Tokyo Literary Godfather

Itagaki Kazuhiko continued to read.

He followed the police officer Sasahara Junzo's perspective to investigate all the way. At this time, a mother and daughter entered the police's field of vision. The mother seemed to have had an affair with the deceased.

New characters appeared one after another, but Itagaki Kazuhiko didn't feel confused at all and couldn't remember the characters, which surprised him.

Mystery novels are actually very difficult to write. Many new authors often throw out a bunch of clues to make readers confused. This is no longer thirty years ago, and readers' patience has been greatly reduced. This can easily make readers lose interest.

However, this book is written just right, constantly throwing out new clues and leading readers to further explore the truth without making people feel complicated and lengthy.

However, that’s it…

Although the writing is pretty good, it is not too eye-catching and is even a bit old-school.

Thinking of this, Itagaki Kazuhiko opened the second chapter.

The perspective suddenly changed. Itagaki Kazuhiko was stunned for a moment, and then he realized that the timeline had moved to a few years later.

What's the meaning? What about the original case? Not broken anymore?

Sasahara Junzo looked at it for a while and determined that the case back then had become a complete unsolved case. The two children related to the case, the son of the deceased and the daughter of the mother and daughter, come into the reader's field of vision.

The story instantly divided into two story lines, one is about the heroine Yukiho Karasawa, and the other is about the hero Ryoji Kirihara.

Their stories are told separately, but the plot in the book constantly hints to the readers that the two have always maintained a relationship.

Why do the deceased's son and the suspect's daughter keep in touch?

Could it be...

Only then did Itagaki Kazuhiko discover that a major feature of this novel was that the author never deliberately concealed the truth about the mysteries in the book, but he also never published the answers.

"Um...what's your name, little brother?" Itagaki Kazuhiko suddenly asked.

"Kei Fujiwara."

"Fujiwara-kun, is this your first time writing a novel?"

"Yes, I'm still new."

This is not easy. Itagaki Kazuhiko thought to himself that even a writer who has been debuting for more than ten years may not be able to master this kind of writing.

Itagaki Kazuhiko continued to read, and in the third chapter, the plot reached a climax. The male protagonist Kirihara Ryoji sold a male classmate in his class to several wealthy older sisters and earned the difference.

However, when a male classmate had a private relationship with a rich woman, he used excessive force and caused the client to die on the bed...

Itagaki Kazuhiko: "..."

The character portrayed in the second chapter is Yukiho Karasawa, so the character portrayed in the third chapter is the male protagonist Ryoji Kirihara. The images of the two protagonists who do whatever it takes to achieve their goals are vividly displayed on the page.

After the third chapter ended, Itagaki Kazuhiko couldn't wait to open the fourth chapter.

As an editor, Itagaki Kazuhiko read books very quickly, but he read them very carefully. When he noticed that there were not many manuscripts in his hand, he raised his head and asked: "Fujiwara-kun, did you only write four chapters?"

Kei Fujiwara thought for a moment and took out the rest of the manuscript from his bag, "Actually, I have finished the manuscript, but I think four chapters are enough to judge the quality of the article."

"Your novel is very well written. It's hard to believe that it was written by a newcomer." Kazuhiko Itagaki said, "But precisely because he is a newcomer, it is difficult to pass the serialization meeting, especially for socialist works. If not If you mind, could you let me copy the whole book?"

Kei Fujiwara handed over the rest of the manuscript and said, "Please do as you wish."

Itagaki Kazuhiko had a printer at home, so he took it to make copies. The machine roared for a while, and Itagaki Kazuhiko returned the original manuscript to Fujiwara Kei.

"Fujiwara-kun, please give me your business card."

"Sorry, I don't have a business card. Can you please leave your contact information?"

Itagaki Kazuhiko handed over a piece of paper, and Fujiwara Kei left the apartment room phone number and pager number on the paper.

"Then I won't disturb you." Fujiwara Kei bowed to Itagaki Kazuhiko.

"No matter what the outcome of the novel is, I will contact you to tell you the follow-up, which will probably take about three to five days." Kazuhiko Itagaki certainly knows what the submitted author is thinking, "You have my contact information and you can contact me at any time."

After saying that, Itagaki Kazuhiko suddenly asked: "Fujiwara-kun, can I ask? Why did you choose to write socialist novels?"

