Chapter 247: Akiwara Yuto Fever

In Akiwara Yuto's estimation, the 100, 00 copies of the first edition should take about a week to sell out.

This is because first-day sales are usually the highest, after which they gradually decline day by day until reaching a stable level.

However, he still underestimated the effect of that recommendation—the endorsement from the Mystery Writers Association, specifically the phrase "a great work that will change the future."

There is no need to mention the book review circles; that recommendation from the Mystery Writers Association represented the recognition of Akiwara Yuto by the mystery literature world.

To jump out and cause trouble for Akiwara Yuto at this time would undoubtedly be an opposition to and rejection of the Association's viewpoint.

The Association itself is an extremely massive interest group and holds significant influence over the public opinion sphere.

So, if one were to really do that, who knows who would be causing trouble for whom?!

With the unanimous praise from book reviewers, readers in the market also began to feel "curious."

After all, it is rare for a work to receive such consistent praise from so many reviewers—that week, if you opened the culture section of any newspaper, there were book reviews of *The Tokyo Zodiac Murders* without exception, and they were all positive.

And that very "edgy" recommendation, "changing the future of mystery," made many people head to bookstores after poking fun at it.

Under such hype and bandwagoning, even readers uninterested in mystery followed the trend and bought a copy of *The Tokyo Zodiac Murders* for their collection.

This made the book "hard to find" in many bookstores.

Faced with this situation, many social critics stepped forward and gave this social phenomenon a name—calling it the "Akiwara Yuto Fever."

Upon seeing this term, Akiwara Yuto thought of Haruki Murakami and Keigo Higashino from his past life.

It seems that when Haruki Murakami published *Norwegian Wood*, it also became a phenomenal book due to the praise of public opinion and people following the trend, which was called "Murakami Haruki Fever."

Keigo Higashino, through the popularity of *The Devotion of Suspect X*, also had a "Keigo Higashino Fever" phenomenon.

He never expected that this time, he would enjoy the same treatment!

But because the range of readers this time was not limited to mystery fans, *The Tokyo Zodiac Murders* sold extremely well, and the 100, 00 copies of the first edition sold out in less than four days.

To fight for stock, the two major distributors, Tohan and Nippan, both came knocking, not only offering preferential terms one after another but also hoping to have the stock of the reprint exclusively handled by one of them.

Not to mention independent bookstores; from Tokyo to Osaka, from Shikoku to Hokkaido, those with connections used them, and those without forced them, all hoping to be prioritized for shipments.

Faced with these requests, Ankutsu Goichi and the staff at Anku Bookstore were kept busy, and their hairlines even collectively receded a notch.

This made Akiwara Yuto feel a bit "guilty," so he gifted each of them a bottle of ginger shampoo.

The success of *The Tokyo Zodiac Murders* in breaking out of its niche also caught the attention of many television stations and newspapers, which sent invitations to Anku Bookstore or *April Youth*, hoping Akiwara Yuto would participate in programs or accept interviews to talk about his motivation for writing the book and his future plans.

After careful consideration, Akiwara Yuto accepted; participating in such programs or interviews would help build his reputation while also helping the book sell even better.

For a time, he was dizzy with busyness, going to Tokyo Broadcasting System today, Fuji TV tomorrow, and even visiting TV Asahi, which was originally a competitor—though it was no longer considered a competitor, as *Detective Kamimura* had long since been canceled due to low ratings.

Whether it was a program or an interview, it was actually the same routine: ask about past experiences, talk about future thoughts, and then have the host or guests collectively praise him with a "Sugoi."

Honestly, he was almost sick of saying these things, but because of these efforts, the book *The Tokyo Zodiac Murders* maintained a certain level of social heat for half a month.

When the tally was done after half a month, it was found that a full 500, 00 copies had been sold!

In terms of traditional literature or mystery, this was an extremely exaggerated number!

But what Akiwara Yuto did not know was that for this popularity, Takada Tomohisa's "New Orthodox School" had contributed quite a bit behind the scenes!

Tokyo, Setagaya Ward.

In a tearoom, Takada Tomohisa looked at the news about the "Akiwara Yuto Fever" in the newspaper and revealed a satisfied smile.

Beside him were four other writers, three men and one woman.

"Teacher Takada, will our actions this time cause dissatisfaction among the traditional Orthodox School?" asked a square-faced man wearing glasses.

Takada Tomohisa put down the newspaper, his smile undiminished, and said, "Dissatisfaction with what?"

"This..." the square-faced man hesitated and did not speak.

