Chapter 357 Tokyo Dance
The young man wore light-colored sunglasses and a baseball cap. This not only did not arouse suspicion by being too mysterious, but also simply concealed his appearance so as not to be recognized immediately.

He looked around for a while and found that although this hospital had access control, there were no guards and he could go in by following the person entering the door.

He quickly came to the front desk, and the nurse said something sweet in Japanese. Although he didn’t understand, he took out a business card and handed it to her without changing his expression or heartbeat, and said in English:

“My name is Wang Zhenxu, I’m a master student at the Faculty of Arts of Central University, and I want to visit Governor Ishihara.”

Although the nurse at the front desk was surprised why the international students had to speak English, she still answered very professionally in English:
“I’m very sorry, but the hospital is open for visiting from 3pm to 5pm. In addition, Governor Ishihara is not accepting visits from anyone other than family members at this time.”

“Wang Zhenxu” was not surprising. With Ishihara’s status and position, of course not everyone could see him, not to mention that he was still in the recovery period.

So he did not show a disappointed look, but calmly placed the cosmos and paper cranes on the front desk and said to the nurse: “This is a gift from Mr. Zhang Chao. Please also tell Mr. Ishihara that he hopes to visit him this afternoon.”

When the nurse at the front desk heard the name “Zhang Chao”, panic flashed in her eyes, but she quickly calmed down and said to Zhang Chao in a slightly trembling voice: “Okay, I will tell Governor Ishihara.”

“Wang Zhenxu” nodded, and suddenly said mischievously: “Miss nurse, you have to keep it a secret from others!”

The nurse seemed to be seen through and her face turned red, but “Wang Zhenxu” sounded like he was just joking and turned around and left, so she breathed a sigh of relief.

“Wang Zhenxu” certainly knew that when someone like Ishihara was hospitalized, everyone from doctors to nurses would basically be bribed by the media and political opponents, and would tip off at the slightest sign of trouble.

The nurse at the front desk is of course the main target for bribery. After all, anyone who comes to see Ishihara must register with her first.

“Wang Zhenxu’s” words were not a warning, but a reminder.

After leaving Hachioji Hospital, he took a taxi to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, which is Ishihara’s headquarters, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building is located in Shinjuku. It was built in 1988 at the peak of the bubble economy and completed in 1990 when the bubble economy began to show signs of bursting. It is 243 meters high and was the tallest building in Japan at the time. It is extremely magnificent.

The building is shaped like a Gothic church, with two tall towers on each side. It is not only the office and meeting place of the city government and city council, but is also open to tourists for visits and views.

“Wang Zhenxu” quickly found the location of the “Governor’s Office” in the floor guide in the lobby and took the elevator to the corresponding floor.

Of course, Ishihara couldn’t be in the office, but there were still staff on duty. When they saw a young man wearing sunglasses coming over, they immediately stopped him.

“Wang Zhenxu” was not panicked at all and asked in English: “Is Governor Ishihara at work?”

The staff member immediately lowered his head, his body posture became uneasy, and answered in an extremely panicked tone and extremely stiff English: “He is sick, he is in the hospital. If you have any questions, you can leave a message.”

“Wang Zhenxu” continued with a smile: “Mr. Zhang Chao asked me to pass a letter to Governor Ishihara.” After that, he took out an unsealed letter from his arms and handed it to the staff member.

When the staff heard the name “Zhang Chao”, they didn’t even dare to raise their heads and respectfully took the envelope with both hands.

“Wang Zhenxu” came close to him and whispered, “Don’t peek at the contents of the envelope… It’s very important… Very valuable…”

Before the staff could react, “Wang Zhenxu” turned and left.

The commotion here attracted attention. After all, the number of tourists visiting the Governor of Tokyo must be small, so several curious colleagues gathered around him, staring at the unsealed envelope in his hand, with unstoppable curiosity in their eyes.

The staff member suddenly straightened up, stuffed the envelope into his arms, and said seriously: “This is something the guest entrusted to me for safekeeping!” Then he went back to his office.

“Wang Zhenxu” still did not stop and took another taxi all the way to the headquarters building of Japan’s largest newspaper, The Yomiuri Shimbun.

The Yomiuri Shimbun Building is located in Otemachi, Chiyoda-ku. It is a 200-meter-high white skyscraper. Although it is not as majestic as the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, one can still feel a compelling sense of oppression when standing in front of it.

“Wang Zhenxu” muttered, “It seems that the habit of liking to build tall buildings is prevalent everywhere…”

There is a large flow of people coming in and out here. From time to time, you can see reporters carrying cameras running hurriedly, looking busy.

