Time flowed on; in the blink of an eye more than two months had passed and summer arrived in July.
As Wind and Cloud: Conquering the World grew ever more popular and swept across Hong Kong, Lin Baicheng's name resounded throughout the city as well.
Although he wanted to keep a low profile, the media dug into his background and soon published all his information—he became famous across Hong Kong.
There was no way around it: Lin Baicheng had approached almost every newspaper in Hong Kong when he started, so those papers already had basic information about him. With that as a starting point they could quickly find out who he was.
So even if he wanted to keep quiet, he couldn't.
For a while every day the family home received visits from reporters and fans, to the extent that the family business suffered.
The media hype even painted Lin as another wuxia master in Hong Kong after Jin Yong. If Lin hadn't been a reborn man whose ambitions lay elsewhere, an ordinary young person in his position would likely have been inflamed by the attention.
Some older writers couldn't stand it and lambasted Lin in the press as arrogant and a flash-in-the-pan, but Lin paid no mind—he let them bark. Because he didn't respond, the controversy died down after a few days; media cycles moved on and coverage waned.
Beyond fame, Lin's financial gains over those two months were also enormous.
First and most importantly were his shares in Star Daily. By now Star Daily's daily circulation had climbed to nearly eighty thousand copies—ranking just behind Hong Kong's three major newspapers. Monthly advertising revenue alone was about HK$200,000. Combined with daily sales revenue, the value of Lin's 25% stake was at least a few million Hong Kong dollars.
Of course, because Star Daily's boom was driven by the novel, the circulation's long-term stability couldn't be guaranteed yet—if circulation weren't stable, no one could promise the shares wouldn't become worth even more later.
Then there were the publishing rights. The Hong Kong, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, and other regional publishing rights had been sold permanently—to Haohan Publishing.
It wasn't that Lin was especially loyal to Haohan; the company simply offered the highest price. He sold permanent publishing rights for HK$1.5 million. Other publishers' offers were lower.
If he had taken a royalty deal instead, authors typically earned around 10% of the cover price. With a retail price of about HK$15 per book, the author would get roughly HK$1.5 per copy.
Using Wind and Cloud: Conquering the World as an example: the full novel ran about two million characters. At 100,000 characters per published volume, that's roughly twenty volumes. If someone bought the full set at HK$15 per book, that's HK$300 for the set; the author's royalty would be about HK$30 per full set.
Of course not many individual readers would buy an entire boxed set—sometimes groups of friends pooled money and shared copies. A sale of HK$1.5 million in outright rights equates roughly to the income from fifty thousand full-set purchases—an attainable number given Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, Taiwan, and the long period before rights expiration, plus the novel's huge popularity.
Lin would have preferred a higher price. All the publishers warned that rampant piracy would limit legal sales, and Haohan's offer was the highest—so Lin accepted.
Lin understood that if he'd licensed instead of selling outright, even over just 10–20 years he would have likely made more than HK$1.5 million, given how hot the book was. But he wanted a lump sum to invest immediately in a business he had in mind—he believed he could multiply that money far beyond what royalties would ever provide.
…
That afternoon, Lawyer Chen Gao came to Lin's home.
"Mr. Lin, I checked around. There are only three arcade assembly factories in Hong Kong; they get licensed machines from U.S. and Japanese game companies and assemble them locally," Chen said.
"My research shows arcade assembly itself isn't hugely profitable—the big margins go to the game companies. I've contacted the owners of those three factories. If we offer a reasonable premium, they're willing to sell."
Chen Gao was the lawyer Lin had first hired when signing the Star Daily contract; he'd also acted for Lin in dealings with Haohan Publishing. After several collaborations, Lin continued to work with him.
This time Lin planned to enter the gaming industry—specifically arcade machines.
In this era networked games were a non-starter; even home consoles had not yet appeared. The arcade industry he hoped to join had only existed for a few years.
The first prototype arcade machine was developed in a U.S. computer lab in 1971, and commercial machines followed later. Because of the 1973 oil crisis and the ensuing economic effects, arcades probably arrived in Hong Kong around 1975—give or take a year—so by 1977 it made sense there were only three local assembly factories.
Lin asked, "How big are the three factories, and what would they cost?"
Chen replied with specifics: the three factories were in Kwun Tong (Kowloon), Yuen Long (New Territories), and Tai Po. The Kwun Tong factory was the largest and earliest entrant; when arcades came to Hong Kong in '74 it began operations. It employed more than forty experienced workers and the owner owned the factory building—about 2,000 square meters—worth roughly HK$2 million. The owner's asking price was HK$3 million; with negotiation the price could be brought down somewhat, but not dramatically.
The Yuen Long and Tai Po plants began in early last year. Each had only about twenty workers, but the machines were new. Both rented their premises. Their asking prices were HK$800,000 and HK$700,000 respectively, but Chen judged their true value closer to HK$500,000 each—reasonable offers could buy them.
Chen's investigation had been thorough—after all, Lin was paying him and expected satisfactory results.