Tokyo Literary Masters: Starting from the Late 1980s

Chapter 218 Heading to Stockholm

At the end of November, around 6 a.m., the sky outside Narita Airport was a hazy gray.

A cold wind kept blowing in along the road outside the terminal, causing the police tape to sway gently.

Shinchosha did not arrange a public send-off. According to Kitahara Iwao, the trip to Stockholm was just a normal trip, and there was no need to hold a send-off ceremony or have the publisher organize readers to come. He and his party could just leave directly.

When the convoy arrived at the airport, Kenichi Sato looked out the window and was speechless for a long time.

The entrance to the terminal was already packed with people: bookstore clerks, company employees, university students, taxi drivers—

There were also some people dressed in worn clothes, who were clearly unemployed, waiting here in the cold wind.

The crowd gathered here was unusually quiet; everyone just stood there, many holding copies of "The Long Road" and "The Collapsing Tower."

Seeing this, the driver in the front seat tightened his grip on the steering wheel, instinctively stepped on the brakes to slow down, and said, "Teacher Kitahara, there are just too many people outside."

"For your safety, would you like to contact the airport and have the plane driven directly onto the tarmac via a special passage?"

Kitahara Iwa looked at the people who were frozen stiff in the cold wind but still standing there, and shook his head, saying, "No need."

Kitahara Iwa straightened his clothes and said, "Let's park here."

Hearing Kitahara Iwa's words, the driver slowly brought the car to a stop in front of the crowd.

He mistakenly pushed open the car door and stepped out.

The moment Kitahara Iwa appeared in everyone's sight, the previously quiet crowd erupted into a frenzy, like a powder keg suddenly ignited!

"Teacher Kitahara!"

Someone, with tears in their eyes, roared first, and then a deafening cheer, like a tsunami, instantly swept through the entire terminal entrance.

"Teacher! Have a safe trip!"

"Teacher Kitahara, go and get your trophy back!"

People who were shivering in the cold wind were now completely free from all restraint and repression.

Their faces flushed red as they waved their copies of "The Long Road" or "The Collapsing Tower" with all their might. Even when stopped by security personnel, they pushed their way forward desperately, just to get a little closer to Kitahara Iwa.

At this moment, no one cared about the cold wind, nor did anyone care about dignity.

The voices of hundreds and thousands of people converged, breaking through the oppressive atmosphere and gloom of Tokyo with fervent emotions.

Kitahara Iwao walked at the front, with Sakai Izumi beside him, followed by Sato Kenichi and several Shinchosha staff members. Their luggage was handled by airport staff.

Amidst deafening cheers, the short passageway, only a few dozen meters long, seemed to transform into a grand pilgrimage.

All the long guns and short cannons were simultaneously aimed at Kitahara Iwa.

The television reporters were kept outside the police cordon, forced to raise their microphones and shout questions amidst the clamor: "Mr. Kitahara, how are you feeling right now?"

What kind of speech are you planning to give in Stockholm?

"After refusing the Order of Culture, are you worried that the Japanese government might make things difficult for you during your overseas trips?"

Faced with flashing lights as bright as day and a frenzied crowd, Kitahara Iwa declined an interview, only nodding slightly to the crowds on either side.

As Kitahara Iwa made his move, the cheers from the crowd rose again, and thunderous applause erupted!

Applause and cheers mingled together, almost lifting the terminal's dome off.

Everyone clapped with great force, oblivious to the fact that their hands were already red from clapping.

At this moment, Kitahara Iwa stopped in front of the security checkpoint and turned around to look at the crowd.

Outside the cordon, a dense crowd was still frantically waving books in their hands and shouting Kitahara Iwa's name at the top of their lungs.

Kitahara Iwa looked at them, then bowed deeply to the group of readers who had come to see him off in the cold winter. He then made an exception and walked to the cordon, standing in front of the microphone that was almost pressed against his face.

Seeing this, the once bustling terminal entrance miraculously fell silent.

Everyone held their breath, their eyes fixed on Kitahara Iwa.

Kitahara Iwa's gaze swept past the countless flashing cameras and landed on those faces red from the cold. He said, "It's so cold. Thank you all for coming all this way to see me off today."

At this point, Kitahara Iwa paused, looking at the readers in the crowd who were tormented by the heavy burdens of life, yet still retained a spark in their eyes.

"Be careful on your way back."

"From now on, please live your lives well. No matter how difficult the world is right now, as long as you are still alive and your family is still alive, there is still hope."

"I'm going to collect the award. You all take good care of yourselves."

"boom!"

These few simple words seemed to pierce through everyone's hearts.

After a brief silence, applause and cheers erupted like a volcano, reaching their peak at that moment, with an aura that threatened to lift the roof off the terminal building, vibrating the eardrums of everyone present!

Kitahara Iwah withdrew his gaze, turned around and walked into the security checkpoint. Even after his figure completely disappeared at the end of the passage, the crowd remained standing, watching Kitahara Iwah leave.

That morning, footage of the send-off at Narita Airport was broadcast throughout Japan via television news.

When broadcasting, major television stations unanimously abandoned flowery but empty praise.

As the camera cut to the scene, one of the news anchors said, "In this bleak winter, what Mr. Kitahara brought to Stockholm was not only a literary honor, but also the small hopes of countless ordinary people who wanted to continue to strive to live."

While Kitahara Iwa's flights were crossing Eurasia, thousands of kilometers away in Stockholm, another undercurrent was already brewing.

At this time, the Japanese Embassy in Sweden was in a state of anxiety and busyness.

Kitahara Iwa's refusal of the Order of Culture in Japan, which caused the Imperial Household Agency to lose face, led the domestic media to regard him as a symbol of drawing a line between writers and power.

The politicians in Kasumigaseki knew that they could not allow this rift to continue to be exposed to the barrage of attacks from the European media.

Therefore, the Cabinet issued a strict order to the ambassador to Sweden: by any means necessary, a false impression of "harmonious relations between the government and literary giants" must be created in Stockholm, and the Nobel Prize ceremony must not be allowed to become a second venue for the international community to judge the Japanese bureaucratic system.

To accomplish this task, the embassy worked overnight to devise a public relations plan that could be described as perfect.

They booked the entire banquet hall of a top hotel in Stockholm to host a high-profile official congratulatory dinner on the eve of the awards ceremony.

Swedish political figures, representatives of cultural institutions, and celebrities from the European publishing industry were all included in the invitation list.

From the performance of traditional Japanese musical instruments to the menu designed by top chefs, every detail exudes extravagance that spares no expense.

In the very center of the banquet hall, a backdrop with the words "The Japanese Government congratulates Mr. Kitahara Iwao on winning the Nobel Prize in Literature" in gold lettering is already being set up.

The bureaucrats are very shrewd in their calculations.

All they needed was for Kitahara Iwao to attend and then stand between the Japanese ambassador and several Swedish dignitaries for a photo.

With just this photo, the embarrassing situation in China can be repackaged.

The media would then loudly proclaim that the government and the literary giant had reconciled, and the embarrassing "refusal to accept the medal" would be downplayed and embellished as the writer's indifference to fame and fortune.