Chapter 125 The Reactions of Kenjiro Oe, Seicho Matsumoto, and Haruki Murakami

"Tokyo Literary Masters: From the Late 1980s" is sparking a reading frenzy, haven't you read it yet?

When Editor-in-Chief Sato left the president's office with the manuscript, the clock on the wall was pointing to six in the morning.

But at this time, Murata Taro did not leave.

He sat alone behind his large mahogany desk, picked up the internal phone, and dialed the landline at the home of the typesetting department director.

The phone rang for a long time before being answered; the other person was clearly still fast asleep.

"I am Murata."

With just four words, the drowsiness of the typesetting department director vanished instantly on the other end of the phone.

"Print me thirty specially made sample copies within three days."

Although Murata Taro's voice was hoarse from staying up all night, it carried an unwavering authority as he said, "Keep the binding simple. No cover design is needed. Just use the most basic white cardboard for the cover."

"But the inner pages must be printed on the highest grade of paper, and the layout must be exactly the same as the final release version."

He paused for a second, then, as if issuing a military order, commanded: "Thirty books. Three days. Not a single one less, not an hour less."

After hanging up the phone, Murata Taro opened a drawer, took out a sheet of Shinchosha stationery that he had prepared beforehand, and began to write.

Before long, the letter was filled with thirty names written in strong, upright characters in pen.

These thirty individuals include some of the most prominent critics in Japanese literature, key judges of the Naoki Prize and the Akutagawa Prize, and several literary giants who wield decisive power in any era.

The first line of this list prominently displays five characters: Kenzaburo Oe.

Before "Journey Under the Midnight Sun" could be widely distributed, Murata Taro wanted to precisely deliver these thirty unpackaged "white papers" to the desks of these literary giants.

This is not a groveling attempt to beg for a recommendation, but a declaration of strength radiating absolute confidence.

Taro Murata was well aware of the inherent aloofness and pickiness of these literary giants, so he simply stripped away all the gimmicks of commercial marketing and used only the most naked and original words to directly confront their critical gaze.

Before the public even realizes it, Taro Murata wants to use this hefty 800-page book to completely shatter the arrogance and prejudice of these literary giants towards genre fiction.

Thus, on the day "Journey Under the Midnight Sun" is officially released, the shock and admiration from the pinnacle of the literary world will become the strongest endorsement propelling this masterpiece to sweep across Japan.

This is the shrewd skill that Taro Murata honed over half a century of experience in the publishing industry—while an exceptionally good book can slowly gain popularity through word of mouth, to establish its dominant position from the very beginning, the highest level of praise must be given in advance.

three days later.

Thirty unadorned white sample copies were personally handed out by a specialist from Shinchosha.

One of the books was respectfully delivered to an old house nestled among ginkgo trees in Setagaya Ward, Tokyo.

This is Kenzaburo Oe's study.

The furnishings of this study are just like its owner's, exuding a sense of weight and the stubbornness of an old-fashioned scholar.

The floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on both sides are crammed with original Japanese, English, and French books, many of which have worn and faded spines from frequent use.

A rough ceramic teacup sits on the desk year-round, and the rim of the old-fashioned table lamp next to it is even stained with a faint yellow hue from the smoke of time.

At this moment, Kenzaburo Oe was sitting at his desk, his gaze fixed on the pure white sample book in his hand.

There were no fancy belly bands or endorsements on the cover, only two short sentences printed in ink.

"Journey Under the Midnight Sun"

Northern original rock.

Kenzaburo Oe's feelings were quite complex when he picked up this book.

He was no stranger to the name "Kitahara Iwa".

After all, not long ago, he personally stood up for Kitahara Iwa in public, and that manifesto written by the Ministry of Finance's official writer and nailed to the pillar of shame is still regarded by the literary world as a classic in defending creative freedom.

However, the essence of that article was more out of a literary giant's fury at the interference of public power in literature, rather than a complete admiration for the literary achievements of the young writer Kitahara Iwao.

