Chapter 108 The Railwayman of Kitahara-iwa and Haruki Murakami's Tony Falls Valley

The ashtray was overflowing with cigarette butts, and the air was thick with the smell of tobacco and the bitter, burnt aroma of black coffee.

At one end of the long table, Haruki Kadokawa leaned back deeply in his leather chair.

He held a nearly burnt-out cigarette between two fingers, his gaze fixed intently on the large table.

Sitting opposite Haruki Kadokawa, Otani Shin'ei's fingers trembled slightly as he turned the last page of the original manuscript of "Tony Waterfall Valley" in front of him.

After reading the last word, he seemed completely exhausted and slumped back in his chair.

Then, Otani took a deep breath and very solemnly pushed forward the special article on Haruki Murakami that he had just finished reading, placing it side by side with the copy of "Railroad Man" that Kitahara Iwao had sent that morning in the very center of the long table.

The two original manuscripts, representing the absolute pinnacle of Japanese literature at that time, lay quietly on the table.

The meeting room remained deathly silent for a long time.

Apart from the extremely faint hum of the exhaust fan, there was only the heavy, suppressed breathing of two middle-aged men.

With a soft hiss, Haruki Kadokawa forcefully stubbed out the cigarette butt that was about to burn his fingers in the ashtray, and exhaled a long breath of stale air along with the rising smoke.

"As expected of Murakami-sensei, this work is simply outstanding!"

Haruki Kadokawa broke the silence first.

In this piece titled "Tony Falls Valley," Haruki Murakami uses his signature detached style to depict a man born into absolute solitude.

He had almost no real "connections" in his life until he met his wife.

She was a woman with an almost pathological obsession with expensive designer clothes.

She bought enough gorgeous clothes to fill an entire huge walk-in closet, each piece of which was very expensive.

Those clothes were the only umbilical cord connecting her to this material world.

Then, she died.

A sudden car accident erased her from Tony's life forever.

All that was left for Tony was a huge room filled with his belongings.

To fill the fatal void left by her loss, Tony did something utterly absurd.

He hired a female assistant with the exact same body size as his deceased wife at a high salary. Her only job requirement each day was to wear those expensive clothes and walk around that room.

It's as if as long as the clothes are still being worn, the illusory wife will still exist.

But this illusion of drinking poison to quench thirst is destined not to last long.

In the end, Tony fired his assistant and sold all his clothes.

The once crammed walk-in closet has been completely transformed into an empty room.

Tony sat alone in the empty room, sinking back into deathly silence and nothingness.

There was no redemption, no turning point, not even a sliver of light to shine through.

After reading the entire novel, all that remains is a person whose soul has been completely drained, and a black hole that can never be filled.

"Murakami-sensei has depicted the extreme emptiness of modern urban dwellers who 'have everything yet still have nothing' to a chilling degree."

Haruki Kadokawa slowly began, "In the realm of depicting 'loss,' Mr. Murakami has indeed reached an unparalleled pinnacle."

Upon hearing this, Da Gu Shen Ying let out a long breath, took off his glasses, and rubbed his brow, which was stung by the overwhelming sense of emptiness.

"I completely agree."

Otani Kami put his glasses back on, his tone filled with genuine awe and admiration as he said, "Murakami-sensei's writing has an extremely terrifying hypnotic power."

"He won't shout at the top of his lungs to tell you 'how desperate this person is,' but with an almost transparent touch, he will quietly pull you into the vacuum of that character, making you suffocate along with him."

"And this piece, 'Tony Waterfall Valley,' is undoubtedly a masterpiece worthy of being recorded in the history of Japanese literature."

After making this extremely high praise, Da Gu Shen Ying paused for a moment.

Then, he laboriously shifted his gaze from Haruki Murakami's original manuscript to the handwritten manuscript on the left side of the table.

And it has three words written on it: "Railway Man".

"But, President."

Da Gu Shen Ying pushed up his glasses, his voice suddenly becoming slightly deeper.

