Chapter 135 Kitahara Iwa's Strong Support!

As Kitahara Iwa finished speaking, a few seconds of subtle silence fell over the tatami room.

A hint of instinctive astonishment flashed across the eyes of the veteran judges.

In their literary aesthetics that they have adhered to for half their lives, "roughness" is always synonymous with lack of skill and being second-rate. How could it possibly be associated with a word like "priceless"?

Kitahara Iwatsu took in the resistance and absurdity in everyone's expressions, but instead of arguing, he withdrew his fingers that were lightly pressing on the manuscript, leaned forward slightly, and drew closer to the oppressive atmosphere of the entire judging table.

When Kitahara Iwa spoke again, his previously calm tone turned completely somber: "Because this crudeness is by no means a matter of technical incompetence."

"But he is someone who actually carried out the order to 'cut off the water to the poor' in the mire, and when he writes, he cannot and does not care to use exquisite rhetoric to whitewash the cruelty he has personally experienced."

"The protagonists in Mr. Tsujihara's works go to the deep mountains to experience exoticism. That kind of melancholy is safe, controllable, and can be escaped at any time by buying a plane ticket."

"But the meter reader in He Linman's writing—he has nowhere to escape. He is not 'experiencing' the lower class; he is already at the bottom. Every morning, he has to knock on the doors of those poor families, look into the desperate eyes behind the doors, and then tighten the water valve for their survival in accordance with the law."

"Then, he went back to his own home, turned on his own tap, and washed the rust off his hands."

"The pain of having one's conscience and survival repeatedly torn apart is something that someone sitting in an air-conditioned room or a high-class restaurant could never write about even if they spent a lifetime conjuring it up!"

Kitahara Iwa raised his eyes and looked around at the judges present.

"Rough truth always has the power to tear apart hypocrisy."

"If the Akutagawa Prize wants to regain the public's trust—if this award wants to prove that it has not lost its ability to explore the essence of literature... it must bring out this vitality that is both rusty and earthy."

"Instead of continuing to rank your self-indulgent, exquisite bonsai in your greenhouse."

After saying that, Kitahara Iwa turned his gaze away from the ashen faces of the crowd and onto the manuscript of "Thirst for Water" in the center of the low table.

"This is my final opinion."

Then Kitahara Iwa picked up his teacup, took a slow sip, and placed the bottom of the cup back on the table.

What are your thoughts, everyone?

No one spoke in the large Japanese-style room; the air was so quiet it was almost stagnant.

The anger of being publicly offended had quietly dissipated, replaced by the embarrassment of having that self-righteous facade ruthlessly torn away, leaving one feeling like sitting on pins and needles.

The judges' eyes darted back and forth between the manuscript of "Thirst for Water" and "The Name of the Village".

Struggle was evident on everyone's face. Reason told them that Kitahara Iwa was right, but to personally award an "unpolished" work by the lower classes the Akutagawa Prize would be tantamount to completely negating their aesthetic habits of the past few decades.

Kitahara Iwa didn't urge them; he simply sat quietly in the main seat, holding his teacup, waiting for their reply.

In fact, during the earlier preliminary screening stage, "Thirst" was not without a chance of success.

Among the judges present, there were several who placed greater emphasis on the core message of the text and its poignant connection to reality.

However, under the heavy pressure of seniority and when the old-school giants put on a stern face and set the tone of using "The Name of the Village" as a "safety card," this weak voice of support was silently swallowed by them out of concern for their future and interpersonal relationships.

At this moment, Kitahara Iwa's scathing revelation was like a cold, sharp knife, not only tearing away the old fogies' fig leaf but also stinging the conscience of these compromisers.

Their gazes met quietly above the low table.

The judges, who focused on the core meaning of the text, couldn't help but look at Kitahara Iwa, who was sitting in the main seat.

Kitahara Iwa simply held his teacup quietly, without uttering a word, yet he was like a sheer cliff rising from nowhere, forcefully shielding them from all the storms and reckonings from the old rules.

After a brief struggle, a judge wearing black-rimmed glasses slowly straightened his slightly hunched back.

"I agree with Kitahara-sensei's opinion."

