[Pride and Prejudice] Becoming Katherine Bennett

After entering the office, Catherine found that only Mr. Gordon in front of her seemed to be present at today's meeting.The old Mr. Gordon who looked very angry was not there last time.

Catherine sat in her chair and watched Mr. Gordon arrange for the servants to bring the fine tea service.

"Mr. and Miss Bennett have a taste of the newly arrived tea." Mr. Gordon said with a smile.

While he was speaking, the servant put high-quality black tea into the teapot, scalded the curled tea leaves with hot water at a suitable temperature, and poured a thin layer of black tea on the bottom of the silver teacup while waiting for the tea leaves to unfold in the water. Cold milk followed by hot tea poured into cups.The hot tea has a milky white finish that eventually takes on a beautiful brick red color.

After preventing the other party from adding a lethal amount of sugar to the teacup in time, Catherine picked up the teacup and smelled the fragrance of the black tea, feeling that the fragrance was full of high-end British pounds.

Fragrant, really fragrant.

Since tea was introduced to England from the far east, tea has been thoroughly integrated into the life of the English people.Of course, this process was very slow. At the beginning, due to transportation costs and other issues, the price of tea was once as high as 10 pounds per pound, and few people in England could afford it.Although planting has expanded and tea is much cheaper, high-grade tea still costs 13 rings per pound. 2

Catherine used to prefer tea to coffee, and still does.

"Doesn't Miss Bennett add any sugar?" Mr. Gordon sat across from her, sitting upright, but with an indescribable casualness.He looked at her with interest, as if he was looking at a rare object, and the look in his eyes made Catherine's hairs stand up.

When they met for the first time, Catherine felt that although this Mr. Gordon was handsome, polite and personable, his aggressive temperament was more impressive than these.

Although he always showed others with a smile, Catherine could still feel the aura hidden behind his smile that must not be easily provoked.

Catherine was very cowardly: "I don't like desserts very much." As she spoke, she gave Mr. Bennett a look.

Mr. Bennett received her signal and said, "Mr. Gordon, I want to talk to you about the next book."

Mr. Gordon put down his teacup, picked up the letter he had recently received from his desk, and said warmly: "You are very welcome. I have seen the basic setting in your last letter. I have to say, I am very surprised The magic of your spiritual world, you can imagine such a wonderful plot. Considering the influence and reputation of "Blood Return", I am looking forward to this book even more. Have you started writing a new book?"

"Blood Return" has been serialized to a quarter, and "Daily News Agency" has adopted Catherine's suggestion. Readers are welcome to send letters and select some content that can arouse the interest of other readers.There are naturally praises in this, but there are few such posts, and most of them are ruthless ridicule and contempt for "Return of Blood" by other authors or readers.

Catherine has seen too many celebrity hype routines, and naturally knows that even a bad reputation is far better than no one cares about it. She did this to arouse topicality.

Of course, this move is not a "gentleman", but a "businessman". Catherine can only silently apologize to the readers in her heart, and secretly promise that she will never do this again when she gets rid of poverty.

As far as the feedback received so far on "Blood Return", most people agree with the protagonist image she created.And her "hype" did not cause trouble, spread rumors and slander, nor did she touch other authors or bully others, but only selectively published letters to spark discussions.

Many people took advantage of this opportunity to deliberately refute the public's point of view and take advantage of her popularity.Catherine doesn't mind, it's all about eating.

This strategy is very effective. Every time a letter scolding "Blood Return" is published, the next issue of the article will receive more heated discussions. Many new readers still express in the letter that they were attracted by the scolding war.

Looking at the letters piled up into a hill from the newspaper office, Catherine has already begun to dream that this book will earn her two thousand pounds.

When Mr. Gordon said this, his eyes kept looking at Catherine.

Catherine and Mr. Bennett looked at each other, thinking that Mr. Gordon had found out.

When they left last time, Catherine noticed that Mr. Gordon's tone and attitude were a little strange.Considering that the other party was a very smart boy, Catherine guessed that Mr. Gordon had guessed who the real "Addison Fitch" was.

On the way to London, Catherine and Mr. Bennet discussed it, and it was decided that if Mr. Gordon raised the question, they would freely admit that if he did not ask, they would not speak.

Now it seems that Mr. Gordon is indeed a smart man, not only with a high IQ, but also with a high EQ.He guessed the truth, but he didn't ask directly, but pointed it out in a tacit way to avoid possible embarrassment.

Catherine stopped hiding and said directly: "Currently there are only ten chapters. I don't know if you have any better suggestions for the book. I want to see if it needs to be revised after getting your suggestions."

Mr. Gordon put the letter back on the desk, thought for a moment, and said calmly: "As far as this book itself is concerned, I can't make any suggestions for revision. I am a businessman, and I am far inferior to yours in terms of research and understanding of the work." excellent author, but if you don't mind, I'd like to offer some thoughts on how the book might be sold."

