Chapter 146 Richard's Regret
At seven o'clock that morning, the rain in London was still continuing.
Professor Arthur and Mr. Ian picked up the English translation manuscript, which they had worked on and bound overnight, from the coffee table. It was a complete translation of the entire book.
During his fourteen-day retreat, Kitahara Iwao would engage in in-depth textual exchanges with the two elderly men after completing each chapter.
Thanks to the original author's unreserved analysis and contextual guidance, the two translation masters worked much faster than usual, almost keeping pace with the creation of the original manuscript.
Last night's intense all-nighter was mainly for translating the final chapters and completing the final draft and tone of the entire book.
Despite the emotional turmoil and intense work throughout the night, the two elderly people looked very tired, and their clothes were wrinkled from sitting for a long time.
But their eyes were unusually bright, the kind of certainty that comes from witnessing the birth of a great work.
Instead of returning to the hotel to rest, they hailed a taxi downstairs.
It's 7:40 a.m. Outside CWA President Colin's office.
Colin hadn't arrived for work yet, so Arthur and Ian sat quietly on a bench in the corridor and waited.
At 8:15, as Colin pushed open the corridor door, bracing himself for another day of exhausting media storms, he saw two old friends sitting on the bench.
At this moment, Colin stopped walking.
Hearing the noise, Professor Arthur looked up.
Those bloodshot eyes, devoid of the anxiety they had felt in the face of the media onslaught over the past few days, revealed a weariness beneath.
"Colin."
Arthur's voice was a little hoarse as he said, "We brought something for you to see."
Colin glanced at the thick stack of creased manuscript paper in Arthur's arms, then looked at his two old friends, who had stayed up all night.
He didn't ask any questions, but silently took out his keys, turned around and opened the office door.
Once inside the office, the door was closed, shutting out the noise from the corridor.
Professor Arthur gently placed the still-warm copy of the translation on Colin's desk.
"This is a new work that Kitahara wrote in the past fourteen days."
Arthur's voice trembled slightly with fatigue as he said, "Ian and I translated the original Japanese manuscript overnight."
Colin's gaze fell on the thick stack of paper, and his brows furrowed slightly.
"Fourteen days?"
Colin didn't reach for the manuscript. Instead, he shook his head, a hint of regret in his voice, and said, "Arthur, Ian. I absolutely acknowledge Kitahara's talent, but to finish a piece in two weeks? He's still too young."
Colin sighed and continued, "I know Richard's recent remarks have been harsh, but rushing to refute them with this hasty work just to save face will only play into the hands of those conservatives."
"If the text is not solid enough, it will become a new handle in their hands and ruin the reputation he has worked so hard to build."
Despite Colin's questioning, Arthur did not retract the manuscript.
Ian stepped forward, his bloodshot eyes fixed on Colin, and said with unusual certainty, "Colin, when he first started writing fourteen days ago, we thought exactly the same thing as you."
Ian pointed to the manuscript on the table and continued, "But for those fourteen days, we stayed in his apartment, reading the novel chapter by chapter as it was written. We even started simultaneous translation before the ink on the original manuscript was completely dry."
"You have to see it for yourself now. I can assure you with my entire career as a critic that the literary depth of this work... far surpasses that of Confessions."
Colin's eyes flashed with surprise when he heard Ian vouch for his career.
He knew very well how demanding his two old friends were in terms of literary taste, and that it was impossible for them to give such an evaluation in order to save face for Kitahara Iwa.
Thinking of this, Colin's expression became more serious, and his gaze returned to the manuscript.
"What's the title of the book?" Colin asked.
Arthur paused for a second, then said, "Never Let Me Go."
Colin glanced at him, reached out and pulled the manuscript in front of him, then looked down and opened the first page.
The office then fell silent, with only the faint sound of papers turning.
Professor Arthur and Mr. Ian sat motionless in the chairs opposite each other at the desk.
They didn't need to read it again, because those sentences were already etched into their minds.
They simply watched quietly as the CWA president's expression changed little by little as he read.
Initially, Colin maintained the standard posture of a seasoned literary critic: his back straight and his gaze moving at a steady pace.
But as he read on, his back became less stiff, and his body began to lean forward slightly without him noticing.
