The lonely Hikigaya Hachiman wants to become the king of mystery novels

'Next time I go to Yukinoshita's house, I really have to thank him...'

Hikigaya Hachiman decided in his heart.

The battle of wits and courage with the PTA has come to an end. Hikigaya Hachiman still has to focus on his career.

He took out a sample of the overseas novel distribution contract signed at the Literary Spring and Autumn Headquarters today. The terms in it were basically the same as what Editor Imamura said; if his novels are published in China, he can still receive royalties, but the royalty rate is Only seven percent.

Considering the relatively low pricing of books there, the money he can earn is still much less than if he publishes it locally.But this is just the beginning. After his fame is fully established overseas, his income will naturally increase.

In addition, he also received detailed sales reports from the Literature and Art Spring and Autumn Publishing Department on the sales of several of his Lao Xiao Shuo works:

"Confession" is still his best-selling novel, and there are always new hot spots that can bring back the slowing sales trend of this novel. As of August 180, "Confession" has sold 210 copies in Japan. [-] copies, and is expected to exceed [-] million copies within the year. Considering the release of the movie at the end of the year, it is a foregone conclusion that the book will maintain sales growth for a long time;

"Malevolence" reached the one-year anniversary of its release last month. The current sales volume has reached 97 copies and is about to break the one million mark;

As a dark horse, "Causes of Disintegration" has sold 40 copies, and according to a survey by Wenyi Chunqiu Publishing House, only the library version will be released in the future. It is worth mentioning that this book's reputation is also here As it progressed over the course of a few months, more and more of the tricks in the book began to be "borrowed" by other authors;

Finally, "The Clock Museum Incident" is still popular more than a month after its release. The sales volume of 71 copies so far has doubled the confidence of Literary Spring and Autumn, and vowed to sell 120 million copies within the year, creating a new peak in the history of mystery publishing.

In addition to the sales report, the publisher also made an estimate of the honors that Hikigaya Hachiman may receive.

So far, at the end of every year, the Japanese literary world will publish a bunch of various annual literary lists, among which there are a total of four involving mystery novels, namely: Shukan Bunshun's "Annual Mystery Novel Ranking", Kodan "This mystery novel is awesome!" from the publisher, "Best 10 Mystery Mysteries" from Hara Shobo, and "I want to read this mystery novel from Hayakawa Bunko".

Of these four major lists, Hikigaya Hachiman already dominated the top two with "Malevolence" at the end of last year.The latter two lists basically only assign high rankings to pure mystery novels, so last year's Hikigaya Hachiman did not achieve a better ranking.

However, this year, after "The Clock Museum Incident" came out, the entire mystery world is speculating on one thing: Can this book complete the unprecedented four-time crown in the annual list in the history of Japanese mystery literature?After all, this is a true mystery, and it fully meets the taste of the latter two lists.

"The historical status of this work has been determined, and I think there is no need to win more awards to prove its greatness."

Many netizens have this idea.But to be fair, as a book lover, you definitely hope that your favorite novels can receive honors worthy of it.It's a pity that "Astrology Killing Magic" only won No. 2 in the Mystery Writers Association Award. Readers really don't want to see it again.

"If you can dominate these four major lists within one year, no one will be able to question your status, Hikigaya-kun. You know, there are some old diehards in the literary world who are obsessed with the traditional Japanese society. The whole thing about seniority and inferiority is dead, and they are unwilling to admit that you are the new leader of Japanese mystery literature, and the writer who has had the greatest influence on the entire mystery world after Shoji Shimada."

Mr. Arisukawa said very indignantly.In fact, some of the "old fogies" he calls are his colleagues in the association.

"It's a pity that Mr. Hachiman, you have already won two heavyweight awards, the Association Award and the Original Mystery Award. You also know that these two awards are rarely awarded to repeated writers. Therefore, the only chance left for "The Clock Museum Incident" It gives me the opportunity to dominate all four major mystery lists, but this is enough to make this book a miracle in the history of Japanese mystery."

The director of the publishing department said with some regret.

"By the way, Mr. Arisukawa. It's hard for a novel like "The Clock Museum Incident" to win those popular literature awards, right?"

Hikigaya Hachiman asked. He still remembered President Hirao's promise to him to create a fair environment for the Naoki Award selection.

"Yes, in fact, not only this novel, but the entire mystery literature world is not very popular with mainstream literary awards. Take the Naoki Award, the highest award for Japanese literature, which has been awarded more than 150 times. Do you know that the number of awards won by mystery novels is How much? Zero, never once."

