Chapter 258: The Snobbery Chain of Literature

July 4, 1993, noon.

Ichimura Kenta sat at his desk holding a cup of coffee, looking at the line of words "*Luo Shengmen*" on the manuscript, and frowned.

He was the editor-in-chief of the *Yuno* editorial department at Keihansha, and was also responsible for reviewing all submitted manuscripts.

Logically speaking, this work should be handed over to ordinary editors; after all, with so many manuscripts, it was impossible for the editor-in-chief to check them one by one.

But this manuscript was transmitted through the method of an acquaintance's submission, so even if only for the sake of that acquaintance's face, he had to take a good look at it.

Not only that, the author of this manuscript was Akiwara Yuto, who had recently become famous in the detective fiction community.

Thinking of this name, Ichimura Kenta's expression became even more unpleasant.

Among many literary genres, although pure literature or traditional literature had the lowest sales, its social status was the highest.

This also made them often carry a condescending attitude toward popular literature writers facing the public, such as detective fiction writers.

Therefore, for some popular writers who wanted to transition to writing pure literature, these pure literature writers or book reviewers were often resistant from the bottom of their hearts.

In Ichimura Kenta's view, Akiwara Yuto, who submitted to *Yuno*, was just like that.

He didn't write his detective fiction properly, but actually wanted to enter the pure field of pure literature!

Not only that, he actually wanted to use the method of an acquaintance saying hello; this was undoubtedly a blasphemy!

Ichimura Kenta's dissatisfaction grew even stronger; he believed that truly excellent pure literature works could not be written by commercial authors like Akiwara Yuto who only knew how to please the public!

Don't think that just because you are famous, I will easily pass your manuscript!

He took a sip of coffee, then picked up the manuscript, preparing to read it once to make corrections and replies—if it was too bad, he would write a rejection letter with harsh wording after reading it, determined to scold the other party until they were bloody.

He lowered his head and began to read.

A servant's perspective, weighing between survival and morality? This angle of exploration had been written about before, right? In the end, it was nothing more than choosing morality!

Sure enough, it was a boring, cliché creation.

He circled a stroke on the copied manuscript paper with a correction pen and wrote down the evaluation: Cliché repetition.

After a pause, he mocked in his heart, and then continued to read down.

But as he read, after the plot development of the servant and the old woman, he couldn't help but put down his pen and follow the plot.

Huh, the old woman making a living using dead people's hair? Actually telling the story of snake meat pretending to be fish meat quite legitimately?

Huh, after the servant finished listening, he actually completely abandoned morality for survival!? This was not quite the same as what he had thought.

What the hell, he actually snatched the old woman's clothes and disappeared from then on! He must have gone to be a robber!

This work seemed to be a bit interesting! It wasn't the cliché routine he had thought of.

10 minutes passed in a flash, and Ichimura Kenta had finished reading all the content.

He didn't immediately make an evaluation, but read it three more times before raising his head, stroking his beard, and pondering.

This work, in terms of literary connotation, seemed to be deeper than he had thought!

The down-and-out servant came to Luo Shengmen because he had nowhere else to go. But under this gate, he saw the distance between life and death—many people had died, but only one was alive.

Luo Shengmen, at this moment, represented the division between life and human nature.

At the beginning, he still had human nature, that is, he would rather starve to death than resort to stealing or committing crimes; when he first saw the old woman pulling hair from a corpse, he felt even stronger anger and disgust in his heart.

However, when the old woman explained her reason for doing evil as a matter of course, almost in the blink of an eye, the servant transformed into a devil.

This made him strip off the old woman's clothes without hesitation and walk away without looking back.

This abrupt transformation of good and evil was undoubtedly contrary to the Confucian idea of human nature being inherently good, that is, human nature would be influenced by the environment.

But just as he confirmed this idea, he suddenly saw the title, which was the three words "Luo Shengmen".

He stood up, found a reference book from the bookshelf nearby, and turned to a specific page.

After repeated comparisons, he finally understood the meaning of "Luo Shengmen".

"Luo Shengmen" refers to the gate set up at the "Rasho", that is, the meaning of "Capital Gate".

In the ninth century AD, the imperial family declined, and civil wars occurred frequently. Because the Luo Shengmen gate was neglected, it appeared desolate and eerie after falling into decay.

Many nameless corpses were also dragged to the gate tower and abandoned; as years accumulated, Luo Shengmen created an impression of eeriness, terror, and ghosts gathering in people's hearts.

After reading the explanation, the Luo Shengmen in Ichimura Kenta's eyes faintly became a representative of "human hell".

He shivered and fell into deep thought.

The things that Akiwara Yuto wrote were a bit different from what he had thought at the beginning!

This work could completely count as a masterpiece among pure literature works!

But what did he mean? Did he want to transition from a detective fiction writer to a pure literature writer? Or was he just writing it for practice!

Damn, this guy's literary talent was too high! Even if he wanted to reject the manuscript, he couldn't find a reason!

He thought like this, then distressingly grabbed his head with his hand, and as a result, grabbed a few hairs down.

In the end, he sighed deeply.

Forget it, let's accept it; it's just giving an acquaintance an explanation!

At the same time, Akiwara Yuto received a call from his disciple Toyama Miho's father, that is, Kyoto University literature professor Toyama Shuichi.

"Akiwara-sensei, why did you suddenly want to write pure literature works?" Toyama Shuichi asked in a puzzled tone.

He was very strange in his heart; after all, although pure literature works had high reputations, their sales were there after all, and they were declining, receiving less and less attention from the public.

Besides that, that group of pure literature people also liked to huddle together very much, and had always held a disdainful attitude toward the popular literature community.

Logically speaking, as a popular detective fiction writer, Akiwara Yuto had no need to write things in this area; it was completely thankless.

Akiwara Yuto wasn't surprised that Toyama Shuichi knew about his submission. After all, the literary circle and the academic circle were intertwined—many writers were teachers while creating at the same time.

He thought for a moment, didn't say that he just wanted to try whether he could win a pure literature award, but just made up a reason.

"I just wanted to try it out; I will still continue to write detective fiction."

Although Toyama Shuichi had doubts in his heart, he still accepted his statement and advised, "Akiwara-sensei, if possible, it's better to be careful later."

"Be careful, why?" Akiwara Yuto asked puzzled.

He had only submitted a manuscript, what was there to be careful about.

Toyama Shuichi advised, "Akiwara-sensei, you are after all a representative figure in the detective fiction community; if you rashly write pure literature works, whether it's the book review circle or the literary circle, there might be people who will come out and say some things."

Akiwara Yuto frowned, finding that this was indeed possible.

However, he didn't take it to heart much; the matter of literary people looking down on each other was common, whether in his past life or domestically and abroad.

The worst possibility was just a war of words.

Thinking of this, he relaxed, then chatted with Toyama Shuichi about his daughter's affairs, and ended the call.

But what he didn't know was that the impact caused by the publication of this *Luo Shengmen* was even greater than he had thought... ===== CHAPTER 259 =====