I am a literary giant in Japan

Chapter 162 The Mature Little Wife "Drunken Rose Saint"

As the serialization of Paradise Lost was coming to an end, more and more readers came to the salesperson to pre-order the Nikkan Sports News.

The sales of the Daily Sports News published on Monday continued to grow, and the daily circulation successfully exceeded 300 million copies, once again topping the daily best-selling list of sports newspapers, and has become a household name in sports newspapers.

Ken Matsuyama was very business-minded. Seeing that Hide Kitagawa had such an outstanding ability to drive sales, he immediately asked a reporter from the newspaper to go to "Peter Cat" for a face-to-face interview with Hide Kitagawa. He then compiled the entire process into a manuscript and published it in the evening edition of his own newspaper.

I have to say that his marketing strategy is indeed successful, and readers are really willing to pay for a personal interview with Mr. Beichuan!
In this way, the evening edition of the Daily Sports News, which had been half-dead, also became a little popular, and its daily circulation saw a gratifying increase.

Wednesday night.

Mengzi came back from training at Kawade Shobo and went back to the cafe with a bag of letters in her hand.

Seeing Kitagawa Hideko sitting at the computer desk typing away on the keyboard, she smiled and placed the letter in front of him: "Hideko~ Letter from a reader~"

"So many?" Kitagawa Hide stopped his hands and glanced at the letters that instantly covered the table. He estimated that there were thirty or forty letters and suddenly felt a headache.

He remembered that he had just processed a batch of letters two days ago.

The enthusiasm of Japanese readers in the 90s was really outrageous.

"Yes. Ever since Paradise Lost was serialized, the number of letters sent to Kawade Shobo has suddenly doubled."

Mengzi came and sat down next to him, took out a notebook and pen from her bag, and took out a thick stack of letter paper and envelopes from under the bar.

"Are you still going to be busy? How about we reply to the readers' letters first? Or should I read you a summary of the recent situation first?"

"Then let's listen to the summary first! By the way, I have to go to the set of No Longer Human tomorrow, so I don't think I will be able to spare much time the whole day.

The last two chapters of Paradise Lost have been fine-tuned. I'd like to trouble you to take the manuscript to the Nikkan Sports News Agency tomorrow for a beer, okay?"

As Kitagawa Hide spoke, he stood up, took two cans of beer from the freezer, opened them and poured them into a glass filled with ice.

Three whole days had passed since he last went to the set of "No Longer Human".

He holds the title of chief screenwriter, and it would not be good to always leave all the work to Yoshiaki Kobayashi, so he plans to go there tomorrow to check on the progress of the filming.

"Yeah~Okay, Xiujun, just leave it to me!" Mengzi took the big glass, smiled sweetly and clinked glasses with him lightly.

Since she started her internship at Kawaide Shobo and served as Kitagawa Hide's agent, the girl who used to blush easily when seeing strangers has grown up rapidly.

Now she is capable and serious in her work. She is wearing an OL uniform and holding a large glass full of beer in her hand. When she smiles, she really looks like a successful career woman.

Kitagawa Hide looked at her and felt happy for Yumeko's growth from the bottom of his heart.

Mengzi once lost her own value in existence because of his rise.

And now, her career life is getting better and better.

Because she is constantly affirmed by others and Kitagawa Hide, Yumeko is full of energy every day, especially when it comes to work content, her personality instantly changes from shy to talkative.

After finishing the beer in the glass, the two smiled at each other and made a satisfied "Huha" sound at the same time. Then Mengzi opened the densely written notebook and read out all the recent things about Kitagawa Hide's work in an orderly manner.

".As for physical books, Xiujun has published eight books so far, and the new royalties in April were approximately 4 million yen."

"As for the serialization fee, the Nikkan Sports Newspaper also transferred 3750 million yen of royalties for Paradise Lost to our company's bank account in advance."

"From the last autograph session and this face-to-face interview, a total of 1500 million yen in revenue has been received."

