I am a literary giant in Japan

Chapter 259: "Under the Blooming Cherry Blossoms" and "The Dancing Girl of Izu" Part
Seeing that Dangi Shirou, who used to be lazy and made a living by writing erotic novels, is now a well-known writer, Kitagawa Hide smiled with relief.

Among the three disciples, the one he was most worried about was Danki Shirou, who had relatively poor writing skills and a somewhat chaotic private life.

However, among the writing guides, Dango Shirou is the easiest one to deal with.

Because his writing style tends to be youthful and immature, and he likes to have a hint of curiosity, he is very suitable for writing the kind of immature novels that teenagers love to read.

As long as he is guided in this direction, he will definitely have a place in youth literature in the future.

Seeing Teacher Kitagawa's gaze sweeping over him, the uneasy Tuan Gui Shirou sat even straighter, just like an elementary school student who had just entered school and was still very afraid of the teacher.

"Tuan Gui, are you interested in trying writing a short story?" asked Kitagawa Hide.

"Short story. Novel? Teacher, are you talking about the novel like "The Dancing Girl of Izu" that you wrote?" Dangui Shirou was stunned for a moment and asked tentatively in a low voice.

Of all novel genres, short stories are the most difficult to write, the one that requires the most skill, and the one that can bring the most fame and status upon success.

He wants to learn, but he doesn't have the ability!

"The Dancing Girl of Izu" caused such a huge social sensation because it was written so well. On the contrary, "The Eternal 24" by Naoki Hyakuta, once it started high and ended low, its reputation immediately changed and it was criticized to death by readers.

This is a double-edged sword that can kill people and cut open their hearts!
"Similar, but the style will be completely different from the short stories I write." Kitagawa Hide nodded. He thought of "curiosity" when he was reading Dangui Shiro just now. In addition, he has been studying short stories recently. He suddenly remembered a short story collection that is very suitable for Dangui Shiro to write -

"Under the Blooming Cherry Blossom Trees".

"I want to write excellent short stories like Mr. Beichuan, but my writing ability is limited."

Among the three, Dangi Shirou is actually the least confident one.

Mayumi Aso made her official debut after winning the Group Portrait Newcomer Award. Although she experienced some twists and turns in the process, she is still a real debut writer and her skills are definitely good enough.

Although Keigo Higashino has repeatedly failed in the field of pure literature, he later won the Edogawa Ranpo Prize with "After School" and made his debut. He is also recognized as a "professional" writer.

He is the only one who has never been shortlisted for any new literary award for many years and has been relying on writing inferior erotic novels to maintain his dream.

After several consecutive hits, Dangui Shirou always felt that it was all thanks to Mr. Kitagawa, and he was just a ghostwriter.

This time, he was forced to write the most difficult short story, and he was really afraid that he would ruin Mr. Kitagawa's reputation.

Because the three of them were already Kitagawa Hide's public disciples, Kitagawa Hide would help write prefaces and promote their books when they published them, and readers also assumed that these books were written under the guidance of Teacher Kitagawa.

If it goes wrong, Kitagawa Hide will definitely be the one who is embarrassed.

"It doesn't matter. Writing is something that requires constant attempts. If you don't try, how will you know if you can do it?"

Kitagawa Hide never cared about the damage to his reputation caused by his disciples' failure. That was something that only those writing studios that were brought together under the name of master and apprentice would care about.

If the three disciples can eventually become successful under his guidance, even if the process is a little tortuous and difficult, and he has to pay more, what does it matter?
"I understand! Thank you, teacher! Please give me your advice! I will try my best!"

Shirou Dango was so moved that he stood up and bowed 90 degrees. The loud noise scared Aso, Mayumi and the other two.

"Okay, okay, sit down and let's talk about books first." Kitagawa Hide pushed him back to his seat.

"Under the Blooming Cherry Trees" is a famous collection of short stories by Ango Sakaguchi, a representative writer of the rogue school. It includes five grotesque short stories: "Under the Blooming Cherry Trees", "The Zen Monk", "Yonaga-hime and the Ear Man", "Idle Mountain", and "The Purple Dainagon".

Sakaguchi Ango was also one of the representatives of the Shingeki school. Although he died of cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 49, he was very famous in the Japanese literary world and was once as famous as Dazai Osamu, Ishikawa Jun, Oda Sakunosuke and others.

The world he describes appears to be as romantic and enchanting as cherry blossoms in full bloom, but is actually filled with decadence and despair. Beneath the gorgeous exterior are bloody corpses, which looks very bizarre.