When he spoke, his voice was initially a little strained, but as he uttered the words, his tone became more and more steady, revealing a sense of relief after the pretense had been torn away.

"To be honest, I was moved by the knife-like pain in 'Thirst' during the preliminary hearing."

"But I chose to remain silent, and I am ashamed of my previous compromises. Our time truly needs words that can pierce the soul, rather than flowery bonsai."

These words were like a heavy hammer blow to a silent, frozen surface.

The judging panel, which had long maintained a false sense of prosperity, witnessed its first real defection.

"you--"

The conservative veteran judge sitting opposite him frowned, instinctively wanting to adopt the air of a senior judge and reprimand him.

I second that.

Before the veteran judge could finish speaking, the second judge interrupted him directly.

"King Helin's crudeness reflects the crudeness of reality itself. If we don't even have the courage to face the bottom, then those of us sitting here picking and choosing are truly a joke."

"I also vote for 'Thirst for Water'."

The third voice followed immediately, without even glancing at the ashen-faced elders.

The situation took a dramatic turn for the better in just one minute.

The conservative old judges who were clinging tightly to "The Name of the Village" quickly changed their expressions from initial annoyance to undisguised astonishment and panic.

They stared in disbelief at their colleagues who were usually so timid and hesitant in meetings, barely daring to breathe loudly.

They never expected that Kitahara Iwa wouldn't even openly campaign for votes; he simply sat there stating a fact, and effortlessly shattered the vote base they had painstakingly built up over half a lifetime.

Then they tried to apply pressure again with stern looks, attempting to suppress these "unruly juniors" once more.

But no one avoided their gaze anymore.

With Kitahara Iwa's overwhelming prestige now standing in front of us, the threats of the old era have long since become nothing more than empty words.

At this point, the tide had turned against them.

All eyes, like a tidal wave, finally converged on the most senior judge who had just been slamming his fist on the table in a fit of rage.

The old man's lips trembled violently.

He glanced at his colleagues across from him, who were standing tall and straight, and then at Kitahara Iwa, who was in the main seat.

Then, the energy that had sustained his arrogance and authority dissipated silently, like a punctured ball.

His back, which had been stiff and rigid, slumped down in a visible manner, making him look as if he had aged ten years in an instant. His pale face showed a resigned dejection.

He knew better than anyone that the era that belonged to their group had been wiped out today.

After a long pause, he closed his eyes in pain, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down several times before he managed to squeeze out two incredibly difficult words through his teeth: "...Seconded."

With this final, resigned concession, the defenses built up by the older generation collapsed.

The winner of the 103rd Akutagawa Prize is "Thirst for Water"!

At 5 p.m. that day.

The Japan Literature Promotion Association released the final results of the 103rd Akutagawa Prize nationwide simultaneously through major news agencies.

"The 103rd Akutagawa Prize was awarded to Mr. Mitsuru Kawabayashi for his work 'Thirst for Water'."

The moment the announcement was released, the cultural departments of major newspapers across Japan experienced a collective silence that lasted for half a minute.

Immediately following was a discussion that nearly lifted the roof off.

Tsujiwara Noboru was surprisingly not selected.

This top favorite, backed by a vast network of connections, who made it to the finals four times and was considered by all his peers to be "just waiting to go through the motions before being crowned," was surprisingly swept out of the game.

The person who climbed to the top by stepping on his body was a name that no cultural journalist could find, even after searching through their databases.

The river and forest are full!

A low-level civil servant who spends his days running around under the scorching sun in Tokyo, knocking on doors to read water meters.

Without the guidance of renowned teachers or the endorsement of literary publications, he was covered in the rust and sweat of the lowest rungs of society.

This extremely brutal act of "subordinate overthrowing superiors" was tantamount to a heinous coup in the rigidly hierarchical and extremely xenophobic world of Japanese literature.

"Who exactly is this Kawabayashi Mitsuru?!"

"A low-level civil servant reading water meters? What kind of ridiculous joke is that?"

"Even if those old men are forced by public opinion to put on a show of 'grassroots reform,' they wouldn't go so far as to just drag in an outsider to put on a show!"