He turned the pages much slower. He began to linger on certain paragraphs for a long time, even rereading them repeatedly.
After an unknown amount of time, Colin stopped what he was doing, slowly placed the page in his hand flat on the table, took off his glasses, and pinched his brow with his thumb, as if trying to break free from some extremely repressed emotion.
He then put his glasses back on and continued reading silently.
When Colin turned the last page and saw the calm farewell that led to the end, he stopped moving completely.
He neatly stacked the translated manuscript and pushed it to the center of his desk.
Then he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.
The office was deathly silent; you could hear the engines of taxis driving by on the London streets outside the window.
After a long silence, Colin opened his eyes and softly called out his friend's name.
"Arthur".
"Um."
Colin shook his head self-deprecatingly, a mocking smile playing on his lips. "Aren't those guys jumping up and down in the newspapers still talking about the so-called 'humanist tradition' and 'European classical soul'?"
Arthur didn't speak, he just nodded silently.
"What a bunch of pathetic bastards."
Colin gently placed his palm on the stack of manuscript papers, remained silent for a moment, and then spoke in a calm tone that was almost a sigh: "Those people who talk about 'pure British heritage' in the newspapers every day... probably never dreamed that they would be rendered speechless by an Asian writer in his twenties."
Colin then stood up, picked up the translated manuscript, walked to the photocopier in the corner, and pressed the start button.
In the early morning, the only sound in the office was the monotonous hum of the machines, spitting out copies page after page.
Colin stood aside and patiently printed twenty copies, then personally stacked and bound them one by one.
Then, Colin picked up his pen and, stroke by stroke, wrote a line in the center of the pristine white title page of each manuscript:
"A new work by Kitahara Iwao. Highly recommended by Colin."
After doing all this, Colin stuffed the manuscripts into thick kraft paper envelopes.
In today's turbulent British literary world, the name "Kitahara Iwa" is itself a major attraction.
Conservative commentators, upon seeing this name, will undoubtedly be filled with a critical and scrutinizing fervor, eagerly turning the pages.
Then, Colin wrote the recipient's name and address on the envelope.
Professor Arthur stood by and watched, and quickly recognized the names.
These are all conservative figures who have been the most vocal critics of Kitahara Iwa over the past two weeks: the commentator who wrote a column on "Eastern trickery," the quarterly editor who attacked the CWA's review process... not one is left out.
The first envelope, placed on top, clearly had Sir Richard's name written in the recipient's column.
After sealing the last envelope, Colin placed it steadily on the table. He looked up at Professor Arthur, his voice regaining its usual crispness:
"Have two errand runners deliver all these envelopes this morning."
Colin spoke up, "Delivered to their door. Since they've been demanding an explanation from Kitahara in the newspapers, let them see for themselves this is Kitahara's explanation to them."
That afternoon.
Chelsea, London.
Sir Richard's private residence.
The interior of this three-story townhouse, like its owner, exudes a strong Victorian era atmosphere.
Dark oak wainscoting, velvety dark green curtains, a 19th-century English countryside painting hanging above the fireplace, and leather-bound hardcover books lined the bookshelves from floor to ceiling.
Sir Richard was sitting in a leather armchair in his study on the second floor.
He had just finished lunch, and a steaming cup of Earl Grey tea sat on the table.
With an English translation of a French crime novel at hand—one of the shortlisted works for the next CWA review—he was preparing to enjoy the most leisurely reading time of the day.
At this time, the doorbell rang.
A moment later, the butler came upstairs and handed over a thick kraft paper envelope.
"Sir, a messenger just delivered an urgent document."
Richard took the envelope, weighed it in his hand, and felt that there were probably dozens of pages inside.
The envelope had no sender information on the front, only his name and address handwritten in pen.
Upon seeing the envelope in his hand, Sir Richard casually picked up the brass paper cutter on the table, cut open the seal, and pulled out the crudely bound manuscript paper inside, which even carried a faint smell of photocopier ink.
Richard's gaze casually swept across the first page.
Then, his hand holding the teacup stopped in mid-air.
On the pristine white title page, in the very center, a line of text stood out starkly in the familiar fountain pen handwriting:
"A new work by Kitahara Iwao. Highly recommended by Colin."