As soon as Dangui Shirou heard the titles of the books, he knew that these were some novels focusing on curiosity and strange stories, and he immediately became interested - these were his specialties!
Kitagawa Hide grabbed a piece of blank manuscript paper, picked up a pen, and quickly wrote out the outlines of five short stories in one breath.

The most well-known novel is "Under the Blooming Cherry Trees", which was later adapted into an animated short drama of the same name.

The novel tells the story of a group of calm and cruel bandits who are capable of committing all kinds of evil and are fearless, but they are particularly afraid of a certain forest full of cherry blossoms.

In the blooming cherry forest, there lived a gorgeous woman. Her beauty captivated all the bandits. As if bewitched by the rain of flowers, the bandits were all willing to take her as their wife at any cost.

The bandits who had captured the woman would try their best to please her, and even agree to move to Kyoto to satisfy her needs.

But the beautiful woman's desire seemed endless. She began to ask the bandits to kill their women, and even killed people for her every day and brought back the heads for her to torture and play with.

Finally one day, a powerful bandit named Shigemaru appeared in the cherry blossom forest. He killed all the bandits and kidnapped the beautiful woman.

However, Fan Wan did not know that his fate would be the same as those of his "predecessors", and he would eventually fall into the endless manipulation of women.
"The Zen Monk" tells the story of a young and lustful Zen monk in an unknown village deep in the mountains of the Snow Country, who is obsessed with the wild peasant woman Tsuna.

But Tsuna, who has strong desires, is fickle and likes to tease men, does not intend to accept the monk's pursuit. She plays hard to get with the monk, and the monk is even more obsessed with Tsuna.
The plot of this novel is not complicated, but it boldly combines "Buddhism" elements and "widow" elements together, fully demonstrating Sakaguchi Ango's "perverted aesthetics", which really shocked the Japanese literary world at the time.

The novel "Yanohanagime and Otome" has a more grotesque style, and is interspersed with many traditional Japanese folk stories, which makes it a unique read.

The novel tells the story of Ernan, a carpenter who was summoned to carve a Buddha statue. He was ridiculed and teased by the beautiful eldest daughter of the Yechang family, so he decided to carve a Buddha statue as terrifying as a monster as revenge.

In order to inject resentment into the Buddha statue, Ernan caught a large number of snakes and drank their blood, and finally carved an extremely ugly horse-faced and rabbit-eared evil god statue. Unexpectedly, this terrifying statue won the favor of the eldest lady, Ye Changji.

At the end of the story, a plague broke out in the city, and Yachangji, who enjoyed killing people every day, became a goddess worshipped by the ignorant people.

As the fools worshipped, they shouted, "Thanks to the power of the young lady, the noble god resides in the young lady's body."

They danced under the sun and knelt down devoutly, hoping that the evil statue and the eldest lady would show their magical powers and save all of humanity. However, the final outcome was that they, Princess Yachang and the evil statue were buried by the plague and became disgusting corpses one after another.

The short story "Idle Mountain" is relatively light-hearted and humorous. It adds some funny elements to the strange story style, showing another kind of absurd beauty to the readers.

The novel tells the story of Dan Jiulang, a little raccoon cat in Xianshan Temple. After the abbot passed away, he drove away the vulgar and pleasure-seeking successor and became the new abbot of Xianshan Temple.

One winter day, a geisha on tour fell seriously ill, but the new host, Tan Jiulang, refused to help treat the illness no matter how much the other members of the artist troupe begged.

After burying the deceased patient, the new host also became listless.

The geishas from the touring artist troupe were worried and curious, so they sneaked to Dan Jiulang's house under the cover of night, poked a hole in the window paper and peeked in, but they were shocked to find that the new host was actually a little raccoon cat!

At this time, the little civet cat was holding a little female cat and shaking its head.
The whole "Idle Mountain" does not have such a strong sense of curiosity as the previous novels. Its core is actually to satirize some "Buddhist masters" in Japan by using the tabby cat Tuan Jiulang who has usurped the magpie's nest.

Japanese Buddhism is different from Buddhism outside. Since it was introduced to Japan in the Heian period, Japanese Buddhism has been committed to eliminating other religious beliefs, including Shintoism, which is native to Japan.

In order to achieve this goal, they tried every possible means. Over the decades, they have attracted a group of loyal followers, but they are also hated by many Japanese citizens.