Ultimately, Kenzaburo Oe remains a devout believer in pure literature at heart.

He acknowledged that Kitahara Iwao displayed astonishing talent and ambition in "Ring," but deep down, he always retained a layer of condescension typical of traditional literati, because the framework of suspense was ultimately too restrictive.

It can contain ingenious tricks and horrifying sensory stimulation, but it cannot contain the truly profound and suffering spirit of the times.

No matter how well a genre fiction writer writes, they can only ever remain within the confines of "popular" fiction, never truly touching the core of the literary pantheon: compassion.

With this deep-rooted arrogance and scrutiny, Kenzaburo Oe opened the white cardboard cover of "Journey Under the Midnight Sun".

This slightly defensive posture seems to silently declare: "I'm watching, but I'm always ready to criticize."

But by the time he reached page one hundred, his back, which had been leaning against the chair, had unconsciously straightened up.

By page 200, Kenzaburo Oe's elbows were already slamming heavily against the edge of his desk.

As the story ventures into the abyss of the 1980s, this literary giant, who has witnessed the rise and fall of the literary world, leans forward at an almost taut angle, his face pressed against the pages of the book.

He read very fast, but began to be forced to pause frequently.

It wasn't because the writing was obscure, but because he needed time to process those "fragments of crime" scattered like cold iron nails in the perspectives of various supporting characters.

As a master writer, Kenzaburo Oe saw through Kitahara Iwao's techniques.

Kitahara Iwao did not depict any of the bloody and gruesome scenes of the killings; he simply used a cold, detached observer's touch to lightly present the consequences of the atrocities.

When readers unconsciously piece together these bloody puzzle pieces in their minds, the resulting image of evil is more chilling than any explicit violence.

When reading about how Ryoji meticulously orchestrated a horrifying "accident" to clear Yukiho of a threat to her identity, Kenzaburo Oe had to slam the book shut.

He stood up, walked to the window of the study, stared at the withered branches of the old ginkgo tree in the night of Setagaya Ward, and remained silent for a full five minutes before he could suppress the indescribable feeling of suffocation in his chest.

Then he went back to his desk and opened it again.

late at night.

The only light in the study was the dim glow of an old-fashioned desk lamp and the soft rustling of paper being rubbed together by heavy breathing.

When Kenzaburo Oe finally turned to the last few pages—he saw the ghost boy who had lived for twenty years in the dark, sunless ventilation duct, making his most resolute fall.

He saw Xuehui's completely unfazed response to the old policeman's identification: "I don't know her."

And the last seven words of the book, which pierce the heart like an ice blade.

She never looked back.

Kenzaburo Oe slowly closed the book and placed it flat on the table.

He took off his thick, black-rimmed glasses and covered his eyes with his large hands, but a strong stinging and pain came from deep within his eye sockets.

This is not simply the sadness evoked by the story, but rather the realization, of an explorer who has stood atop the peak of pure literature for most of his life, that someone has actually dug out a bottomless black well in the "popular" swamp beyond his sight.

Japanese literary writers are accustomed to climbing to the heights of thought.

They used ingenious metaphors, avant-garde deconstruction, and complex experimental texts to attempt to look down upon the "spiritual emptiness of modern people" and the "pathologies of the times."

However, sometimes, pursuing the ultimate in literary form can easily detach words from reality and cause them to lose sight of the real pain on earth.

Kitahara Iwao, a young man confined to the framework of genre fiction, did not attempt to challenge the mountain of pure literature.

He simply used the most accessible suspenseful crime shell to plunge into the mire of the lower class, coldly exposing the most real decay of that era.

There are no obscure displays of skill, no condescending preaching, only chilling realism.

Kenzaburo Oe paced slowly in the dimly lit study, the wooden floor making a dull thud under his feet.

This is a profound reflection after a long-standing literary prejudice has been broken—it turns out that even in the most despised genre literature, thorns strong enough to sting the times can grow.

