Upon arriving at Heishipo, everyone stepped off the train.
This was Li Banfeng's first time in Heishipo. Not long after alighting, he sensed the distinct atmosphere of this city.
The air of Heishipo differed from every other place he had visited. Li Banfeng possessed the skill Hundred Flavors Exquisite, allowing him to perceive the difference profoundly.
Kudaikan had a greasy sweetness, Haichiling carried the rich aroma of food, Tiemenbao held a singular tranquility, and Lüshui City reeked of opulence.
Heishipo's smell was far heavier, boiling down to three primary notes: smoke, soot, and engine oil.
The sky here was noticeably gloomier than anywhere else. Stepping out of the station and looking into the distance, smokestacks of varying heights stretched out across the landscape.
In an era when electricity could not be utilized on a large scale, steam power had been pushed to its absolute limits, and coal served as the steam engine's most vital ration.
Heishipo had three major specialties: iron ore, stone, and coal.
A portion of these three specialties was shipped across Puluo Province, while another portion was processed locally into manufactured goods.
This defined Heishipo's unique character—it was a thoroughly industrial city.
Xiao Chuanzi had arrived ahead of time and already arranged lodging for everyone. While Li Banfeng was still looking around for a ride, Xiao Chuanzi already had a vehicle waiting.
It wasn't a carriage, nor a rickshaw, but a steam carriage.
A steam locomotive hauled two cars, weaving through the streets and alleys along narrow iron tracks.
Wasn't this just a train?
The only difference from a regular train was that it was small—small enough to run straight into narrow alleys.
Such was the city of Heishipo. Unlike Lüshui City's far-reaching thoroughfares, every road here had been turned into a railway. The noise might be louder and the air dirtier, but right outside the door, there was always a train to ride.
This reminded Li Banfeng of the light rail back in Yuezhou City, though light rail ran on electricity, which somehow felt less imposing than a steam train.
Xiao Chuanzi said, "I heard from the workers here that Lüshui City originally wanted to build railways inside their city too, but the rich folks wouldn't agree. They complained it was noisy and dirty. I don't see the big deal—what's a bit of coal dust? It's just loose dirt. How dirty can it really get?"
Xiao Chuanzi was a Craft Cultivator; to him, Heishipo was practically a sacred ground for cultivation. Every time he pointed out a landmark, he grew intensely excited, even though to an outsider, all these buildings looked practically identical—dense, utilitarian, and rugged.
The mini-train chugged along for over forty minutes before halting at a station. Everyone stepped down one after another and arrived at the property Xiao Chuanzi had just purchased.
Calling it a "residence" was a bit of a stretch...
The place was enormous.
Past the front gate lay a courtyard, inside of which stood a twenty-meter-tall behemoth.
The behemoth was an off-white cube crisscrossed with pipes of varying calibers, flanked by a smokestack even taller than itself.
A layman might mistake it for a multistory building, but an insider would recognize it as one of the quintessential core machines of the steam era—formally designated a steam generator, and colloquially called a boiler.
Walking past the boiler deeper inside, Li Banfeng saw machine parts and half-finished machine tools scattered across the floor.
Both parts and tools were flecked with heavy rust. Li Banfeng looked at Xiao Chuanzi. "This is a residence?"
This was clearly an abandoned factory.
Xiao Chuanzi scratched his scalp. "Seventh Master, the kind of place you asked for isn't easy to find in Heishipo. You wanted room for thirty-odd people, and it had to be discreet without attracting attention. A place like this was the only fit."
Li Banfeng frowned. "Where do we sleep? On the shop floor?"
"No, no. There's a building behind the workshop."
In the factory's backyard stood a three-story building. The first floor housed a canteen, washrooms, and latrines, while the second and third floors each held over a dozen rooms.
In Heishipo, factories like this were everywhere, and the city's residents were mostly workers.
Workers labored in the factories by day and slept in them by night. Once married, they brought their families to live in the factory compound, rarely ever leaving the premises.
Aside from work, didn't they have any leisure or entertainment?
They did.
Catching a movie at the cinema.
Having a drink at a small tavern.
Buying a newspaper for a brief rest.
When they had money, visiting a special place to find a special someone for a quick tumble.
When short on cash, buying a magazine to take care of it themselves.
A worker's time was scarce. Dance halls, theaters, salons, banquets... none of those suited them.
Entertainment fit for workers had to meet two criteria: first, it had to save time; second, it had to be economical. That was the primary reason Heishipo's print and publishing industry was so remarkably developed—it was cheap, convenient, and got the job done.
Li Banfeng turned to the writers Bai Qiusheng and Yuwen Qi. "Both of you have stayed in Heishipo before and know the rules here. Tomorrow, go handle the formalities. Let's start a newspaper office first, then a magazine company."
