I am a literary giant in Japan

Chapter 167 Those who harm others will eventually be harmed by others, and those who benefit others will be benefited by others!
Sawako Noma read Paradise Lost in prison.

As a serious economic criminal arrested by the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors' Special Investigation Department, in order to prevent any accidents from happening to her in prison, the prosecutors of the Special Investigation Department specially arranged a separate cell for her, and almost granted her every request.

They wanted to get more valuable clues out of her.

The issues of embezzlement, economic corruption and political donations alone are far from satisfying the appetite of these American hawks.

After realizing that the Noma family might have injected a large amount of funds into a certain political party through Kodansha, the prosecutors of the Special Investigation Department seemed to be given a shot of chicken blood. They were ready to pull out the radish and the mud, and uproot the political interest chain behind her!

Sawako Noma sat quietly on the bed. She believed that the people in the parliament and the prime minister's cabinet would not sit idly by and watch her die.

So does the family.

To date, although the Noma family cannot compare with the super chaebol families that control top conglomerates such as Mitsubishi and Sumitomo, it is still among the top in the country.

She is the current head of the family. If anything happens to her, the Noma family will surely fall apart due to the fight for the family property.

The people at home shouldn't be that stupid, right?
After thinking about the mess in her mind for a while, Sawako Noma turned her gaze back to the Nikkan Sports Shimbun in front of her.

During the period of time after being imprisoned, she had nothing to do, so she read the entire "Paradise Lost".

Previously, her daughter Noma Airi's arrogance forced Kitagawa Hide to leave.

As the president of the company, after learning about this, Noma Sawako's first reaction was the same as usual. She first protected her daughter who had gotten into trouble, and then tried to find a way to calm the matter down.

This is not the first time such a thing has happened at Kodansha.

Kitagawa Hideya is just a small new writer. Every year there is a new writer who makes his debut with the Group Portrait Newcomer Literature Award, but they have never made any waves.

A big shot like her is too lazy to read the works of new writers like this.

Or it could be said that since taking over from her father as president, Noma Sawako has not really sat down to read a literary work for many years.

"If I had read his book earlier, if Paradise Lost was really as Muramatsu Tomoshi said, it would have been published in our Kodansha."

Sawako Noma closed the newspaper and closed her eyes.

What came to her mind was not the deaths of Muramatsu and Tomomi, but the small plots in the book that reflected reality.

She transferred Muramatsu Tomoshi to an external department and let him and Kashimura Takeshi take the blame. This is her usual tactic.

Who made these two people hold high positions but have no solid background?
She had indeed heard Muramatsu Tomoshi's report, and remembered that he was suspended at the time and was trying desperately to contact Kitagawa Hide in order to be reinstated.

But at that time, Sawako Noma didn't care about those things at all.

The joint essay contest is in full swing, and Yomiuri Okamoto's "Five Bodies Are Not Satisfied" is currently selling well.

In her eyes, Hede Study was a lamb to be slaughtered.

How could a mere new “upper-class writer” who had just gained momentum possibly resist the general trend?

"If I had known this earlier," Noma Sawako sighed again, "I must try to reconcile with Kitagawa Hideha after I get out."

As long as the relationship between the two sides can be eased, it would be fine even if Kodansha and Gunzo bow to him.

Just then, there was a knock on the cell door.

Then a delicate Japanese meal was brought in from the small sliding window.

Is it time for dinner already?
The only thing missing in the cell was a clock, so she relied on the prison guards to deliver three meals a day to roughly determine the current time.

Sawako Noma got up and walked to the door, bringing the Japanese food to the table.

She found that today's meal was particularly rich, and was even specially served with a bottle of two-thirds Dassai.

Dassai is one of the most famous premium sake brands in Japan.

A bottle of 720ml, split into two and three parts, is sold at about 6600 yen in the store. Basically, only people who love drinking and have an income above middle class will buy it frequently.

The so-called two-thirds ratio refers to the ratio of refined rice to 23%.

Sake, like rice, undergoes the step of grinding rice during processing.

The term "polished rice proportion" means the proportion of the remaining part after grinding to the raw rice.

For white rice, about 8% of the outer layer of the rice is ground off, while for polished rice, the ratio is 92%.

The figure for sake is far lower than this.

The reason why this extra step is added when brewing sake is because the proteins, lipids and other ingredients contained in the outer layer of rice give sake a very "complex flavor."

Such a product does not conform to the Japanese pursuit of the "purity and beauty" of sake, so these external impurities must be ground away.

The Japanese food on the plate is also the most classic style.

It includes appetizers, main dishes, and even a portion of cookies as dessert.

Sawako Noma picked up the small porcelain cup, poured herself a glass of sake, and then drank it all in one gulp.

The taste of Dassai is always good.

But for her, the wine that was sold at 20% off was still too low quality.

When she is outside, whenever she drinks, she will definitely choose the Tatenogawa family, and the refined rice step is 1% of the light.

That is the real top-grade premium sake.

But now that I'm behind bars, it's good enough that I can drink decent sake. There's no need to worry about so many things.

Noma Sawako drank two more glasses of sake, then picked up a piece of tempura with her chopsticks. Before she put it into her mouth, she suddenly felt her breathing deepen and speed up, and her body inexplicably became weak. She was stunned.

A slight headache accompanied by numbness at the tip of the tongue made Sawako Noma, who had just finished watching "Paradise Lost", suddenly panic.