Richard stared at the name for a moment, then a cold smile, which he made no attempt to hide, curled up at the corner of his mouth.
Northern rock?
The Asian man who had been pretending to be deaf and dumb in the apartment for two weeks seemed to have really been pushed to the limit.
They actually tried to cobble together a new work in fourteen days, and even had to rely on Colin's recommendation to save face?
Upon seeing this, Richard pushed the French novel aside, put on his gold-rimmed reading glasses, and leaned back in his leather armchair with a condescending, scrutinizing air.
Then I picked up my black tea and took a sip, feeling it was the perfect way to pass the time on a dull London afternoon.
He had even come up with the title for his next column: “The Dying Struggle of an Eastern Magician: A Poorly Made Failed Work”.
Sir Richard intended to scrutinize this hastily written text with the most critical eye, picking out rhetorical flaws, structural loopholes, and the "cultural common sense errors" that Asian writers absolutely cannot avoid, and then completely nail it to the pillar of shame.
With this judge-like mindset, Richard turned to the title page and looked at the first line of the text.
"My name is Casey H., I am thirty-one years old, and I have been a caregiver for eleven years."
Richard's gaze lingered on the opening line for two seconds.
Immediately afterwards, he frowned slightly.
He had originally imagined that this would be an Asian writer deliberately imitating the long, awkward sentences of a classic work in an attempt to prove his literary depth.
But the words in front of him were so simple that they surprised him.
There was no flaunting of vocabulary, no pretense of profound philosophy, just a plain and extremely restrained statement.
But it was precisely this straightforward and unembellished narrative that made Richard's critical eye pause.
The tone was so natural, with a typical, understated Englishman's composure, casually recounting a long period of eleven years in an almost numb, indifferent manner.
There was no over-the-top effort from any "outsider" trying to fit in; the rhythm of the short sentence was so smooth that no one could find fault with it.
Richard's hand, which was about to pick up a pen to make annotations, paused in mid-air for a moment.
Then, without realizing it, he put the teacup back on the table.
My initial intention to watch the spectacle faded somewhat at this moment.
In the quiet study, Sir Richard turned to the first page.
Then comes the second page, and the third page.
He maintained the same backward reading posture as before, his back deeply embedded in the leather chair back, his left hand resting on the armrest, and his right hand casually pinching the edge of the manuscript.
This is a condescending, analytical stance, always ready to find fault.
He chuckled softly when he reached the fourth page.
"A typical opening to an English manor memoir: holly hedges, mist, lawn, minor squabbles between classmates..."
Sir Richard thought to himself, "From the Brontë sisters to Evelyn Waugh, this boarding school template has been overused. It's too old-fashioned."
Then he picked up the Earl Grey tea, took a sip, and continued flipping through the pages.
Page 5, Page 8, Page 10.
In her memoirs, Casey describes the daily life at Haytham School: afternoons playing soccer on the field, nights whispering in the dormitories, the way Tommy throws a tantrum when his classmates laugh at him for being bad at drawing, and how Ruth uses an extremely subtle possessiveness to control every relationship around her.
Everything seemed so traditional, so ordinary, so British.
But amidst these rambling, trivial descriptions, occasionally a sentence or two would abruptly appear, leaving Richard somewhat puzzled:
"Of course we knew about 'donating' back then. But it felt like knowing you'll get old someday... You know it, but you don't really think about it deeply."
"Every time the lady came to the school to collect our paintings, there was something in her eyes that I couldn't understand at the time. Later I realized that it was fear."
"The teachers never called us 'students.' They called us 'you.'"
These sentences are devoid of any emotional embellishment; they are simply embedded lightly in the memories of playing football and talking late into the night, like a few extremely fine cracks on a smooth white wall.
You wouldn't notice it unless you specifically looked for it.
But once you notice it, the chill emanating from the crack can no longer be ignored.
Richard's reading posture changed for the first time when he turned to page fifteen.
He stopped leaning back in his chair and unconsciously sat up straight, leaning slightly forward.
As the story progresses to the middle.
Casey and her classmates left Haytham and entered a transit point called "The Cottage," where they first came into contact with the outside world and "ordinary humans" who were not clones.