“Wang Zhenxu” walked straight through the lobby, came to the elevator entrance, looked at the floor, and went all the way to the editor-in-chief’s office of the Yomiuri Shimbun. There was a queue at the door, and people were coming in and out with documents from time to time. Everyone was as anxious as an ant on a hot pot, and no one even looked up at him.

A staff member in charge of reception and maintaining order came up to him and said something in a gibberish. Although he couldn’t understand what he meant, he roughly understood from the gestures that the other party wanted him to wait at the end of the line.

“Wang Zhenxu” didn’t have the time for that. He waited for someone to come out of the office, then stepped forward and joined the queue of those waiting, and handed a business card to the staff member.

When the staff member picked it up, they discovered that the person was a graduate student from the College of Arts of Central University named “Wang Zhenxu”, and not a colleague from the newspaper at all. They immediately became furious and stepped forward to grab the man, cursing “Baka”.

But “Wang Zhenxu” just turned around and glared at him, and he shrank back. After all, the other person was two heads taller than him and his shoulders were much broader. In the end, he could only watch him enter the editor-in-chief’s office.

The other colleagues in line were very surprised and asked who this person was. He could only show his business card and said viciously: “Wait until he comes out, I will make him pay! Don’t disturb Mr. Watanabe for now.”

“Wang Zhenxu” walked into the office. There was a small reception room outside. He turned inside and saw the editor-in-chief’s desk. On the desk was a nameplate with the words “Watanabe Tsuneo” written in Chinese characters.

The person sitting behind the name tag is naturally the editor-in-chief of the Yomiuri Shimbun, Watanabe Tsuneo, a white-haired, spirited old man who looks a bit like Mr. Qi Gong in his later years.

Watanabe Tsuneo was surprised to see a strange young man suddenly break into the office, but he still said calmly: “Who are you? Do you want to talk to me? Did you go to the wrong office?”

“Wang Zhenxu” still couldn’t understand Watanabe Tsuneo’s Japanese, so he took off his hat and glasses and said to Watanabe Tsuneo in English: “I’m looking for you. If your English is not good, you can find a translator.” Watanabe Tsuneo recognized the young man in front of him as Zhang Chao, a Chinese writer who has been sweeping the headlines of major newspapers and TV shows in recent days. He stood up from his chair and said in Japanese English with a heavy accent: “Welcome, I didn’t expect to see you here!”

Then he walked out from behind the desk, shook hands with him, pointed to the reception room outside and said, “Shall we talk there?”

“Wang Zhenxu” nodded.

Half an hour later, the door of the Yomiuri Shimbun’s editor-in-chief’s office finally opened, and Watanabe Tsuneo personally brought “Wang Zhenxu” out.

The people outside the office, whether they were queuing or in charge of reception, immediately bowed and saluted when they saw Watanabe Tsuneo appear, without even the courage to look up at the two of them.

The receptionist just now was so confused that his CPU was completely exhausted. He couldn’t understand why the most honorable editor-in-chief would send a young man to the door.

This is a courtesy that no one in the newspaper has ever received.

You should know that Watanabe Tsuneo, who is in his seventies, is not only the editor-in-chief of the Yomiuri Shimbun, but also the president and chief writer – but he prefers the title of “editor-in-chief”, so after being promoted to president, he has not resigned from this position and has been working in the editor-in-chief’s office.

After graduating from the Faculty of Letters of the University of Tokyo, Watanabe Tsuneo became a journalist. He has been following Japan’s political news and writing editorials for the Yomiuri Shimbun for a long time. Over the past 50 years, he has made the acquaintance of countless Japanese political bigwigs and is known as “a political journalist of a generation” and “a lifelong editor.”

To what extent does Watanabe Tsuneo have influence in the political arena with just his pen?

Just this year (2007), Watanabe even joined forces with former Prime Minister Mori Yoshiro to try to push the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the then largest opposition party, the Democratic Party, to form a grand coalition government.

For outsiders who were not staff members of the Yomiuri Shimbun, it was a rare honor to be able to enter his office; if you could talk to him for 10 minutes, you could brag about it to your friends.

As for having Watanabe Tsuneo send him to the door of his office, it was something that was only seen less than twice a year, and each time it was a very important figure.

Who is this Central University College of Arts student named “Wang Zhenxu”?
“Wang Zhenxu” didn’t care what these people outside thought. He bowed politely to Watanabe Tsuneo and then took the elevator to leave.

After all, Watanabe Tsuneo is different from Ishihara Shintaro. He has always been opposed to war and the emperor system, and has been committed to exposing Japan’s war crimes throughout his career.

After all this busy work, the clock hands have already pointed to 12 o’clock.