"Could it be that Kitahara-sensei has been coerced by those old guys?"

The shock and bewilderment transformed into a bloodthirsty frenzy in the press within just a dozen minutes.

Countless columnists and commentators, like sharks smelling blood, excitedly pounced on their manuscripts.

Even though they already knew that Kitahara Iwa was the chief judge this year, their instinctive reaction upon seeing this unconventional list of winners was still... that this was a behind-the-scenes manipulation by the traditional judging committee, or that those old foxes had used some means to coerce and sideline Kitahara Iwa.

So they are preparing to vehemently criticize this "political show with no bottom line" on tomorrow's front page, nailing the insane judging panel and that arrogant, grassroots author to the pillar of shame in literary history.

however.

Just as this media storm, capable of shaking up the entire publishing industry, was about to take shape, the Japan Literature Promotion Association immediately released the finalist comments for this year's Akutagawa Prize.

At the very center of the list is the brief comment from the specially invited judge, Kitahara Iwao: "Rough truth always has the power to tear apart hypocrisy."

"If the Akutagawa Prize wants to prove that it has not lost its ability to explore the essence of literature, it must bring out this vitality that is rusty and earthy."

"I'm only betting on 'Thirst' for the top prize this year."

These uncompromising comments were like a bucket of ice water poured over the heads of the editorial department of the All Japan newspaper.

The previously boisterous noise and rapid keyboard typing were abruptly cut off the moment the comment was read.

Those commentators who were just concocting vicious headlines now felt a cold sweat seep down their backs.

They suddenly realized—this was not some political show by the old judges to gloss over the truth, nor was it that Kitahara Iwa had been sidelined.

This was Kitahara Iwao's personal will that made the final decision.

In the current Japanese media scene, vehemently criticizing those outdated judges is a sure-fire way to make money.

But to publicly question Kitahara Iwao's judgment?

That meant going against the grain of readers across Japan and going head-to-head with the sales phenomenon of "Journey Under the Midnight Sun" reaching three million copies.

Therefore, no one is willing to risk their career.

"I'm only voting for 'Thirst for Water.' The next chapter is even more exciting: Chapter 135, Kitahara Iwa's Strong Support! I look forward to your visit."

These few words became the strongest endorsement for this work from the grassroots.

Since Kitahara Iwa says it deserves it, then it deserves it.

After a brief period of deliberation and silence, in countless brightly lit cubicles across Tokyo, the guest commentators silently suppressed their earlier indignation.

The handwritten manuscript, which was mostly filled with writing and was intended to be used as a pretext to criticize the "degradation of the Akutagawa Prize," was torn up, crumpled, and thrown into the wastebasket.

However, the retreat of these retail investor commentators is merely the tip of the iceberg in this dramatic reversal of public opinion.

The real chaos and turmoil are taking place in the editorial departments of major Japanese newspapers.

Even before the final results were announced, the chief editors of the culture sections of several major newspapers had already prepared two completely different typeset drafts on the layout table.

Draft A: Tsujihara Noboru won the award. The title is "Well-deserved: Four-time nominee finally wins," accompanied by a congratulatory article from a senior scholar.

Draft B: Tsujihara Noboru unexpectedly lost. The headline reads, "Trust Crisis Escalates: What is the Akutagawa Prize Chosen?", accompanied by a scathing editorial whose core argument is that "the jury made irresponsible political compromises under pressure from scandals."

When the fax confirming He Linman's unexpected award came out of the machine, editors from various newspapers almost instinctively grabbed the B draft.

In their original expectations, even if Kitahara Iwa was the chief judge, the final compromise product would at most be a second-tier writer with a slightly novel idea.

And now they've actually pulled a low-level outsider who was just copying water meters into a higher position?

In the eyes of media professionals, this was absolutely an extreme political show put on by those veteran judges in an attempt to quell public opinion!

Even Kitahara Iwa was probably sidelined by these old foxes using some kind of rule during this vote.

So they plan to take advantage of this wicked trend to criticize the committee's underhanded operations and rake in a huge profit from tomorrow morning's newspaper sales.

Until their gaze fell upon the "Final Selection Comments" attached to the second page of the fax.

