Chapter 126: Rubik's Cube Promotion
Upon returning to the company, before the car had even fully stopped, Zhou Xianlong—head of factory production—was just about to drive out. When he saw the boss's vehicle pulling in, he slowed down and pulled over.
"Mr. Yang, Mr. Wei, you're back," he greeted.
Wei Zetao and Yang Wendong both stepped out of the car, leaving the driver to park it. Spotting Zhou, Wei grinned and asked, "Old Zhou, heading somewhere?"
Zhou replied, "Didn't you ask me the other day to look for a warehouse nearby to convert into a glue trap production site? Well, I just got a call from one of the agents. They found a place that might be suitable, so I'm going over to take a look."
"That fast?" Yang Wendong asked, a bit surprised—it hadn't even been a few days.
Zhou smiled. "Little Zhao has been rushing me, so I contacted more than a dozen agents in one go. Each agent has their own listings, and one of them happened to have something that fits."
"Alright, go take a look then," Yang nodded. "Bring Liming along too—it's his project after all."
When it came to the few early-stage companions and founding members of Changxing Industrial, Yang had given considerable thought to their long-term placement.
Their capabilities were limited—most had been illiterate until recently. Even with rapid learning, they'd still need years before they could take on true leadership roles. Until then, high-level management wasn't an option.
That's why glue traps—being labor-intensive and simple—had been entrusted to Zhao Liming to oversee. It also served a second purpose: providing jobs to residents of the squatter settlements where Liming came from.
To support him, two literate assistants were assigned to the team, and Zhou Xianlong—who oversaw all factory production—would also provide occasional guidance to keep operations on track.
Tasks like client relations, procurement, and finances were all handled by professionally hired staff. Yang knew better than to force an underqualified person into an important role just for the sake of loyalty.
The same went for Su Yiyi. She was more like an assistant within the finance department, learning alongside other professionals and doing supportive work. She didn't have any direct responsibilities, but she did act as Yang Wendong's eyes and ears.
Only Lin Haoyu was treated differently. He was solely responsible for the fixed-location pest control business, which mainly existed to provide jobs for young people in squatter areas. It wasn't expected to grow big, since the local market had its limits.
Zhou Xianlong said, "Alright. I was actually heading to Plant No. 1 to pick up Little Zhao and bring him along."
"Great. Once you two settle on something, let me know and I'll check it out too," Yang nodded.
Now that his schedule wasn't quite as packed, he could afford to make site visits. A newly rented production site warranted a look—especially for final confirmation.
With the groundbreaking ceremony completed, construction on the new factory would begin soon. Meanwhile, their current facility was packed with Post-it note machinery. The procurement team had already placed more orders with Dongsheng Manufacturing. For now, things were stable—at least until the new factory was completed and Post-it production ramped up again.
"Alright," Zhou nodded and drove off.
Once Zhou had left, Wei said, "Mr. Yang, Plant No. 1 is the original glue trap site, so we labeled it No. 1. Our current site is No. 2. If Zhou rents that new warehouse, that'll be No. 3. And the new factory will be No. 4. But... well, 4…"
Yang nodded. "Yeah, let's skip that number and go with No. 6. I've always liked the number 6."
In Hong Kong—and among Chinese people in general—the number 4 was considered unlucky due to its pronunciation being similar to "death." In contrast, 6 and 8 were considered auspicious. Even decades later, people would avoid license plates and addresses with the number 4.
"Got it," Wei said with a grin. Not a minor detail—definitely something for the boss to decide.
The two walked toward the factory floor. Their current office was built into the front section of the facility—a temporary solution until the new factory came with a proper standalone building.
Yang continued, "This scattershot setup is just a result of our early-stage expansion and limited funds. Once we've got more capital, we'll consolidate our operations and be more strategic with factory locations. At that point, we won't need to label them one by one—they could just be used as warehouses."
Whenever a factory faces surging demand, it's almost impossible to instantly meet production needs. There's always a growth curve. If you're short on money, it's hard to unify your plans.
For instance, without enough cash to build a new factory outright, you might have to rent smaller spaces piecemeal. Then, once finances improve, you can start making longer-term decisions.
That had been Changxing's situation at the start. Fortunately, thanks to 3M's robust distribution channels and proof of transaction history, they'd secured bank loans fairly quickly. Otherwise, progress would've been much slower.
This kind of growth path was the norm. Many companies took years to catch up with demand—especially with simple, mass-market products.
Wei nodded. "Yeah. Around Plant No. 6—the new one—there's still a lot of empty land. I've spoken to some officials at the Lands Department. If we need more space later, we can buy the adjacent plots."
"Nice. Money really can solve most problems," Yang said with a laugh.
Just a while ago, they'd been cash-strapped. Now that the loans had come through, so many bottlenecks had cleared. The next steps were simple: build the new factory, buy more machines, expand production, and turn those borrowed funds into revenue—or at least prove to the banks that Changxing could generate that revenue. That would open the door to future funding.
And with funding, they could finally execute factory planning properly.
The two of them returned to their respective offices. Not long after, Wei came in again, holding a document.
"Mr. Yang, here's the pricing proposal for a front-page ad in Ming Pao," he said.
"Ming Pao? Oh right—you visited them," Yang said as he took the file. "Did you meet Mr. Jin Yong?"
Wei shook his head. "No, I met one of the other founders—Shen Baoxin. He's the one I negotiated the ad deal with.
Later, while chatting with him, I found out that Jin Yong doesn't handle the operations. He just focuses on writing. Apparently, he has to crank out 2,000 characters a day. It's taken a toll—he's losing a lot of hair."
"2,000 characters a day?" Yang nodded. "That's pretty intense. Every single day?"
