The Japanese police would offer a low price for land, then intimidate the farmers with police force until they acquiesced. The two story lines merge as the seen cut back to Tokyo. Mr. Yang grows close with a fellow newspaper delivery boy, Tanaka, and tells them about the bleak situation in Taiwan. Twenty days after he finds the newspaper job, Mr. Yang is fired, and is turned out into the streets once again. Shortly afterwards, he receives several letters from his family in Taiwan, the second batch informing him that his mother has committed suicide so as not to be a burden to him.

     The situation seems unbearable. Suddenly, Mr. Yang's friend Tanaka comes to him in great excitement, and introduces him to Mr. Ito, a labor group leader, who helps Mr. Yang find another job. The story line accelerates at a rapid pace and ends abruptly when Mr. Yang, strongly influenced by his participation in the Japanese Labor group returns to Taiwan with visions of exposing the "ugly smell of oppressed people."

     "The Newspaper Boy" bears strong similarities to the Japanese proletarian literature of the time. One of the few differences is that in Yang's work, undercurrents of Taiwanese nationalism are present. The Japanese proletarian writers were strongly influenced by the upsurge of leftist movements of the period. Likewise, Yang Kui was probably influenced by the Taiwanese political activist described earlier. Almost by definition, proletarian literature is "committed to depicting the proletariat in a sympathetic light while painting the capitalistic in demonic colors." This certainly rings true in "The Newspaper Boy" worthy struggling workers and peasants are pitted against the choral newspaper bonds and the Japanese police. was Yang Kui's purpose the same as the Japanese proletarian writers? Many of the Japanese proletarian writers attempted to describe the "gradual awakening of the workers to the truth of the class struggle underlining their individual grievances in the advantages of unity and organizing to present a common front for their demands." while elements of this are present in Yang's "The Newspaper Boy," this work does not fit exactly within the framework of the typical Japanese proletarian literature. According to Yang Kui the masses will be awakened to the truth "truth of the class struggle" through the educated sector of society. Yang places great emphasis upon the pursuit of education, equating it with the pursuit of success. Once the story's protagonist Mr. Yang fulfills his mother's sole desire of becoming a stable "work study" student in Japan, he will be able to return to Taiwan to lead his fellow villagers out of their misery, using his newly acquired Dolly to guide him along. Yang Kui attributes his first interest in writing to a specific incident in his life:

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