I am a literary giant in Japan

Chapter 278: People do not achieve immortality by extending time, but by decomposing time
“Man achieves immortality not by extending time, but by decomposing time.”

This is the core theme of The World's End and Hard-Boiled Wonderland.

In simple terms, people extend their lives by "feeling life" rather than achieving immortality through physical longevity.

Many people are afraid of death.

Especially the wealthy and powerful politicians, they have no shortage of money, women, and social status, but they are extremely short of time.

Many people begin to seek the secret of immortality at the end of their lives.

Next door, Emperor Qin Shi Huang sent Xu Fu to Penglai in search of the elixir of life.

There are also many wealthy people around the world who spend a lot of money to buy "longevity".

Little do people know that in the process of pursuing immortality, they fall into a vicious circle. There is no scenery in their eyes anymore, only the empty time.

It is precisely those who feel life, enjoy life, taste the ups and downs of life, and see the vicissitudes of life who can achieve "longevity" in the true sense.

Life lies in thickness, not length.

In "The End of the World and Hard-Boiled Wonderland", Haruki Murakami also explores how ordinary people should face life in a capitalist society.

This theme is particularly suitable for today's young Japanese people.

Some of them are like the Tokyo University fan girls who have just entered the workplace, some are like Saito Rena who has been ups and downs in the workplace for several years, and some are like Watanabe Yasuko who just passed away.

They are the "TEPCO OL" under the control of huge capital, and they may be "killed" one day.

"When Mr. Murakami wrote this book, in addition to satirizing the oppression of the lower classes by the highly developed capitalist society and the suffocating feeling of the country monopolized by the consortium, he also gave some enlightenment to ordinary people, hoping that they can face life squarely, face life, and enjoy life."

Thanks to the unknown golden finger benefit from time travel, Kitagawa Hide's head is like a literary palace of the original history, not only filled with various famous works, but also many profound experiences and understandings.

This understanding became deeper and clearer as he experienced two lifetimes as a human being.

With his current literary creation ability and plagiarism skills, it is not difficult for him to perfectly reproduce "The End of the World and Hard-Boiled Wonderland".

But after writing several times, Kitagawa Hide was not satisfied with the beginning and the outline of the story.

As he wrote, he felt that he had become one of the calculators in the book who had lost consciousness, had no heart, no memory, and no self.

The characters in the novel almost never have to worry about their livelihood. Although they do not have the pressure of working hard to have a rich life, they have also lost the motivation and meaning of life.

Like a zombie.

What is the problem?

Kitagawa Hide kept scratching his head, but he still couldn't find the root of the problem.

On the contrary, "Remembrance of Things Past", which he had previously thought was difficult to write, became smooth sailing after he consulted a lot of literature and read books related to France during the First and Second World Wars.

He had successfully written 200 words of the reduced 5 million-word book in the past few days, and he would be able to send it to Olivia when he had 10 words this month.

Kitagawa Hide thought for a while, then hugged the lazy Pete in his arms and stroked him vigorously, but still had no clue, so he opened his private website to check the operation status.

Most of his wealth comes from the value generated by his novels, and this private website, which he created on a whim, has now become a communication hub for all his companies and works, and also brings together most of his Internet book fans, so nothing can go wrong.

Therefore, Kitagawa Hide would log in every now and then to check on the operation of the website. If there were any problems, he could report them to Murabayashi Kyohei in time so that he could lead his team to resolve them quickly.

Today, his total assets have exceeded 100 billion yen, of which 50 billion yen is liquid capital. Although it is still far from the big boss's net worth of 1200 billion yen (estimated to be even higher now), the speed at which his assets are expanding is also considerable.

Kitagawa Hide knew nothing about financial management and investment, so all the money was placed in the Industrial Central Bank and handed over to Senhara Masato to manage.

他去过几次银行本部，记得日本现在10亿円（折合软妹币1亿元）存个死期也有差不多2500万円的利息，50亿円就是1.25亿円。

Of course, in reality, Masato Senhara's speed of making money is faster than the interest on the fixed income, and it seems that he can bring nearly 2 million yen of new income to Kitagawa Hide in a year.

Sure enough, when wealth accumulates to a certain amount, the speed at which money makes money is beyond the reach of ordinary workers.

2 million yen is almost the copyright fee for a short story by Kitagawa Hide, which is quite a lot.

At this time, the website's major recommendation was scrolling through the shortlisted news of "The Dancing Girl of Izu", and its Japanese version of the physical book was also being prepared in full swing.

