Chapter 116 The Power of the Ring

The following morning.

A specialist from Shinchosha drove to Minato Ward, respectfully retrieved the astonishingly thick "mountain of paper," and carried it directly into Editor-in-Chief Sato's office.

Looking at the three large stacks of manuscripts on the table, still smelling of fresh ink, Kenichi Sato paused for a moment, then quickly grabbed the walkie-talkie and gave orders to his secretary outside the door: "Cancel all internal meetings today, and also cancel all dinners tonight."

"From now on, no matter what happens, no one is allowed to knock on my door."

After putting down the walkie-talkie, Kenichi Sato walked over and, with a crisp click, closed the office door.

Then the sky outside the window changed from bright to dusk, and then from darkness into complete silence.

Before we knew it, it was 4:17 a.m. the next day.

Shinchosha, Editor-in-Chief's Office.

The entire floor was deserted, except for a dim table lamp that was still lit in this room.

Kenichi Sato sat at his desk, with a manuscript stacked on Shinchosha’s special manuscript paper spread out in front of him—the complete original manuscripts of the three sequels to The Ring.

He has been reading for nearly sixteen hours since he officially opened the title page yesterday at noon.

The ashtray on the table was crammed with twisted cigarette butts, and the thermos next to it had long since dried up, but he hadn't even bothered to drink a drop of water, let alone eat dinner.

During those long and suffocating sixteen hours, his back was soaked with cold sweat at least three times.

Each time, it happens at a different juncture.

The first time was when I opened the second book, "Spiral".

Before even reading it, Kenichi Sato, a senior editor, already had a clear expectation of a sequel.

The first book already set the "death in seven days" videotape curse at the pinnacle of supernatural fiction, so the sequel is nothing more than the usual formula of the main characters searching for a way to break the curse and investigating Sadako's background.

Japanese horror literature has been using the same formula for decades.

But when he turned the first three chapters of the second volume, "The Spiral," his fingers gripping the manuscript suddenly froze.

Kitahara Iwa ruthlessly abandoned the supernatural route that his previous work had painstakingly established.

From the moment forensic pathologist Ando dissected Ryuji Takayama's body and discovered a mutated sarcoma in the victim's stomach that resembled a code, the cursed videotape that made viewers across Japan afraid to watch it alone was deconstructed in an extremely cold way.

It is not some supernatural vengeful spirit power at all.

It is a virus. A DNA sequence combining the smallpox virus and Sadako's grudge, it invades the human optic nerve by using the flickering light and shadow of a television screen as a visual signal, forcibly rewrites the host's genes, and ultimately causes the aortic aneurysm to rupture and lead to death.

What really gave Kenichi Sato goosebumps was the way Sadako was "resurrected" in this sequel.

She did not become a wandering ghost like in traditional ghost stories.

Instead, through the uterus of Takayama Ryuji's student, Takano Mai, a perfect physical replication and reproduction was carried out using human DNA infected by the virus.

An adult Sadako was forcibly regenerated in the womb of a living woman, growing back into the form of a fetus within just a few days.

At the end of the second part, Kitahara Iwao throws out a "meta-narrative" trap that completely subverts the reading experience. Since the videotape is a carrier of the virus, then Ando's "investigation report" about Sadako, which he wrote in order to save humanity, is itself a new medium for the spread of the virus!

Everyone who has read this book has been infected.

When Kenichi Sato read this part, his back was soaked with cold sweat for the first time.

This is no longer a horror novel.

This is a profound horror wrapped in the language of rigorous biology and pathology, which shakes people's cognition to its very core.

It was as if the original manuscript he held in his hand was a deadly poison that would cause his genes to mutate.

He lit a cigarette with trembling hands, trying to use the spiciness of nicotine to suppress the churning discomfort in his stomach.

Then, he turned to the third volume.

"ring".

If the second movie gave him a cold sweat, then the third movie completely shattered his worldview.

The seemingly normal modern world in which the protagonist, Kaoru Futami, lives is being ravaged by a terminal illness called "metastatic human cancer virus".

He eventually discovered a supercomputer project codenamed "Ring"—a joint effort between Japan and the United States designed to simulate the evolution of life.