"We had a meeting today. Sister Shizuko said that the revenue from this year's peripheral products will be settled once this month, and the total revenue will probably exceed 5000 million yen."

"Also, Toho and Toei have proposed to buy the film and television rights to the two books "I Am a Cat" and "Border". What do you think, Xiujun?"

"Mengzi-chan, can you help me manage the film and television copyrights of these two books?"

Kitagawa Hide kept nodding his head as he listened. He did some mental calculations and estimated that by the end of May, Kitagawa Entertainment Co., Ltd. would have an additional 5 million yen in cash on its books.

If he continues to earn at this rate, even without making any investments, he will definitely have more than 10 billion yen in cash in his bank account by the end of this year!
10 billion yen is equivalent to 1 million RMB. I wonder what level a billionaire in 1996 would be considered in the next door countries?
Anyway, Kitagawa Hide had no intention of becoming the richest man. He just wanted to live a leisurely life like a wealthy man with his young wife.

From this perspective, it seems that in the second half of the year I can learn from the big bosses and strive to improve my quality of life to the level of a truly wealthy person!

As for the copyright operation of "I Am a Cat" and "Border", he had long wanted to give it to Mengzi to practice.

There will definitely be a lot of wealth and many companies in the future for both of them.

As his chosen wife, Mengzi should also slowly develop some abilities to run a company and accumulate wealth.

After all, Kitagawa Hidetoku was busy continuing to make a name for himself in the Japanese and world literary circles, and he didn't want to be distracted by financial matters.

Men are responsible for external affairs, while women are responsible for internal affairs!

Hearing his words, Mengzi felt happy and worried.

However, this time she did not act timidly, but generously took on the task assigned to her by Xiujun!

She also hopes to be able to truly become independent in the future, help Xiujun share the pressure in her career, and be a good wife who takes care of everything at home!
After talking about her recent situation, Mengzi picked up the pile of letters from readers and read them while opening them: "Teacher Kitagawa, Teacher Mengzi, hello! I am a high school student living in Okinawa. I really like the Youth Trilogy written by Teacher Kitagawa, and I am also curious whether the female characters in the story have the shadow of Teacher Mengzi."

After Yumeko finished reading all the letters, Kitagawa Hide picked out a few interesting ones to reply to personally, and left the rest to her. Most readers also knew that the replies were basically written by Yumeko, so many people simply asked Yumeko directly in the letters, making her more popular than Kitagawa Hide.

This made Kitagawa Xiu feel a little helpless.

The reason why Mengzi is so popular with these readers is that she always replies seriously and attentively, as if she is writing a letter to an important friend of hers.

Her attitude was conveyed to the other party through words and paper. Compared with those particularly perfunctory writers, she naturally captured the hearts of a large number of readers easily.

However, because there were too many letters, it took her a lot of time to reply each time, which made Kitagawa Hide feel very distressed.

He secretly admired Mengzi's beautiful profile as she bent her head to write for several minutes, and without disturbing her, he turned his head back to look at the computer screen.

"Paradise Lost" is about to come to an end. The next work is to publish the physical book, shoot the film and television drama, and send the novel to France to participate in the Goncourt Prize.

I guess once all these things are dealt with, the first half of 1996 will be over.

But Kitagawa Hideko didn't dare to let himself be completely idle.

Every time he felt lazy because of thinking about the numbers in his bank account, it would instantly disappear when he caught a glimpse of the calligraphy of "The Best in the World" written by himself.

When everyone took a group photo at the end of 95, Saito Reina's words, "Kitagawa, in the near future, you will surely become a great writer like that!" kept ringing in his ears.

Kitagawa Hide, don't let up!

You have to keep working hard and striving, and don’t let down your friends and your lovely wife’s high expectations of you!
We can't embarrass our fellow time travelers either!

After cheering himself up in his heart and regaining his passion for work, Kitagawa Hide quickly browsed Yahoo Japan, searching for the latest hot topics.

