Barry looked up, his expression somewhere between confusion and amusement. "Are you serious?"
Christopher did not smile. "I don't know. I don't care whether it's real or made up. What I care about is that it makes people believe it's real."
"I've only seen that kind of persuasive power once or twice in all these years."
"When you were reading those passages just now, was there a moment when you felt that, if you were standing in King's Cross Station, running into that wall would make sense?"
Barry opened his mouth, but in the end, he did not say no.
"All right," Barry finally said. "Suppose I'm willing to sign him. What terms do you want for him?"
Christopher had clearly thought this through long ago. He sat up straight and counted the points off on his fingers.
"First, an advance of no less than ten thousand pounds."
Barry drew in a sharp breath.
That was no small sum even for an established author. For a newcomer who had not even left a phone number, it said more than enough about Christopher's determination.
"Are you serious?"
"I'm serious," Christopher said. "This book's potential extends beyond Great Britain. Did you read those descriptions of the magical world?"
"Those things have no borders. A child in Tokyo reading about owls delivering letters will react just like a child in New York."
"This book will sell all over the world, Barry. I'll stand by that."
Barry rubbed the back of his neck and sank a little deeper into his chair. His instincts as an editor made him take half a minute to cool down before responding to any news.
Christopher did not wait for his reaction. He raised a second finger.
"Second, escalating royalties. Twelve percent on the first five thousand copies, fifteen percent on the next ten thousand, and eighteen percent after that."
"That's too high, Chris. New authors don't get those rates-"
"Third," Christopher continued without letting him finish, "you need to assign him a dedicated editor, not someone juggling five or six projects."
"The prose in this book is very clean, but some British wording may need adjusting. I don't want it changed beyond recognition."
Barry folded his arms and leaned back, making the chair creak.
"Have you already signed for him? You're not the man himself."
"Right now, I am," Christopher said. "He left a phantom address, without even a phone number. I have no way to ask whether he agrees."
"But my judgment is that, since he had the manuscript appear on my desk, he trusts my judgment. And my judgment is that this book shouldn't be treated casually."
Barry was silent for a long time. He lowered his head and leafed through the manuscript again.
After a moment, he said, "Ten thousand pounds in advance. Ten percent on the first five thousand copies, with the subsequent tiers following standard market practice."
"But if the rest of the manuscript maintains this quality, I can raise those tiers by two percentage points."
"Deal," Christopher said without hesitation. He offered his right hand, and Barry shook it.
"One more condition." Barry released his hand, opened a drawer, and took out a standard publishing contract.
"You'd better help me get in touch with this Mr. Allen Vane. Have him give me some way to contact him before publication, even if it's just a public mailbox."
"Otherwise, if he disappears once it's printed and there's no one to collect the royalties, I won't be able to balance the books."
Christopher gave a wry smile.
"I'll do my best. But honestly, I suspect he'll be harder to find than we imagine."
"Why?"
"Instinct," Christopher said.
Barry looked at him for a few seconds, then pushed the contract over. "Sign on his behalf for now. We'll sort out his signature when he turns up."
Christopher took the fountain pen and wrote "Christopher Little, on behalf of Allen Vane" on the signature line in neat, clear handwriting.
Barry stared at the cover for quite a while. "Chris, do you think this book will be a hit?"
"It's not a matter of thinking." Christopher stood and straightened his coat collar. "It will be."
"You're that certain?"
"Those terms I just gave you? One day, you'll be certain you got a bargain."
Barry smiled and shook his head. "That confidence of yours hasn't changed in over a decade."
By the time Christopher returned to his office, his assistant was already there.
The young woman hurried to her feet when she saw him come in. "Sir, that address you asked me to look into..."
Christopher took off his coat and hung it on the coat stand. "Any results?"
"I checked the registered street directories for all of Great Britain. Baker Street does exist in London, but I couldn't find anything definite for number thirteen."
Christopher did not look particularly surprised.
He walked over to his desk and sat down. "Keep watching for any letters or parcels sent under the name Allen Vane."