Contemporary literature was nothing like the web novels of decades later. In terms of quality, thematic depth, prose, and narrative structure, writing 2,000 characters of a Jin Yong novel likely took more effort than churning out 30,000–50,000 words of modern web fiction.
Wei Zetao chuckled. "Pretty much. Ming Pao is basically relying on the newly serialized Return of the Condor Heroes to sell papers. The paper's still brand new—barely has any reporters, and not much other content. Who buys Ming Pao these days if not for the novel?
If a day's edition doesn't feature a new chapter, practically no one buys it. Even when we negotiated to place an ad, we made it a condition that the paper must include at least 2,000 words of the novel in that issue. I'm guessing other advertisers asked for the same."
Yang Wendong nodded. "Yeah, it's not easy to run a newspaper. Novels are just an attraction—real success depends on building solid news content."
"Exactly," Wei agreed. "But Jin Yong's novels are incredibly popular. As long as they use these one to two years of serialization to gradually build a competent news team, they might just make it as a legitimate publication."
"Mm. If you don't have the capital for a full team, this is probably the best strategy," Yang agreed.
Historically, Ming Pao succeeded in precisely this way—first using the popularity of Jin Yong's novels and his personal fame to build brand recognition, then gradually expanding its news coverage. With Jin Yong's immense influence, the newspaper eventually became one of Hong Kong's biggest.
But it wasn't a method that could be copied. Other Hong Kong newspapers relied on heavy investment—building out teams, generating content, developing distribution networks. Most of those who spent large sums still failed to gain traction.
And even those few who did succeed rarely turned a real profit. Many major investors didn't launch newspapers for money anyway—they either wanted to use them to promote their own products or to control the narrative.
Wei Zetao smiled. "No one else can replicate this. Jin Yong's novels are still the best in Hong Kong."
"Definitely," Yang agreed without hesitation.
Wei then asked, "So, Mr. Yang, does the content and pricing look good to you? If so, we'll move forward with the ad placement."
"I'm not that familiar with ad pricing," Yang said as he reviewed the document. "How does this compare to other papers?"
Wei explained, "If we're talking circulation, Ming Pao is pretty competitive. When they're running the novel, they can sell over 10,000 copies a day. Their readership isn't low-income either—it actually overlaps well with our Rubik's Cube target audience."
"Alright, sounds good." Yang flipped through the ad layout and smiled. "This bit where we say it's the toy that thousands of students at the University of Hong Kong haven't been able to solve—are we not going to offend the university?"
"It shouldn't be a problem," Wei shook his head. "As long as we're not making things up, it's fair game. I even spoke with Professor Yang, and he said it was fine. He just asked that we also mention Chinese University of Hong Kong. Turns out, lots of students over there have been playing with it too."
Yang laughed. "Dragging both universities into this? Not bad."
Wei added, "Unless someone cracks the puzzle in the short term, it won't be an issue for them. If even overseas universities can't solve it, no one will care. But if someone does crack it quickly, then yeah... it'll sting a bit."
"Then we should be fine," Yang said, putting the papers down. "Go ahead and run the ad in Ming Pao."
"Got it." Wei packed up the file, then added, "Actually, Shen Baoxin also told me something interesting. He said advertising in Ming Pao is the most cost-effective because their papers have the highest turnover rate."
"Turnover rate?" Yang raised an eyebrow. "What does that mean?"
Wei explained, "It means a single copy of the paper gets read by multiple people. That's common in both newspaper and magazine circulation.
Ming Pao is popular because of the novel. Lots of people love the story, but only one in ten actually buys a copy. So while their official daily circulation is 10,000, the actual number of eyes on our ad could be much higher compared to other papers with the same sales volume."
"That makes sense," Yang nodded, impressed.
He remembered back in school, many of his classmates had been obsessed with novels like Kunlun and Chronicles of the Gods. Each book cost five yuan, which was a luxury for students. So the class would pitch in a few coins each, buy a couple of books, and take turns reading them.
But because everyone was impatient, they'd end up tearing the books apart and reading them page by page.
Wei continued, "Shen Baoxin hinted at this intentionally, but still charged us standard rates. It was a smart move—helps win over advertisers."
"Very clever," Yang smiled. "If Ming Pao wants to grow, they'll need ad revenue to fund their news team. So it's not just Jin Yong's novel carrying the paper."
As powerful as Jin Yong's storytelling was, Ming Pao's eventual rise to become one of Hong Kong's top newspapers wasn't due to fiction alone.
Wei nodded. "If they succeed, it'll benefit us too. I'll go finalize things with them—we can get the ad out in a few days."
"Alright," Yang nodded. "I've already spoken with Zhao Chengguang. He's agreed to distribute the Rubik's Cube through a large network of small shops across the city, including some of the big department stores."
Previously, glue traps were low-end items that couldn't be sold in high-end outlets. You wouldn't find them in shopping malls—and even in his past life, most large supermarkets didn't carry them.
Post-it notes were different—they targeted office workers, not everyday consumers. So Changxing Industrial mostly distributed them directly. Zhao had handled only a small portion of that.
But the Rubik's Cube had broad appeal. Anyone could be a potential buyer. That meant they needed a comprehensive retail network across Hong Kong—which naturally required Zhao Chengguang's involvement again.
Wei smiled. "Then we'll see how many people are interested in that HKD 10,000 prize."
Three days later, Ming Pao's front page featured a striking image: a massive cube composed of countless tiny colored squares.
At a newsstand in Admiralty, a man stepped up and asked, "Boss, does today's Ming Pao have a new chapter?"
"It does," the owner replied with a grin. "I skimmed through it myself—Li Mochou is chasing after Xiaolongnü and Yang Guo."
"Then I definitely have to read it," the young man said, handing over his coins.
He opened the paper, and upon spotting the large colorful cube, frowned slightly. "What's this?"
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