Mr. Arisugawa reluctantly pointed out the number zero with his hands.

"But Hikigaya-kun, rules are meant to be broken. A great Chinese writer once said, 'That's the way it's always been, right?' I believe you will always write a novel that can truly impress people." Naoki appreciates the inner novels of those academics!"

After listening to Mr. Arisugawa's words, Hikigaya Hachiman fell into deep thought. He did know a novel that won the Naoki Award that year as a mystery novel in his previous life.

That is "The Devotion of Suspect X" written by Bestseller.

______偭__

Hikigaya Hachiman has very complicated emotions about this book.First of all, everyone has to admit one thing, that is, this work has a very high status in the mystery world. It is a very rare "Four Crowns" novel. It also won the Naoki Award, the highest award for Japanese literature.

However, for the vast majority of mystery fans, they feel that the plot of this novel is too simple and has obvious traces of imitation.Moreover, "Suspect", as a true-case mystery novel (yes, by definition, this book is indeed a true-case mystery), conceals some important clues from readers. These are the reasons why some mystery fans feel that this novel is not suitable for The reason why it is not rated so highly.

Hikigaya Hachiman once had the same view on "The Suspect", but it was only after he became an author that he finally understood Higashino Keigo.

In the final analysis, the extremely famous mystery novels written by Keigo Higashino are not aimed at mystery fans at all, but the wider public readers. The tricks in "Suspect" are indeed relatively simple and easy to guess for experienced and semi-experienced readers of mystery novels.But for ordinary readers who don't read much mystery literature, this trick must be quite shocking, because these readers are not familiar with the routines of mystery novels.

In other words, the best-seller's idea is to write a novel in which the tricks are not particularly brilliant, and then describe other parts of the novel that have nothing to do with reasoning, such as human nature, dedication, love, family affection, etc., in a very detailed way. Fulfilling and touching.

In this way, ordinary public readers can be moved by the description of human nature in the book, and can also be shocked by the final conspiracy. In this way, a mystery novel that can be accepted by the mainstream literary field is created.This is also the reason why this book, as a mystery novel, has been widely recognized in the field of popular literature.This may be the right way for a mystery novel to open up the public's horizons.

"When I was a reader, I despised the best-sellers, but after I started writing books, I understood the best-sellers. If you want to win awards, you must become a best-seller..."

Hikigaya Hachiman thought with some self-deprecation.

However, this also requires some pressure.Why does Keigo Higashino have a bad reputation among mystery fans in his previous life?Precisely because most readers have only read his most famous basic novel, they wildly praise him as "Mystery No. 1" and "The God of Mystery".

This makes the mystery circle very unhappy. It doesn't matter if Keigo Higashino wins awards for writing popular works. This is actually a good thing. After all, this can be considered as a contribution to expanding the reading group of mystery novels.But these new readers you brought in are exaggerating, right?The god of reasoning?Shoji Shimada is still alive.

Gradually, Keigo Higashino's reputation within the circle inevitably became worse and worse.This is also due to the fact that his level of creating authentic reasoning is really limited. He made his debut writing authentic reasoning, but more than 30 years have passed since his previous life, and he has never created a truly remarkable authentic work. This is his embarrassment. place.

"From this point of view, my advantage is still obvious."

Hikigaya Hachiman thought.

Now Hachiman has been widely recognized as the new leader in the reasoning world, and has great hope of becoming the second-generation holder of the title "God of Reasoning".Even those old readers who are the most rigid in the mystery circle have to admit that Hachiman's "The Clock Museum Incident" is an epoch-making masterpiece of original reasoning.

Against this background, if Hikigaya Hachiman makes "The Devotion of Suspect X" appear again, there will be no doubts about being praised by outside readers like in his previous life.After all, he is the most powerful mystery writer today, and no matter how much other readers brag about it, they can't change this fact.As long as Hachiman doesn't perform abnormally, he won't be praised.

"Only the thing about abnormal performance cannot happen to me."

Hikigaya Hachiman thought confidently.

"With Mr. Sukawa and Director Suzuki, I have a good idea in my mind now. I think the final result of this idea will be enough for me to win the Naoki Award. But now I have many other works to create, and maybe I have to wait. It will take some time before I can officially start writing.”

Hikigaya came back to his senses and said to the two people in front of him.

"Teacher Hachiman, your words always make me put aside all worries and trust you. Therefore, I will wait no matter how long it takes, and look forward to the day when you become the youngest Naoki Prize winner in the Japanese literary world!"

