Chapter 233: The D-Slope Murder Case

"Executive Shida, this is the manuscript I have prepared for serialization; please take a look."

Tokyo, the newspaper building where the *Chiji Shimbun* is located.

Akiwara Yuto sat on the sofa in the reception room and handed the manuscript in his hand to Shida Daxi, who lowered his head to read it after taking it.

After all, Akiwara Yuto was a writer he had specially invited, so he still needed to carefully examine the content of the manuscript.

On the other side, Akiwara Yuto sipped tea, watching Shida Daxi gradually become absorbed in the story, and felt 70% confident in his heart.

As a work by Edogawa Ranpo, *The D-Slope Murder Case* was a bit dated, but the design of the trick was still somewhat interesting.

However, its strength was that the story's pacing was extremely tight and it made people very eager to read it.

The story tells of "I" and a detective named Akechi Goro discovering a corpse, and the owner of this corpse was the proprietress of a second-hand bookstore.

This proprietress was very beautiful during her lifetime, but her body was covered in scars.

Out of a peculiar curiosity, I and Akechi Goro began to investigate.

In this process, the focus of our investigation was a door called "Windowless." This door had slats and could be opened and closed, sealing the inside and outside of the door into a closed room.

At the time the incident occurred, "we" saw light leaking from inside the door, a figure flashed by, and then the "Windowless" door closed.

There were two middle school students nearby at the time; one saw the figure in white clothes, and the other saw it in black clothes.

After investigation, "I" concluded that the murderer was Akechi Goro.

Because of the slat design on the windowless door, one student's angle happened to block the black stripes, while the other student's angle blocked all the white stripes, so they naturally saw black and white respectively.

And Akechi Goro just happened to love wearing black and white striped clothes.

Besides that, he also had a certain interpersonal relationship with the deceased, perhaps harboring some unknown motive for murder.

But in the end, the situation took a turn.

Akechi Goro was just passing by the "Windowless" door, and in his investigation, the deceased was having an affair with the owner of the shop next door, and the cause of death was that their "SM" play had gone too far.

After he finished explaining all this, the owner of the shop next door also happened to confess to the police.

This story is still quite good in terms of its orthodox design; after all, it introduced the special design of the "Windowless" door and used visual parallax to guide the reader.

But because the story was too "melodramatic," it drew complaints from many readers in later generations, leading some to mock it as a work of metaphysical mystery.

When it was adapted into a film in 1988, the director, in order to attract attention, shot it directly as an "erotic blockbuster" and significantly altered the plot.

The deceased was changed to the owner of the neighboring soba shop and the bookstore owner, and the bookstore proprietress was the murderer.

The motive for the murder was that she could not accept the bookstore owner—her own father—violating her, so she killed him in a rage.

It is easy to imagine that such a drastic adaptation of the work naturally caused extreme dissatisfaction among fans of the original, with a rating of only 4. on Douban in the country, which could be called the worst of the worst.

Although there were problems with the logic and plot, Akiwara Yuto relied on some appropriate techniques to make a more "reasonable" adaptation—based on the original trick and character relationships, he increased Akechi Goro's subjective initiative and the investigation of clues.

However, he was not very sure whether this adaptation would be recognized.

The only thing he was certain of was that if he used the original work, even if it could pass the submission, it would be accused by many of being full of problems.

Time passed bit by bit, and after about 30 minutes, Shida Daxi put down the manuscript and nodded in approval, "As expected of Teacher Akiwara, there are no problems with this manuscript."

Akiwara Yuto felt relieved and smiled to express his thanks.

After confirming the manuscript, the two, accompanied by other staff members, signed the corresponding contract.

After all, the *Chiji Shimbun* and the Kejiaoguan were different in nature; the goal was just to add more content to the newspaper, and there were no requirements for copyrights or collected volumes.

Therefore, the contract signed by the two only stipulated the specific manuscript fee, which was about 50, 00 yen per manuscript page.

As for other specific work coordination, Asano Aiko would be responsible for handling it with the newspaper office.

In addition to the serialization, Akiwara Yuto could also open a sidebar to publish some of his own views. But the content in this sidebar needed to be reviewed by the newspaper office.

