Chapter 261: A Writer's Past

Setagaya Ward, Tachikawa Detective Agency.

"Teacher Akiwara, this is the situation regarding Teacher Yoshikawa."

A man in a black suit handed over a document, and Akiwara Yuto took it and began to read it carefully.

Yoshikawa Yuichiro, one of the main representatives of the Aestheticist school of literature, a professor in the Faculty of Letters at the University of Tokyo, had numerous disciples under his wing and had founded several journals under the banner of the university.

As a writer, he held a high position in the literary world and often associated with big figures in politics.

However, his private life was extremely chaotic; he had even been married three times and had become obsessed with prostitutes.

It was said that he often brought male friends home to stay overnight, and his reputation was very poor.

After reading these materials, Akiwara Yuto thought of a writer from his past life, namely Tanizaki Junichiro, who was known as the "devil" of literature.

Tanizaki Junichiro was one of the representative writers of the modern Aestheticist school and was even nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature seven times.

But like Haruki Murakami, he always remained a runner-up.

However, unlike his literary achievements, Tanizaki Junichiro's private life was considered by the public to be one of the signs of a writer's moral decay.

When he was in his twenties, he fell in love with a prostitute, but she refused him because she was being kept by someone else, and she introduced her second younger sister to him instead.

So, he ended up marrying the prostitute's sister.

But after his own child was born, Tanizaki Junichiro grew to dislike his wife for being too much of a "virtuous wife and good mother," so he got involved with the prostitute's third sister—his own sister-in-law.

In order to marry his sister-in-law without any worries, he introduced his wife to the poet Sato Haruo.

Consequently, Sato Haruo and his wife began an affair right under his nose, and they developed feelings for each other.

Unexpectedly, the sister-in-law refused Tanizaki Junichiro's marriage proposal out of guilt. This made him regret his actions, so he went to find Sato Haruo, saying, "Let's break off our friendship; stay away from my wife."

Sato Haruo was devastated and could only constantly publish love poems in the newspapers.

However, the relationship between Tanizaki Junichiro and his wife had also effectively broken down by this time.

Six years later, the three of them ran into each other by accident, so they jointly wrote a divorce declaration in which Tanizaki Junichiro ceded his wife to Sato Haruo.

This letter was called the "Statement of Ceding a Wife" and caused a huge sensation in society.

After the divorce, he found two more wives, and the drama continued: the third wife he liked already had a husband at the time, so he had to settle for marrying his second wife.

But after the third wife got divorced, he divorced his second wife and married her.

Yet, for the sake of his literary creation, he forced her to have an "abortion."

He could be considered the "scum of all scumbags."

Compared to Tanizaki Junichiro, Dazai Osamu, who was always looking for mistresses, could even be considered a "pure love warrior."

After all, although Dazai Osamu was always finding new lovers, he never divorced his wife, and even left a suicide note before his death saying he loved her the most.

After finishing the introduction to Yoshikawa Yuichiro, Akiwara Yuto thought of another matter and began to inquire.

"Have the author of 'On the Theory of Human Evil in Rashomon,' Arakawa Shinji, and Yoshikawa Yuichiro met recently?"

Before this, that book review had praised him on the surface while disparaging him in content. And it was right after that when Ichimura Kenta came to visit as a "guest."

Yoshikawa Yuichiro said seriously: "According to my investigation, the two have a teacher-student relationship and meet once a week."

Hearing this, Akiwara Yuto frowned.

All the clues had been connected; there was no doubt that the "apprenticeship" was something pushed by Tanizaki Junichiro.

But he was already so old; did he still want to play the oppression game like Tian Xin?

Then again, if he just ignored the other party, what could they do?

He pondered for a while and decided to turn a blind eye to Yoshikawa Yuichiro in the future.

The other party was old and held a very high status in pure literature; he had no confidence in retaliating against him and would instead be branded with the stigma of disrespecting his "elders."

Moreover, as it stood, the other party couldn't hinder him much.

Besides "Rashomon," he still had many other excellent works that hadn't been published yet. He didn't believe that after he published them, all book reviewers would turn a blind eye!

"Let's leave it at that for now," Akiwara Yuto thought, and he had Asano Aiko pay the remaining balance.

Immediately after, he and Asano left.

Returning home, Akiwara Yuto thought about what work to write next. After thinking for a while, he decided to continue writing Ryunosuke Akutagawa's short stories—"In a Grove."

This story told of a samurai who, while traveling to Wakasa with his wife Masago, encountered the bandit Tajomaru. As a result, the samurai was bound, and his wife Masago was violated by the bandit.

The outcome of the event was: the samurai died, Tajomaru was caught, and Masago fled to Kiyomizu-dera.

The story seemed very simple, but the narrative was very unique—it organized a fog of narrative using the words of others, specifically by using seven people related to the event to construct the story.

But the strangest part was the cause of the samurai's death: the medium said the samurai committed suicide, while Tajomaru and Masago each confessed to killing the samurai.

So in the end, no one knew who killed the samurai.

This work looked very simple, but it was actually full of satire toward the samurai class.

Placed here, it fit his state of mind perfectly.

However, this work actually had a great connection to China in history.

When creating it, Ryunosuke Akutagawa himself traveled to various parts of China as an inspector for the Osaka Mainichi Shimbun.

Before setting off, based on the praise from his good friend Tanizaki Junichiro and the classics he loved to read, he believed that China should be a prosperous and flourishing place.

So he was so excited that he even wrote to other friends that he was going to find the "greatness" of China.

But unexpectedly, after arriving, he found that China was full of war, poverty, and chaos everywhere.

While in the Magic City, he saw prostitutes openly hitting on him and saw citizens defecating everywhere.

After seeing an American soldier kick over an old lady's vegetable basket and walk away, he took the initiative to go up and give the old lady money, only to be chased down and demanded for more.

After being exposed to these situations, his longing for the ancient civilization was shattered, and he even wrote quite a few negative reviews, which were collected into "Travels in China," in which he wrote:

"What does modern China have? Politics, academics, economics, art—aren't they all degenerating? Especially regarding art, since the Jiaqing and Daoguang eras, has there been a single work worth being proud of?"

"I do not love China, and I cannot love it even if I want to. After witnessing the degeneration of such a nation, if one still holds feelings of love for China, then one is either a decadent sensualist or a shallow admirer of Chinese taste."

In later generations, many people brought up this quote to claim he was part of the anti-China faction.

However, in the eyes of Lu Xun, Ryunosuke Akutagawa was truly a "friend."

Lu Xun once said something to the effect that anyone who praises China as beautiful and prosperous is only looking for benefits or is full of malice. On the contrary, those who dare to criticize the ugliness of China are our true friends.

Not only that, he also became the earliest translator of Ryunosuke Akutagawa.

Moreover, both of their works were full of deep criticism of human nature.

While recalling history, Akiwara Yuto finished writing "In a Grove" and stuffed the manuscript into an envelope, preparing to send it to the traditional literary journal "Jewel" of the Toei Press.

Because of his disgust for the "guest" incident involving Ichimura Kenta, he no longer intended to cooperate with the other party's "Language Promise."

But to his surprise, this work he was so confident in received a rejection letter...