Chapter 4 The talented but poor man
Chapter 4 The talented but poor man
Kitagawa Hide, who wrote the novel that Rena Saito praised highly, was currently staying in a rental house, hugging his fat British shorthair blue cat named Pete to keep warm, while quickly translating an English novel called "The Lost Three Hours".
In March in Tokyo, the maximum outdoor temperature can reach around 13 degrees, but the nighttime low temperature often does not exceed 5 degrees.
This rental house has no electrical appliances, so it is impossible to keep out the cold at night. In addition, there are cracks in the windows and doors that can be invaded by cold wind, so he has to hug the cat to keep warm.
His original name was Xu Xiu. He was a native Chinese and a graduate student at the Faculty of Literature at the University of Tokyo. One night, he was preparing his thesis all night long. When he opened his eyes, he inexplicably traveled to Tokyo, Japan in 1995.
When he woke up, a thick rope was wrapped around his neck, and countless memories flooded into his mind.
His original name was Kitagawa Hide. He was trapped in love and was burdened with huge debts due to the bursting of the bubble economy. He chose to hang himself under the heavy burden.
Just when Xu Xiu thought that his time-travel journey would end in an instant, his original body's childhood sweetheart, Agatsuma Yumeko, broke in and rescued him from the damn rope.
Later, my wife Yumeko was worried that he would continue to be depressed, so she let him stay in her rental house in Adachi Ward.
It not only solves his problems of food, clothing, housing and transportation, but also serves as a precautionary measure.
Just like that, after traveling through time, Xu Xiu assumed the identity of Beichuan Xiu and began to live with his childhood sweetheart.
They come, the security.
After examining the original body's memories and situation, Kitagawa Hide couldn't help but sigh at his ups and downs and unfortunate life.
Before the bubble economy burst, his family made a lot of money by investing in real estate. His parents were addicted to a life of luxury and decadence, and he became a famous rich second-generation boy in high school.
Not only did he easily get a beautiful and hot girlfriend, but he also got successful marriage soon after they started dating.
When the original body was 19 years old, he failed the college entrance examination, but he got through it thanks to the constant support of his girlfriend, so he regarded his girlfriend as the only light in his life.
Because his girlfriend was successfully admitted to a Japanese university, the original person suddenly had a brain storm and insisted on repeating his studies to take the entrance exam to a Japanese university even though it was difficult for him to even get into a junior college.
Since his parents did not agree, he forcibly moved out of home and lived with his girlfriend.
During this period, he was preparing for the exam while supporting his girlfriend's college education.
The Japanese university is a private university with very expensive tuition fees. My girlfriend has a lot of expenses and doesn’t make any money, so she is completely supported by him.
Accidents will happen.
The bubble economy suddenly burst, the family's fortunes plummeted, his parents committed suicide one after another, and the huge debt incurred by the mortgage fell on Kitagawa Hide in an instant.
He suddenly went from being a handsome, rich and well-off man to a handsome, negative man.
The original body, who had lost everything, was preparing to rent a house and work part-time with his girlfriend while continuing to prepare for the entrance exam to a Japanese university.
Unexpectedly, his girlfriend, who was already a senior and doing an internship at the editorial department of "Qun Xiang", dumped him without hesitation after hearing about his family situation!
After breaking up, the original person kept pestering for a reconciliation but to no avail. He was depressed for several months and was completely hopeless, ready to die.
After that, Xu Xiu came through.
He has no father or mother, has a good-looking appearance, and has a childhood sweetheart who will never leave him even if he becomes a rotten piece of shit.
This configuration would have been the standard template for the male protagonist in online novels after the millennium.
Unfortunately, it is now 95, and Kitagawa Hide still has the terrible debts left by his parents, as well as the loan he took out in order to support his ex-girlfriend.
Anyway, now that I have become him, let the past go.
Now, Kitagawa Hide’s first priority is to survive in this Great Depression!
So after traveling through time, he quickly changed his original behavior of living in a rented house and waiting to die, and decisively went to find a job.
Otherwise, if he keeps lying there like this, in the end, my wife Yumeko might come to her senses one day and kick out her good-for-nothing childhood sweetheart, or the bank might default on the loan and he might be sent to jail by Uncle Hat, then it would not be worth it.
I can’t ruin this time-traveling life that I worked so hard to get!
Fortunately, he was lucky and, with his eloquence, he successfully interviewed and got a job at King Records, where he became a glorious security guard with a monthly salary of 6 yen!
But faced with the 1 million yen mortgage left by his parents (the house was also sold for his girlfriend) and the 500 million yen loan he had to take out to support his girlfriend, this salary is not enough!
The loan amount he has to repay every month is as high as 32 yen!
He needs money, lots and lots of money.
Therefore, after confirming the current situation of the Japanese literary world, Kitagawa Hide only thought for a minute before deciding to become a plagiarist to make money.
This is in line with my major in my previous life, so it seems that my college studies were not in vain!
It should be said that thanks to having studied a related major in his previous life, he is very familiar with the Japanese literary world.
Although many famous people and masterpieces have disappeared, the Japanese literary world in this world still operates as before.
In the Japanese literary world, there are generally two ways for writers to debut:
The first way is to win the newcomer award.
The second method is to submit your manuscript to a publishing house.
In fact, the second method basically only serves old writers who have in-depth cooperation with publishing houses.