In this film, Kitahara Iwao reveals a cruel and despairing ultimate truth: the world in the first two films, filled with the curse of the videotapes, the fear of Sadako, and the seven-day countdown to death, is fake.

That was just a virtual simulation program running on a network of one hundred supercomputers!

All the characters, all the fears, Ando's struggles, and Takayama Ryuji's death in the first two parts are merely byproducts of data evolving according to a preset algorithm within this massive computer.

Sadako's curse, on the other hand, is a supercomputer virus that transcends the boundaries between the virtual and the real.

It followed the DNA data sequence, spreading from inside the program to the outside.

It transformed from a fictional virtual world into a terminal illness in the real world.

The moment Kenichi Sato read this plot twist, a clear shattering sound echoed in his mind.

This was the sound of his more than 20 years of reading experience and literary understanding being instantly crushed into dust.

From supernatural tales to biohorror to hard science fiction.

Three works, three incredible genre leaps, each ruthlessly overturning the common sense of the previous one.

When you think you're reading a ghost story, it turns into a virus horror; when you accept the virus premise, it transforms into a science fiction allegory about virtual reality, the creator, and existentialism.

This layered narrative structure instilled in Kenichi Sato a fear even deeper than that of facing a vengeful ghost.

A sense of existential weightlessness, wondering if the world I live in is just a collection of observed data.

With this deep-seated dizziness, Kenichi Sato turned to the last book.

"Birthday".

This is a collection of short stories intended as a supplement.

After constructing a grand framework spanning three major fields, Kitahara Iwao cruelly brought the perspective back to the most primitive starting point in the end.

That well.

That dark, sunless, dry well with its cover completely sealed off.

Kitahara Iwao used a cold, hard style, almost devoid of any rhetoric, to depict Sadako's deepest tragedy.

She not only possesses rare intersex characteristics and superpowers, but also an almost monstrous longevity.

She did not die immediately after being pushed into the dry well by her father.

In absolute darkness, she survived by eating moss and insects on the well walls.

She painstakingly dug her fingers into the slippery bricks, trying to climb out. Her fingernails peeled off piece by piece against the rough stone wall, her fingertips worn down to reveal the white bone, leaving dark red streaks of blood on the well wall.

The small circular patch of sky above the wellhead changes from day to night, and then from night to day again.

One day, two days... three months... five years...

Driven by her hatred for the living, this monstrous girl survived for thirty years in the narrow, cramped bottom of the well.

He died in despair a year or two before the events of the first film.

By the time Kenichi Sato finished reading the last word, it was already dawn.

The winter morning light shone through the gaps in the blinds onto his face, which was covered in cold sweat and smoke.

He slowly placed the last page of the manuscript back on the table, leaned back in his chair like a dehydrated person, and stared intently at the ceiling.

His hands are still shaking.

This was not simply because of fear, but because in eight hours, I experienced a complete dismantling and reconstruction of my cognition and soul.

Kenichi Sato pulled the last cigarette from the emptied cigarette box.

My fingers were shaking so badly I couldn't even press the lighter properly. It took me three tries to finally get a tiny flame out.

He then took a deep breath and exhaled a thick cloud of smoke.

Then, he grabbed the phone on his desk and dialed the number for Kitahara Iwa Apartment.

The phone rang twice before being answered.

"I am Kitahara..."

Kitahara Iwa's voice carried a hint of morning laziness, and the sound of a kettle boiling could be faintly heard in the background.

"Teacher Kitahara."

Kenichi Sato's voice was hoarse, revealing both exhaustion from staying up all night and barely suppressed excitement as he said, "I've read through the entire manuscript."

"This trilogy... will absolutely blow up the entire Japanese publishing industry, no, the entire Japanese society's understanding. It's written so brilliantly."

A soft chuckle came from the other end of the phone.

"Judging from that voice, Editor-in-Chief Sato didn't sleep a wink last night?"

Kitahara Iwa didn't follow the praise and boast, but instead said with a hint of familiar teasing, "Take care of your health, the layout and printing will need your supervision from now on."