Finally, Kenzaburo Oe stopped, walked back to his desk, opened a drawer, took out a stack of brand-new manuscript paper, and unscrewed the fountain pen that he only used when writing the most crucial chapters.

He was going to write a book review for the Yomiuri Shimbun.

It's not about condescendingly mentoring younger generations, nor is it about creating any literary sensation.

He simply felt that, as a veteran who had spent his life traversing the world of words, he had a responsibility to tell the world: on this popular path that was originally considered only fit for entertainment, someone had carved out an abyss.

At this moment, it was entirely out of an instinctive throbbing after being struck by a great text.

Kenzaburo Oe sat down at his desk, spread out the manuscript paper, removed the pen cap, and decisively wrote the first line in the blank grid:

"Don't judge it by the standards of a suspense novel."

Then the pen tip moved smoothly across the paper without the slightest hesitation.

"This is 'Crime and Punishment' from the Heisei era."

He paused, holding the pen in mid-air, staring at the sentence he had just written.

He understood the weight of this metaphor better than anyone else.

Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment" is the most profound analysis of "evil and human nature" in the history of human literature.

He understood the weight of this metaphor better than anyone else.

Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment" is the most profound analysis of "evil and human nature" in the history of human literature.

Comparing it to a contemporary Japanese social mystery novel is groundbreaking in the literary criticism world.

But Kenzaburo Oe did not back down. Instead, he gripped his pen and continued writing: "In eight hundred pages, Kitahara Iwao, using the shell of a crime story, accomplished a feat that even the most sophisticated experimental texts in the literary world could not achieve—he thoroughly dissected the spiritual ulcers of modern Japanese society before everyone."

"Yukiho is not a simple fictional character; she is a mirror of the times. Every Japanese person who enjoyed the false glamour of the economic boom can see their own empty reflection in her."

"And Ryoji is the mercury behind this mirror—the dark underbelly that everyone knows is poisonous, but no one has ever been willing to look at it."

When he finished writing the last paragraph, Kenzaburo Oe paused and pondered for a moment.

Then, with a resounding certainty, he delivered his final verdict:

"Kitahara Iwa has completely shattered the barrier between highbrow and lowbrow culture, and firmly established himself among the great masters of his generation."

"From today onward, anyone who continues to define him with the narrow label of 'genre writer' will be displaying a laughable arrogance."

Meanwhile, another sample copy with a pure white cover was quietly delivered to a quiet house in Bunkyo Ward, Tokyo.

This person was Matsumoto Seicho.

The pioneer of Japanese social mystery literature, he was eighty years old at the time.

The old man, who dedicated his life to elevating detective novels from "puzzle games" to "powerful tools for social critique," is now leaning weakly against the pillows on his sickbed.

His health is now very poor.

In recent months, he has been resting in bed almost all the time. New books and magazines from various publishing houses are piled up by his bedside, but he only flips through a few pages of most of them before putting them down because he is too tired to continue.

It wasn't that I lost interest, but rather that my aging body simply wouldn't allow it.

But when his gaze fell on the three words "Beiyuan Rock" on the white paper, a glimmer of light flashed in the old man's cloudy eyes.

He asked the caregiver to raise the angle of the headboard and to move the lamp a few inches closer.

Then, he opened the drawer of his bedside table and took out a magnifying glass with worn edges; his eyesight was no longer good enough to read printed words at a normal distance.

Then, with the help of the caregiver, he began to read.

But progress was unusually slow, with the magnifying glass moving laboriously line by line across the paper.

Occasionally, at a certain point, the round lens would linger for a long time before retreating to reread each word.

It took him two whole days to reach the end of the story.

Late the next night, under the dim light of the table lamp, Seicho Matsumoto looked through a magnifying glass and finished reading the last line of the last page.

The old man gently pressed the magnifying glass against his heaving chest and closed his eyes.

Then he let out a long sigh.