"I am looking forward."

"Serialization of "Return of Blood" is more suitable, but this second book, if you still use this pseudonym, I suggest publishing it directly and not serializing it."

Catherine was very surprised to hear this.

When "Blood Return" was published, Catherine had no money and no right to speak. Naturally, she hoped to cultivate readers and expand her popularity through serialization.

But there are also disadvantages in doing so. In this way, the main way to earn manuscript remuneration is manuscript fees. It is unknown whether readers who have read 90.00% of the plot in the later publication will still be willing to buy the book. If Mr. Gordon has not greatly increased the manuscript remuneration, She doesn't make much money from serials.And it's hard to say that her method of leaving ten chapters unpublished before publishing the book will attract criticism for her.

Moreover, many booksellers have privately printed "Blood Return" as books for sale.Thinking of the difficulty of combating piracy in later generations, Catherine simply wanted to defend her rights.

Her first book has been a huge success and has cultivated a loyal readership invisibly.It is in her greater interest that the second book does not use the platform of the Daily Telegraph.

But Catherine was embarrassed to make this request. After all, when she was nothing, Mr. Gordon gave her a platform to show herself, good remuneration and treatment.

Maxima often has it, but Bole does not often have it.

That's why she was so surprised now that Mr. Gordon offered it.The way she looked at each other was more like looking at a boy who gave away money.

However, despite Mr. Gordon's offer, Catherine declined his kindness after a little thought: "Thank you for your generosity, sir. But I think I would still like to serialize in your newspaper. As for the reason, if I say it is right Thank you for your appreciation, you will probably laugh at me as an emotional animal. But I haven’t thought of a suitable reason to deceive you, so it’s better to be honest, maybe you will be very moved after hearing it, and become Be more generous."

Catherine's seat was by the window. Mr. Gordon watched the gentle sunlight linger on her body through the glass window. She was smiling, and the small dimple on her right cheek was looming.

People's perceptions of people lead to different attitudes, Willard thought.If someone plots against him so openly, he will never let it go easily.

But when it was replaced by Miss Bennett, who was very pleasing to his eyes, he would think that her smile with a little smugness and calculation was a bit cute.

Willard also couldn't help laughing, with a rare sincerity in his tone: "Then we will follow your opinion."

After the two discussed for more than an hour, Catherine left with a new contract and [-] pounds of remuneration.

When their carriage drove out of sight, Willard put away his friendly and warm expression, with a careless expression on his face.

When he returned to the office, he saw Mr. Gordon sitting at the desk, flipping through the new contract.

Mr. Gordon said angrily: "Seeing that you have been waiting at the newspaper office for three days, and ignored other business, I thought you were going to send the newspaper office out. Fortunately, you still have reason."

Willard twitched the corners of his mouth, and didn't care much: "You gave me a good suggestion, I think Miss Bennett will definitely like it. If you can win her favor, it doesn't matter if you give it away. Although the income of the newspaper is good, but It's not much money."

Mr. Gordon glared at him angrily, both at the contempt in his tone and at the fact that the newspaper business was nothing compared to Willard's other income.

Catherine and Mr. Bennet hurried back to Longbourn just as it was time for dinner.

At dinner, Mrs. Bennet was about to ask what Catherine and Mr. Bennet were doing, but Mr. Collins kept talking to her, and she had to spend most of her energy talking to each other.When dinner was over, she forgot the question, and remembered only her delight at Mr. Collins's attention to Elizabeth.

Just as Catherine entered the bedroom, Elizabeth followed her through the door.

"Have you and Dad talked about the manuscript again?" Elizabeth went to the chair and sat down.

"Yes, apart from this, I have no ability to call Dad to go out."

Mr. Bennett doesn't like to go out very much, he only loves to read in the study, which can be called the British template of "keep your ears off the window and read only the books of sages".

Elizabeth hesitated, wondering if she should tell Catherine what she heard in the afternoon.

"What's the matter Lizzie?" Catherine saw her expression and joked, "couldn't it be Cousin Collins who confessed to you?"

"Kitty!" Elizabeth blushed at the rare occasion, for she was wise enough to see that Mr. Collins' amusing plan of compensation had chosen her.She was very ashamed of it, and felt embarrassed and humiliated.

"I don't want to hear his name, even half a letter."

"Okay, okay, I will never mention it again." Catherine immediately behaved well, "However, what do you want to say, you still told me about Mr. Darcy last time when you hesitated to speak."

Who would have thought that it would still be related to Mr. Darcy this time.

Elizabeth told Catherine that when she went to Meriton in the morning, she met an officer named Wickham who seemed to be an old acquaintance with Mr. Darcy.