Chapter 304: The Uemura Prize Incident

In Japanese society, corporate managers place great importance on intelligence, often establishing specialized intelligence sections and rooms.

Some companies even collaborate with universities to set up specialized "business espionage" courses to cultivate business spies and counter-espionage talent.

Therefore, some even refer to Japanese society as an "intelligence society."

However, it must be admitted that a vast amount of business intelligence provided crucial help for Japan's rapid rise after the end of World War II.

In 2002, a retired intelligence expert in Japan pointed out in a media interview: "The reason post-war Japanese manufacturing was able to rapidly occupy European and American markets is that our intelligence personnel deserve the greatest credit."

At the time, that media outlet even cited a statistic obtained from an intelligence department in their article: 54% of Japan's gross national product was contributed by competitive intelligence.

This figure sounds exaggerated, but if one only counts the indirect influence, it might not be untrue.

In the publishing industry where Akiwara Yuto currently works, there are similar conventions.

For instance, the Jiaojiao House has dispatched a large number of business spies to the other three major publishing houses to obtain first-hand business news.

Some of these business spies have even climbed to mid-level positions over a long period.

As for the rising Tsutaya Bookstore—formerly the Anjiu Bookstore Publishing House—as a high-level executive in the intelligence department of the Jingfan Agency, Reiko Hosome naturally could not let slip the opportunity to dispatch business spies.

Upon learning that Akiwara Yuto might need talent for bookstore management, she had already arranged for two suitable university graduates to go and participate in the relevant recruitment.

With the packaging of their resumes and the recommendation of intermediaries, she did not believe that Akiwara Yuto or Sota Nishijima could spot any flaws.

On the other side, after signing Aisa Sugihara, Akiwara Yuto began to officially execute his own plan.

This plan was nominally to build a chain of second-hand bookstores across the country, but in reality, it was to use the attached warehouses and manpower to form a logistics network system suitable for the publisher's existing books.

Under this system, future books published could bypass distributors and circulate directly outside of Tokyo, thereby achieving the goal of breaking the monopoly of the two major distributors, Tokyo Sales and Japan Sales.

In terms of specific operations, he still comprehensively consulted the opinions of Sota Nishijima and Aisa Sugihara.

They would inject capital into the current corporate account and then start direct-operated stores in several key cities; as for other prefectures with populations under 5 million, they would invite franchises through loans.

However, although the funds and execution personnel were in place, both the renovation of numerous stores and the training of staff required a certain amount of time.

Looking at it now, it would take at least half a year or more.

Just as he and everyone else were busy, time quickly reached October.

At this time, he pulled himself away from his heavy workload and began to busy himself with another matter—the second-half nominations for the Uemura Prize.

The Uemura Prize in this world is similar to the Akutagawa Prize of his past life, holding selection activities twice a year.

The first-half annual awards had already passed, and at that time, Akiwara Yuto had successfully had *The Devotion of Suspect X* nominated through his connection with Shinta Kawai.

However, because his relationship with the stubborn orthodox school was poor at the time, he ended up only being a "tourist" and did not win the grand prize.

But the nomination list for the second half of the year would be announced in about a month.

So, on a specific weekend, Akiwara Yuto made a special trip to Shinta Kawai's home.

Upon seeing Shinta Kawai, Akiwara Yuto respectfully handed the gift to him.

"Chairman Kawai, sorry to disturb you. This is Gyokuro tea from Fukuoka; please accept it."

The so-called Gyokuro tea is the highest grade among Japanese teas, and the cultivation process is extremely complex. Some even claim that one might not find a single tree capable of producing Gyokuro among a hundred tea trees.

Shinta Kawai smiled as he took the gift, without saying "thank you."

The relationship between the two had already passed the level of needing polite formalities.

In fact, he also knew the purpose of Akiwara Yuto's visit today.

"Akiwara, you're here for the Uemura Prize, right?"

"Yes," Akiwara Yuto said quite candidly, "Please let me know how high the possibility of my nomination is this time."

Although he said "nomination" verbally, he was actually referring to winning the award.

After all, most factions of mystery literature could now be considered to be convinced by him.

Under such circumstances, as long as he was nominated, winning the award was basically nine times out of ten.

But to his surprise, Shinta Kawai shook his head, "Akiwara, you might have to wait until next year to be nominated."

Hearing these words, Akiwara Yuto became puzzled.

Although he had been busy writing traditional literary works in the second half of the year, he had at least published *The Tokyo Zodiac Murders*.

Could it be that this work was not enough to be nominated?

Shinta Kawai seemed to see through Akiwara Yuto's thoughts and explained, "The list of judges for this time has already come out, and there are no judges from the New Orthodox school."

No judges from the New Orthodox school?

Akiwara Yuto suddenly realized the situation upon hearing this explanation.

All entries for the Uemura Prize must be recommended by judges to be nominated, but generally speaking, all judges tend to recommend works from their own school.

So if no New Orthodox writer served as a judge, then the New Orthodox work *The Tokyo Zodiac Murders* naturally could not be selected.

His mind turned for only two seconds before he suddenly asked another question: "What happened?"

According to convention, there would usually be one or two New Orthodox writers serving as judges for the Uemura Prize, but it was too strange that there wasn't a single one this time.

Could it be that some accident occurred?

Shinta Kawai continued, "Akiwara, after your book *The Tokyo Zodiac Murders* was published, the relationship between the New Orthodox school and the traditional orthodox school underwent some changes. The selection of judges this time was also caused by the conflict between the two factions."

Akiwara Yuto asked in confusion, "But whether it's New Orthodox or traditional orthodox, don't they both adhere to the philosophy of prioritizing the trick?"

Could it be that his book, *The Tokyo Zodiac Murders*, was the root of the conflict between the two?

Shinta Kawai shook his head, "Akiwara, traditional orthodox insists on realism, while New Orthodox focuses on innovation. There is an irreconcilable contradiction between the two, and the ideological dispute triggered by your book *The Tokyo Zodiac Murders* was just a small fuse."

"Even without you, they would sooner or later have had a dispute over who is the orthodoxy of the orthodox school."

After hearing this explanation, Akiwara Yuto nodded subconsciously.

But in that case, did he really have to wait until next year?

Soon, Shinta Kawai gave him a solution.

"Akiwara, if you want to be nominated, I hope you can write a work of social mystery."