"Of course. There's one more thing." His assistant handed him a note. "Someone called for you while you were out."
"He said he was from the printing company and asked whether you wanted another print run of that batch of school novels you sent last week. I told him you were out, and he asked me to leave a message-"
"Turn it down." Christopher waved a hand. "I'm not taking on school novels anymore."
His assistant froze for a moment. "Sir?"
Christopher leaned back in his chair, laced his hands behind his head, and looked at the ceiling with a rare, relaxed smile.
"From now on, I'm only taking one kind of book."
"What kind?"
"The kind I can't help reading late into the night."
What he did not know was that Allen Vane had just woken up, and the system chimed in his mind:
[Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Part One) has received extremely high praise from its first professional reader-literary agent Christopher Little. A publishing contract has also been successfully signed.]
Allen rubbed his eyes and shot upright in bed.
"Wait, it's signed? Who signed it? I wasn't even there. Who signed for me?"
[The system completed the signing process on your behalf. Current royalty terms: an advance of ten thousand pounds, ten percent royalties on the first five thousand copies, with escalating tiers thereafter.]
Allen counted on his fingers, working out what ten thousand pounds meant in 1991.
He had spent all ten days since transmigrating here rushing to finish his manuscript and knew little about prices, but renting this shabby room cost only ten pounds a week, and food cost less than two pounds a day.
By that calculation, ten thousand would keep him going for years.
"System," he said with a grin, "you can even sign contracts for me?"
[The system performs agency functions only within an explicitly authorized legal framework. You signed all authorization agreements on the day of your transmigration.]
"I did?" Allen tried hard to remember. His memories of the day he transmigrated were indeed a little hazy.
He had just woken up when the system displayed a pile of terms and told him to "click confirm," so he had clicked while still groggy.
"...All right, at least I'm not losing out. Ten thousand! Back in my old world, I wrote webnovels for three years and only earned four thousand yuan in total."
He flopped backward onto his pillow and stared blankly at the cracks in the ceiling.
"But what was that literary agent called again... Christopher? How did he react after reading the manuscript? Did it shock him?"
"Whatever. I've still got a little money on hand, so I'll go out for a good meal first!"
He sprang out of bed and headed out eagerly in search of food.
Meanwhile, Christopher stopped at a bookshop on his way home.
Standing before the children's literature shelves, he pulled out a few of the season's fantasy novels at random and flipped through them, putting each back after two pages.
Reading those words felt like looking through a pane of glass: clear, but without any warmth.
He pushed the book back onto the shelf and turned to leave, with only one thought in his mind: Barry said three months at the earliest today. I need to find a way to shorten that.
He took out his pocket watch, glanced at it, and decided to visit Bloomsbury again the next morning.
He had a feeling Barry would be unable to sleep that night too.
Sure enough, Christopher's telephone rang before eight the following morning.
He had just taken his first sip of black tea. On the other end, Barry's voice carried an irrepressible excitement that made it particularly amusing to hear:
"Christopher, I couldn't help taking the manuscript home last night. My daughter's twelve, and she actually hid under her blankets reading it with a torch until two in the morning."
"At breakfast this morning, she pushed her bowl toward me and asked, Daddy, can you bring the rest of the manuscript home early?"
The office fell quiet for a moment. Across the telephone line, both older men suddenly went silent.
It was a tremor of unspoken understanding. They both knew what it meant for a twelve-year-old child to say those words.
"Barry," Christopher broke the silence, "you promised me you'd have your fastest printer handle the typesetting."
"I'll arrange it this morning and lead the editorial team myself. I've scheduled the cover design meeting for this afternoon. The artist is the one who did concept sketches for His Dark Materials."
"Good."
"Also..." Barry hesitated for a second, lowering his voice a little. "I dreamed about that Platform Nine and Three-Quarters last night. I was actually looking for the pillar!"
"You know, I'm already fifty-two."
Christopher finally laughed aloud. "That's the charm of the Wizarding World, Barry."
"Oh, give it a rest." Barry hung up irritably, but before he did, Christopher heard him mutter:
"Merlin, which side was that pillar on again..."