Having inadvertently wielded the demonic sword, Chu Ge felt uneasy too. Suddenly, he felt as though he had become some sort of villain, and even his exchange with the publisher lost its heat.
"Hello, this is Chu Ge."
"Hello, Mr. Chu. There may have been a misunderstanding here..."
Chu Ge knew perfectly well there was no misunderstanding, but he went along and gave them a way out. "Mm-hmm... shall we find a way to resolve this now? In any case, I won't accept revisions like these. If it's too much trouble, just stop distribution altogether."
The other person replied urgently, "We can't stop."
Chu Ge asked, "Why? Is there some legal factor involved?"
"Not really." The other person hesitated, then said, "There are commercial factors."
Chu Ge understood.
So they weren't afraid of fan culture after all. They were bowing to money.
The publisher was in it to make money in the first place, not to promote culture.
At first, they had been reluctant, finding it too mercenary and wanting to revise it to make it more literary. Then they discovered that its drawing power was this terrifying, its commercial value far higher than they had imagined. How could they bear to stop?
Chu Ge sighed, with little desire to say anything more. He simply said, "Your initial print run doesn't seem to have been very large. I only saw this one set at my local bookshop. Maybe a few thousand copies altogether? Recalling and reprinting them shouldn't cost too much, should it?"
"Yes, the first printing was only five thousand copies. The loss... would be a bit." The other person continued, "But that's all right. It was our mistake, and we'll bear the cost."
"Then print it exactly as originally written. If you want to make changes, the only