For the first time, they entered a supermarket, rode a bus, and saw the lives of "ordinary people" on TV—getting married, having children, moving to a new home, and discussing retirement plans.
Casey spoke calmly as she recounted these events.
This is not numbness, but a kind of resignation that grows from the very core of one's being.
She was neither envious nor jealous, because from the very first day of her marriage to Haytham, she knew that the words "future," "aging," and "family" never truly belonged to her.
She will only receive a notification sometime in the future, and then she will begin the "donation".
Then, when Richard read the passage where Kathy describes the first time she saw a "normal human" little girl swinging on a swing in the park, and then naturally turning around and walking away, Richard's fingers unconsciously tightened at the edge of the manuscript.
She will only receive a notification sometime in the future, and then she will begin the "donation".
Then, when Richard read the passage where Kathy describes the first time she saw a "normal human" little girl swinging on a swing in the park, and then naturally turning around and walking away, Richard's fingers unconsciously tightened at the edge of the manuscript.
As a veteran critic with an astonishing reading volume, he has seen far too many desperate cries of despair in literary works in protest against fate.
But it's not in this manuscript.
It calmly recounts the most cruel deprivation in an almost gentle tone.
This unwavering submission to fate is more suffocating than any desperate accusation.
Richard had sat up straight, and his previous condescending scrutiny had vanished completely.
The Earl Grey tea on the corner of the table had gone completely cold, with a thin layer of tea stains on the surface, but he didn't touch it again.
In this somber London study, this literary giant, who had spent his life boasting of his lineage and heritage, was unwittingly falling into the thick fog of British culture woven by Easterners.
The story is progressing to its climax.
Here comes the scene of Tommy roaring in the wilderness.
This is after Tommy and Casey, having failed to find "Mrs." in their search for "deferred action," learn the truth that "there was never any deferred action."
Tommy told Casey to pull over.
He opened the car door and walked into a vast, empty field. The English countryside was cold and windy at night.
Outside the barbed wire fence, in the distance, stands a solitary, withered tree.
Tommy stood in the middle of the field, remained silent for a few seconds, and then let out a roar.
It was a roar that was torn apart from the deepest part of the soul.
A person who knew from the day they were born that they had no future, after spending their entire life pretending that "I have accepted it," finally had that facade completely shattered at this moment.
What welled up from the cracks was not sadness, but a despair that was more primal, more violent, and more beyond the reach of any language.
Casey stood a few steps away, watching him.
She didn't speak, didn't shed tears, and didn't try to comfort her with pale words.
She simply walked over and hugged him from behind.
The embrace was so quiet it was almost numb.
But this is precisely the only instinct left after all emotions have been completely drained—"I can't cry anymore, so all I can do is hold you."
This kind of restraint is a thousand times heavier than any loud crying.
Sir Richard's fingers trembled slightly as he read this passage.
It wasn't due to excessive caffeine, nor was it a physiological tremor caused by age, but rather a shiver that he had never experienced in most of his life, a tremor that seeped from the very marrow of his bones.
He took a deep breath, placed his hands steadily on the desk, and waited quietly for the uncontrollable throbbing to subside.
He then picked up the manuscript again and continued reading.
The last few pages.
Casey stood alone in a field somewhere in England. The wind was strong, and several tattered plastic bags and scattered rubbish hung on the barbed wire fence.
Tommy has "finished".
Ruth also "finished".
Casey was still there, but she knew her "notification" would come soon.
She stood on the windswept field, watching the trash swaying in the wind on the barbed wire fence.
In the final paragraphs of the book, her narrative achieves a breathtaking restraint.
She didn't cry, she didn't get angry, and she didn't protest the injustice of fate.
She simply stated the final outcome in a calm tone, as if she were telling someone else's story.
She didn't let herself lose control; she simply turned around, got back into the car, started the engine, and drove off to where she was supposed to be.
The last scene of the book is of a woman driving calmly on a country road in England, heading toward a destination she already knew and could never change.
No tears, no miracles, no redemption.
There is only one kind of pure, uniquely British sorrow and elegance.
"I know where I'm going, I know what awaits me, but I won't lose my dignity before I get there."
Having read this, Sir Richard carefully placed the last page of the manuscript back on his desk.