The sigh was so long and heavy that the caregiver on night watch outside heard it and anxiously poked his head in to ask if emergency care was needed.

He waved his hand, signaling to step back.

Then, he stared at the ceiling and fell into a long silence.

Seicho Matsumoto spent his entire life transforming mystery novels from simple intellectual games into a scalpel exposing bureaucratic corruption and social ills.

At the height of his career, he always thought he had seen the limits of this genre.

But tonight, after reading a younger generation's work on this sickbed, the old man's long-held stubbornness began to waver slightly.

Kitahara Iwa did not overthrow the system he had established. Instead, he silently followed the social breakthrough he had made years ago and ventured deeper and darker into the underground.

He delved into an absolute void that even he, the pioneer, had never touched due to concerns about the readers' tolerance.

Thinking of this, Matsumoto Seicho struggled to sit up straight and asked the caregiver to bring him paper and pen.

At this moment, his fingers trembled slightly as he held the pen, and his handwriting was no longer as vigorous as it used to be, but every stroke and every line exuded the solemnity unique to old-fashioned literati.

This is a letter written to Taro Murata of the Shinchosha.

"I've spent my whole life writing social realism mystery novels."

"Now that I'm in the twilight of my life and looking back, I realize that I've never crossed a self-imposed threshold—no matter how dark the cases I write about or how corrupt the society is, at the end of the story, I will still give the readers an explanation of 'the truth being revealed and the murderer being brought to justice.'"

"I used to think that was the bottom line that mystery novels had to uphold, and also the kindness that authors owed to their readers."

"But Kitahara Iwao calmly crossed that line."

Seicho Matsumoto's pen paused for a moment on the paper, the ink slightly seeping into the fibers, before he continued writing: "He refused to offer any moral solace. There was no justice, no belated redemption, not even a cheap repentance."

"He leads the reader into a world without light, and then coldly walks away."

"This is an almost cruel attitude towards writing. But it is precisely this cruelty that gives it a chilling honesty."

At the end of the letter, Seicho Matsumoto wrote the final words with trembling yet firm hands: "As a former pioneer of this wasteland, I am glad to see someone erect a new monument that inspires awe ahead."

"A tribute to this boundless 'white night'."

After writing the last word, the old man put down his pen as if exhausted, asked the caregiver to seal the letter, affix a stamp, and instructed that it be mailed out first thing the next morning.

Then, he turned off the bedside lamp and closed his tired eyes in the darkness.

Outside the window, the Tokyo night sky is illuminated by the tireless neon lights of the city, presenting a pale white that never truly darkens.

White nights.

On the same day the sample copies were sent out, Kitahara Iwa specially asked his assistant to send a copy separately to Suginami Ward.

There was no letter attached, not a single word.

It was just a plain white sample book, wrapped in a standard kraft paper envelope from Shinchosha, and quietly dropped into Haruki Murakami's mailbox.

Haruki Murakami finished reading it late at night on a cold, rainy night.

The record player in the study was unusually silent tonight, because the eight hundred pages of text themselves carried a kind of dull, oppressive, and suffocating silent background music.

After reading the last page, Haruki Murakami slowly closed the book and placed it on his desk.

Then he picked up the glass of whiskey next to him, the ice ball of which had already melted most of the way, and took a sip.

Afterwards, Haruki Murakami picked up the book again, precisely turned to an inconspicuous paragraph, and read it again.

What he was looking for wasn't the thrilling plot twists or the ingenious revelation of the tricks, but rather a description of a minor character that could almost be ignored: a convenience store clerk casually mentioning in his recollection the expression on Yukiho's face when she came to buy something late one night.

On the manuscript paper, these three lines of text were coldly printed:

"It was a flawless, beautiful smile, one that couldn't be found even under the harsh fluorescent light."

"But as she turned to walk toward the freezer, I happened to catch a glimpse of her eyes in the convex mirror in the corner."

"There was nothing in there, like two dead wells that had dried up for who knows how many years."