In his view, Akiwara Yuto was a person from Kawai Shinta's faction, and supporting his work would undoubtedly cause resentment among the traditional Orthodox radicals represented by Wada Shin.

After all, Akiwara Yuto had previously made Wada Shin lose quite a bit of face, and even today, some people were still criticizing him.

Takada Tomohisa saw his concerns and said bluntly, "No need to think too much; the better this work sells, the brighter the future of the New Orthodox School will be."

In his view, cooperating with the traditional Orthodox School on award selections was actually for the development of the New Orthodox genre.

Since promoting a book could achieve the same effect, why should he care about the expressions of Wada Shin and his gang?

After all, for the New Orthodox, the book *The Tokyo Zodiac Murders* was too important. In a substantial sense, it had even become the representative work of the "New Orthodox."

So, in this "Akiwara Yuto Fever" event, he had also spent no small amount of effort, including inviting familiar book reviewers to praise it, or actively mentioning and praising it in public.

However, even he did not expect that this book could actually be this popular; according to the sales trends he understood, selling millions of copies within a year was not an impossible thing!

At this moment, the only female writer present asked a question: "Teacher Takada, if possible, could you invite that Teacher Akiwara to briefly talk about the creative philosophy of New Orthodox works?"

Not all writers were interested in mystery orthodoxy, and she was one of them.

Compared to that, she wanted to know more about how Akiwara Yuto wrote the tricks in *The Tokyo Zodiac Murders*. If possible, she wanted to learn even more.

Takada Tomohisa replied with an apologetic tone: "Sorry, I invited Teacher Akiwara before, but the other party indicated that his schedule was already full recently."

Just as everyone present was disappointed, Takada Tomohisa took out a piece of letter paper and placed it on the table, "But he wrote down some of his thoughts on the New Orthodox on this paper."

After saying this, everyone gathered around to look carefully, and they saw 30 terms written on the paper.

"Isolated island murder, long-distance murder, no-footprint murder, locked-room murder, copycat murder, headless corpse, corpse decoration, corpse exchange, corpse disappearance, exchange murder, hitchhiking murder, physical trick, narrative trick, physiological trick, animal trick, character trick, twins, detective-culprit swap, code, diary, suicide note, story-within-a-story, word puzzle, alibi, missing link, misdirection, dying message."

After reading them all, everyone was astonished, and the female writer, after hesitating for a moment, expressed an admiring tone: "How did Teacher Akiwara think of these!"

Among these terms, except for the locked-room murder representing traditional orthodoxy, the other murder methods were full of "novel" elements at a glance, and these novel elements were closely related to the New Orthodox genre's trick creation philosophy—ensuring the story's interest while maintaining reasonable logic.

Takada Tomohisa shook his head and let out a long sigh, "Teacher Akiwara only sent me this letter but didn't say much else."

Upon seeing these murder methods, he was also very surprised and admiring, and he believed from the bottom of his heart that Akiwara Yuto writing *The Tokyo Zodiac Murders* was by no means a stroke of luck.

But what he regretted was that Akiwara Yuto did not provide further explanation.

He thought for a moment and said in an uncertain tone: "Perhaps he does not wish for his own views to have too much influence on us."

Others present also accepted this view and continued to ponder, with some even taking out paper and pens to copy them word by word into their notebooks.

But no one considered a problem, which was that Akiwara Yuto actually did not understand "New Orthodox" very well himself.

In fact, Akiwara Yuto was indeed "half-knowledgeable" about the New Orthodox, or rather, did not understand it well at all.

In his past life, the New Orthodox could be considered the youngest genre, and not only that, the styles of the various writers within it were also vastly different.

Some loved playing with mechanism designs and even drew a large number of blueprints in their works; some liked to talk about monster murders, and even the protagonists were not necessarily human.

Between the representative figures Soji Shimada and Yukito Ayatsuji, there were different philosophies regarding the New Orthodox, and even the design methods known as the "Seven Rules of New Orthodox" had many nonsensical parts.

God knows which philosophy was right or wrong.

In order not to lead the New Orthodox of this world down a crooked path, Akiwara Yuto avoided this invitation and just took out the "Thirty Elements of Mystery Construction" written by Seiryoin Ryusui in *Joker: Old Testament Detective Myth* from his past life to fool people.

But what he didn't know was that these things he used to fool people were still too far ahead of this era and gave the "New Orthodox" genre too much shock, to the point that everyone became even more convinced of him!

If he really wanted to join the New Orthodox, he could probably become a god in the flesh like Soji Shimada—becoming the so-called "God of Mystery"!