This was also another goal of Akiwara Yuto, which was to increase his own voice.

With a voice, he could do more things, such as expressing opinions on current social events or publishing his own viewpoints.

If he were just a quiet creator, this would not be necessary. But if he wanted greater social influence, this was unavoidable.

If he were framed by others again, he would have a window to explain himself.

After signing the contract, Akiwara Yuto and Shida Daxi agreed to go to the club next time and then politely said goodbye.

After a car ride of about 40 minutes, he and his bodyguard arrived at the library of the University of Tokyo.

The University of Tokyo library was a very dilapidated old building, only 3 stories high. But old as it was, there were quite a few students inside.

Upon walking to the public communication area, Akiwara Yuto saw his disciple, Toyama Miho.

And when Toyama Miho saw him, she bowed from afar and said earnestly, "Master, thank you for your hard work."

She was truly embarrassed; as a disciple, it should have been her going to Akiwara Yuto's house to learn knowledge.

But Akiwara Yuto, out of consideration for her, took the initiative to come over every week for 2-3 hours of tutoring, giving guidance on the design of tricks and the discussion of plots.

Akiwara Yuto waved his hand, signaling her to sit with him in a corner seat—this was in the public communication area, so it didn't matter even if they spoke in low voices.

As for the accompanying bodyguard, he was arranged to observe nearby.

Watching the bodyguard's vigilant movements, Akiwara Yuto subconsciously fell into thought. To be honest, up to now, he felt he might have been making a mountain out of a molehill.

After all, he had received the threatening letter for so long, and there had been no movement.

He even asked "old friends" like Seto Tamae and learned that basically everyone had received some, with the fewest being a dozen and the most being hundreds.

What was even more exaggerated was that they even used the number of threatening letters they received as a topic for joking and teasing each other.

Upon learning that Akiwara Yuto had only received one "threatening letter," they even mocked him, thinking his work's influence was not large enough.

However, Akiwara Yuto associated this with the whereabouts of the unknown Oonuki Masakazu and subconsciously still felt a bit uneasy.

Toyama Miho did not know Akiwara Yuto's thoughts and took a manuscript out of her bag, handing it to Akiwara Yuto.

"Master, this is a short story I plan to submit next time; please give me some corrections."

After reading it, Akiwara Yuto nodded with satisfaction.

To tell the truth, Toyama's talent was much higher than he had imagined; many things were understood at a single point and did not need to be repeated a second time.

Compared to when they first met, her writing style and conception of content had improved significantly.

Presumably, in another period of time, she would be able to create some good long-form works.

In his previous life, many writers were like this, writing very brilliant works at a young age.

In the mystery world, Otsuichi wrote *Summer, Fireworks, and My Corpse* at 17, winning the Shueisha Jump Novel Grand Prize; Keigo Higashino wrote *After School* at 27, winning the 31st Edogawa Ranpo Prize;

And in the broader field of traditional literature, Ryunosuke Akutagawa wrote the famous *Rashomon* at the age of 23.

Although he was satisfied in his heart, he still said verbally, "There are still some deficiencies in grammar; you can delete some unnecessary dialogue."

Toyama Miho did not doubt him but nodded and agreed very earnestly.

After combing through it from beginning to end, another hour passed. Akiwara Yuto said goodbye and stood up to walk to the restroom in the corridor inside the library.

"Hatanaka-san, please wait for me here." Akiwara Yuto greeted the bodyguard.

Now, as long as he was in public, he was basically inseparable from this bodyguard named Hatanaka Ki.

But in some more "private" moments, it was obviously not suitable to stay together.

After the bodyguard nodded in acknowledgment, Akiwara Yuto walked into the restroom, preparing to unzip his pants, but just then, he heard the sound of a partition door opening behind him.

A man's voice rang out abruptly, "Teacher Akiwara, I have finally waited for you."

Akiwara Yuto didn't have time to think too much; he stopped his movements and turned his head in confusion.

In his field of vision, a man wearing a janitor's uniform held a fruit knife and stabbed it into the lower left side of his chest...