng Hotel and KTV, they also like to use eighteen (want to pay), twenty-eight (I want to pay), or three eights (fafafa), even Nanzhuang Hao’s bag The minimum consumption is 8,888. This is an era where everyone wants to make a fortune. It doesn’t matter whether it is good fortune or bad fortune, as long as they can make a fortune.

Zhang Chen looked at the company names in the row at the elevator entrance and knew that he didn't even have to go upstairs. Most of them were companies from Hong Kong and Taiwan, as well as several local companies, except for one from the Hong Kong Trade Development Council. Representative offices and others are all trading companies. Even if there are two companies with global names, they are still trading companies in the end.

Zhang Chen left the International Building. It was cold and windy outside. Zhang Chen felt very depressed. He felt that he had no direction. Where would the companies that were suitable for him be? They would obviously not be in these hotels.

Zhang Chen pushed his bicycle across Stadium Road in front of the International Building and walked towards Hangcheng Building on the left side of Wulin Square opposite.

Hangcheng Tower Hotel is very famous, but its lobby is the smallest among these hotels, and it is even somewhat incompatible with its reputation.

The hotel lobby in the original design has now become the atrium of a shopping mall. The hotel lobby can only condescend to the side entrance of the annex building, which shares a six-to-seven-meter-wide passage with the side entrance of the Tianlong Commercial Building next door. For the first time, When a guest comes to stay at the parking lot in front of Hangcheng Building, he can't find the hotel lobby without asking the security guard.

The office building of Hangcheng Tower is located on the fifth floor of the hotel. There is no auspicious number. Probably because as the tallest building in Hangzhou, I feel there is no need to condescend to cater to other people's tastes, no matter where you are from. , where it comes from, and when it gets here, it must be arranged by me.

But the companies here are no different from other hotels. From the list of companies, Zhang Chen only saw two companies, which may have something to do with him. One is the Hangzhou office of 503 Hong Kong Tomorrow Publishing Company. There was also the Hangzhou business office of Shenzhen Sancai Printing Co., Ltd. Zhang Chen knew that this should be a printing factory, and maybe they would need designers.

Zhang Chen went up to the fifth floor and arrived at 503 first. The door was closed. Zhang Chen knocked on the door. Someone inside the door called "Wait a minute." There was a rustling sound. After four or five minutes, someone came to open the door. The door opened. He is a middle-aged man in his forties, chubby, with a few sparse hair neatly combed, and a pair of glasses on his fair face.

He let Zhang Chen in. Zhang Chen saw that there were two tables facing each other inside. Facing the door, a girl was sitting. Zhang Chen could see her face flushed.

Zhang Chen couldn't help but frown in disgust. He fucked her so hard in broad daylight in the office. This bastard was so polite. How could such a rotten person break a publishing company? ?

Zhang Chen saw two bookshelves behind the table facing the door. The bookshelves were filled with rows of books. It could be seen from the traditional Chinese characters on the spines that they were all Hong Kong editions. The background color of the spines is either bright red, earthy yellow or dark green. Zhang Chen can imagine that the cover designs of these books must be very vulgar.

The man stood there with his hands on his waist. He did not ask Zhang Chen to sit down, but asked him what he wanted. Zhang Chen told him that he was here to apply for a job. The man said curiously, we are not recruiting anyone.

"Are we hiring?"

He turned to ask the girl. The girl lowered her head and shook it desperately.

Zhang Chen said yes. I saw it written below that you are Hong Kong Tomorrow Publishing Company, so I came up to ask if you needed someone to design book bindings.

"No, no, just go, we don't need design for our books."

The man looked at the girl sitting there again and shouted impatiently, probably because he thought Zhang Chen had spoiled his good deeds.

What kind of book doesn’t need binding design? What else did Zhang Chen want to say, to fight for himself? The man took a piece of paper from the table, slapped it on Zhang Chen's chest, and said to him:

"Take it. If a friend wants to publish a book, you can come to me and I will get a commission."

As he spoke, he walked to the door and put one hand on the door handle, almost urging Zhang Chen to go out so that he could close the door.

Zhang Chen came out of the door in embarrassment, still holding the piece of paper that the guy thrust into him.

