I am a literary giant in Japan

Chapter 277: Death and the Bloody Battle in March
Logically, there should not be any high-decibel noise in the hospital.

Not to mention the intensive care unit where a group of dying people are staying.

But the scene before her was so frightening that the young nurse, who had come in through connections and had only been working for a short time, screamed in horror.

The attending physician at the side quickly covered the mouth of the big-breasted and brainless woman, then quickly pressed the emergency bell and ran over to check on Ichiko Sadaji's condition.

The long beeping of the electrocardiogram machine made him annoyed.

Lying on the hospital bed, Ichiko Sadaji's eyes were wide open, he was incontinent, and he ended his life in a very undignified way.

He was still tightly holding a piece of letter paper in his hand, which contained the shortlist for the 1997 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Realizing that this might be the cause of Ichiko Sadaji's death, the attending physician quickly stopped his colleagues from cleaning up the mess and instead called the police first.

He knew that the person lying on the hospital bed was an important figure, the Dean of the Faculty of Literature of Kyoto University. No matter what the cause of death was, a case had to be opened and an investigation had to be conducted.

Police and emergency medical personnel arrived shortly after.

After the emergency doctors performed the routine rescue again, they quietly covered Ichiko Sadaji with a white cloth.

After investigation, police officers from the Metropolitan Police Department determined that the cause of death was a sudden myocardial infarction caused by emotional excitement.

The next morning.

The news of Ichiko Sadatsugu's death reached Tanizaki Ichiro's ward.

He did not spend even a second mourning for his old friend. Instead, he struggled to get up and wrote a handwritten letter to the Japan Literary Society and the Ministry of Education, telling them the "truth" about the Nobel Prize scandal.

At noon that day, the new Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Nobutaka Machimura, received the letter of accusation.

The letter spoke in a grief-stricken tone of the scandal that had rocked the whole of Japan. Ichiro Tanizaki blamed himself for not being able to control Uchida Shozo and Ichiko Sadatsugu.

Especially the latter, who secretly changed Kitagawa Hide's name to Momota Naoki while he was preparing a new book!

Machimura Nobutaka looked at the letter that read "Caring for the Japanese literary world and caring deeply about the younger generation", snorted coldly, turned around and asked the secretary, "What did the Japanese Literature Society say?"

"There are many different opinions. Some people stand on Kitagawa's side and say that Tanizaki Ichiro was behind it. Others agree with Tanizaki Ichiro and put the blame on Uchida Shozo and Ichiko Sadatsugu."

The secretary answered truthfully,

"But most of the literary leaders still chose to stand on the side of Ichiro Tanizaki."

"Haha. They think that following a hypocritical writer like Ichiro Tanizaki is better than being bullied by a young man like Kitagawa, right?"

Machimura Nobutaka kept sneering. He never had anything good to say about those old stubborn people in the literary world.

"That's true. It is said that Uchida Shozo has agreed to take the blame, and Ichiko Sadatsugu is dead and cannot testify, so..." The secretary sighed and nodded, "It seems that we can only let this matter go."

"Tanizaki Ichiro also took the opportunity to promote his new work." The secretary took out today's "Yomiuri Shimbun" daily, which also published the letter of accusation, and also told readers that the former "number one in the world" is really going to make a comeback!
"Wouldn't it be nice for him to just live like a retired old man, fishing, eating rice balls, and strolling around the park with his wife? Why does he have to compete with Mr. Kitagawa?" Machimura Nobutaka pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance.

He doesn't care about Ichiro Tanizaki's new work.

The old guy's connections and relationships are concentrated in another political faction, which he does not get along with at all.

But Ichiro Tanizaki's plan to release a new work clearly means he wants to compete with Mr. Kitagawa again.

Machimura Nobutaka doesn't care who will be the "number one in the world" in the literary world.

But if these two people really fight, his Ministry of Education will have to take sides again.

In the past, I was barefoot and not afraid of wearing shoes. After all, I was just a vice minister, so no matter how much I lost, I couldn't lose much, because I had Prime Minister Hashimoto to back me up.

But now, he is the Minister of Education. If he loses the bet, will this position still be secure?

Among his predecessors, countless were brought down by disputes in the literary world.

Machimura Nobutaka doesn't want to be the next!
"It's probably because he has shares in Shinchosha." The secretary guessed, "After Tanizaki's reputation deteriorated, a major source of income for him was cut off. Shinchosha has always been another major source of income for him. Now that Shinchosha is about to be trampled under the feet of Kawaide Shobo, he is probably unable to sit still."

