Chapter 71: Give Him a Trick in His Own Way
Chapter 71: Give Him a Trick in His Own Way (4000 words, please read on)
Early morning on December 7th.
Kitagawa Hide, who was still sleeping, was awakened by the sound of "knock knock knock" on the door. When he opened the door, he saw that it was the apartment manager who looked unhappy.
As more and more things have happened recently, many people who were unable to contact Kitagawa Hide at the first time will call the Fengzhiguan Apartment where he lives. Sometimes there are more than ten calls a day. The unfortunate apartment manager has become his exclusive customer service in disguise, so every time he comes to see him, he is full of resentment.
After all, he was only responsible for serving the residents, but he didn't get a penny from the telephone bills.
Kitagawa Hide apologized repeatedly, then quickly ran downstairs to answer the first call of the day.
After listening to what Senhara Masato said on the other end of the phone, Kitagawa Hide, who was still in a daze after waking up, suddenly woke up, hurriedly thanked the apartment manager, and immediately rushed back to the rental house at the speed of a 100-meter sprint. He stuffed the printed copy of "No Longer Human" and a bunch of personal belongings including the passbook into his bag, and rushed downstairs at an extremely fast speed.
"Mr. Kitagawa! I won't answer those calls for you if you're not here!" The apartment manager shouted angrily at his receding back. He felt that some of the calls were too outrageous. For example, a woman with a sharp voice claimed to be the general manager of Kodansha and asked Kitagawa Hide to go to the company to see him immediately.
Even he could tell this was an old-fashioned phone scam.
It’s 1995 now! Who would commit phone fraud and claim to be a senior executive of a large company?
An executive of Kodansha?
Why don't you say that you are the emperor's daughter and are now willing to spend a lot of money to find a man to give birth to a son for the royal family?
ridiculous!
The apartment manager guessed that Kitagawa Hide might be a gigolo.
This is not without basis.
Kitagawa Hide is tall and handsome. The woman's voice is different every time he calls. It is obvious that she is not a formal office worker. Moreover, he lives with a female student from the University of Tokyo. Where do they get the money to pay the rent?
Occupations like gigolo or action movie actor are very suitable for Kitagawa Hide's situation.
"Got it! I won't bother you again, Administrator-san!" Kitagawa Hide responded loudly as he sprinted towards the subway, waved his left hand vigorously, and then disappeared around the corner like lightning.
Did the gigolo catch a rich woman?!
The apartment manager combined the information from the previous phone calls and suddenly came to this conclusion.
"This is really the decline of morals!"
While he was complaining, Kitagawa Hide had already boarded the subway at the speed of light and hurried to Shinjuku district in Tokyo.
In the phone call just now, Masato Senhara informed him that last month's royalties had been received. In addition to the tax payment and the automatically deducted 32 yen loan principal and interest, Kitagawa Hide had an additional 712.9 million yen in his bank account!
The money came from the subsequent royalties of "Ball" of 62.8 yen before tax, the serialized royalties of "A Wild Sheep Chase" of 146 million yen before tax, the fixed salary issued by Kodansha of 25 yen before tax, and the royalties of "Hear the Wind Sing" of 937.2 million yen before tax.
Including the remaining savings, Kitagawa Hide now has 1914.86 million yen in his hands, and his total wealth is approaching the million yen mark!
He felt that his life was really not easy.
It has been nearly five months since I traveled through time, and I still have debts totaling 1 million yen. If I do the math, if I continue to make money at this rate, I'm afraid I will still be in debt by the end of the year.
This is really embarrassing for time travelers.
Kitagawa Hide secretly clenched his fists and secretly set a small goal in his heart: pay off all debts before the end of this year and make a profit of 1 million!
Especially the first New Year after the time travel, he must spend it happily with his lovely wife in the villa he bought.
It would be better to find the lost "football" as well.
After receiving the money today, Kitagawa Hide plans to go to the bank to pay the balance to the decoration company first, and then pay the deposit for the celebration company's opening event through Senhara Masato, and then finish off the affairs of Yanjing Takuya's family.
Finally, as agreed, he went to the new headquarters of Kawaide Shobo to complete the signing of the custom contract, and handed "No Longer Human" to Saito Rena, so that the "swollen face" of this editor who had changed jobs with him could calm down and stop worrying about his mental state and new book all day long.
As a plagiarist, he has always been very conscious in his book-writing career and would never delay, owe manuscripts, or inflate manuscripts to cheat money!