Every time he started a new book, it was extremely torturous for him, but this time, Kitagawa Hide's goal was particularly clear.

Since I have decided to break through the shackles of being an "upper-class writer" and touch the threshold of being "the best in the world".

This time, the new book must focus on enhancing the reputation in the literary world while maximizing profits as much as possible!

The literary world in Japan is rigidly structured and full of collusion. If you want to write a book with the goal of gaining recognition from the biggest names in literature, the chances of success are high.

Therefore, Hideichi Kitagawa has long set his sights on the hottest current affairs.

"Border" uses "hollow heart syndrome", "only child" and "extramarital affair" as entry points, and has achieved remarkable results. It can be said to be the best-received book of all his books after "No Longer Human".

But these elements are not “hot” enough, nor “explosive” enough, so the final effect of “Border” is still lacking.

“Is there no major event this year like the sarin subway gas attack that could attract nationwide attention and heated discussion?”

Kitagawa Hide kept flipping through the news section. However, the biggest event in the first half of the year was that Tomiichi Murayama stepped down and Ryutaro Hashimoto took over. Then the United States imposed economic sanctions on Japan.

These things have little to do with the literary world.

Ryutaro Hashimoto visited the Yasukuni Shrine on August 8, the day Japan surrendered in World War II.

There are still more than three months from now, and he can't possibly wait that long in vain. With his writing speed, he can write three new books in three months!
Just when Kitagawa Hide was worried, a small news post that was continuously updated in the education section caught his attention.

[On February 2, a junior high school boy in Tama district of Tokyo attacked two kindergarten girls with a hammer. The vicious incident resulted in one girl being slightly injured and one being seriously injured.

A female eyewitness claimed that the criminal was wearing a suit jacket and holding a school bag.

It is reported that the father of the injured girl had asked all the junior high schools in the area to provide photos of students so that his daughter could identify the murderer, but all the schools rejected this request through the police.

[On March 3, the junior high school boy (hereinafter referred to as Boy A) asked the elementary school girl (Yamashita Ayaka) about the location of the toilet.

After Yamashita Ayaka took him to the school toilet, the boy A said to the girl, "Turn your face around, I want to thank you." After the girl turned her face around, he suddenly took out a hammer and attacked her, and then quickly escaped afterwards.

Shortly afterwards, Yamashita Ayaka was found by a cleaner and rushed to the hospital, where she was confirmed dead on March 3 due to cerebral contusion.

In addition, according to reliable sources, at around 12:35 noon that day, the boy A was seen by another elementary school girl from the same school when he was about 200 meters away from the crime scene.

After school that afternoon, the boy A attacked the girl with a knife (13 cm long), causing the girl to take two weeks to recover from the injury.

March 3.

The poster of this news post is nicknamed "Drunkard Rose Saint Fighter".

Since posting on April 4, he has been continuously updating the post in this diary-like format.

The reason why Kitagawa Hide was attracted to it was that this post looked like a news report, but in fact it was clearly the poster recording his "crime process" and "experiences" in the form of a diary!
The nickname "Drunken Rose Saint" sounded familiar to Kitagawa Hideya, but he couldn't remember who the other person was for a moment.

He browsed the post several times again and confirmed that the other party was most likely the murderer. He decisively recorded "Drunkard Rose Saint" and the incident in a document, then rummaged through the drawers and finally found the phone number of the little policewoman Hikigaya Nako.

When Kitagawa Hide was taking his driver's license test at the Kokubunji Police Station, he was often stopped by this "tolerant" little policewoman to take photos with her, and she even signed her exaggerated right hemisphere, so he had a deep memory of her.

However, it was already past 10 o'clock in the evening, and it was not appropriate to call a girl so late at night, so Kitagawa Hide put down the phone in his hand, wrote down the matter on a note, and prepared to call Hikigaya Nako early tomorrow morning.

(End of this chapter)