Haruki Murakami's gaze lingered on these three lines for a full five minutes.

Because he glimpsed the most terrifying core of the entire book within these few words.

Hollow.

This is a void that has been growing wildly within Yukiho and Ryoji since childhood.

It is not the emptiness caused by sadness, nor by poverty, nor even by sin.

Rather, it is a black hole that rots in the deepest part of the soul, forever unfillable, after the "right to live" has been completely deprived from birth.

Haruki Murakami has written countless stories about "loss" and "nihilism" in his works.

Watanabe, lost in the shadow of death in "Norwegian Wood," and the nameless man wandering in the urban jungle in "Dance Dance Dance."

The characters in his works spend their entire lives searching.

Searching for a lost love, searching for a vanished figure, searching for a warmth that was once possessed but has inexplicably disappeared.

They may be lonely, but at least they still have the act of "searching" itself.

Because this action is evidence that they once possessed it and are still alive.

But Ryoji and Yukiho in Kitahara Iwao's works—they don't look for anything.

Because they have never "possessed" anything, they don't even have the right to "lose" anything, so how can they search for something they don't even know what it is?

This dimension of despair, stripping away all possibilities, plunges even deeper than any abyss Murakami has ever touched upon in his writing.

At that moment, Haruki Murakami closed the book and stared at the three cold, hard print words on the cover for a long time.

Journey Under the Midnight Sun.

Then he stood up and took out a vinyl record from deep within the bookshelf—a rare jazz piano solo recorded in the 1950s that is no longer available on the market.

Then he took another unopened bottle of Hakushu single malt whisky and put it all into a canvas bag.

The following afternoon.

Top floor duplex apartment in Minato Ward.

The doorbell rang.

Kitahara Iwa pushed open the door and saw Murakami Haruki standing outside. He was still wearing his signature dark gray turtleneck sweater, carrying a canvas bag in one hand and with the other hand in his pocket.

The lighthearted smile that usually graced his face, tinged with self-deprecation and a sense of detachment, had faded considerably. The bloodshot eyes still lingered from staying up all night, replaced by a heavy, lingering tremor.

"Hey, Kitahara, you've really written something amazing this time."

Haruki Murakami looked at him, his tone devoid of any polite exaggeration, only the genuine sentiments of old friends.

"Murakami-sensei, what brings you here? Please come in."

Upon seeing this, Kitahara Iwa quickly stepped aside to make way, his tone quite familiar.

Haruki Murakami changed into slippers and, led by Iwao Kitahara, strolled into the study, plopping down in the armchair next to the desk.

Instead of beating around the bush about jazz as usual, he pulled a vinyl record out of his canvas bag and handed it across the table.

"This is for you. It's a rare jazz recording from the 1950s. I had someone find it in a secondhand store in New York; you can hardly find it on the market anymore."

Kitahara Iwatsu took the record, glanced at the musicians' names on the cover, and raised an eyebrow slightly: "Good stuff, thanks."

"That's natural."

Haruki Murakami responded with a reply, but did not follow up with a joke as usual.

Then he let out a long sigh, took out the unopened bottle of Hakushu single malt whisky from his canvas bag, and expertly unscrewed the cap.

Then, he skillfully took out two glasses that he often used to serve guests from the cabinet next to the desk. He had been to Kitahara Iwa's house many times before, so he remembered them quite clearly.

This time, Haruki Murakami didn't add ice; he poured two glasses of pure drink and pushed one of them towards Kitahara Iwao.

Kitahara Iwa glanced down at the amber liquid in his glass, smiled helplessly, and said, "Has your memory been ruined by staying up all night? I don't usually drink such strong whiskey."

"I remember."

Haruki Murakami picked up his glass, his tone devoid of any harshness, filled only with the candor of old friends, and still a little tired as he said, "But today's glass is for your 'Journey Under the Midnight Sun'."