It takes 1 hour and 26 minutes to take the subway from Adachi District to Shinjuku District. Kitagawa Hide had nothing to do, so he took out a pen and paper and started writing and drawing, and began to organize his financial management ideas.
Although pure literary novels have a high unit price, due to the small number of words, even if the serialized royalties are calculated at 1.8 yen per sheet of manuscript paper (the top standard for "middle-class" writers in the industry), the pre-tax income for a 10-word novella is only 450 million yen.
Although he was a copyist, it would take him about ten days to sort out those novels from his mind, type them out word by word, and revise them, even if they were only 10 words.
A book like No Longer Human, which is difficult to write, took him more than half a month to finish the 5 words.
Just from the serial royalties, it would be difficult to earn 1000 million yen a month before one's status in the literary world is elevated to a higher level.
The bulk of his income currently seems to come from royalties and various adaptations, and this money is closely related to his status in the industry.
To improve your position in the industry, you must have sufficiently dazzling achievements.
For example, works such as "Youth Trilogy" were enough to shock the literary world and made a strong entry into the Japanese literary scene, breaking all the rules with one force!
Whether you admit it or not, his status as a "middle-stream" writer was established after "A Wild Sheep Chase" began serialization.
The second thing is to win as many awards as possible from the Japanese literary world or the world literary world.
Another way is to gain recognition from people of high social status and to hold a position in some authoritative institution, such as being a lecturer at a university.
After much calculation, Kitagawa Hide found that in the end he would have to plagiarize some of the pioneering works that were classics in the Japanese literary world.
Although Murakami's books are extremely popular in terms of sales, they are not very popular in the industry, especially in terms of literary awards, and it is somewhat difficult for him to improve his status in the industry.
There is no doubt that "No Longer Human" will be a top-notch book that can both boost sales and increase its quality.
But even Hideya Kitagawa couldn't tell how high it could take itself.
Talk less, do more, and stay calm.
Whenever he gets into trouble, Kitagawa Hide's life motto will automatically emerge and lead him to the right path.
While writing a book, you should also start planning the next step, or even the next step! You need to increase sales and fame, and it would be best if you can beat the so-called "upper class" writers and take in the awards that are not friendly to you.
But I have limited time every day and it is impossible for me to spend all of it in front of the computer typing.
We have to wait and see what the next book will be based on, based on the early feedback from "No Longer Human" as well as the social response and situation. Otherwise, it would be a waste of time if we copy the wrong book.
But Kitagawa Hide didn't want to just wait.
With his mind a little confused, Beichuan Xiu rubbed his fluffy hair, and when he looked up, he suddenly saw a young couple sitting opposite him, whispering to each other.
The boy hugged the girl and whispered in her ear. The girl seemed to be moved by what he said and replied with a blushing face: "I will stay here too."
The voice was very low, but Kitagawa Hide still heard it.
Wait, he suddenly realized that he seemed to have fallen into a misconception.
It's not only those pioneering masterpieces and unpopular masterpieces that can improve one's status in the industry. Isn't there something else at the top of the contempt chain in the literary world?
With a poem called "Tanka of the Thunder God", Kitagawa Hide almost ignited the passion for haiku among Tokyo residents. Even after many days, this poem can still be heard from many young couples.
He could have achieved his short-term goal by mass-producing haiku while writing a book!
Because he always felt that the haiku column was the characteristic of "Gunzo", Kitagawa Hide subconsciously felt a little reluctant to think about it.
Looking back now, why couldn’t "Wenyi" start a haiku column to compete with "Gunzo"?
While he was sorting out his thoughts, the subway arrived at the station. Kitagawa Hide happily said "Aligato" to the young couple, then got off the train with a smile.
Senhara Masato, dressed in a suit and tie, had been waiting at the subway exit for a long time. When he saw him running over, he immediately bowed 90 degrees respectfully: "Good morning, Mr. Kitagawa!"
Thanks to Kitagawa Hide's huge deposits, he successfully passed the most difficult first half branch performance assessment and avoided the tragic fate of being transferred to Hokkaido or Shikoku Island.
Masato Senhara was very grateful to Kitagawa Hide. In addition to the matter of Takuya Yan'ai's family and the fact that he was a fan of Kitagawa Hide's books, he now treated him with even more respect, which often made Kitagawa Hide feel a little embarrassed.
But this is a famous Japanese writer. Even familiar friends, when facing such a "national teacher"-level figure, they still can't help using honorifics, become timid, and dare not look up at the other person.
"Good morning, Chihara." Kitagawa Hide patted his shoulder familiarly and walked towards the bank with him. He also changed his address from the more formal "Chief Chihara" to the more casual way of calling him by his last name between friends.