"Is he still short of money?" Machimura Nobutaka felt a headache.

The secretary hesitated, but still said truthfully: "No one would complain about too much money. And this time Kawaide Shobo is making a big move. President Kawaide Shizuko not only wants to swallow up most of the pure literature magazine market, but also has her sights set on the overseas market.

She seems to want to build a pure literary monopoly independent of the newspaper group. This will affect the interests of many people, so it is normal for Shinchosha to panic. "

Machimura Nobutaka didn't know much about the literary market, but he knew that Japan's entertainment industry was basically monopolized by a few newspaper conglomerates, and the Kawaide Group, which only controlled Kawaide Shobo, was far from being able to compete with those companies.

But it is hard to say whether Shizuko Kawaide can really create a pure literature monopoly giant.

Shinchosha is the first company she will take down, and then she will definitely touch upon the core interests of those newspaper groups.

The secretary did not dare to mention those families here, so he could only speak vaguely about it and then attribute the reason to the fact that Ichiro Tanizaki held shares in Shinchosha.

Machimura Nobutaka knew that the problem would become even more complicated when it came to the struggle between the chaebols.

Why did the literary world become so nervous as soon as I took office?
He thought about it and couldn't think of any good way to break the impasse, so he could only change the topic: "By the way, how is Mr. Kitagawa doing? Does he have any hope of winning an award? I heard that The Dancing Girl of Izu is selling very well in France. Should we follow up on it?"

"It seems that Mr. Kitagawa is also preparing a new book recently. I saw on his personal website that the new book will be serialized in "Wenyi" in March, and he will also consider serializing one in an overseas magazine." The secretary is a fan of Kitagawa Hide's books and knows a lot about this.

"As for winning the award, I personally think the possibility is very low."

This is also true.

After the announcement of the shortlist for this year's Nobel Prize in Literature, people in the industry had only one feeling, that is, it was a time of demons dancing wildly and gods descending to earth!

Many old but still strong guys are on the list, and even a few writers who seem to have a high chance of winning the award are shortlisted.

The last Japanese literature nominee was Ichiro Tanizaki, but in overseas handicaps, his odds of winning are extremely high and he is ranked last.

Kitagawa Hide was shortlisted this time, which is better than Tanizaki Ichiro, but he is also generally not favored.

His biggest disadvantage is his age.

Twenty-five is really too young.

The youngest winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature was Joseph Rudyard Kipling, who was only forty-one years old when he won the prize in 1907.

This happened ninety years ago.

No one thought that the jury would award the world's top literary award to a 25-year-old boy.

And although "The Dancing Girl of Izu" is good, it's not good enough to crush the other nominees. "Okay. Let's first ask the publicity department to make some posters and brochures for the award. If they're not used, forget it. Anyway, we can make the budget money."

Machimura Nobutaka said in his heart, "What a pity!" Indeed, Mr. Kitagawa was ridiculously young, and the literary world was a field that emphasized seniority.

But he will still give Kitagawa Hide the support that the Ministry of Education should give.

When Kitagawa Hide first made his debut, not only did the Ministry of Education not support him, but senior officials also obstructed him and tried to fleece him.

This is a perfect contrast to my current self and can also improve the image of the Ministry of Education.

While Machimura Nobutaka was still thinking about how to promote Kitagawa Hide, Kitagawa Hide, who had a headache due to a hangover yesterday and slept until the afternoon, was woken up by Yumeko.

"Honey, have some sobering soup." Mengzi's pregnant belly has not yet shown, but she has stopped going to the company and basically does not go out to work. She is only responsible for the operations related to Kitagawa Hide's personal books - all of which can be done online, very easily.

After hearing that she was pregnant, Jabami Rei brought the members of the Tokyo University fan club to congratulate her, and also brought the good news that Ichiko Sadaji had died unexpectedly.

The group of young ladies sat there for a while, and the restless Chizuru Hui and others took Kaoruko, Chihaya Ruri and others to Ginza for shopping as seniors.

Jabami Rei, who was already a first-line star, stayed and ate melon seeds while complaining that she had inexplicably become the "Kitagawa Girl" in the film and television industry.

For some reason, the company always likes to let her act in Hide Kitagawa's adapted works.

In the already scheduled films "Border" and "Lost Paradise", she unexpectedly got the opportunity to play the leading female role Shimamoto in the former, and also got an important supporting female role in the latter, the daughter of Muramatsu Tomomi.