"If we had to choose one piece to be placed at the beginning of this special issue, as the definitive work that truly 'responds to the pains of our times'..."

Meeting Kadokawa Haruki's intensely imposing gaze, Otani Shin'ei said, "Personally, I wholeheartedly favor Kitahara-sensei's 'Railroad Man'."

Upon hearing this, Haruki Kadokawa frowned slightly.

Although he had indeed offered Kitahara Iwao a "preface to a special issue" as a bargaining chip to invite him to write an article, after reading Murakami Haruki's special feature article with his own eyes, his original firm idea was uncontrollably shaken.

In his view, the literary quality of both manuscripts had reached an impeccable peak.

His instinctive inclination towards Haruki Murakami stemmed entirely from the business acumen and risk-averse mentality of a publishing tycoon.

Haruki Murakami is, after all, a top-tier author who has dominated the Japanese literary scene for many years and controlled half of it, with countless fans.

In the publishing industry, simply having his name printed at the beginning of a magazine is an absolute "get-out-of-jail-free card" for its sales.

In comparison, although Kitahara Iwao has just won two awards and shown his talent, he still lacks the confidence that comes with years of experience compared to Murakami Haruki's extremely strong national base.

Placing a new author's manuscript right on top of Haruki Murakami's as the opening title... This kind of crazy layout, if not handled carefully, could easily draw criticism from Murakami's countless ardent readers, or even question the authority of Kadokawa Shoten.

Hearing Otani Kami's unwavering stance, Kadokawa Haruki did not respond immediately, but instead scanned the two manuscripts back and forth.

As a tycoon with both a keen sense of capital and a sharp literary intuition, Haruki Kadokawa was acutely aware of the terrifying weight of each of these two manuscripts.

Haruki Murakami's "Tony Falls" represents the extreme coldness and precision with which literature dissects the pathology of the times.

He was like a master surgeon wielding a cold scalpel, precisely cutting out the lesion called "emptiness" deep within the souls of modern people, exposing it without reservation under the operating lights.

Kitahara Iwao's "Railway Man" represents the extreme immersion and depth of literature in depicting ordinary people at the bottom of society.

Kitahara Iwa simply walked up to those crushed by the times on a snowy winter night, squatted down without a word, shielded them from the cold wind and snow, and then, in their endless despair, lit a small but life-saving charcoal fire for them.

Both are undisputed masterpieces of their time.

But even the usually decisive Haruki Kadokawa found it difficult to decide who should be placed at the beginning of the book.

He remained silent for a long time before suddenly reaching out and pressing the intercom button on the table.

"Have all the core editors of the special issue editorial department immediately put down their work and come to the highest conference room."

Haruki Kadokawa's voice left no room for argument: "Also, take these two original manuscripts on the table and make urgent copies immediately."

Ten minutes later.

The once-empty conference room was now filled with some of Kadokawa Shoten's most senior text experts.

In front of each person were two freshly bound manuscripts, still warm from the photocopying machine.

Then, the entire conference room fell into absolute silence for more than an hour.

As the reading progressed, the air was filled with extremely suppressed sobs and suffocatingly heavy sighs.

When the last editor trembled as he put down "Railroad Man," took off his glasses, and silently wiped his reddened eyes, Haruki Kadokawa finally stubbed out the umpteenth cigarette butt in the ashtray.

He raised his head, his gaze sweeping over the group of Japanese publishing elites on either side of the long table in the conference room.

"Now that you've finished watching, let's talk about it."

Haruki Kadokawa leaned back in his chair and asked in a low voice, "What do you all think?"

The editors exchanged glances, and then a middle-aged editor-in-chief, wearing silver-rimmed glasses and sitting in the middle of the long table, spoke first: "President..."

"Both of these works are worthy of being recorded in literary history, and we have no dispute about that."

He carefully considered his words, then took a deep breath and continued, "But if I had to choose one piece of writing that best represents the true feelings of the entire Japanese people at this moment in 1990..."

He glanced at his colleagues on either side and then received almost simultaneous nods.