He looked at the cold liquor and continued, "I stayed up all night last night, reading your manuscript from beginning to end in one go. If I don't drink something strong and burning my throat to calm myself down, I'm afraid I still won't be able to close my eyes tonight."

Kitahara Iwao quietly looked at Murakami Haruki, and this time he did not refuse, reaching out to pick up his wine glass.

The cups clinked together, producing a soft, crisp sound.

They each took a sip; the cold, strong liquor, with a faint peat aroma, slid hot down their throats and warmed their stomachs.

Haruki Murakami put down his glass, letting the aftertaste of the alcohol linger in his body. He raised his head and looked directly at Kitahara Iwao across from him. His eyes, which usually held a touch of detachment and languor, were now filled with undisguised shock and admiration.

"Brother Kitahara."

He simply shouted it out, without the usual banter or the formalities and formalities common in literary circles.

"After reading this book, those old men in the literary circle will probably be frantically piling up words about 'social criticism' and 'metaphors of the times.' Mr. Oe might already be holding a pen right now."

Haruki Murakami picked up his glass, swirled it gently in his hand, and continued, "But that's not what I saw."

He spoke very slowly, as if carefully filtering each word through his mind.

"What I see is that you used an almost cruel coldness to write about an absolute 'loss'."

Kitahara Iwa remained silent, waiting for him to continue.

"The people I write about, whether it's Watanabe or Hajime, are lonely souls lost in the city. At least they are still searching."

Haruki Murakami's gaze fell on the pure white sample book on the desk.

"They are searching for a lost love, searching for a vanished figure, searching for some lingering warmth. They may be lonely, but at least the act of 'searching' itself gives them a sense of being alive."

At this point, Haruki Murakami paused for a moment.

"But Ryoji and Yukiho in your book—"

Haruki Murakami shook his head slightly, a deep bitterness tinged with the smile on his lips.

"They don't even have the right to 'search.' They're not looking for something lost; their entire existence is 'loss' itself."

"They are that bottomless void."

Haruki Murakami raised his glass and tilted it slightly towards Kitahara Iwa.

"This is the coldest and most ruthless loneliness I've ever seen in contemporary Japanese literature. This time, you've struck harder than ever before."

Kitahara Iwao raised his glass of whiskey, which he rarely touched, and offered it to Murakami Haruki.

The crisp sound of glass colliding echoed in the quiet study.

"Because this is an era where bubbles are bursting,"

Kitahara Iwa swallowed a mouthful of spicy liquor and said calmly, "What people have lost is not only their wealth on paper, but also the legitimacy of 'having a soul'."

At this moment, Kitahara Iwa placed the wine glass back on the table.

"When the prosperity of the entire society is built on lies, when the bubble bursts and everyone realizes that everything they held in their hands was an illusion—they are no longer facing 'what they have lost,' but 'whether I ever really had it.'"

"Yukiho and Ryoji simply pushed this problem to its extreme. I stripped them of all their illusions, merely presenting the black hole that already existed in that era to the world untouched."

After listening, Haruki Murakami remained silent for a few seconds.

He then nodded.

As the wine in the glass sank a little further, the conversation naturally shifted from the somber "Journey Under the Midnight Sun" to the mundane details of daily life.

Murakami mentioned that his recent morning run route bypassed a street under construction, while Kitahara Iwao casually mentioned that he was considering getting a more comfortable fountain pen.

As he was leaving, Haruki Murakami stood in the entryway, bending down to change his shoes while glancing back at Iwao Kitahara.

"I was hoping that 'Norwegian Wood' would keep me on the bestseller list for a few more years."

Haruki Murakami's lips curled into a signature smirk, but his eyes were filled with genuine admiration.

"You're really going to drain the entire Japanese literary world of its light this time."

Kitahara Iwa leaned against the wall in the entryway, hands in his pockets, and retorted, "Murakami-sensei, remember to bring two bottles next time you visit. One isn't enough."