He leaned back into the leather armchair, his posture no longer the condescending backward lean of the beginning, but a genuine, almost exhausting fatigue.
Then Sir Richard let out a long breath and closed his eyes.
The study was quiet, with only the occasional soft crackling of the fireplace and the incessant sound of London rain outside the window.
He sat with his eyes closed for a long time.
As a critic who had spent most of his life immersed in the British literary scene, he was well-versed in Shakespeare and Proust and was accustomed to looking down on outsiders with cultural barriers.
He once arrogantly believed that he had the final say on what constitutes "great literature".
As he closed the manuscript, Sir Richard felt no anger, nor did he have any thought of finding fault. He was left with only a sense of emptiness after his long-held prejudice had been silently shattered.
He could no longer deceive himself.
If he insists on upholding the demanding aesthetics he has defended throughout his life, then he must bow his head and admit a fact... This text, written by a young Eastern author, perfectly matches all his definitions of "great literature."
Thinking of this, Richard slowly opened his eyes and reached out to turn the stack of manuscripts back to the first page.
Actually, he had already seen the handwritten words on the cover when he opened the envelope.
But in the two hours prior, he had subconsciously removed Kitahara Iwa's name from his reading.
Because from the third page onwards, he was completely engulfed by the text itself.
He even formed an almost stubborn judgment in his mind: this must be a work that Colin dug up from some native British genius.
Perhaps it was a teacher who had spent his entire life in seclusion in the English countryside; only a soul steeped in such mist and rain could write such a pure English melancholy.
Sir Richard simply couldn’t believe that the “Oriental trickster” he spoke of could have written such words.
But now, he stared at the line of Colin's handwritten inscription in the very center of the title page, his gaze fixed on those three words.
Northern original rock.
Richard stared at those three words for a full ten seconds.
The light in the study seemed to dim at that moment.
Richard's expression underwent an extremely slow change, from deep shock after reading to a near-pale numbness.
It wasn't just fear, but the desolation that followed the sudden emptying of long-standing cultural arrogance, and the suffocating embarrassment that ensued.
Then Richard suddenly felt a slight spasm in his stomach.
Kitahara Iwa didn't issue a statement in the newspaper, nor did he debate the so-called "cultural gap," and he didn't even bother to offer a single rebuttal.
Instead, he directly crossed the "pure literature threshold" that Richard had repeatedly emphasized over the past two weeks with his work, delivering a text that Richard admired most and that Richard simply could not refuse.
This is the most complete crushing defeat.
There was no shouting or arguing, but this stack of silent manuscripts was more embarrassing than any vicious curse.
This is tantamount to Kitahara Iwa, an outsider rejected by Richard, casually strolling into Richard's most prized literary stronghold, and then using Richard's own aesthetic standards to strip away Richard's proud prejudices completely.
Thinking of this, Richard took off his reading glasses very slowly, rubbed his dry brow, and his fingertips trembled slightly uncontrollably.
The study was quiet, but the printed titles he had written by hand over the past two weeks now felt like resounding slaps in the face, relentlessly whipping back and forth in his mind.
"The limitations of Eastern writers", "The threshold of pure literature", "The lessons learned from the failure of standards"...
Two days ago, he was still smug about writing these sharp sentences, believing himself to be a defender of the orthodoxy of European literature.
Now, Richard felt a chilling sense of regret at the thought of those newspapers that had been printed all over Britain.
Those written words have now become the most irrefutable evidence of his crimes in his career.
As a critic who has been immersed in this field for decades, it was precisely his proud literary intuition that dealt him the most fatal blow at this moment.
Because he understood the significance of this manuscript better than anyone else.
Once this work is officially published, the entire European literary world will surely be captivated by it.
When people are praising the greatness of "Never Let Me Go," how will they view Sir Richard's antics over the past two weeks?
I will no longer be a respected literary authority.
Instead, it will be forever recorded in the footnotes of literary history, becoming a century-old joke of self-righteousness, shortsightedness, and narrow-mindedness, attempting to stifle genius with "bloodline theory".
Thinking about this future, Richard slumped into the leather armchair.
Immediately afterwards, a profound and irreversible regret overwhelmed him like icy seawater.