"Formalities?" Bai Qiusheng shook his head. "No need for that. To open a newspaper office in Heishipo, all you need is a printing press."
Yuwen Qi added, "Starting a magazine is slightly more complicated. You need a camera."
Li Banfeng asked in surprise, "A single printing press is enough to start a newspaper?"
"Sure is!" Bai Qiusheng said. "We'll write the copy tonight and typeset it tomorrow. You just send someone to buy a printing press, and we can practically make tomorrow's evening edition."
Li Banfeng stared blankly for a long moment. "The paper hasn't even opened, and you're already aiming for tomorrow's evening edition? Are you joking? What are you going to write about? Do you even have any news?"
Yuwen Qi replied, "News is easy. We'll just grab a few major papers and copy a couple of headlines. Our paper will mostly sell commentary and stories. Where can't people read the news? The key is that the writing has to pack a punch!"
"Just making things up?" Li Banfeng still didn't understand. "Who's going to buy a newspaper filled with made-up nonsense?"
The two writers didn't know how to explain, but Xiao Chuanzi chimed in, "Seventh Master, let me take you to a news-cart, and you'll understand."
Xiao Chuanzi led Li Banfeng and the others to a news-cart.
A so-called news-cart was a small shack selling newspapers and periodicals. In Yuezhou, this was called a newsstand.
Heishipo's newsstands were a bit different: beneath the small shack were wheels—four wooden wheels and four iron wheels.
Normally, the wooden wheels rested on the ground, allowing the vendor to haul the stand along.
Once pulled onto the railway tracks, the vendor could operate pulleys inside the shack to raise the wooden wheels and lower the iron ones. The cart had a coupler at the front that hooked onto the back of a train, letting it roll right along behind.
Li Banfeng stepped into the stand and glanced across the newspapers.
Li Banfeng recognized the papers published by the Lu and Ling families, but the majority were unfamiliar.
Take the *One Rod Lit* Evening Post, for instance—a remarkably distinctive name.
Li Banfeng glanced at the headline: *When Pretending Turns Real: Just How Deep Did Song Diva Xiao Xiufei Fall into Character?*
The first few sentences recounted an interview with Song Diva Xiao Xiufei before the release of the first *Bloodblade Detective* film.
Just how old was this news? It had to have been four months ago!
And this could still make the papers?
Curious, Li Banfeng picked up the paper to have a look, but the vendor stopped him immediately. "*One Rod Lit* is eighty cents. No browsing without buying."
Li Banfeng pointed at the Lu and Ling family papers. "How much are these?"
"The *Morning Post* is thirty cents; the *Evening Post* is fifty cents."
"Then why on earth is your *One Rod Lit* eighty cents?"
"That's the price! Genuine goods at fair value. Instant results the moment you read it—honest trade for young and old alike!"
What "results the moment you read it"? That saying was supposed to be about medicine working instantly!
Li Banfeng looked upon the vendor with disdain, fished out eighty cents, and bought a copy of *One Rod Lit*.
Believe it or not, the results truly were instantaneous. The moment he finished the front page, Li Banfeng's rod lit right up.
From various angles, the front-page story gave an in-depth account of Xiao Xiufei's immersive process. The prose was plain, but the content was richly detailed—the male lead's sensations, the female lead's experience, the cameraman's emotional stirring, and the sweeping auntie's reminiscences were all captured to perfection, far more thrilling than the movie itself.
Before he could get to the remaining pages, Li Banfeng's eye caught a magazine.
This magazine was titled *Bloodgun Detective 5*.
*My movies have only reached Part Three, and their magazine is already on Part Five?!*
The woman on the cover was stunning, her physique and attire both exceptionally distinctive.
Her physique was voluptuous.
As for attire, she had none.
"How much is this magazine?"
"Five dollars sixty."
"Isn't that a bit steep? A movie ticket is only five dollars."
The vendor scoffed, "Now that shows you don't know the score. A movie ticket only lets you watch it once. Besides, they're not even letting people screen *Bloodgun Detective* right now! Buy this magazine, and you can look as many times as you want. I'll even throw in a poster."
The vendor had only unrolled half the poster when Li Banfeng decided to buy it.
This poster was made with great integrity.
"I want that one, and that one too..."
In a matter of minutes, Li Banfeng blew over a hundred dollars. The vendor was thrilled beyond measure and tossed in more than twenty posters.
Had Bai Qiusheng not stopped him, Li Banfeng would have bought even more.
By the time they returned to the factory, Ma the Fifth had already instructed people to clean up a room for Li Banfeng. After spending an hour researching in his room, Li Banfeng had figured out Heishipo's publishing industry.