Haruki Murakami paused for a moment, then burst into a hearty laugh, and pushed open the door to step into the cool twilight of the port area.

With the security door locked, the house returned to silence.

Kitahara Iwa returned to his desk and placed the gift vinyl record on the record player. The stylus fell into the groove, and accompanied by the warm background noise unique to 1950s recording studios, a restrained and languid jazz piano solo slowly flowed through the study.

He picked up the half-empty glass of wine, sank deep into the leather chair, and cast his gaze toward Tokyo Bay outside the floor-to-ceiling window.

The light on the sea surface was a chaotic color between grayish-blue and silvery-white.

It was neither day nor night.

It resembles an endless white night.

While Kitahara Iwa was enjoying the tranquil white night alone, a terrifying storm that would soon overturn the entire Japanese publishing and cultural circles was quietly taking shape, fueled by the secret efforts of Shinchosha.

The timeline moved to mid-May.

There are only three days left until the official release of "White Night".

On this seemingly ordinary morning, the Japanese cultural world witnessed an unprecedented spectacle.

On the same day, the Yomiuri Shimbun's arts and culture section published two incredibly lengthy book reviews on the same page.

On the left half of the page, Oe Kenzaburo.

Right half of the page, Seicho Matsumoto.

A leading figure in Japanese pure literature and the pioneer of Japanese social mystery fiction endorsed the same unreleased book in the same newspaper.

This incident alone is enough to cause a magnitude 10 earthquake in the entire publishing industry—because in the deeply ingrained traditional understanding of the Japanese literary world, the gap between pure literature and genre fiction is wider than the Pacific Ocean.

It is unprecedented in the literary history of the past half-century for the top figures in these two circles to endorse a single work.

But what truly drove Japanese readers to utter madness were the terrifying titles of these two book reviews.

Kenzaburo Oe's title is: "Don't measure it with the eyes of a suspense novel: This is the Heisei era's 'Crime and Punishment'."

Excerpts from Seicho Matsumoto's last letter were published with permission from Shinchosha, and the editorial department proposed the title: "A Pioneer of Social Realism, Paying Homage to the White Night."

When these two headlines appeared simultaneously in millions of newspapers across Japan, accompanied by the scent of fresh morning ink, their effect was like two nuclear bombs of immense power, exploding across different social strata of readers.

The first to be stunned were the elite readers of pure literature.

This group has long occupied the top of the Japanese literary consumption ecosystem.

They subscribe to Bungei Shunju and Gunzo, and only browse the pure literature section on the third floor of Kinokuniya Bookstore in Ginza.

They have their own arrogant standards for the selection results of the Akutagawa Prize in previous years, and they enjoy discussing them at literary salons and university seminars.

This group of people has a deeply conflicted and torn relationship with Kitahara Iwa.

They acknowledged Kitahara Iwa as a rare genius.

A writer who can win both the Akutagawa Prize and the Naoki Prize is a shining star in any era.

Love Letter and Railway Man brought them to tears, while Scream shook their souls.

During that honeymoon period, they even elevated Kitahara Iwa to a pedestal, regarding him as "the last hope for serious Japanese literature."

However, when Kitahara Iwao turned to writing "The Ring," the hearts of these elite readers were shattered, and then turned into anger.

Horror novels? Cursed videotapes? In their value system, these cheap books filled with sensory stimulation are farther away from true "literature" than the distance between Earth and the Moon.

"The last hope of pure literature has ultimately succumbed to the temptation of royalties."

This sentence has been repeatedly pondered in literary salons over the past few months, revealing a deep sense of sorrow and grief.

Although Kenzaburo Oe wrote a defense article for "Ring," in the eyes of the elite circles, it was merely a "political statement" by Mr. Oe to counter the Ministry of Finance, rather than a genuine belief in the literary merit of the work.

So when they saw the words "Crime and Punishment of the Heisei Era" written in black and white by Kenzaburo Oe in today's morning paper—the air in the entire literary world froze instantly.

Crime and Punishment.