"Just to see a manuscript of this caliber, I'd gladly give up a few years of my life!"

Kenichi Sato quickly shifted to the editor-in-chief's business perspective, speaking at a faster pace: "However, I'd like to hear your opinion on the sales strategy."

"These three parts are so massive in scale and information that every plot twist is extremely fatal. My suggestion is to release them separately."

"Release one unit every two or three months. This will not only maximize profits, but also keep the suspense and market buzz going for a whole year."

A soft sound came from the other end of the phone: a porcelain cup touching the table.

Standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows of his apartment in the port area, Kitahara Iwa took a sip of water, looked at the rising sun outside, and said in a gentle tone, "Let's go together, Editor-in-Chief Sato."

"Publishing content in a piecemeal fashion is a sure way to make money, but it's just too boring."

"However, from a business and marketing perspective, the scale of these three parts..."

"Editor-in-Chief Sato".

Kitahara Iwa interrupted him, not issuing a forceful order, but instead asking with a slight smile, "Did you stop to catch your breath while reading these three books last night?"

Kenichi Sato was stunned for a moment.

"The joy of this work lies in the sense of despair that unfolds layer by layer, like peeling an onion."

"If there's a break of a few months, readers will have enough time to digest the plot and adapt to those subversive settings. Once they have a chance to breathe, the tension will dissipate."

Kitahara Iwao's tone remained calm as he explained his creative logic: "The essence of this trilogy is a domino effect that constantly overturns common sense. The worst thing you can do is leave the reader room to maneuver."

"We must smash all three books down at once. On the very night they accept the vengeful spirit's premise, they'll be forced to confront the panic of the virus, and then discover before dawn that even this world is just a piece of code."

"Only by reading this series of books in one go without leaving any room for retreat can the reading experience of this series be considered to have truly completed its cycle."

Upon hearing this, Kenichi Sato fell into a long silence.

From a publisher's perspective, giving up the benefits of long-term sales certainly goes against common business sense.

But as the first reader who had just stayed up all night and witnessed that series of upheavals, he knew better than anyone that Kitahara Iwa was right.

In Kitahara Iwa's eyes, the excess royalties from serialization are far less than the integrity of the work's structure itself.

Moreover, Kitahara Iwao doesn't need the slow and steady commercial hype now; he only wants the purest and most lethal textual impact.

Faced with the stubbornness and confidence of a top writer, those arguments about profit margins and marketing cycles instantly become as light as a feather.

Sato Kenichi opened his mouth, but ultimately swallowed back all the platitudes he was going to use to dissuade him.

"I see."

Kenichi Sato conceded with a wry smile, but the fervor in his eyes was completely ignited: "Then let's do as you say, all three volumes will be released simultaneously. This is absolutely an unprecedented act of madness in the history of Japanese publishing."

He paused, then posed one last question: "Since it's a simultaneous release of three volumes, to ensure wide distribution... what do you think of an initial print run of 500,000 copies?"

"Can."

Kitahara Iwa nodded slightly.

After receiving this brief confirmation, the call ended.

Hearing the dial tone from the receiver, Kenjiro Sato stubbed out his half-smoked cigarette heavily in the ashtray full of cigarette butts.

The merchant's mercenary nature faded from his eyes, leaving only a terrifying frenzy that was about to unleash a tsunami.

He took a deep breath, picked up the phone again, and pressed the internal line to the head of the printing department.

"I am Sato."

Kenichi Sato's voice was hoarse, as if it had been sanded on sandpaper, but it carried an undeniable madness.

"Preparing to take on the layout of a new manuscript. It's a trilogy, titled 'Spiral,' 'Ring,' and 'Birthday.'"

"First printing...500,000 copies."

There was a two-second silence on the other end of the phone, followed by a loud gasp.

"Editor-in-Chief Sato, are you kidding me? Half a million copies for the first print run?!"

The person in charge's voice instantly rose eight octaves, his tone full of anxious dissuasion: "Editor-in-chief, I know that our publishing house has indeed made a fortune recently thanks to Mr. Kitahara's 'The Cry,' and we have plenty of cash flow on the books."

