Chapter 94 The Final Scream
1990 1 Month 12 Day.
The latest issue of "New Tide of Fiction" has been officially released. In the lower right corner of the cover, there is a line of small print: "The Final Chapter of 'The Cry'".
It's five in the morning, and the sky is still a wintery gray.
Early morning newsstands at major subway stations in Tokyo and convenience stores on street corners have already begun to form queues, but no one is whispering or discussing anything.
This is only the eighth day since the stock market began its collapse. The winter of the real economy may not have fully arrived yet, but the city has completely lost its former arrogance, and the air is filled with a deathly silence and panic after waking from a great dream.
Among the team was a section chief who was talking big on the golf course last week, but now had dark circles under his eyes and hadn't slept all night because of a stock market crash.
There was a housewife who had secretly taken all the household expenses to buy bargains without her husband's knowledge, and now she clutched her empty wallet, looking flustered.
And then there are those white-collar workers who once joined TV programs in vehemently criticizing Kitahara Iwao as a madman, but now find their energy drained by the repeated plunges in the Nikkei index.
The moment the newsstand's shutter door opened and stacks of "New Tide of Fiction," still smelling of fresh ink, were placed on the shelves, the crowd immediately fell silent and gathered around.
No one uttered a word of urging during this time, but everyone who reached out their hand did so with a startling eagerness.
The once thick stack of magazines was emptied within minutes in a suffocating silence.
When it came time to pay, customers who usually liked to chat with the staff were all silent.
Someone slapped a crumpled thousand-yuan bill on the cashier's counter, waited for their change, and then hurriedly turned and left.
The moment some people received the magazine, they didn't even bother to leave the store; they immediately started frantically flipping through the pages with their frozen fingers in the cold wind, skipping over the beautiful illustrations and the columns by famous authors.
The group acted in unison; they didn't bother to glance at the table of contents, but instead flipped through the pages by instinct until they reached the final chapter of "The Cry."
Beneath this shared urgency, however, lay entirely different thoughts.
Some people are loyal readers who are completely captivated by the story.
All they wanted to do was witness firsthand what fate awaited Yoko Suzuki, who was struggling in the quagmire.
How will this long and suspenseful mystery come to a shocking end?
But many others in the group had a look of bewilderment in their eyes, as if they were waking from a dream.
After experiencing the Nikkei index's terrifying, bottomless plunge over the past few days, they grabbed this magazine no longer just to read a suspense novel.
With an almost trembling feeling, they wanted to glimpse their possible fate in this prophecy that they had once ridiculed so vehemently.
This oppressive sense of dread quickly spread to every artery of the city along with the early morning commuters.
A bizarre scene unfolded inside a JR Yamanote Line train during the morning rush hour.
This crowded space, which should have been filled with wails, curses, and despair due to the recent stock market crash, was now eerily silent.
Looking around, almost every two or three people were clutching a newly purchased copy of "New Tide of Fiction" tightly in their hands.
No one was talking, and no one was complaining about the plummeting numbers.
The only sounds in the air were the rustling of fingers frantically tearing open the pages and the occasional heavy breaths that betrayed the fear in their hearts.
Following the rough pages, everyone's memories were forcibly pulled back to the previous installment half a month ago.
In the previous issue of "New Tide of Fiction," in chapters 1 to 15, Kitahara Iwa used a plain and almost emotionless style to depict in great detail the desperate trajectory of Suzuki Yoko's family being squeezed dry by the times: the father was obsessed with real estate speculation, and eventually the leverage broke, leaving behind a huge debt, abandoning his wife and daughter, and disappearing from the world, leaving his innocent wife and daughter to fall into the abyss.
Just two weeks ago, when this story was first published, the media across Japan were pointing fingers at Kitahara Iwao, denouncing it as a delusional fantasy born of envy for prosperity, and a neurotic curse from a poor, pedantic writer.
Countless self-proclaimed elite stock market investors mocked the father in the novel as a fool who didn't understand finance in izakayas.
But now?
Just half a month later, when the stock market index collapsed without warning, people holding the magazines began to tremble uncontrollably.
Because they were horrified to discover that the families depicted in the novels—families burdened with exorbitant debts due to high-leverage real estate speculation, ultimately falling apart or even driven to despair—were no longer sensational fictional stories on paper.
It has become a reality in the morning news these past few days.
Those who had been the most vocal critics were now sweating profusely as they looked at the warehouse receipts in their hands and the expensive properties they had just bought with loans, and suddenly realized something.
They themselves, at this moment, are like the foolish father in the novel who doesn't understand finance.
But if they are the fathers who created the abyss, then isn't Suzuki Yoko, who is forced to pay off her father's debts and walk step by step into hell in the novel, just like their future wife and daughter who will bear all of this for them?
With this suffocating terror, readers turned to chapters 16 through 32 with trembling fingers.
Here, the plot officially plunges into bottomless abyss.
Kitahara Iwao did not use any deliberately sentimental writing. Instead, like a cold forensic pathologist on an autopsy table, he precisely demonstrated how a vulnerable woman was legally dismembered and devoured by the entire social system after the bubble burst.
Readers watch as Yoko faces brutal workplace infighting after losing her protection.
Watching her being brainwashed step by step by a ruthless agent using extremely sophisticated empathetic rhetoric, ultimately leading her to voluntarily sign a contract to sell herself into prostitution.