"We voted unanimously for 'Railroad Man'."

Why?

"I think Murakami-sensei's work is also excellent!"

Upon hearing this, Haruki Kadokawa leaned back in his chair as he spoke, waiting for them to give him reasons that would convince him.

At this moment, an elderly editor with gray hair, who was sitting in the far corner of the conference room, slowly stood up.

He worked at Kadokawa Shoten for nearly thirty years and was the most senior and respected person in the entire editorial department.

He rarely speaks up at planning meetings, but now his somewhat cloudy eyes are red.

"President, let me explain why."

The old editor's voice wasn't loud and was slightly hoarse, but when he spoke, everyone in the conference room unconsciously focused their attention.

"Murakami's 'Tony Falls Valley' is indeed exquisitely written."

He paused for a moment, his tone devoid of any belittling intent, but rather displaying an extremely calm analysis.

"But what it ultimately tells is the story of a class that has the confidence to squander their wealth."

"Tony Fall Valley is a successful illustrator."

"His wife can buy a whole huge walk-in closet full of luxury clothes without batting an eye."

"Even after his wife died, he had enough money to hire a living person to impersonate his deceased wife at a high salary."

The old editor took off his reading glasses, his fingers trembling as he gripped the frames, and said, word by word, "What he lost was a room full of expensive clothes and a refined love affair belonging to the middle class."

"This sense of loss is real and profound. But in this winter where people jump off rooftops every day because of loan sharks, this pain, in the end... is just a kind of 'emptiness with limits'."

"Tony lost his clothes, but he can buy more later. He lost his wife, but he can still hire people to fill the void. His loneliness is the loneliness of a well-off man sitting in an empty room with the heating on, wallowing in self-pity."

As the old editor finished speaking, a strong sense of sorrow suddenly welled up in his eyes.

He then shifted his gaze from "Tony Falls Valley" and stared intently at another manuscript on the table.

"And what about Kitahara-sensei's 'Railroad Man'?"

What kind of person is Sato Otsumatsu?

"An old stationmaster who has worked on a remote branch line in Hokkaido for forty years."

"An ordinary worker with a meager salary, who spends his entire life silently swallowing bitterness in the snow and wind at the bottom of society."

"What did he lose? He lost his infant daughter!"

"This was not because of a natural disaster, but because he chose to stay at his dispatch post when his daughter was critically ill."

"Then he lost his wife, with whom he had shared a lifetime of love and devotion, not because of an accident, but because he had devoted all his life to the railway, and he couldn't even be there to see her one last time before she passed away!"

"And in the end, even the small station that he dedicated his life to protecting was to be abolished by this era like garbage."

The old editor's voice trembled slightly, but every word was like a knife, scraping the eardrums of everyone present with extreme clarity.

"Tony Falls Valley has a whole room full of clothes that he can now sit in and daydream."

"But Sato Otsumatsu lost everything—his family, his beloved, and his lifelong faith…and could only stand alone in the swirling snow, waiting for a daughter who would never grow up."

At this point, the senior editor paused for two seconds, then posed the soul-searching question that plunged the entire conference room into absolute silence: "President, how many Tony Waterfall Valleys are there in Japan today?"

"How many more...Sato Otsumatsu have been abandoned by the times?!"

"In this harsh winter when the 'lifetime employment system' is gradually crumbling, and when countless middle-aged people are being ruthlessly laid off by companies like waste paper... Murakami's description of the refined emptiness of the middle class is not bad, but it is far removed from the people on the streets of Japan who are truly struggling to survive."

"And Kitahara-sensei's pen..."

The old editor put his reading glasses back on, a single, cloudy tear sliding down his cheek. "It transformed directly into a knife, ruthlessly ripping open the nation's most painful Achilles' heel!"

After the old editor finished speaking, he seemed to have exhausted all his strength and slowly sat back down.

The huge conference room was deathly silent; you could hear a pin drop.

Haruki Kadokawa leaned back in his chair, staring at the two manuscripts side by side on the table for a long time without saying a word.

