Chapter 60

"Is this a sign that Japan is about to sink?"

"Three major earthquakes in three days; I suddenly feel despair for the future."

"Every time I think it's the last one, the phone alerts the next day bring me terror. I can no longer endure this kind of life!"

"Today on the train, everyone's phones were screaming 'Jishin desu! Jishin desu!' (Earthquake! Earthquake!). Even now, my brain is still filled with those sounds. I must be going crazy!"

"I haven't slept in 24 hours and have to go to work tomorrow, but how can I possibly sleep in the current situation?"

On the internet, the comments from the Japanese people are permeated with an atmosphere of pessimism and despair. Although the total number of casualties from these three major earthquakes doesn't even equal those of Fukushima, such a dense frequency and such high magnitudes are absolutely, definitely not a normal phenomenon, even in earthquake-prone Japan.

The last time this situation occurred was in Chile in 1960. At that time, Chile also experienced frequent major earthquakes, but initially, they were only localized disasters, and the losses were not very significant.

Yet, shortly thereafter, a sudden 9.5-magnitude earthquake erupted, taking the lives of nearly one hundred thousand people.

This earthquake was the largest ever recorded in human scientific history. The resulting tsunami, reaching up to twenty-five meters, spanned the entire Pacific Ocean, sweeping across more than half the globe. Japan also suffered massive losses due to this tsunami at the time.

And everything that has happened in these past few days feels like a warning issued by the heavens—a precursor to a massive disaster!

Especially in a region like Japan, where the geology is extremely unstable, the probability of a massive earthquake occurring is quite high.

Although multiple Japanese earthquake experts have spoken out one after another, saying that the earthquakes of the past few days are merely isolated phenomena with no connection to each other, and that there shouldn't be any major earthquakes for a long time to come.

Yet, such statements feel like deceptive rhetoric issued by the government to stabilize public sentiment. Even with every television station broadcasting it on a loop every day, it cannot truly put the public at ease.

Unknown things are often what trigger the most fear in people. Search volume for the Chilean earthquake has hit a new high on the internet, and rumors about a Great Tokyo Earthquake have begun to dominate various forums and trending topics.

Although the government has quickly moved to debunk and censor these rumors, the more they do so, the more the public feels that "there is no silver buried here" (a classic idiom meaning the denial only confirms the suspicion).

Pessimism shrouds the entire Japanese society: stock prices have plummeted, commodity prices are soaring, and flights abroad have increased, while flights coming into Japan have reached their lowest level in years.

The tourism industry has suffered a heavy blow, with a large number of employees being laid off. Those who lost their livelihoods, unable to cope, have developed thoughts of suicide.

The sudden increase in the number of people jumping to their deaths has become the final straw that broke the camel's back, and the entire Japanese society has fallen into a vicious cycle.

The last time this situation occurred was in the 1990s, when the end of the bubble era plunged Japan's entire economy into a great depression.

In the twenty years that followed, Japan's economy, birth rate, and almost everything else have been in decline. These twenty years are also referred to by the Japanese people as the "Lost Twenty Years"—twenty years that are unbearable to look back upon.

And the panic triggered by these frequent earthquakes this time has a strong sense of "carrying on the past and opening up the future." If the government has no measures to save the market, an economic recession is an inevitable result, and the "Lost Twenty Years" could very well become the "Lost Thirty Years," or even forty!

Whether the ground shakes or not is no longer the problem the Japanese government needs to worry about; if an economic crisis occurs, that would be a truly catastrophic disaster. Japan's economy has not been prosperous in recent years, and if stock prices plummet further because of these events, then Japan's resurgence will be fundamentally hopeless.

With Japan facing crisis upon crisis, its two neighbors, South Korea and China, are happily watching the show. Some who enjoy chaos are even discussing whether, if a 9.5-magnitude earthquake really happens, the entire country of Japan will sink because of it.

Of course, such discussions that do not conform to the mainstream values of the new century were quickly attacked by "saints" and "pro-Japan" individuals, and other onlookers joined in, triggering even more intense debates.

On the other side, fans of Miss Luo Quan and Seeing Wen Xia have been leaving messages under their Weibo posts, urging them to leave Japan and return home as soon as possible, just in case.

To be honest, Seeing Wen Xia has truly had thoughts of returning home immediately. After all, she originally came to Japan for a vacation, but she didn't expect to encounter three earthquakes in three days. She is still shaken to this day, and occasionally wakes up from nightmares while sleeping at night.

But she is reluctant to leave Miss Luo Quan just like that. Moreover, Chunzi still has many things left to teach, and leaving now would be truly irresponsible. So, Seeing Wen Xia gritted her teeth and ultimately decided to stay, bracing herself.

As for Miss Luo Quan, her university is in Tokyo, Japan; she cannot leave, and there is no need to leave, because the so-called "Great Earthquake" is completely baseless. At least before she transmigrated, Japan had never experienced a 9.5-magnitude earthquake.

Although she doesn't know what caused the frequent earthquakes over these three days, the general trend of history will not change. One can only say that these rumors on the internet are merely alarmist talk by bored individuals.

It's just that because of Japan's special environment, these rumors have a very large market; people believe in this sort of thing. Plus, no expert dares to guarantee that an earthquake won't happen, so debunking the rumors has never been very smooth.

Unless Japan could do what China does: arrest those spreading rumors and then publicly criticize them across the entire internet.

But the key is that the people spreading rumors this time aren't just spouting nonsense; many are citing the situations that appeared before the Chilean earthquake to predict what will happen in Japan in the future. It can be called "reasoned and evidenced," making it truly difficult to handle.

Currently, the Japanese government's only recourse is to have the police departments in various regions send people to distribute anti-rumor leaflets to the public, and to order websites to delete related comments.

The effectiveness is not very high, but it is the only way under the circumstances.

In a situation where an economic recession is about to occur, the Japanese record market, unlike most other markets, has actually seen a significant increase.

Perhaps people want to use music to numb their tense nerves and escape the reality filled with negative emotions. Therefore, the records of many singers have recently seen an uptick, and Miss Luo Quan is the most prominent among them.

Because of the earthquakes a few days ago, the record printing plant has been shut down, and not many copies have been printed to this day.

Originally, considering the earthquakes that might very well occur again in the future, the person in charge of the printing plant intended to keep the shutdown going until the situation stabilized. However, pre-orders for Miss Luo Quan's record have already reached 1.7 million, and the fans have been waiting impatiently for so long, so the company's top management took the risk and forced the factories to resume production.

What is an earthquake? In the eyes of capitalists, having no profit to make is ten thousand times more terrifying than an earthquake! As long as they can make money, they will stop at nothing, even at the cost of blood or life.

However, not long after the order to force production was issued, it was called off by the company's top management again. The reason was that Miss Luo Quan wanted to add a new song to this album.