If a new writer wants a publishing house to help him publish his book, he can either try his luck with an unknown publishing house, or spend a lot of money to publish it himself.
New writers who choose this path to debut often encounter the worst combination of the two:
An unknown fake publishing house makes you spend a lot of money to publish your book at your own expense, and then it fails miserably and you lose all your money!
Therefore, if you want to become famous in the Japanese literary world, the first way to debut is to win a newcomer award, and it must be a newcomer award with high gold content. Unlike China, in 95, Japan already had more than 200 newcomer awards for novels, with an average of 300 nominees for each award.
That is to say, every year there are more than 6 people shortlisted for various new novel awards, but only more than 200 winning new writers can make their debut!
And after one year, no more than ten people can continue to stay in the literary world and write.
As for those who eventually win a literary award and become famous, on average only one person does so every 5 to 10 years.
This probability is much smaller than winning the lottery, but it is also higher than the probability that Hide Kitagawa can find a good job with only a high school diploma.
Since he had decided to make money by being a plagiarist, Kitagawa Hide naturally had to find the safest way to debut and make money as quickly as possible.
Then the first choice of author is undoubtedly Haruki Murakami, one of the most profitable twin stars in the new era Japanese literary world!
Haruki Murakami won the 1979 Group Portrait Newcomer Award with "Hear the Wind Sing", and thus made his debut and shocked the Japanese literary world.
Kitagawa Hide had already inquired about this countless times before.
In Japan, there is no famous writer named Haruki Murakami, and the winner of the 1979 Gunzo Newcomer Award was someone else.
After selecting his goal, he used his off-get off work time for half a month to quickly write the entire book "Listen to the Wind Sing" with a total of 4 words on draft paper.
And today I found the right time to submit it to the editorial department of "Qun Xiang".
As for why not choose another twin star Keigo Higashino.
Kitagawa Hide made some inquiries and found out that detective novels were only started this year and are still looked down upon by the mainstream literary world. It is estimated that it will take many years before they can be monetized.
He can't wait that long!
Now he doesn't even have the money to buy a typewriter and print out the manuscript!
Of course, Kitagawa Hide will not put all his eggs in one basket.
Since March, major mainstream literary newcomer awards have begun to solicit submissions. Even if his submission to the Group Portrait Newcomer Award fails this time, he still has many opportunities to make his debut.
The reason for giving priority to the Group Portrait Newcomer Award is simple. "Hear the Wind Sing" won this award, and the prize money for the Group Portrait Newcomer Award was doubled in 95.
Of course the more money the better.
And Hide Kitagawa is also very confident about "Hear the Wind Sing".
According to his observation, it is not that Japanese readers in this world like to eat "shit", but that most of the pure literary works at this stage are composed of "shit".
Since readers have never eaten "rice", they naturally don't think "shit" is unpalatable.
I believe that such melodramatic incidents as the pearl being covered in dust will not happen.
The biggest problem is time.
The editorial department of "Qun Xiang" will officially begin reviewing manuscripts in late March, and the shortlist will be announced in early April at the earliest.
It will be at least the end of April before we win the award and have the winning article published in the magazine.
Not to mention Japan's notoriously slow bonus approval process.
It was unknown when the money would finally arrive.
People in the editorial department of "Qun Xiang" are definitely not in a hurry about these things.
But Kitagawa Hide had to face a realistic problem.
Where will the 4 yen that needs to be repaid on April 20 come from?
Therefore, in addition to copying books, he also had to stay in the rented house after get off work and do some odd jobs such as translating foreign novels.
The current Japanese literary scene seems to be prosperous, but in fact it cannot be challenged at all.
Therefore, literature from various countries, especially European and American literature, is extremely popular in Japan. However, due to the poor English proficiency of the Japanese, many excellent works either cannot be translated or are translated poorly.
Being a translator of foreign novels is a good job in Japan. The social status is second only to that of writers, and is much higher than that of other miscellaneous authors such as cartoonists, light novelists, and mystery novelists.
But this profession is now monopolized by people with connections to publishing houses. Even if they don't understand foreign languages, they are still occupying the position without doing anything.
As for translation work, these people will look for college students who know various languages, hire them to help with translation, and then put their own name on the work.
It's like outsourcing the work.
It’s just like when the mentor asked Kitagawa Hide to write a journal article and then signed his name on it.
Kitagawa Hide originally thought that he would not have to deal with such bad things after traveling through time, but he didn't expect that it was the same everywhere.
Under the shadow of the chaebol, young people like them who are unknown are nothing but cattle and horses.
What's even more outrageous is that this group of cows and horses have to use a multi-level outsourcing system, where the big cows and horses hire the small cows and the small cows and horses look for low-level cows and horses like Kitagawa Hide.
Under layers of exploitation, Kitagawa Hide felt that he was even worse off than the contract workers in the old days!
But every time I thought about the price of 1000 yen per thousand words, even though it fell into the hands of a low-level worker like me, I felt a little more balanced.
Alas, without money it is really difficult to move forward, it is so humble!
Kitagawa Hide stroked Pete with his hand. The soft fur was comfortable and warm, which gave him a lot of spiritual comfort.
Biting the pen, I was about to continue translating "The Lost Three Hours" when the tightly closed door of the rental house suddenly creaked.
My childhood sweetheart, My wife Yumeko, is back!
(End of this chapter)