Minister Suzuki said excitedly.

"Write boldly, Hikigaya-kun. It's time to give the judges of these literary awards in the Japanese literary world a little shock of youth!"

Chapter 157: Nianghua Saigao!

Subakigaya Hachiman's summer vacation was almost over before he knew it.

Today is August 24th, the last Monday of summer vacation, and the day when the fourth issue of "Young Magazine" in August is released.

In the first three issues of the magazine in August, the popularity king was all won by "Jukkaukan Incident" with a gap advantage.Thanks to this comic, the magazine's circulation in these three issues has reached 96 million, 90, and [-] respectively. It can be said that the average circulation in August this year has broken the magazine's average in advance. The highest monthly level in history.

And the discussion about this comic has never stopped.But what makes both the publishing house and Hachiman a little speechless is that the most heated discussion online is not the plot of the comic or who the murderer is, which should be topics of mystery comics, but... Jiang Nan's sexual transformation.

Jiang Nan, in "The Clock Museum Incident", is a magazine reporter and a key clue character in the book.There is not much description of his image in the novel. Everyone only knows that he is a male and that he worked in a magazine shortly after graduating from college.

During the early promotion of "The Shijiakuan Incident", one of the slogans also mentioned that this work is a prequel to "The Clock Museum" and tells the story of a strange case Jiang Nan encountered when he was in college.Therefore, many readers are curious and want to know what Jiangnan's past was like.

As a result, Jiang Nan did not appear in the first episode, but everyone didn't care, after all, the story itself was attractive enough.However, everyone is very interested in the poster girl on the first page of the comic, because she does not appear in the first chapter.

"Tsk tsk, this short hair, these black stockings, this girl's youthful and lively feeling, these black stockings..."

Some gentlemen could no longer hold themselves back.

"However, this beautiful girl did not appear in the first episode."

"That's for sure. The character who can be the poster girl must be the protagonist. In the first episode, the characters on these islands will definitely be supporting characters who will die. She should appear in the next episode."

An experienced comic reader analyzed.

"Wait, you said the protagonist? Shouldn't the protagonist be Jiang Nan?"

Looking at the beautiful girl with short hair on the cover, some readers raised questions.

"Jiang Nan is the male protagonist, and this is the heroine. It's impossible for a man from Jiang Nan to be the poster girl."

With curiosity about this mysterious beautiful girl, readers opened the second chapter of the series on time.

"Wow, the beautiful girl on the cover is on the first page! Hachiman-sensei really knows what we want to see."

What catches the readers' eyes is the mysterious beautiful girl. She is as cute as she was on the cover.In the picture, she is opening a letter, and the recipient on the envelope clearly says...

"Jiangnan?"

"What The F—"

"Uh, let me confirm, there shouldn't be a second character with this name in this series, right?"

"Brother Jiangnan? How did you become a woman?! How can we be brothers now!"

Readers expressed some shock at the fact that this beautiful girl was Jiang Nan, but no one complained about it.Just kidding, who would be dissatisfied with a beautiful girl in black stockings?

It can be said that after his sexual transformation, Jiang Nan quickly became one of the most popular characters discussed on the Internet, and a large number of painters began to produce food on various illustration websites.Apparently, a super popular character is about to appear.

"It's bad. I've been looking at too many beautiful pictures of Jiang Nan recently. When I rewatch "The Clock Museum Incident" in the future, I'm afraid I'll have to dance all the time when I see Jiang Nan. All I can think of is the appearance of a beautiful girl."

"Jiangnan... Hey, my Jiangnan..."

"Don't go crazy here!"

Because Jiangnan's popularity spread so quickly, many netizens who only saw the pictures began to ask which character it was from, thus attracting a large number of new readers to get involved in Hachiman's reasoning world.

"This is really unexpected... Mr. Hachiman, did you know? Recently, the sales of my comics, you know, have increased a lot. This should also be a chain reaction after the publication of "Jukkaukan Incident" Bar."

Sawamura Eiri said to Hakigaya Hachiman on the phone with a very complicated mood.She originally wanted to make readers gradually forget her original identity by creating normal comics, but unexpectedly, more and more people became aware of her previous masterpieces.

"Sawamura-san, the characters you drew are so deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, so everyone will definitely be interested in this teacher 'Eri Kashiwagi'. If you ask me, it's just to draw the characters beautifully and erotically, Many people can do it. But you can always understand a character and portray him deeply in people's hearts. This is what makes you great as a painter."

