I am a literary giant in Japan

After watching for a while, Naoto Kan took out the mask and sunglasses he carried with him, walked out of the crowd slowly, went straight to the cafe opposite, found an empty seat, and continued reading.

It is easy to get into trouble if you read magazines on the street.

This attire may make you suspected to be a celebrity and be followed by fans and paparazzi.

Once his true identity is discovered, Naoto Kan will still have a headache.

After all, he is also the current leader of the New Democratic Party.

After his top subordinate was sent to prison by himself, the party was in turmoil day and night, and people were unstable. However, as the party leader, he secretly bought the books of writers from the enemy camp alone during the sensitive period.
It is better not to be discovered for the time being if you do something that is not conducive to unity.

This dimly lit, quiet cafe seems to be specially designed to serve people like them.

Naoto Kan found that the guests in the hotel had tacitly separated their tables into several groups, so that no one could disturb anyone else.

Most of the guests who come here also hold "Mass" in their hands and read it with relish. Many of them, like him, use sunglasses and masks to disguise their true identities.

"It's a good place." Naoto Kan nodded with satisfaction and returned his gaze to the magazine.

The second issue of "The Crucible" serialized in the February 1999 issue of "Massive" follows the first issue and begins with Kitahara Hiroshi gradually discovering various anomalies in the Charity School for the Deaf and Mute.

At this time, Kitahara Hiroshi, who had not yet paid the "teaching donation", was excluded from the faculty and staff group like an outsider.

He could only wander between the office and the classroom, trying to communicate with the students using his not-so-skilled sign language.

However, the students here are just like the faculty and staff, extremely xenophobic and distrustful of strangers.

During these extremely torturous days, the 200,000 yen that my wife "raised" from relatives and friends finally arrived.

The next morning, Kitahara Hiroshi knocked on the door of the administration office carrying a shopping bag full of banknotes.

Regardless of whether this last time was so-called betrayal, compromise, or irresponsibility, he finally made up his mind.

Kitahara Hiroshi has lived for thirty-four years, but he is not a man who can have a clear conscience.

He once secretly spent the night with a woman in a hotel without telling his wife;
Tax evasion in business;
When he sees his classmates getting rich and driving high-end foreign sports cars, he hopes that they will go bankrupt as soon as possible.
He even had an abnormal lust for his friend's beautiful wife.

When you think about it this way, what does this low-level bribery really count for?

When he stood at the door of the administrative office, he remembered what his wife had said to him.

If he were a rich man with a wealthy family and inherited a large piece of land, he might donate more than ten times the money for the disabled.

After opening the door of the administration office, Kitahara Hiroshi unexpectedly found that Inspector Jiang from the Wujin Police Station, who had met him in the principal's office yesterday, had come.

The head of the administration office and Inspector Jiang were once again making inappropriate jokes about people with disabilities.

It seemed that because of the bag of money, the two finally accepted Kitahara Hiroshi a little bit. Inspector Jiang even smiled at Kitahara Hiroshi and said, "Let's have a drink together one day! Wujin is a pretty good city for eating, drinking and having fun."

"Oh, is this what they call friendship that is stabilized by donations?"

Seeing this, Naoto Kan couldn't help but snorted coldly.

There are countless members in the New Democratic Party who are tied together by various donations.

Some of them serve as members of parliament at all levels, some hold important positions in the public security, procuratorial and judicial departments, and some have extensive connections in the business world.

These people gathered into a small group, and then countless such small groups formed a large party.

To have a firm grasp on such a large party, one must know the leaders of these small groups very well.

Since taking over the New Democratic Party, Naoto Kan has been very dissatisfied with this kind of behavior within the party.

Internal factionalism will only quickly cause the party to collapse!

The Liberal Democratic Party has been able to control Japanese politics for a long time because they know their limits and will not allow party members to rely too much on political donations.

Of course, these are his insights into politics.

In the novel, the gangs and cliques in the school, even if the inspector of the police station was involved, were nothing more than an alliance of insects and ants in his eyes.

After paying the teaching donation and becoming a formal teacher, Kitahara Hiroshi originally planned to teach in the school peacefully, earn a salary as his wife dreamed, and slowly get his terrible life back on track.