"But you know the current economic climate; countless bookstores are closing down. You're going to invest 500,000 copies in a new book you've never even heard of, 'Spiral'?"

"That's too risky!"

"If sales collapse in the first week and we're stuck with unsold inventory, our entire printing department will be held accountable!"

"If I say 500,000, then it's 500,000."

Kenichi Sato stubbed out his cigarette heavily in the ashtray full of cigarette butts, interrupting the other man's venting. His bloodshot eyes flashed with a terrifying fanaticism as he said, "Because this is Kitahara Iwao's new book."

"The Spiral, The Ring, and Birthday are the complete trilogy following The Ring."

"Teacher Kitahara just submitted the manuscript the night before last."

As Kenichi Sato finished speaking, the complaints on the other end of the phone abruptly stopped.

When the head of the printing department spoke again, the meticulous and cautious attitude he had just displayed had vanished into thin air.

Instead, a barely audible mix of excitement and frustration filled the air: "My God... Editor-in-Chief Sato, why didn't you tell me sooner that this was such a critical matter?!"

The person in charge was so excited that he slapped his thigh repeatedly, saying, "If it's Kitahara-sensei's manuscript, and it's the sequel to 'Ring,' which scared the whole of Japan so much they were afraid to watch TV... isn't an initial print run of 500,000 copies a bit too conservative?!"

The other person swallowed hard, like an envious gambler, and made an even more outrageous suggestion: "Editor-in-Chief Sato, how about 600,000 copies?!"

"I immediately had all the other second-tier writers' schedules canceled to make way for it!"

"All four Heidelberg production lines in our factory are running at full capacity, with workers working in three shifts around the clock!"

Upon hearing this, Kenichi Sato's chapped lips finally curved into a smile. He abruptly stood up from his chair and issued the final, all-out order into the microphone: "Then six hundred thousand copies!"

"Start production overnight! I want this book series to be flooded into every bookstore in Japan as quickly as possible!"

After hanging up the phone, Kenichi Sato straightened the manuscript, then picked it up with both hands as if it were a bomb that could explode at any moment, and carefully placed it into the bottom drawer of his desk.

With a click, the lock clicked shut, and Kenichi Sato tucked the brass key into the inside pocket of his suit jacket.

Then, feeling utterly exhausted, she leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes.

What lingers in my mind is still the endless darkness at the bottom of the dry well, and the pair of fingers that had dug into the stone wall until the white bones were exposed.

At this moment, in Sato Ken's eyes, Kitahara Iwa's mind was not filled with ghost stories at all.

It was a single blow that could drag all of Japan's understanding into an abyss of utter devastation.

Two weeks later.

To coincide with the massive launch of 600,000 copies, Shinchosha's marketing department allocated a promotional budget comparable to that of the "Scream" campaign in the company's history.

Instead of printing any conventional posters or buying a single celebrity endorsement, they orchestrated a psychological siege that left all of Japan with nowhere to escape.

The pre-release hype began at 11:59 PM, three days before the release date.

Ten seconds before midnight, the late-night programming on major commercial television stations across Japan was suddenly cut off without warning.

There were no narration or dialogue. All that remained on the screen was a flurry of black and white static, accompanied by a grating hissing sound.

Immediately afterwards, an extremely sharp and abrupt retro telephone ringtone rang out simultaneously in millions of television sets across Japan.

The phone rang only three times before the screen instantly went completely black.

In the center of the screen, a line of cold, white text appeared: [The curse has completed its mutation.]

That night, countless people watching TV late at night were so startled by the sudden five seconds that they jumped off their sofas.

Before they could even react, the customer service hotlines of major TV stations were already overwhelmed with panicked inquiries.

And this is just the beginning.

Two days before the release date, at 7:00 AM.

Millions of Tokyo commuters embarking on their morning rush hour commute were stunned the moment they squeezed into the Yamanote Line train car.

The colorful gossip magazines and merchandise tags that usually fill the ceiling of the carriage are all gone today.

The entire train carriage, with hundreds and thousands of tags, was uniformly replaced with hard, black coated paper.