"Teacher Kitagawa, I have arranged the balance of the decoration company and the deposit of the celebration company, a total of 57.9 yen. As long as you sign, things will be implemented as soon as possible." Senhara Masato said as he walked along with his steps.
Kitagawa Hide felt a pang of pain when he heard this, but he also knew that he had actually taken advantage of a lot. Both companies were clients of Senhara Masato, and with his cooperation, these expenses were discounted. If he had done it alone, he would have been unsure of how badly he would have been cheated.
"Okay, thank you for your hard work, Qianyuan. How is the matter with the charity foundation going? Is the bank willing to help?" Kitagawa Hide said as he walked into the bank lobby with him.
The so-called charitable foundation was a small thing that Kitagawa Hide suddenly wanted to do.
The original amount was 996 million yen to be paid to Takuya Iwao, but in the end only 300 million yen was paid.
In his suicide note, Takuya Yan wrote that he was willing to formally transfer the ownership of the bar to Kitagawa Hide free of charge. Although the police did not recognize the legality of the suicide note, with the cooperation of the bank, the police station and Kawaide Shobo, the ownership of the bar was settled.
Kitagawa Hide didn't want to embezzle the extra 696 million yen, so he planned to set up a charity foundation in the name of Takuya Iwao's family, specifically to help families that were torn apart by the Aum Shinrikyo.
He even wanted to invest part of the royalties from his subsequent work "No Longer Human" into the foundation to support its cause.
"The foundation's plan has been stuck." Senhara Masato smiled bitterly, looked around, and then whispered, "I heard that some people in the upper echelons are secretly supporting Aum Shinrikyo."
Kitagawa Hide was immediately furious. This damn cult was really lingering around. They had people everywhere.
"But don't worry, Mr. Kitagawa. There are many righteous people in the upper echelons who don't like them. They should be fighting each other. I heard from colleagues that the foundation's plan will be approved in the end." Senhara Masato saw that he had a bad expression and quickly comforted him.
"After all, the eradication of Aum Shinrikyo is the consensus of all parties in Congress. Justice may be late, but it will never be absent."
"Justice delayed is justice denied." Kitagawa Hide shook his head and slowly clenched the bag in his hand, which contained the entire manuscript of "No Longer Human".
At this moment, he suddenly felt that the book was very heavy.
"Since it's not settled, I'll go directly to Kawaide Shobo's new headquarters after signing." Kitagawa Hide smiled at Senhara Masato, with a gleam in his eyes, "'Peter Cat' will officially open next week, you must come to support it."
"Okay!" Senhara Masato nodded and smiled, "It's my honor to be invited by Mr. Kitagawa himself."
"By the way, if the foundation's plan keeps getting stuck, you can try to talk to some high-level people who can make the decision," Kitagawa Hide paused and suddenly whispered,
"I will soon publish a new book at Kawade Shobo, and the content of the book is closely related to this matter."
"New book?! Have you finished writing "A Wild Sheep Chasing Adventure"? " Senhara Masato exclaimed, and noticed some curious gazes coming from all around. He quickly covered his mouth, his eyes full of shock.
"Yes, I can't tell you the details for now, but if there is a chance to cooperate with the bank, I will contact you as soon as possible."
Kitagawa Hide was a little surprised by the success of Kodansha's previous marketing methods.
The only people who really know "No Longer Human" now are Shizuko Kawaide, Rena Saito, and Managing Director Hanamori, each of whom can be counted as half a person - they only know the general style of the book, but have no idea about the detailed content.
"No Longer Human" was not only Kitagawa Hideyō's second heavy artillery that overturned the Japanese literary world and shocked the readers of pure literature, but also a channel for him to speak out for Takuya Iwasaki.
He hopes that "No Longer Human" can have a certain social impact, and make the Aum Shinrikyo mentioned in the suicide note and the Mahaposa Hospital that killed Yumiko Itsuki pay the corresponding price!
Maybe it would be a good idea to leverage the power of the bank to do some publicity and marketing!
And since Kodansha loves marketing so much, let me give them a taste of their own medicine and use "No Longer Human" to severely rub those bastards of him and Saito Rena away!
Thanks
Everyone's monthly ticket
321 Qidian coins reward from Chen 100 book friends
100 Ways to Detect Men Lying Book Friends' Qidian Coins Reward
Yaoyu book friends' 100 Qidian coins reward
200 Qidian coins reward from the book friend Aodebiao
(End of this chapter)