However, things don't always go as he wishes.
A deaf-mute girl named Yanzi tried to escape from the school at night, but was caught by the security guard and the administrative director in the middle of the night.

The next day, Kitahara Hiroshi witnessed a beating of Yeon-ja, during which the female tutor tried to stuff her arm into the running washing machine!

Unable to bear it any longer, Kitahara Hiroshi stopped their atrocities, and then quietly helped Yanzi contact her mother who was outside.

The next day, the mother and Yanzi met secretly. After the conversation, the mother and daughter hugged each other and cried, begging Kitahara Hiroshi to take them to the Wujin City Human Rights Protection Center.

It was only at this point that Kitahara Hiroshi realized that things were a little different from what he thought.

He hurriedly drove the two of them to meet Senior Mako, and then with her introduction, they went to the Wujin City Human Rights Protection Center.

That night, Kitahara Hiroshi was asked out by senior Mako.

"Alas, every time I see such a bad plot, I don't dare to continue reading, but every time I will be aroused by Mr. Beichuan's writing style."

Kan's fingers got stuck on the page.

He roughly knew what Senior Mako would say to Kitahara Hiroshi. Those cruel but real phenomena had already been reported by major media outlets.

The media and all sectors of society are only thinking about how to use the popularity of the Charity Group to hype themselves up and gain traffic and eyeballs, without caring about the feelings and privacy of the victims at all.

However, with the general trend, even the Prime Minister's cabinet is encouraging the media to expose these things. What can he, a Minister of Health, Labor and Welfare, do?

"The Crucible" retells the atrocities of the school leaders from the perspective of Yanzi and her daughter, giving Naoto Kan a completely different perception of the entire incident.

Whether he, Kitagawa Hide, or people from all walks of life, they are all bystanders and observers of the incident.

The other person's joys, sorrows, anger and happiness cannot be reflected on them, and it is difficult for them to have any real empathy.

Therefore, isn’t the media’s approach also their attitude towards this matter?
And at this moment, looking at the pages of the book and the bloody words, Naoto Kan finally felt a different perspective.

The victims are not just heartless names, but real, living people.

They are the center of the incident.

"I asked my friends at the Human Rights Protection Center. They said Yanzi was sexually assaulted at school a few days ago, and it was the principal who did it."

Kitahara Hiroshi looked at Senior Mako with his eyes wide open in disbelief.

These words came so suddenly.

In his opinion, rescuing Yanzi is nothing more than letting the child receive less violent education. After all, Wujin City is just a small place, and most of the teachers there are probably local people with some knowledge who have not received real vocational education.

"Stick education" is also a popular education model in rural areas of Japan, and many rural schools still use it.

These deaf-mute children are more sensitive than normal children. Kitahara Hiroshi does not reject "stick education", but feels that it is a bit excessive to use it on these disabled children.

That's why he rescued Yeon-ja and contacted her mother.

But the actual situation seemed to be far beyond his expectations!
"Yanzi said she was dragged into the school toilet. It was almost sexual violence. That's what I think."

Mako ate her baked potatoes and was silent for a moment, but she finally told Kitahara Hiroshi everything.

"I can't imagine why he would do that - she was so young."

After saying this, Mako kept silent, which was rare.

Kitahara Hiroshi had several experiences of being struck by lightning in his life.

For example, my father passed away in a traffic accident;
When you are beaten without reason by your superiors while serving in the Self-Defense Forces and you are helpless;

And when I heard that my former student Mingxi committed suicide.

These are things that you have to go through in life, and you can talk about them with your friends while drinking sake.

But now I hear this.
It didn't feel like being struck by lightning, but more like someone was hitting him repeatedly on the back of his head, as if he was exposed to a strong electric current. His whole body was shaking and his brain couldn't think at all.

"What did you say."

"It's hard to believe. Me too. But the child's account was quite consistent and detailed, to the point of being frightening."

Mako's expression turned serious again.

He is nearly sixty years old, the son of the founder of the Charity School for the Deaf and Dumb and also the principal. As long as he wants, he should be able to get any woman.