Dostoevsky.

This is one of the pinnacle analyses of "evil and humanity" in the history of human literature.

Kenzaburo Oe actually used this masterpiece of Russian literature to annotate a social mystery novel!

These enthusiasts of pure literature certainly wouldn't be so naive as to believe that a popular novel could truly stand shoulder to shoulder with Dostoevsky in terms of absolute philosophical depth.

But they knew better than anyone else that given Kenzaburo Oe's literary standing and uncompromising integrity, he would never use such heavy language to engage in a shameless commercial attempt to flatter someone for the sake of personal relationships or money.

If he dares to use this title, it means that Kitahara Iwao has indeed, in this book, pierced through the contemporary theme of "evil and punishment" in a way that belongs to modern Japan.

The elite readers' previously condescending attitude was violently shaken at this moment.

From "a genius who fell for royalties" to "an ambitious man who tried to dissect human nature in the mire of popular culture"... this reshaping of perception was accomplished in the time it takes to write a single title.

"Has Kitahara-sensei really abandoned those cheap commercial gimmicks?"

"He actually managed to touch upon that level of profound philosophical inquiry within the framework of a mystery novel?!"

With this mix of shock, doubt, and an irrepressible, intense curiosity, this group of self-important literary elites did something they would never have done before on the morning of the release date.

They hurried into the bookstore, skipping the pure literature section on the third floor, and for the first time in their lives, lined up in front of the popular literature section on the first floor, just to pick up a social mystery novel.

The second wave of intense attacks hit the large and discerning readership of mystery novels.

The shockwaves that Seicho Matsumoto's open letter caused among hardcore mystery fans were nothing short of a reshaping of their belief systems.

Who is Seicho Matsumoto? He was a master who transformed Japanese mystery novels from "pure puzzle games" into "social critique scalpels."

He is the founder of social reasoning, the cornerstone and foundation of this genre.

For decades, all Japanese social realist writers, regardless of their stylistic variations, have ultimately been filling in the gaps within the territory he defined.

Now, this octogenarian master has written a letter on his sickbed, in which he boldly wrote: "A new monument that makes people tremble has been erected ahead."

Mystery fans reacted remarkably in unison after reading this passage: first, an instinctive disbelief, followed by an irrepressible urge to investigate.

"What kind of text could have inspired Seicho Matsumoto to write such words?"

"He's never yielded to anyone in his life, and now he's paying homage to an abyss carved out by a junior?"

This curiosity is not a casual joining in the fun, but a burning thirst that demands immediate verification.

On the day of release, long queues formed outside major mystery novel specialty stores, even longer than when "The Ring" was released.

The third wave swept up in this frenzy were young people in the city.

Unlike the two previous literary giants, Haruki Murakami did not write formal, weighty book reviews.

But a week before the release, in a seemingly casual note in his essay column of a literary magazine, he left a passage:

"I recently stayed up late reading a friend's new work, and there was something in it that I had never seen before in contemporary Japanese literature—an absolute loss that is unfathomable and completely strips away even the right to 'search'."

He did not mention the book title or the author.

But all readers familiar with his writing style understand who the "friend" he is referring to is.

These young people, lost and wandering in the steel jungle, those who read "Norwegian Wood" and are used to finding some kind of warm comfort in Haruki Murakami's words, felt a strange resonance rise in their chests when they saw the words "absolute loss".

They were unaware of the brutal crime story depicted in "Journey Under the Midnight Sun".

But they were convinced that if even Haruki Murakami, who is best at writing about loneliness, admitted that he had "never seen it," then this kind of loneliness was absolutely worth going to the edge of the cliff to see for themselves.

In order to witness the "unfillable black hole" that Murakami spoke of, this group of young people, who originally only bought niche pure literature or essays about life, also joined the sea of ​​people rushing to buy social mystery novels.

Author Mu Qiyi is waiting for you with "Tokyo Literary Masters: Starting from the Late 1980s".