This feeling
The discomfort was getting worse.

She quickly dropped the chopsticks in her hand, stood up and tried to knock on the cell door to call for help.

But as soon as he stood up, he felt dizzy.

Forcing her to sit back down.

ten minutes later.

Her already wrinkled and somewhat dry skin began to turn cherry red.

Cyanide poisoning?
why?
who is it?

Sawako Noma fell into a coma in pain, despair, and endless confusion!

The next day.

Kitagawa Hide and Yumeko arrived at the filming site of "No Longer Human" early with a bunch of gifts, ready to visit the crew members who had been working hard for several days.

The final chapter of Paradise Lost was officially published yesterday, and countless people chose to be late for work or class in order to be the first to read the ending of the novel.

Yoshiaki Kobayashi also took a group of crew members to watch the finale of "Paradise Lost" for the purpose of learning.

Then they get depressed.

From director Yoshiaki Kobayashi to the male and female protagonists Takuya Kimura and Shizuka Kudo, and even the extras and staff, everyone felt extremely sorry and sad about the deaths of Muramatsu Tomotoshi and the other two.

I was horrified and amazed by the suicide and immoral extramarital affair depicted by Hideo Kitagawa.

He did exactly what he said at the beginning of the book - to write a book with a completely different theme from "Border".

If Shimamoto and "Hatsu" had not given up on searching for "West of the Sun" at the last moment, their ending would probably have been as tragic as that of Muramatsu Tomoshi and the other two, right?

The extreme mono no aware literature has plunged the whole of Japan into silence.

This morning, the Nikkan Sports News took advantage of the situation and published a literary review article by Tetsutaro Mori praising Kitagawa Hide, titled "The Paradise Lost Phenomenon!"

In his review, he called Paradise Lost a "soul-shaking, epoch-making masterpiece."

This comment may sound a bit exaggerated, but it unexpectedly received a lot of response from readers.

For once in a rare moment, the literary critics collectively spoke up for Kitagawa Hide, praising the new novel "Paradise Lost" highly and unanimously agreeing that it was indeed worthy of the reputation of "the pioneering work of mono no aware literature."

The Ministry of Education is still playing dead.

There are already huge divisions among them.

Some people think that the judging results of the Akutagawa Prize and the Tanizaki Prize should continue to be upheld. Since Kitagawa Hide has been offended, there is no need to bow his head now. Even if he bows his head, it does not mean that he is willing to reconcile.

This group of people was led by Noma Sawako's husband Noma Kiyohira.

He is a senior official in the Cultural Affairs Bureau of the Ministry of Education. Even though his wife is now in prison, his voice in the Ministry of Education remains undiminished, influencing a large number of right-wing literary figures.

The other group is headed by the current Vice Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Machimura Nobutaka. These people are emerging forces in Japanese politics. They are neither right nor left. At this time, in order to develop their network of relationships, they will support whoever is useful.

Nobutaka Machimura publicly stated that the Akutagawa Prize for the first half of this year should be awarded retroactively to Kitagawa Hide's "Paradise Lost" - which is of course impossible.

He made this suggestion simply to disgust those literary giants who were targeting Kitagawa Hide.

While the Ministry of Education was in turmoil, the publishing and newspaper circles were surprisingly calm.

Before Kitagawa Hide drove to the shooting site this morning, he suddenly received a call from Matsuyama Ken.

He said excitedly on the phone that the daily circulation of Friday's "Daily Sports News" exceeded 500 million copies, directly raising the ceiling of sports newspapers by 1.5 times!
With a daily circulation of 500 million copies, this number would rank among the top ten even if it were put on the sales chart of all newspapers!
What monsters are in the top ten?

Japan News, Yomiuri Shimbun, Asahi Shimbun, Fuji Shimbun.
These are first-rate newspapers controlled by top chaebols!
At a time when the Internet is not well developed, these newspapers represent most of the information channels that ordinary Japanese can access!

After thanking Kitagawa Hide repeatedly, Ken Matsuyama immediately expressed his attitude.

He really gave the 15% sales profit share he promised earlier!

He also told Kitagawa Hide that the Finance Department had already calculated in advance that after dividing the sales profits of these six issues of the Nikkan Sports News, Kitagawa Hide would receive at least 3.5 million yen before tax.

Kitagawa Hide was also shocked at the time.

No wonder the newspaper industry is at the top of the contempt chain in Japan's entertainment industry. Not only do they control TV stations and film companies, they also have stakes in many publishing houses, making them true industry giants.

Just 15% of the profit dividends from six issues of newspapers can bring in 3.5 million yen?

He did some mental calculations and figured out that a second-rate Nikkan Sports Shimbun newspaper could generate monthly revenue of 115 billion yen!

The leading Yomiuri Shimbun must at least double!
It really is a consortium that has monopolized the industry.
Shortly after Ken Matsuyama hung up the phone, Shizuko Kawaide also called to congratulate and express condolences.

The two inevitably mentioned the sales of "Wenyi" during their chat.

Speaking of this, Shizuko Kawaide was suddenly filled with bitterness.

In April, Kitagawa Hide was busy writing "Paradise Lost", so "Wenyi" gave space to works such as "Secret" that were being completed one after another.

Keigo Higashino and his colleagues are also very talented. All three of their works are very popular, and have all been planned for publication and adaptation.

However, without Kitagawa Hide, the sales of "Wenyi" fell from its peak to an embarrassing position.
(End of this chapter)