The streets are full of prostitutes, salons, cafes, hotels, massage parlors, and phone sex salons.
In this world, young women who sell their sexual organs to make money are like fish on a chopping board; they are everywhere and nothing strange about them.

But he just had to attack the girl!

An indescribable feeling of nausea rushed straight into Kitahara Hiroshi's throat, and also made Naoto Kan, who was drinking coffee, feel inexplicably uncomfortable.

The Ci Ai Group has been wiped out.

Needless to say, in Japan, everyone from Maehara Seiji and others who protected them to the leaders of the group were thrown into prison, with the minimum sentence being ten years in prison.

Those who are still wandering overseas are probably in an even worse situation.

The Thai government's attitude towards this matter is extremely firm, and it seems that it is determined to restore its international image through "Children in the Dark".

In this case, the illegal elements hiding in Thailand will suffer a devastating blow.

The collapse of the Ci Ai Group and the return of the deaf school in Yamanashi Prefecture to normalcy are worth celebrating.

But everyone, including Naoto Kan himself, only knew all this indirectly through news and novels.

He never really cared about those children, never really understood what they were going through or their current situation.

Everyone is immersed in the joy of victory, who would care about the corpses that died on this road of struggle?

After watching "The Crucible", Naoto Kan finally understood why Mr. Kitagawa asked to continue to promote his "Disabled but Determined Us" trilogy at a high intensity.

With his current status, he doesn't need this little money and resources at all.

He hopes that through these three novels, people will truly understand this group and these things!

Kitahara Hiroshi and Mako continued their conversation, and there was much more to the story regarding the Charity School for the Deaf and Dumb than just that!
Mako told him that Yanzi had actually found her mother the last time she was raped.

After the two complained to the Sexual Violence Center, they wrote a report at the police station. However, the Sexual Violence Center did not immediately send the girl to the hospital or take isolation and protection measures. Instead, it sent her back to school!
Shortly thereafter, the lawsuit was dropped!
In addition to Yanzi, there is another girl named Liuli.
"This is too outrageous!" Naoto Kan's hands were shaking as he looked at "The Crucible" in disbelief and incomprehension.

If "Children of the Dark" is a cruel and bloody truth, then "The Crucible" is a reality closer to life and daily life.

The former, because of cross-border transactions and the participation of all kinds of people, sounds like a cheesy Hollywood blockbuster. Besides being thrilling and bloody, it makes people feel that it is far enough away from their own lives and is not so shocking.

But "The Crucible" is about an ordinary school, the perspective of ordinary people, and "ordinary" cases that sound incredible but are very likely to happen if you think about it carefully.

So many "ordinary" things overlap together, making people feel that it is just a small thing happening in their own lives.

This is the real creepy feeling!
"It's almost the 21st century now. The police will definitely investigate this kind of thing!" Kitahara Hiroshi said to Mako.

Mako retorted, "It's because these almost 21st century police officers don't investigate that such unbelievable things happen!"

When Naoto Kan saw the two people in the book starting to criticize the social system and the police system, he couldn't help but smile.

Sure enough, Mr. Kitagawa is no exception.

No matter which writer it is, when mentioning the national system, he has to criticize it.

He skipped this plot and continued reading.

After half an hour.

Naoto Kan walked out of the cafe with an extremely heavy heart.

Men and women wearing sunglasses and masks like him also came out one after another.

Everyone still had a tacit understanding of not disturbing each other and keeping their distance, but the atmosphere between them was very solemn.

This is because they all watched The Crucible.

He originally thought that this novel would be inferior to "Children in the Dark".

Looking back now, its attack on personal spirit is far more terrifying than the bloody "Children in the Dark"!

"It's far from over." Naoto Kan sighed.

Judging from the situation shown in "The Crucible", once one charity group is dealt with, there will be a second and a third.

Mr. Kitagawa obviously wanted to solve this problem once and for all.

He returned to the car, and just as the driver was about to ask if he was going home, he waved his hand.

"Nita-kun, help me call the Minister of Education's private phone number and tell him that I have something important to discuss with him.

Well, it’s about Mr. Kitagawa’s new book, “The Crucible.” (End of this chapter)