At the very heart of that official report were the definitive words of the specially invited chief judge, Kitahara Iwao: "Rough truth always possesses the power to tear apart hypocrisy..."

The editor-in-chief of the culture section of the Asahi Shimbun stared at the fax paper in his hand, which contained the chief editor's comments, and fell into a brief silence.

Based on his years of experience navigating the public sphere, he instantly realized that his initial prediction had failed.

This is not some political puppet pushed out by the old judges to take the fall, but a work that Kitahara Iwao personally intervened to save.

So he grabbed the internal phone on the table and dialed the typesetting room downstairs.

"Withdraw draft B immediately."

"But editor-in-chief, the layout is already complete, and it's about to go to the printing press—"

"Remove it!"

The editor-in-chief's tone left no room for negotiation. He then casually tore off a blank sheet of grid paper, picked up a pen, and said, "Leave the page blank. I'll rewrite tomorrow's culture section headline myself. Notify the printing plant to postpone it by forty minutes."

The same temporary dispatch swept through the office buildings of major newspapers such as Yomiuri, Mainichi, and Sankei within the same hour.

Those editorials that had already been finalized and were ready to launch a scathing critique of the judging panel's behind-the-scenes manipulation were forcibly pulled back from the physical printing process by the editors, risking a "blank space" (i.e., no space left in the printing press).

Afterwards, a veteran journalist remarked over a private drinking party that in his more than ten years of journalism, he had rarely witnessed the spectacle of all the mainstream media in Japan collectively and urgently retracting their articles at the same time.

The reason why everyone is frantically retracting draft B is actually very practical.

In the current public opinion environment, questioning a group of veteran judges who have lost credibility is simply pandering to the public.

But to question Kitahara Iwa's vision is tantamount to the media ruining their own reputation.

The entire Japanese society understands that Kitahara Iwao does not need to be subservient to any literary giants, nor does he need to compromise through exchanges of benefits.

Before this clean and neat endorsement.

Those pre-prepared attacks and rants full of conspiracy theories naturally became nothing more than a pile of waste paper.

The next morning.

The prominent positions of newsstands across Japan were completely flooded with front-page headlines that were remarkably consistent in their direction.

Yomiuri Shimbun Culture Section Headline: [Presiding Judge Kitahara Iwao Declares the Final Verdict: A Bloodstained Truth Tearing Apart a Literary Miracle of Hypocrisy]

Asahi Shimbun: [The Meter Reader's Comeback: Why did Mitsuru Kawabayashi and "Thirst" garner Kitahara Iwao's sole vote?]

Mainichi Shimbun: [The Akutagawa Prize's Self-Redemption: When Pure Literature Finally Bows Its Head and Listens to the Cries of the Underclass]

The Sankei Shimbun went even further, stating: "[A single comment from Kitahara Iwao has given the 60-year-old Akutagawa Prize a new lease on life.]"

All the reports did not focus on the unknown Kawabayashi Mitsuru, but instead pointed to the same core issue—"Why did Kitahara Iwao only choose it?"

At this moment, Kitahara Iwa's name became the strongest endorsement of this year's Akutagawa Prize.

When countless readers, trusting the name implicitly, opened the article "Thirst for Water" published in the literary journal, they were met with a completely unexpected and devastating blow to their souls.

Ordinary readers—office workers, housewives, convenience store clerks, taxi drivers—who had been disgusted by the Murota scandal in the past few months and developed an instinctive aversion to the term "pure literature," turned the pages of the book.

The story takes place during a sweltering summer when there has been no rain for several days.

The sweltering air, like a damp towel that could never be wrung out, hung heavily over the old municipal housing area on the outskirts of Tokyo.

The protagonist, Iwakiri, is a junior employee of the Waterworks Bureau.

Approaching forty, his face had been worn down by life, leaving him lifeless.

His own family was also on the verge of slowly crumbling, with his wife's emotional abuse, his children's estrangement, and a suffocating atmosphere at the dinner table... but he didn't even have the strength to mend it.

Every morning, he would simply put on his uniform, stained with white salt on the back, and ride his rusty official bicycle, knocking on doors from house to house.