Newspapers relied entirely on making things up.
Magazines weren't made up out of thin air: they recruited a few local girls to model and pose for photographs, paired with short biographical introductions and the girls' personal reflections on life and the future.
Li Banfeng marveled, "I have to say, these girls are quite talented. What they write is pretty profound—they're truly ambitious people."
Yuwen Qi shook his head. "Seventh Master, most of those girls can barely read. Where would they get so many deep thoughts? The editors write all of it. That's how wordsmiths make their bread."
Li Banfeng nodded. "So other than the girls' names, everything else is fake."
"Not quite," Yuwen Qi replied with a shake of his head. "The girls' names aren't real either."
Bai Qiusheng said, "In Heishipo, if you want to earn a living, your pen has to be sharp. It's just like busking in the street: whether you're a renowned literary giant or a master of your generation, if what you write is entertaining, people will come back and buy every time. If what you write is dull, people might fall for it once, but they won't touch your second issue."
Yuwen Qi added, "Seventh Master, you might think none of this is respectable, but Heishipo has plenty of respectable material too. Good stories are everywhere—Heishipo is never short on quality books and papers."
"I think this stuff is plenty respectable," Li Banfeng said, patting the publications in his hands. "It's all legitimate art. Those who create art are good people, and those who appreciate art are good people too. There's nothing wrong with that, and nothing wrong with this place. We'll do newspapers, and we'll do magazines too. In a couple of days, once Xiao Chuanzi buys a printing press, we'll get straight to work."
"Why wait a couple of days?" Bai Qiusheng chuckled. "Chuanzi has been gone for over an hour. He should be back with it any minute."
"An hour to buy a printing press?"
A printing press was no desktop printer. Li Banfeng had seen the presses in Puluo Province—steam-driven monsters that couldn't fit inside two whole rooms. How could such a massive contraption be bought and hauled back in the blink of an eye?
Yet Chuanzi truly had bought one back, already fully assembled.
The printing press wasn't large, about the size of two wicker trunks stacked together.
Having tinkered with the wife every day, Li Banfeng possessed some mechanical common sense. "This isn't steam-powered. It's hand-cranked."
Chuanzi said, "The two writers told me to get this one to make do for now."
Bai Qiusheng said, "Seventh Master, this is Heishipo, not Lüshui City. A press in Lüshui City runs thousands of silver dollars easily, but we don't need that. In Heishipo, you can find any kind of press you want. This machine shouldn't have cost more than sixty silver dollars, right?"
Chuanzi nodded. "Fifty-seven."
"Good, not overpriced. Seventh Master, trust us on this. Let's start with this one. If business takes off, we'll upgrade. If business flops, we won't lose much."
Li Banfeng nodded. "I'm a layman here, so I'll defer to you two. I'll have to trouble you both to put in the work. Let's start right away—newspapers first, then magazines."
Yuwen Qi sighed wistfully. "Back in the day, we relied on this to survive. Now that we have a bit of fame, who would've thought we'd go back to our old trade?"
Li Banfeng smiled. "The pay scale won't be the same, though. Matching your current market rates, I'll pay triple the compensation plus double the bonuses. When it comes to money, I'll never shortchange you."
Bai Qiusheng praised, "Seventh Master is always swift and generous! What do you think we should name this newspaper?"
Li Banfeng pondered for a moment. "Since it's an evening paper, let's call it *Night Fragrance*."
Yuwen Qi said, "Catchy and easy to remember. Settled, then!"
The writers went straight to work, crafting their "art."
The photographers Ma the Fifth brought from the film crew weren't idle either, scouring the town for girls to photograph "art."
As for how to distribute and sell the newspapers and magazines, Ma the Fifth and the two writers were old hands, so Li Banfeng didn't need to worry about it.
Li Banfeng headed straight for Sanfu Cinema.
The owner was packing up his belongings, preparing to move out.
His theater had been trashed, his staff beaten, and the Pure Observance Society had sent people to hand down an ultimatum: get the hell out of Heishipo within a month and never come back for the rest of his life.
Li Banfeng pulled out twenty silver dollars and shoved them into the owner's hand. "Clean up the theater and screen *Bloodgun Detective* one more time."
"Screen it again?" The owner shook his head frantically. "Master, if I dare screen it one more time, my life is forfeit! Please don't put me in a bind!"
Seeing that the owner truly lacked the spine for it, Li Banfeng didn't press him further. "How about this: name your price and sell the cinema to me."
The owner froze. "May I ask... who might you be?"
P.S.: Night Fragrance isn't merely the name of a publication.
Chapter 266