It's quite funny to say that the French translation of "The Dancing Girl of Izu" has been selling in France for more than a month, but the physical book has not yet appeared in Japan.

Many fanatical book fans asked their overseas friends to buy the books for them. They have already collected several sets of French translations at home, and then they urge Mr. Kitagawa to publish the Japanese version on the message board every day!
This time, Kawaide Shobo plans to publish a hardcover paperback edition, and the price is an unprecedented 8888 yen. Following "Hear the Wind Sing", it once again broke the record for the single-copy price of a hardcover paperback edition of a Japanese domestic novel!

Of course, for fans of Hide Kitagawa's books, 8888 yen is an acceptable price, as long as it is exquisite and beautiful enough!

This time, Hide Kitagawa wants to introduce the concept of online sales through "The Dancing Girl of Izu" - in addition to selling in bookstores, the book can also be ordered on Hide Kitagawa's personal website, and online purchases can receive a handwritten signature from Mr. Kitagawa.

This creative idea amazed Shizuko Kawaide.

Selling books to readers via the Internet?
Is this really possible?

In this way, it seems to have avoided the problem of many people not having enough time to buy books and worrying about wasting time in queue.

Especially the issues of safety and integrity. If they are not resolved, Shizuko Kawaide doesn't think anyone will be willing to buy it.

After some discussion and being sternly rejected by the board of directors, Kitagawa Hide had no choice but to purchase goods from Kawade Shobo and then sell them online himself.

He could understand the directors' concerns.

Not to mention sales to the general public, even transactions between companies are not something that anyone is willing to do online.

Because mobile phones had not yet developed, online payment models had not yet appeared. In Japan, PayPay only appeared in 2018.

The internationally used PayPal, which is the prototype of Alipay, was founded in 1998, which is also next year.

Today's online payment still relies on the most primitive mailing model.

That is, the payee sends his bank account to the payer, the latter goes to the bank to transfer the money, and then receives the goods.

There are too many uncertainties and security issues involved, and everyone is very resistant to it.

However, Kitagawa Hide's private website perfectly avoids this problem.

He made Beichuan Entertainment's bank account public to the website members, and everyone could remit money into it and receive the physical book soon. Readers did not worry that Mr. Beichuan would cheat them out of their money.

When "The Dancing Girl of Izu" is officially released, these first batch of people will be able to see the book earlier, and it will be a signed collector's edition. The seeds of online payment will definitely be planted in their hearts.

Kitagawa Hide wants to make more money now, and then take advantage of the 97 Asian financial crisis to make a fortune, and try to save the industry for future generations.

While thinking about how to talk to Senhara Masato about sniping the Thai baht, he quickly browsed the message board of the website.

There are three administrators of the website, him, Yumeko, and Kyohei Murabayashi. Kyohei Murabayashi is only responsible for technical support, while Yumeko is in charge of messages, member management and other matters. Kitagawa Hide is just a hands-off boss.

Now that Mengzi is pregnant, he, who has never been superstitious, is worried about the impact of computer radiation on Mengzi and is determined to have her have less or no contact with computers.

Therefore, the task of maintaining order in the website community suddenly fell on him.

The message board is basically full of praise for Kitagawa Hide and urging for more updates.

Without the chaotic atmosphere of the Yahoo Japan forum, his private website community is more harmonious and everyone is discussing the plot of the novel.

After a quick glance, there were a few messages complaining about work dissatisfaction that stood out from the crowd, which aroused Kitagawa Xiu's curiosity.

He is an administrator who can see users' private information and has the authority to view members' real identity information.

When he clicked on the accounts of those people, he found that there were many updates complaining about work that were visible only to him. Then he found that those people were actually pseudonyms of members of the website's technical team!

These people's complaints focus on their fear of the increasingly rapidly developing Internet technology and their complaints about the capital-monopolized society.

This is probably the typical fear of computers among programmers and the confusion of ordinary Japanese office workers about life and the future.

"Is Mr. Murayashi's Showa-style management team method too stressful?" Kitagawa Hide is a corporate slave who traveled through time from after 00 and has a deep understanding of the workplace pressure faced by young people.

Kyohei Murabayashi is a typical Showa man. He is passionate and enthusiastic about his work and has very high demands on his team.

There is no overtime culture in Japan, but many companies are doing it secretly because most of the middle-level managers nowadays are people like him.

They always live in the feeling that "not working hard seems to be a guilt", and they cannot rest for a moment.