Meter reading, payment reminders, and—water outages.

Tighten the water valves of households that have been in arrears on their water bills for a long time.

Doing things according to rules and regulations requires no extra emotion.

During a routine collection process, he encountered a mother and her two daughters living in a dilapidated apartment.

The young mother, whose face was ashen, said she would pay as soon as possible. Iwakiri checked the form and turned to leave.

A few weeks later, when the deadline for the water outage arrived, he stood in front of that door again, but only the older girl opened it.

The mother ran away and disappeared with a man.

Two children, completely helpless, were left behind, abandoned in this sweltering room with no electricity, no air conditioning, and an empty refrigerator.

Rules are rules, and procedures are procedures.

As the final component of the state apparatus, Iwakiri's job is to execute orders.

Then Iwakiri pushed open the door.

The room was so stuffy it made you dizzy, and all the windows were tightly shut... because the two young children had no idea to open the windows for ventilation.

They huddled on the floor in the corner, the older sister holding her younger sister tightly.

Their lips were chapped and peeling, and their skin even had a layer of fine salt crystals formed due to severe dehydration.

The older sister looked up at Iwakiri.

She didn't cry because her eyes were so dry that not a single tear could flow.

Iwakiri stood there, holding that heavy iron wrench in his hand.

He stood there for a long time.

Finally, he walked up to the water meter, picked up the wrench, jammed the valve, and tightened it little by little.

The last bit of water pressure in the pipe disappeared.

The water from the faucet went from a thin stream to a drip, and eventually dried up completely.

He turned and went downstairs, his steps as steady as after every mission he had ever completed. He rode his bicycle back to the Waterworks Bureau and filled in the words "executed" on the form.

Then I get off work and go home.

He turned on the tap in his house, and the rushing water washed over his hands. He scrubbed them vigorously.

I rubbed it for a long time.

The smell of rust and the salty sourness of sweat were slowly diluted in the water.

But there is one thing that can never be washed away.

That was the pain of his conscience being torn apart the moment he tightened the valve and cut off the lives of two children with his own hands.

This feeling is not like the crisp sound of paper being torn, but more like the dull "crack" sound of bones slowly breaking inside the body, which only you can hear.

My hands are clean.

But the thirst deep in one's soul—the despair of watching humanity slip away through the cracks after perfectly executing the "correct process"—can never be filled again.

The story ends here.

No divine soldiers descended from the sky.

There was no last-minute pang of conscience or miraculous redemption. There was only a middle-aged man standing in front of the running water at the sink, looking at his "clean" hands.

……

The commuter who finished reading this novel on the crowded morning rush hour tram remained frozen in the corner of the carriage until the train passed its stop.

The middle-aged man, having finished reading a novel in his cramped rented room, recalled the standard, indifferent smile on the HR's face when he was laid off last month, and the numbness on Iwakiri's face as he tightened the valve; these images gradually overlapped in his mind.

A housewife whose mortgage extension application was rejected by the bank recalled the teller's impeccably polite "I'm sorry, your application does not meet the requirements."

Rules are rules.

A process is a process.

In the summer of 1990, when the bubble economy had just burst, almost every ordinary Japanese person was experiencing some form of "tightening of the valve".

"Thirst for Water" uses the most raw language to dig out this era's growing pains from the dark corners and throw them bloodily in front of everyone.

It did not offer cheap comfort.

They didn't tell you "everything will be alright." They didn't even tell you who the bad guys were.

Iwakiri is not a bad person; he is just a low-level employee who follows the rules.

The bureaucrats who set up the processes aren't bad people; they're just keeping the system running.

No one is a bad person.

However, the water supply for the two innocent children was cut off while they were still alive.

This is the most suffocating and despairing core of the story.

At this point, Kitahara Iwao's comment at the judging meeting was quoted by the media and quickly became the most frequently quoted comment in discussions about "Thirst" throughout Japan.

"Rough truth is always better than elaborate falsehood."

Readers who have read "Thirst for Water" finally understood the weight of this sentence after closing the magazine.

Lock on Kiichi, lock on, lock on every update of "Tokyo Literary Masters: From the Late 1980s".