Chapter 218: Starlight Shines

A few days later, a new novel titled *God of Gamblers* appeared in *Novel Monthly*.

Ahem, the reason it wasn't published in *Mong Kok News* was the concern over a negative impact.

Although the gambling craze in Hong Kong was intense, putting it out in the open was still considered somewhat unrefined.

As for *Novel Monthly*, it didn't face such significant public opinion risks.

At this time, *Novel Monthly* was absolutely the most famous story-based publication in Hong Kong.

It was published twice a month, with a circulation reaching an astonishing 150,000 copies!

With *Novel Monthly* selling for ten dollars a copy, that meant a turnover of 1.5 million.

Adding in the advertisements in the margins, the turnover for a single issue reached an astonishing 3 million!

Don't think that mixing advertisements into novel pages is "low"; in fact, it was still quite novel at the time.

For example, in urban romance novels, the clothes worn by the male and female leads, as well as the jewelry they wore, could be displayed through color illustrations, giving readers a more intuitive visual experience.

At the same time, this was also a form of advertising; promoting a certain brand of clothing or jewelry had quite good results. The proportion of white-collar workers among *Novel Monthly*'s readership was not low.

Additionally, things like armor in historical novels could also be displayed through illustrations.

Not every novel could reach the standard of being adapted into a comic.

In fact, using illustrations to advertise also had quite good results.

To say nothing else, many wealthy readers liked to collect armor from the Tang Dynasty.

This provided a very valuable opportunity for relevant factories in Guanzhong on the Mainland to earn foreign exchange.

With one phone call, the relevant units on the Mainland had basically already sent over all kinds of paperwork, as well as the armor produced by the factories.

Furthermore, the characteristic of *Novel Monthly* was its thickness; the number of novel chapters inside was not small, with a length of at least 20,000 words, which allowed readers to read to their heart's content in one go.

Compared to the daily updates of *Mong Kok News*, it was not at all inferior in terms of readability.

As soon as *God of Gamblers* began serialization, it quickly attracted the attention of readers and rapidly became hot.

There is no helping it; the citizens of Hong Kong are simply too obsessed with gambling.

【Missing tag in source】

With Wu Feng personally creating the outline and controlling the plot, the story is naturally quite captivating.

The protagonist is a young man from a public housing estate who is bright enough to get into high school, but due to various factors, he drops out before graduating and remains unemployed at home.

He is almost dragged into a triad by a childhood friend, but accidentally discovers a tattered book of Feng Shui secrets in an old cabinet at home, which then kicks off his journey of counterattacking and turning his life around.

The plot quickly develops to the point where the protagonist makes his fortune through the Feng Shui secrets and then enters the world of gambling.

During this, many gambling scams are introduced, leaving readers stunned and unable to believe what they are reading.

In short, the first ten chapters are brilliant and engaging, instantly making the *God of Gamblers* novel a hit and one of the main topics of private conversation among many readers.

Seeing that things were going well, Wu Feng temporarily set aside matters here.

The beauty pageant hosted by Asia Television has already entered its final sprint stage.

At this moment, the beauty pageant program is something the entire Hong Kong is paying attention to; it is absolutely among the top attractions in terms of popularity, and it needs him to personally oversee and guide it.

The telephone voting in cooperation with the Hong Kong Telephone Company generates hundreds of thousands, or even millions, in profit almost every day, and at the same time, peripheral products like posters and postcards with voting functions have almost sold out like crazy.

Asia Television is quite shocked by such popularity.

Wu Feng, however, does not care at all, feeling that Hong Kong is just too small a place.

If this were in the Mainland, a daily telephone voting revenue of less than ten million would not even be considered up to standard.

He has witnessed the madness of the first *Happy Girls* competition, and compared to that, the current Asia Television beauty pageant is still quite far behind.

The main thing is that the number of middle school students in Hong Kong is limited, so it cannot stir up much of a splash!

There is also the diversion of fans by other famous singers, so the commotion that can be caused is naturally even smaller.

Fortunately, telephone voting, along with other voting methods like posters and postcards, is enough to keep Asia Television's peripheral revenue at around 1.5 million per day.

This does not even include the revenue from advertising sponsorships; in short, the senior management of Asia Television is grinning from ear to ear.

Even Hong Hing's gambling halls in Macau have opened betting odds based on the progress of the competition.

In short, the popularity of the beauty pageant is shockingly high!

By the time the competition reaches the top forty to top twenty stage, it is no longer suitable to keep the venue at the Asia Television studio.

Finally, a large warehouse in Kowloon Tong was selected for renovation, similar to the situation of the first *Unlimited Fighting Tournament*.

Of course, Wu Feng bought this large warehouse directly; he certainly wouldn't make it cheap for others.

At the same time, at Wu Feng's signal, the triads behind the contestants who came from nightlife venues began to exert their influence.

Their mobilization ability can only be described as average, but they certainly have the ability to cast votes for the contestants.

At the same time, inciting some wealthy people and young masters to help vote is still not a problem.

As a result, the competition from forty to twenty is quite intense.

The process of the competition is mainly the same old song and dance, which is something that cannot be helped.

Of course, if the contestants have the talent to perform sketches or stage plays, the television station would not refuse!

When the competition officially began, the thousands of seats around were all filled.

During the competition, the sounds of support and cheering were constant.

When the results of the competition were announced, the cheering and shouting almost blew the roof off the large warehouse.

The contestants who advanced to the top twenty were all full of joy, grateful that they could continue to stand in the center of the stage.

Of course, although the eliminated contestants were depressed, they were not too sad.

Next, it is time for them to reap the fruitful rewards.

Especially for the contestants from nightlife venues, after returning to their venues, their market value will at least skyrocket more than tenfold.

In the future, they will likely be the face of major nightclubs!

At this moment, they can all be considered stars, having already shed their previous status as dance misses.

Not only that, during the competition, through product promotion and peripheral development, they themselves earned profits ranging from hundreds of thousands to a million.

This money, of course, is nothing to the wealthy.

But for them, coming from ordinary backgrounds, it is definitely not a small sum.

As long as the triads behind them are not too excessive in their exploitation, their future living conditions will be greatly improved, and they might even have the chance to climb the social ladder.

There is no need to doubt it; from what Wu Feng knows, there are quite a few wealthy people pursuing these contestants.

As long as a few couples are formed, that can be considered a good deed.

Of course, contestants from ordinary families basically all sign with Asia Television.

Their starting point is much higher than that of ordinary artists, and Asia Television is naturally very welcoming.

As long as they keep improving, becoming regulars in television dramas or even television stars in the future is not something out of reach.

In fact, Hong Kong has always been relatively lacking in professional performing arts personnel.

Otherwise, it would be impossible for television dramas to be full of familiar faces for decades.

Is it that the television stations don't want to use new faces? Clearly, that is not the case.

It is that new faces cannot keep up; wanting to be an actor requires a certain amount of talent, and one must also be able to endure loneliness and slowly ponder and improve oneself.

(End of chapter)