Watching her reach into the underworld and the insurance fraud industry in order to repay her increasingly expensive debts.
These descriptions are so realistic they send chills down your spine.
The sense of panic even spread from the morning rush hour trains all the way to the izakayas late at night.
In that dimly lit bar in Shinjuku, the spirited clinking of glasses from the past is no longer heard.
Even a middle-aged white-collar worker with a worried look, emboldened by two glasses of cheap sake, whispered to his tablemate, "You know what? The conversation where Suzuki Yoko was trapped by the real estate agent wasn't made up."
He pointed to the copy of "New Tide of Fiction" spread out on the table and continued, "Last week, I was desperate and borrowed money from loan sharks, and then I found that what the manager told me was exactly the same as what was written in this book."
"This novel...it's practically a prophecy!"
Faced with immense real-world panic, this detective novel, which was once boycotted by the entire society, was transformed in an extremely absurd way into a survival manual for the underprivileged during a catastrophe of the times.
In a cramped corner of an izakaya, someone pulled out their notebook and copied down word for word the brainwashing tactics of unscrupulous loan sharks and the hidden traps of usury in the novel, fearing that they might end up being controlled by these loan sharks like Suzuki Yoko.
With such heavy and sorrowful feelings, countless readers across Japan, holding this magazine, turned the pages in suppressed silence to the final climax of the story.
They watched as Yoko, in order to escape the exploitation of the yakuza boss, calmly and decisively carried out a brutal counterattack during a sudden earthquake.
Watching her, like a trapped beast, making her last struggle in the quagmire of the times.
But in the subconscious of all readers, the sword of Damocles had long been hanging over their heads.
Because the novel's opening prologue already sealed the story's doom.
Everyone was convinced that this was a history of the destruction of a tragic woman driven mad by the times.
No matter how much Yoko Suzuki schemed and plotted at this moment, she could not escape the relentless wheels of time.
She was destined to die alone in a dilapidated apartment, her body devoured by stray cats, turning into a desolate speck of dust in this bubble age, forgotten and forgotten.
However, as readers numbly turned to the last two chapters of the magazine, following this immense sense of pity and despair, a thunderclap suddenly erupted from the otherwise calm text.
The texture of the text suddenly underwent a chilling transformation at this moment.
It wasn't until after Chapter 30 that the narrator's perspective, which had been critical throughout, suddenly shifted.
The word "you" abruptly changed to "I".
This seemingly minor change in wording instantly shattered everyone's psychological defenses.
Readers, with chills running down their spines, are horrified to discover a truth that overturns all their understanding: the corpse in the opening scene, gnawed beyond recognition by a wild cat—is not Suzuki Yoko at all!
The real Yoko Suzuki not only did not die, but also ruthlessly exploited the arrogance and blind spot of the whole society regarding the lonely death of marginalized people who are ignored by everyone.
She lured and murdered an unknown woman of similar size who was also ignored by society, and perfectly staged her own death scene.
While the police officers, forensic doctors, and even readers across Japan were still gazing at that gruesome corpse, lamenting the misery of lower-class women and the cruelty of the times…
The real Yoko Suzuki has long since shed her old identity, burdened with debt.
With the huge insurance money she had swindled, she changed her name and completely trampled the cold-blooded era that had tried to drain her dry. She turned around and stepped into the sunlight, ushering in a true rebirth.
As the story abruptly ended with this highly ironic conclusion, Tokyo in the real world seemed to be muted in that instant.
In countless cafes, tram carriages, and office buildings, those who finished reading the last page invariably remained frozen in place for a long time.
In countless cafes, tram carriages, and office buildings, those who finished reading the last page invariably remained frozen in place for a long time.
They seemed to have all their strength drained away, unable to shake off the lingering, terrifying feeling of reading for a long time.
As my brain started working again, an indescribable sense of dread transformed into goosebumps that erupted all the way from my arms to the back of my neck.
Immediately afterwards, this suffocating silence was completely shattered by the rising and falling heavy breathing.
"You're kidding..."
Inside a Yamanote Line car, a white-collar worker with dark circles under his eyes clutched a magazine tightly, his voice trembling uncontrollably as he said, "So that's how it is... So that's how it is!"
"We were all tricked by him! From the very first page, the prologue, the police, the forensic doctor, and us... we were all caught in Kitahara Iwao's scheme!"
In a Shinjuku café, someone abruptly slammed the pages of a book shut, oblivious to the coffee spilling from the cup beside him, muttering to himself with a look of utter disbelief.
"Using the arrogance and indifference of society as their perfect alibi...that's terrifying!"
"This is something an ordinary person couldn't possibly write!"
Accompanied by these barely suppressed exclamations, the readers' initially bland or even depressing reading memories instantly began to connect wildly in their minds.
They finally understood the extremely realistic descriptions of life at the bottom of society in Kitahara Iwao's first 15 chapters, the society's complacency with the disappearance of marginalized people, and even the arrogant misjudgments made by forensic doctors due to stereotypes...
At this moment, everything formed an extremely perfect and chilling logical loop.
At this moment, a nuclear-level shock exploded in the minds of every reader.
Yoko Suzuki was not killed by this cruel era.
Instead, she turned the tables, making this ruthless and indifferent era itself the most seamless accomplice in her perfect crime!