Kitagawa Hide pays a high salary to their technical team. Even with such treatment, the employees still complain so much. This should not be underestimated!
He quickly wrote down the names of several people and then called Kyohei Murabayashi.

At this time, Kyohei Murabayashi, who was working overtime day and night with his team to expand the website, received a call from the big boss behind the scenes for the first time!
Before this, he had been in contact with Masato Senhara and would occasionally chat with the boss's girlfriend, so he had no idea about the big boss who is now shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

He ran to the bathroom at lightning speed holding his cell phone, stood straight, and kept bowing while talking to Kitagawa Hide.

".Do you mean that you want to come over and inspect our work?"

"No, no, no, I'm just here to take a look. It's not a formal inspection." Kitagawa Hide didn't want to put any psychological pressure on these novice coders.

With the advancement of technology and the rapid development of the Internet, these are talents that are hard to come by.

Looking at it now, Kitagawa Hide is making a huge loss by hiring them at high salaries, but in a few years, the value of these people will skyrocket. By then, even if you spend several times the current price, you may not be able to hire them.

Kitagawa Hidekazu and his colleagues all have lifetime contracts.

"Understood! I'll arrange it right away!" Murabayashi Kyohei stood straighter.

He didn't believe that this was just a casual visit, it was clearly an inspection!
The boss must be dissatisfied with the employees' recent slack work!

After hanging up the phone, Kyouhei Murabashi returned to his post with a grim face, as if he was facing a great enemy.

He disdains to do face-saving projects to deceive people, so he can only be fully prepared to face the big boss!
Kitagawa Hide couldn't help but smile bitterly after hanging up the phone.

I always feel that Kyohei Murabayashi's enthusiastic work attitude has both advantages and disadvantages, so I should have a good talk with him this time.

By the way, go and see those young employees who are complaining all the time.

He felt as if he had grasped the key point in writing "The End of the World and Hard-Boiled Wonderland".

Kitagawa Network Co., Ltd. headquarters, technical department office area.

"Chi Ze, your date tonight is going to be ruined again." The young man with glasses and fluffy hair secretly leaned his head towards the work station next to him.

"Go away, Kawagoe, isn't your game also canceled?" Ikezawa responded, and then couldn't help but complain in a low voice, "Hey, why did Director Murabayashi suddenly say that everyone has to work overtime? Although the five times the overtime pay is very tempting, I really want to hug Nami-chan's soft body tonight!"

"Yeah, sitting in front of the computer like this every day, I feel like I'm almost becoming a puppet of the computer. Just like the servants of those chaebol families in ancient times, what is the meaning of life?"

Kawagoe sighed.

Although he hasn't seen his girlfriend for as long as Ikezawa, he has already missed several amateur football matches. If this continues, how can he save the future of Japanese football? !

There are also many programmers around who are complaining and confused.

Because of their poor academic performance, they can only choose very unpopular technical majors in college. After graduation, they can only work in junk companies and government agencies affiliated with conglomerates, earning meager salaries and living an inhuman life.

Finally, a big boss with a keen eye came and they received salaries several times higher than before. They were very comfortable in this economic depression.

But facing the computer and the code day and night, it seems like the person has become an empty shell.

"Who says it's not? But it seems that it's not just us, many of my classmates are also complaining about this. Showa men like Minister Murabayashi are not suitable for today's society." Someone echoed.

This topic was a bit dangerous, and everyone fell silent immediately.

At this moment, Kyohei Murabayashi suddenly appeared in the office area, and the atmosphere in the entire company became more solemn.

"Everyone, please put down your work immediately and follow me to the company gate to welcome Mr. Kitagawa." Murabayashi Kyohei paused, feeling that using the title of boss or something like that was a bit insulting to Kitagawa Hide's name, so he changed it to teacher.

In the Japanese concept, those who can be called teachers are generally only doctors, teachers and other people who have made great contributions to society. It is a respectful title.

"Teacher Kitagawa?! Is it... our big boss, the one who was just shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in Literature?" Ikezawa, who was originally very discouraged, couldn't help but exclaimed.

The date place for him and his girlfriend was the National Library in Shinjuku Ward. Since his girlfriend was still a school girl and loved Mr. Kitagawa's books very much, they always went there.

They are also very curious about Mr. Kitagawa, who is very famous in the Japanese literary world, sounds like an elegant writer, but is said to control many large companies.

Why did such a big shot suddenly come to the company?

(End of this chapter)