"Your novel is very complete, and you are a newcomer. You must have put a lot of effort into creation and have read many novels. Then you should know that the sales of socialist novels are not good."

"Many famous writers have written socialist works, but most of them failed. Even Hattori-san, the president of the Mystery Fiction Association, his socialist works only sold 200,000 copies. For him, , this sales volume is already very small.”

"To be honest, I just signed a contract with an unknown author not long ago. The serialization of his socialist novels is not very popular, so the magazine is already quite hostile towards the socialists."

Fujiwara Kei thought for a while and said: "Mr. Itagaki, I think socialist works will become popular soon. It's not that readers don't like socialist mystery novels, but this genre has never had a truly wonderful work. "

"As long as the story is interesting enough, readers will love it."

Fujiwara Kei paused and said: "I have actually read the social mystery novel that was serialized in the Spring and Autumn Literature Awards not long ago. I think the story is quite interesting. The reason why it is not popular may be that it is too ahead of its time."

Itagaki was taken aback. In the internal meeting of their editorial department, the editor-in-chief said the same thing when he analyzed the reasons for the failure of this work.

Kei Fujiwara continued: "Popular works must keep up with the times. They cannot lag behind the times, but they cannot be too far ahead...it only needs to be one centimeter ahead of the times."

Itagaki Kazuhiko asked with a smile: "Fujiwara-kun, do you think "Bai Ye Xing" is such a work?"

Kei Fujiwara took a deep breath, then raised his voice two pitches, "Yes! Mr. Itagaki!"

Itagaki Kazuhiko said: "I can feel your determination, go back and wait for my news."

"excuse me."

Kei Fujiwara turned and left.

After the door was closed, Itagaki Kazuhiko stroked the copy manuscript that was still hot in his hands.

Walking to the desk, Kazuhiko Itagaki turned on the lamp, bound the manuscript, and read it.

He watched it too quickly just now, this time, he was going to read it carefully again.

Time passed little by little, and the pointer gradually pointed to the twelve position. The study door opened, and Itagaki's wife poked her head in: "Are you still working on your work? Shouldn't you be on vacation today?"

"Well, it's been dealt with."

"Go back to your room quickly, the child is already asleep..."

Itagaki Kazuhiko turned off the desk lamp and returned to the bedroom, but he could not let go of the plot of the novel in his mind.

The image of Karasawa Yukiho's witch appeared in front of his eyes in a very real way. When Itagaki thought of her, he felt a slight chill on his back.

But when I think about her past, and sincerely sympathize with her, a complicated feeling emerges from my heart.

Mrs. Itagaki smiled and put on a sweatshirt, picked up a bottle of perfume and sprayed it on her body twice, "Do you think this smells good?"

"Xue Sui..."

Mrs. Itagaki was stunned for a moment, then became furious and clenched the perfume bottle in her hand: "Whose name are you calling? Who is Yukiho?!"

Only then did Itagaki Kazuhiko react and said quickly: "Don't get me wrong! He's a character in the novel!"

"you're lying!"

Seeing that bloodshed was about to happen, Itagaki Kazuhiko quickly took his angry little wife to the study room and let her read the manuscript on the table.

After seeing the four words "Karasawa Yukiho", Mrs. Itagaki's doubts were mostly eliminated and she said: "Who wrote this novel? Can you still recite the name in the book before going to bed?"

"It's a newcomer..." Itagaki Kazuhiko realized after being reminded by his wife.

Yes, this "White Night Walk" is so magical!

The last time I saw such a hard-to-leave story was probably three years ago, and this book "White Night Journey" is even more beautiful than the previous one!

Thinking of this, Itagaki Kazuhiko said to his wife: "My dear, go back to your room and sleep first. I want to finish reading this book tonight."

Mrs. Itagaki was stunned: "Are you serious? Do you believe I will kill you?"

Itagaki Kazuhiko quickly kissed his wife, "I'm counting on it for my performance award! Maybe I can change my car by then!"

Mrs. Itagaki looked at the stack of manuscript papers on the desk and sighed, "Okay, then don't stay up too late and go to bed early."

After sending his wife away, Itagaki Kazuhiko made himself a cup of strong tea, placed it under the lamp, looked at the type on the paper, and showed a satisfied smile.

It was the last time I saw such a fascinating story.