Although Japanese Buddhism has now shifted its main industries to praying, funerals, wedding banquets and other projects, there are still many people like Sakaguchi Ango in the country who hate them very much.

Once "Xianshan" is published, it is estimated that it will receive a lot of praise. As for the satire of Buddhism, if it were any other industry, the people from the Buddhist Association would definitely not let it go, but when the other party is someone from the literary world, they can only swallow their anger and pretend not to know.

Who says this is the job of a writer?
Moreover, in Japan, the status of writers is higher than that of general Buddhist scholars and they are more favored by the intellectual class.

Kitagawa Hide estimated that after the publication of "Idle Mountain", people from the Buddhist Association would not only not come to cause trouble, but would also publish articles praising Dangui Shiro for his criticism. They would take it as a warning and never do it again.

The last one, "Purple Dainagon", is a rather heavy and heart-wrenching story. If it were in other countries, Kitagawa Hide would definitely delete this novel from his short story collection.

But in Japan, the people admire the "mono no aware literature" he pioneered and prefer this style, so there is no need to delete it.

The story of the novel is about the frivolous and lascivious Shi Dainagon, who, while strolling along a mountain path at night, picked up a flute that was accidentally dropped by the princess of the Moon Kingdom into the human world.

When the princess of the Moon Kingdom came to the palace, Purple Grand Councilor threatened the princess who was looking for the flute to stay in his house for five days before he would return the flute.

The princess had no choice but to submit to his tyranny.

So during these five days, the Purple Grand Minister began to do all kinds of indescribable things to the princess, and completely regarded her as his own property.

But five days passed quickly, and the princess was about to return to the Moon Kingdom. The Purple Grand Councilor, who was eager to possess her, was unable to stop the princess who was determined to leave.

So on the day he returned the flute, he did not return the flute to the princess, but gave it to a group of bandits.
"Hiss, these stories" Tuan Gui Shilang read the story outline on the manuscript word by word, and was impressed by the talent of Teacher Kitagawa from the bottom of his heart.

In the past two years, Mr. Beichuan has been very productive every month and has written more than a dozen popular novels, but none of them has such a strong element of curiosity.

This work, "Under the Blooming Cherry Trees", is obviously a work tailor-made for him. Both the story plot and writing style are very different from Mr. Kitagawa's previous works.

But even this kind of "non-Kitagawa Hidefu" novel that is completely contrary to the public's perception, Mr. Kitagawa can write it with ease, and it shocked him for ten thousand years just by writing it casually!

With such terrifying talent and ability, Shirou Dango now feels that it is not unfair at all that Arima Raiyoshi and Momota Naoki lost.

"How is it? These are the rough outlines I hastily wrote. Many details are not perfect. Please take a look at them first. I will give you a detailed outline later."

Kitagawa Hide wrote it entirely based on his memory. Although his memory far exceeded that of ordinary people after the time travel, he was unable to reproduce word for word many of the classics that he had not read carefully.

After all, Dango Shirou is not Ango Sakaguchi himself. If he wants to reproduce the grand occasion when "Under the Cherry Blossoms" was originally released as much as possible, Kitagawa Hide can only work harder.

Readers of pure literature are not people who can be easily fooled. They are willing to spend money on their favorite writers and works, but only if they are good enough!

If it's not well written, no matter if you are Kitagawa Hide or Tanizaki Ichiro, if you don't want to pay for it, you just don't want to pay for it!

"Ah, actually this is enough. Teacher, you don't have to bother me anymore." Dangui Shirou scratched his head embarrassedly. He didn't want to trouble the teacher too much.

After all, Kitagawa Hideya has to finish writing the most important "The Dancing Girl of Izu" in the near future, which is his top priority.

"Okay. Then you can write a few drafts according to the story outline I wrote." Kitagawa Hideya didn't want to interfere too much in their personal creations, so he nodded.

Tuan Gui Shirou nodded immediately, picked up the manuscript papers happily and sat down with his senior sisters and brothers.

Seeing that it was almost twelve o'clock in the evening, Mengzi quietly took out bedding and a clean mattress from the inner room - let these great writers sleep on the floor outside tonight, you can't chase them home in the middle of the night, right?

Kitagawa Hide, who was talking dryly, took a sip of hot tea. He felt that after the instructions, his inspiration also came up. He simply followed the three of them to sort out the manuscripts in the hall to see if he could finish the second half of "The Dancing Girl of Izu".

Just like that, the cafe hall fell into silence, with only the sound of typing and the occasional cat meowing.
(End of this chapter)