“Wang Zhenxu” took out his cell phone which had been on silent for the whole morning. It showed all the missed calls. There were seven or eight calls from the president’s office of Kadokawa Shoten alone, and there were also seven or eight other calls from different friends in China and Japan.

He thought on his heels, knowing what the calls were about, so he didn’t want to answer any of them.

However, he could choose not to answer the phone, but he could not skip meals. It was only then that he realized that he had never “lived independently” in Japan. Every time he came, he stayed at “Qingjiyuan”. There was always someone to receive him from beginning to end, and he never had to worry about food and drink.

Now when I look around, I don’t know what to eat for a moment.

Fortunately, Tokyo is a prosperous city, so I just strolled around and saw a Chinese restaurant called “Huo Feng Yuan”. From the sign, it said that it mainly serves Northeastern cuisine, and also has Sichuan cuisine such as Maoxuewang, so I went in.

Thinking about the scene I would face this afternoon, I gave up on eating the spicy and delicious Sichuan cuisine. I ordered a pot-fried pork, three fresh vegetables, a large mixed vegetable, and a plate of dumplings, which was considered a meal.

Just as he was enjoying his meal, the entire Tokyo media industry exploded!
First, news came from the hospital that Zhang Chao would go to Hachioji Hospital to “visit” Shintaro Ishihara this afternoon. Although Ishihara’s side had asked his family to come forward and declare that “all visits are declined”, photos of cosmos and paper cranes had already been taken from more than 10 angles by reporters from the Asahi Shimbun.

Then, an anonymous staff member of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government gave the Mainichi Shimbun a copy of a letter that was claimed to be written by Zhang Chao to Ishihara. Although the letter was written in Chinese, it was quickly translated into Japanese:
Mr. Shintaro Ishihara:

I am Zhang Chao. First of all, I wish you a speedy recovery, because I really hope to talk to you directly instead of missing you every time.

You have always called yourself a “manly man” and your works all promote “masculinity”. You even claim to be the successor of the “Bushido spirit”. I believe you also regard the literary and political arenas as battlefields, and you are happy to gallop and kill enemies there.

When Minamata disease patients knelt in front of the Ministry of the Environment, you wielded the golf club like a swordsman at the end of the Edo period; when the Japanese people called for investment in education, your gestures of budget cuts were more decisive than the Shinsengumi’s beheadings.

You scolded me with great pleasure – the only regret was that I was not in front of you and failed to arouse your stronger fighting spirit.

Now I am here, but you have fallen. If I use a Japanese allusion as an analogy, I am like Miyamoto Musashi, waiting for Sasaki Kojiro’s arrival on Ganliu Island, but the news I received was that Sasaki Kojiro’s ship capsized.

So if there is anyone in this world who is most looking forward to your recovery, it is me.

After all, whether it is beheading the enemy or being beheaded by the enemy, for the “warrior”, it is a gratifying and regret-free ending.

I wonder if I’ll have another chance to see how sharp your sword is? When you recover, I’ll come to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building to see you! How about another fight from a height overlooking the entire Tokyo?
Your most sincere blessing——Zhang Chao】

Everyone who read the letter gasped. On the one hand, it was because of the irony of Zhang Chao’s words. If Ishihara had read it, he would probably have another blood vessel burst.
On the other hand, he was also amazed at Zhang Chao’s precise grasp of people’s hearts and public opinion – he used Ishihara’s own lifelong tough attitude as a heavy hammer to hit Ishihara.

Since you call yourself a “warrior”, how can you cry out for injustice when you were beheaded by Zhang Chao in the battlefield of public opinion?
This angle is too tricky, even the media on Ishihara’s side can’t find any reason to argue with it – you can’t just allow Ishihara to curse and not allow Zhang Chao to curse his mother, right?
A debate is not a real-life PK, and Ishihara cannot say that he is old – even if you are old, you still have the advantage of experience!
Therefore, this open letter completely blocked the way of attacking Zhang Chao based on his age and illness.

The third big news is that Watanabe Tsuneo of the Yomiuri Shimbun announced that he will personally interview Zhang Chao in the near future and write a related article in his own handwriting.

The shocking degree of this news is no less than the previous two.

So by 3 o’clock in the afternoon, the entrance of Hachioji Hospital was already crowded with people, and the entire Tokyo media was boiling with excitement because of Zhang Chao’s dance!
The most confused person was Wang Zhenxu, who was busy arranging the itinerary of the Chinese Young Writers Delegation to Japan with his mentor Professor Iizuka. Suddenly, a bunch of reporters from unknown sources sent him messages and called him, hoping to get first-hand information from him, the “Zhang Chao’s agent in Japan”…

(End of this chapter)