The overwhelming darkness overhead instantly added a suffocating sense of confinement to the already crowded carriage.

Not just trams.

When they opened the Yomiuri Shimbun and Asahi Shimbun, the two newspapers with the largest circulation in Japan, they discovered that Shinchosha had directly bought out the most expensive full-page back cover.

An entire page of pure black, with only one line of tiny white lead type, as if carved by a knife, in the very center of the boundless, deep black:

"Do you think burning that videotape is the end of it?"

The signature was only a single, extremely restrained line: Kitahara Iwao's sequel trilogy to "The Ring," to be released in two days.

This is the tactic employed by Shincho-sha's top marketing team.

Without a single superfluous word, it used hundreds of millions of yen to create an "information black hole" that spans television, transportation, and print media.

It is precisely this extreme use of white space and eerie sense of oppression that creates a psychological impact more terrifying than any bombardment.

Because that sentence in the newspaper was itself a vicious curse.

It sent a chill down the spine of every reader who had experienced the first "Ring" movie the moment they saw these words.

The videotape was burned, but Sadako didn't die.

The fears that once made them tremble under the covers have never ended.

Today, it has mutated.

Release date.

That morning, the scene outside bookstores across Japan shocked and amazed everyone in the publishing industry.

The long queues were no less impressive than on the day the "Scream" manga was released.

But the faces of the crowd no longer held the solemnity of a pilgrimage, but rather a contradictory, almost self-destructive fervor.

They knew perfectly well that after buying these books, they would be tormented by the curse of the dry well for the next few weeks, unable to sleep at night.

They knew perfectly well that after reading it, they might lose even the courage to go to the bathroom alone late at night.

But they still came, like moths to a flame.

Among the queue, a middle-aged man with bloodshot eyes and a slightly worn suit said something incredibly poignant to his companion: "Layoff notices and bank collection letters in real life are so torturous. That kind of pain is slow, like poison gas seeping in through the cracks in the door every day; you can't escape it."

He glanced at his watch, stared at the bookstore's still-closed shutter door, and muttered to himself, "But Kitahara-sensei's novels are different. That kind of fear is intense, one-time, like riding a roller coaster; it always comes crashing down after reaching its peak."

"I'd rather be scared out of my wits by Sadako tonight than not be able to forget the despair of having to go to the occupational safety and health center to look for a job tomorrow."

This was Japan in the early 1990s. Faced with the reality of the bursting bubble and the slow, painful process, extreme virtual fear became the most potent form of psychological anesthetic.

Kitahara Iwao had accurately predicted this when he finished writing these three sequels.

In this era of widespread faith collapse, people need more than just the gentle redemption found in films like "Railroad Man," where tears are caught and redeemed.

What is needed is a pure, mind-blowing stimulus to forcefully cover up the ubiquitous, chronically suffocating despair in daily life.

As a result, the first printing of 600,000 copies, which Shinchosha had bet on, sold out completely at 3 p.m. on the day of release.

Late that night.

Hundreds of thousands of readers across Japan who managed to snag a copy of the first edition simultaneously opened the three physical books with their black covers, whether under a desk lamp, in bed, or in a dimly lit shared apartment.

Soon, the first wave of deep-seated fear began to erupt in countless lit rooms.

When they read the second book, "Spiral," and discovered that Sadako's curse was not supernatural at all, but a biological virus that could forcibly rewrite human DNA and even "physically resurrect" people through the wombs of living people, their traditional immunity to ghosts and monsters instantly failed.

In a cramped studio apartment in Tokyo, a male college student's hand trembled violently when he read the statement in a book that "people who read this report can also be infected with the virus," causing the heavy book to fall directly onto the tatami mat.

His face was deathly pale as he stared intently at the manuscript lying on the floor. Even though the room was heated, he felt an indescribable chill creeping up his optic nerve and into his brain.

This is no longer about being afraid of ghosts; it's a physiological panic about the silent invasion of one's own genes.

And when those readers who had weathered the fear of the virus and then turned to the third book, "Ring," discovered that the terrifying world that had kept them on edge for countless days and nights in the first two books was actually just a virtual program simulated by a hundred supercomputers...