After staying for a while and not seeing Kitagawa Hide wake up, Jabami Rei said goodbye.

"Thank you, Yumeko-chan." Kitagawa Hide listened to Yumeko talking about these trivial things while drinking the sobering soup.

It has been almost two years since he came here, and he is slowly adapting to the life and customs here.

Kitagawa Hide seldom drinks alcohol because alcohol paralyzes the nerves and drinking too much can make one's reaction slow, which is a highly toxic poison for writers.

However, drinking culture is a very core social culture in Japan. Office workers gather in izakayas after work, and young men and women must have several rows of beer in their refrigerators.

If everyone is drinking and you don’t, it’s easy to lose touch with them.

Kitagawa Hide is now gradually building his own career and company. He can't always stay in his study typing like a quail. He has to socialize and spend time with friends.

In this case, a drinking party is essential.

Then his poor drinking tolerance became his biggest weakness.

In addition, ever since she mentioned marriage to Yumeko, she also changed her address from "Hideki" to the more intimate "Anada", which means dear in Japanese and can also be considered as "husband".

Life was getting better little by little, and his literary career was going smoothly, which made Kitagawa Hide more confident and more motivated to work.

After drinking the sobering soup and briefly discussing the copyright operations of all the books with Mengzi, Kitagawa Hide immediately got up and got down to work.

Ichiko Sadajiro died.

Uchida Shozo was scared.

The Nobel Prize scandal came to an end.

Unfortunately, Ichiro Tanizaki woke up.

And he seemed to want to have a real fight with me before I actually got the Nobel Prize.

The new book series in March suddenly became extremely important.

Now, Tanizaki Ichiro's biggest trump card is that both he and himself were nominated for the Nobel Prize, but he took advantage of being there first and has more connections and experience in the literary world than himself.

Shinchosha must have received news that its big boss was going to expand its territory and go overseas, and it was completely panicked, and wanted to use Ichiro Tanizaki to turn the tables.

"It seems that I need to carefully conceive "The End of the World and Hard-Boiled Wonderland." Kitagawa Hide muttered to himself as he returned to the study. The lazy Pete curled up in the big cat bed, staring at the little hamster in the iron cage beside him.

After "I Am a Cat" was adapted into a film and television series, Pitt appeared in the film and television performance as himself, and the film and television producers specially promoted that "the protagonist is the cat raised by Mr. Kitagawa, and the prototype of us." Unexpectedly, the effect was surprisingly good. The TV series had high ratings and the movie box office was a hit, which was not inferior to "Jie Li".

Mengzi bought this "little toy" specially for it.

But Kitagawa Hide didn't want to watch cat and mouse games in his study all day, so he put the hamster in a cage and named it "Jerry".

Poor Jerry, in reality, his status is far inferior to that of "Tom".

Kitagawa Hide returned to his computer and, as usual, opened Yahoo Japan and a bunch of forums to get current news.

Recently, the headlines of various sections have been the Nobel Prize scandal and the breaking news that Hide Kitagawa was shortlisted for the Nobel Prize, followed by the murder of a Tepco OL.

As expected, with the cooperation of multiple units including the Metropolitan Police Department, the Procuratorate, and the Court, the murderer ended up being the hateful "Nepalese black man".

As for the cause of Watanabe Yasuko's death and matters related to TEPCO, there is no information about them at all.

Watanabe Yasuko's family also gave up on further investigation - they could get all of their daughter's inheritance, as well as a large sum of compensation from TEPCO.

As for my daughter, she is dead, so why continue to investigate?

Just like that, the sensational TEPCO OL murder incident ended even more hastily than in the previous life.

Kitagawa Hide felt unhappy that he was being used as a ghost for no apparent reason.

In the past, they liked to use celebrity scandals and gossip to cover up these things, but this time, they gave them a big gift themselves.

But soon, "The End of the World and Hard-Boiled Wonderland" will continue to give them a bigger "gift"!

After reading the news report, Kitagawa Hide saw the news of Ichiko Sadaji's death in the corner of the literature section.

The once-powerful Dean of the Faculty of Letters of Kyoto University and member of the Academy of Sciences is now dead, and there is not even an official agency to help issue an obituary.

It's quite sad too.

When a person dies, the light goes out.

No matter what grudges there were in the past, Kitagawa Hideto decided to let it go and not pursue it any further.

After reading these messages, he opened his notebook again and looked at the densely written beginning. He scratched his head and felt that it was not good enough.

"What exactly went wrong?"

(End of this chapter)