Hikigaya Hachiman spoke highly of the other party, which was a compliment from the bottom of his heart.If the name Hachiman attracts a large number of readers to read the manga "Jukkaukan Incident", then Eiriri's performance is to make these readers' eyes firmly attracted to those exquisite characters and refuse to move away. Come on, without either of them, this comic would not be as popular as it is now.

"Hehehe, it's not that powerful..."

Yingli smiled shyly.

After putting down the phone, Hikigaya Hachi noticed two unfriendly glances coming towards him.That's right, he is now at Yukinoshita's home. While he was on the phone just now, the eyes of the Yukinoshita sisters started to look bad.

"Hikigaya-kun, you are using your sweet words to deceive the little girl again. How about you take a rest?"

Yukinoshita Yono said jokingly.

"You are just joking, Sister Yangno. Do you still need to lie on my terms? Could it be that both you and Yukino were deceived by me?"

Hikigaya Hachiman put away his Sony Pro Max Cold Front Blue, supported his cheek with his left hand, tilted his head and looked at the Yukinoshita sisters.

"Hard to say."

Haruno and Yukino said in unison.

"OK OK, as long as you are happy. At least I, a big liar, have never broken my promise to let you read my novel in advance. Take it! This is the finale of "New Participants"!"

Hikigaya Hachiman took out two bound volumes of manuscript paper from his schoolbag, held them in his hands and shook them towards the sisters.Just when Haruno and Yukino stood up and rushed towards Hikigaya, the door of the hall was opened instantly.

"I won't be here for a while, so you two won't know your last names, right?"

Mrs. Yukinoshita held her folding fan and spoke in a very majestic and cold tone.

Hikigaya Hachiman had discovered before that even in the height of summer, Yukinoshita's home rarely turned on the air conditioner.He originally thought that the people in this family did it deliberately to hone their strong will, but later he discovered that there was no air conditioner at all. As soon as Mrs. Yukinoshita appeared, the temperature in the room immediately dropped by more than [-] degrees. This was comparable to the air conditioner. The cooling effect is much better.

Although Yangono and Yukino looked a little unconvinced, they still returned to their seats and sat down obediently.Hachiman thought this was a huge improvement.Before, they didn't dare to express any dissatisfaction.

"Don't be angry, Mrs. Yukinoshita. I just want to show them the latest chapter of "New Participants"."

Hikigaya Hachiman felt that what he said was strange. Logically speaking, the person who a mother educates her child and advises the mother not to be angry should not be the child's friend. So who should it be?Hachiman himself couldn't figure it out, but he just persuaded him.

"Don't worry, the Yukinoshita family has a strict family tradition. I still have to supervise you from time to time to make you laugh, Hikigaya-kun."

Mrs. Yukinoshita switched to a warm and welcoming expression and spoke to Hachiman Kiguya, and the temperature in the room rose again.

"By the way, Hikigaya-kun. If you are not busy now, can you come with me to the office? My husband has made the best tea, and we can chat together."

Mrs. Yukinoshita smiled and invited Hachiman.

"Of course it's no problem, I'll be there right away."

Hikigaya Hachiman stood up as he spoke. The Yukinoshita family's office is actually more like a reception room. There is a big sofa to sit on, instead of sitting on a cushion like now, so Hachiman likes to sit there and drink tea. chat.

"Wait a minute, Hikigaya-kun, can you hold that? My husband and I want to see it too."

Mrs. Yukinoshita said in a low voice, then pointed to the original manuscript of "New Gatherer" placed on the table with her folding fan, and looked at Hikigaya Hachiman with questioning eyes.

"Okay, no problem."

So Hikigaya Hachiman picked up the two original manuscripts of "New Ginseng" from the table in the eyes of Harano and Yukino who dared not say anything.

Chapter 158 I really am not a foot control!She reached out on her own initiative!

On the last day of the summer vacation for the first year of high school, Hikigaya Hachiman and Yukinoshita Yukino returned to their apartment in Mihama District with their luggage.As for the first thing the two of them did after they came back, they naturally cleaned the room.

"I didn't expect that my home would be so dirty after I haven't been back for more than a month..."

Hikigaya Hachiman complained.In order to improve efficiency, he and Yukino did not clean their own houses separately, but cleaned together.

"Hachiman, I took a quick look around. There shouldn't be any small insects. Otherwise, we would have to spray pesticides or something, which would be troublesome."

Yukinoshita Yukino walked out of Hachiman's bedroom with an inverted triangular white hat on her head and her hair tied into a ball on the back of her head.