Countless people's worldviews collapsed in the dead of night.

A housewife who regularly reads suspense novels sat on the living room sofa. When she read the part about the virus breaking through the dimensional barrier and invading reality, she slowly raised her head and looked at the wall and clock in her living room.

She suddenly felt a strong sense of weightlessness and dizziness—if the world in the book is a piece of code, then what about my world now?

This profound existential dread kept thousands of readers awake in the dark until dawn, after they had closed the book.

These three sequels have not only shocked ordinary readers.

The day after its release, the entire Japanese literary world, especially the suspense and science fiction genre, fell into a deathly silence and despair.

The first to break down were the traditional horror novelists.

In an era when even flip phones were not yet widespread, Kitahara Iwa ruthlessly smashed and fused highly forward-thinking hard science fiction concepts such as "computer viruses," "virtual reality simulations," and "gene cloning and reproduction" into the shell of folklore and ghost stories.

A veteran thriller author who had topped the bestseller list for three consecutive years quietly went to his desk after staying up all night to finish reading "The Ring".

He looked at the draft of his new book, which he had just written 100,000 words of and was still struggling with "how the ghost in the old school building should kill people," and suddenly found it extremely ridiculous.

Then he sighed and swept the manuscript, which he had been working on for months, along with his pen, into the wastepaper basket without hesitation.

"I can't write anymore."

In a later interview with the literary section of the Yomiuri Shimbun, he said with a wry smile a sigh that resonated with his colleagues all over Japan: "We are still practicing how to wield a samurai sword in the era of cold weapons."

"And Kitahara-sensei has already flown over our heads in a bomber."

"He has erected an iron curtain in the realm of horror fiction that we can never cross in our lifetime."

Not just in the horror fiction world.

Even the mainstream Japanese science fiction community was speechless when they saw a writer who started out writing ghost stories effortlessly construct such a grand and rigorous science fiction core of "life evolution calculation." The complex emotions mixed with amazement, fear, and envy left them speechless.

The social and cultural ripple effects triggered by these three sequels were more than ten times more intense than those of the first film.

If the first installment merely made the public afraid to watch television alone, then the sequel's disruptive impact caused severe stress trauma to all electronic devices in daily life across Japan.

The day after the release, NTT's customer service hotline was overwhelmed with calls.

A large number of users called, using all sorts of incoherent reasons, demanding that their telephone services be suspended immediately.

The day after the release, NTT's customer service hotline was overwhelmed with calls.

A large number of users called, using all sorts of incoherent reasons, demanding that their telephone services be suspended immediately.

"I need to temporarily shut down the service! Yes, disconnect the line right now! Why? Never mind the reason, just disconnect immediately!"

In a later news interview, NTT's customer service manager recalled with a wry smile: "That morning we received thousands of similar complaints, and at least half of the people on the phone were trembling. One housewife even cried and said that she dreamed last night that the phone rang seven times, but when she answered it, there was only a static sound... So she smashed her landline."

Meanwhile, in electronics stores and 100-yen shops across Japan, "TV dust covers" that used to accumulate dust year-round were snapped up in just one day.

The cashier was initially completely confused.

Why is it that even after restocking five times today, this niche product, which usually only sells a few units a month, is still not enough to meet demand?

Until she saw a pale-faced young girl, after paying, nervously lower her voice and ask, "Excuse me... after covering it with this heavy cloth, even if the TV screen lights up by itself in the middle of the night, I definitely won't be able to see anything inside... right?"

The cashier was stunned.

It was only at this moment that she realized that the people who bought the dust covers were not actually buying them to keep out dust.

They did this to block their reflections on the black-screen TV at night, to ward off nightmares that might crawl out of the screen at any moment.

With these three books, Kitahara Iwao forcefully allowed a fictional curse to invade the real lives of millions of people across Japan.

He made people fear the most mundane inanimate objects: the midnight telephone ring, the black CRT screen, or even the hissing of water dripping from a pipe.

This ability to completely shatter the boundaries between fiction and reality, plunging the entire nation into a state of collective hysteria.

That's what makes "The Ring" truly unparalleled.