But his fingers, which were resting on the armrest, were trembling very slightly.

In the midst of this heavy, suffocating silence, Da Gu Shen Ying took a deep breath and continued the conversation.

Instead of evaluating the literary techniques of the two works, he focused his attention precisely on the most fatal endings of the two stories, like a scalpel.

"Aside from the differences in subject matter and class, the real deciding factor between these two novels lies in their endings."

As he spoke, Otani Shin'ei flipped through Haruki Murakami's manuscript and stopped at the last page.

"What was the ending for Murakami-sensei? Tony fired his assistant, sold all his belongings, and left that huge room empty again."

"Then, he sat inside alone and sank back into the absolute solitude he was born with."

"And the story ends in this suffocating absolute nothingness."

"There is no way out, no hope, and no glimmer of light to grasp."

After saying this, Otani Shin'ei closed Murakami's manuscript and then placed his hand very solemnly on Kitahara Iwao's "Railroad Man".

"And what became of Kitahara-sensei?"

Da Gu Shen Ying's voice suddenly became very soft, as if afraid of disturbing the heavy snow on the paper.

"It's New Year's Eve again. It's the same person who has lost everything, facing the boundless cold alone."

"But amidst the swirling snow, a girl in a red coat walked towards him with a smile."

"She cooked a hot New Year's Eve dinner for the old stationmaster. She sat across from him, quietly eating the meal with him like an ordinary daughter."

"And this girl was his own flesh and blood who died in his infancy. She was the most beautiful form he would have been if she were still alive and had grown to be seventeen years old."

When Da Gu Shen Ying finished speaking, his voice was extremely hoarse, but he struggled to keep his tone from trembling.

"Faced with this desperate era, Murakami gave his protagonist an empty room."

"And Kitahara-sensei gave his protagonist a miracle."

A long and oppressive silence fell over the conference room.

The elderly editor with gray hair silently took off his reading glasses, folded them neatly, and placed them on the table.

His gaze lingered on the edge of the manuscript for a long time, without uttering a word, as if he were digesting something extremely heavy.

None of the other senior editors on either side of the long table responded.

Someone picked up their long-cold black coffee and took a sip as a cover-up.

Some people tilted their heads slightly, staring blankly at the ventilation fan on the ceiling.

At this moment, the heavy feeling that went straight to the soul pressed down on everyone's shoulders like a lead weight.

Looking at these publishing veterans in the conference room—people who were usually so meticulous with their words and sharp incisive, yet now collectively rendered speechless by a 12,000-word novel—Da Gu Shen Ying took a deep breath and began to speak:

"In this harsh winter of bursting bubbles and collapsing faith, Murakami's words tell readers—what you have lost will never come back."

"But Kitahara-sensei's words are telling the entire nation..."

Even if you are ruthlessly abandoned by this era, even if you lose everything, in some corner of this world... there is still someone who loves you with their soul.

"President, this is the sentence that Japan needs to hear most right now."

After he finished speaking, the conference room fell into a long silence.

Finally, Haruki Kadokawa made a move.

He reached out and slowly pushed Kitahara Iwao's manuscript of "Railway Man" to the very center of the long table.

Then, I picked up Haruki Murakami's "Tony Falls Valley" and gently placed it in its subordinate position.

The opening chapter, "Railway Man".

Following closely behind was *Tony Falls Valley*.

Haruki Kadokawa raised his head, glanced around at everyone in the conference room, and then said, "It's settled then."

Then, Haruki Kadokawa abruptly stood up from his leather chair, slamming his hands on the table with an imposing air, and issued the top order: "Immediately release word and begin pre-launch promotion across all channels!"

"All submission channels for the special issue are now closed. The entire layout must be redone."

"Our Kadokawa Shoten's special literary issue, 'Heisei Winter: Responding to the Times,' will be officially released in five days."

"The first story at the beginning, Kitahara Iwao, 'Railway Man'!"

"The second piece to seal the deal: Haruki Murakami's *Tony Falls*!"