Zhang Chen stood in the corridor and looked at the piece of paper with the light above his head. On one side of the paper, he boasted that Tomorrow Publishing Company was a well-known publishing organization in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Southeast Asia, and was the most influential publishing company in the Chinese world. , and then went on to undertake the publication of various books, from memoirs to novels, prose, reportage and poetry collections, to various essay collections.

It is said that let us help you bind your dreams into a book to influence and shock the world.

The words in smaller sizes below explain that we can export everything that cannot be exported to the mainland.

Use one larger font to specify that all books have International Book Numbers.

Zhang Chen understood that what this guy was undertaking was similar to the "Model of the Times" co-written by Liu Ligan and the Yongcheng County Federation of Literary and Art Circles. It was a shoddy book that no publishing house would publish. As for the international book number, God knows, you Just print a random number on it, who knows if it’s true or false?

On the bookshelf behind this guy, those books with bright red and green covers are probably their masterpieces. Such books really don’t need any binding design. The printer can just adjust the color and choose the font size at will.

Zhang Chen turned this piece of paper over and looked at it. On it was a price list. Depending on the book format, printing sheets and number of prints, the fees ranged from one thousand to tens of thousands. It was marked at the bottom that the middleman introduced the business and the commission was 10%. .

Zhang Chen crumpled it into a ball and threw it into the stainless steel trash can in the corridor.

Zhang Chen stood in the corridor, took a deep breath, calmed down, and continued walking into the corridor. The Hangzhou business office of Shenzhen Sancai Printing Co., Ltd. was at the end of the corridor, room 519.

Before Zhang Chen reached room 519, he saw someone pulling out a four-wheeled cart from the door. There was a neatly packaged package of printed matter wrapped tightly in kraft paper. Zhang Chen passed by Next to you, walk towards the elevator room.

Zhang Chen walked to the door and knocked on the door twice. There was a little girl inside holding a folder in one hand and a pen in the other. She was memorizing something. When she heard a knock on the door, she turned her head and hurriedly Tell Zhang Chen, please come in.

Room 519 was a suite. When Zhang Chen entered, he saw that there was no other furniture except for a set of sofas and coffee tables. All the space had been vacated and used to pile up packages of printed matter wrapped in kraft paper.

Zhang Chen saw that these printed matter were piled into piles of different sizes. On each pile, a note was posted in a conspicuous place, which read "Sanmen County Government", "Zhejiang Provincial Tourism Bureau", "Zhejiang Provincial Tourism Bureau" "Provincial China Travel Service", "Hangcheng City Silk Company", "Huanglong Hotel", etc. This is to indicate that these printed materials belong to these units to prevent porters from moving them by mistake.

The little girl was busy with her own business. She didn't ask Zhang Chen what happened. Instead, she asked him to sit down and told him that our manager Qu has guests, please wait a moment.

Zhang Chen said thank you, and he sat down on the sofa. The little girl put the folder under her arm and brought him a glass of water.

Zhang Chen heard a woman talking softly in the room inside:

"No, no, not to mention Hangzhou, not even Shanghai and Beijing. We are the only ones in China that have installed Heidelberg's offset printing press. Otherwise, you have to send it to Hong Kong for printing. That is definitely not cost-effective, right?"

"Yes, of course the price will be more expensive. You can't compare it with domestic offset printing machines, right? You have also seen the effect. Not to mention domestic offset printing machines, even if you compare them with other imported machines, they are not the same. , Heidelberg is the leader in the printing industry after all, right? You can’t ask for lobster, but you are only willing to pay the price of Shopee, right, Director Xiao?”

"Okay, take this contract back with you. Once it's filled out, I'll ask Xiao Chen to come and get it. Of course, why bother bothering the director to make another trip?"

"Don't worry, I will definitely help Director Xiao keep an eye on it. There won't be any delays. That's right. Quality, quantity and time will be guaranteed. I'll deliver it to you before the 20th of next month. Okay."

…

Zhang Chen sat there, listening to this woman's voice, and began to like her. The bad temper he had just received from that guy felt relieved.

After a while, a man in his forties walked out and waved to the little girl. The little girl quickly said, "walk slowly."

The little girl said to Zhang Chen, please go in, our manager, we have time now.

Zhang Chen asked softly, what is your manager’s surname?

"Qu." The little girl said to him.