Chapter 39: Thriller Writer

Over the next half-week, the third issue of *New Fiction* began its third reprint, with sales heading straight for 70,000 copies.

According to Asano Aiko’s original estimate, the sales for the third issue of *New Fiction* should have been around 60,000 copies. But she hadn't expected that because of the story "Seven Rooms," many people would spontaneously recommend it, causing sales to surge further and leading to a third reprint.

In fact, in the category of literary books, there is no shortage of cases where publications are reprinted because they are interesting or attract social attention. For example, the popular mystery writer of this world, Sudo Shuichi, once wrote a book about a serial killer who matches wits with the police.

This novel sold quite ordinarily at the beginning, with an initial print run of only 20,000 copies. But unexpectedly, after the book was published, a similar serial murder case actually occurred in Shikoku, Nankaido.

At the time, the Shikoku police received a report of a missing woman and immediately began an investigation, but they found nothing. However, in the following month, five more women went missing.

This attracted great attention from the public, and many ignorant local villagers even claimed that they had been "spirited away" (hidden by gods or spirits and disappeared from the human world).

Although the police immediately tried to control public opinion, the rumor grew larger and larger, especially with the help of the internet, spreading to other regions of Japan.

It was also at this time that someone discovered that Sudo Shuichi’s work described similar plot points, and it even depicted the process of being "spirited away" so vividly that it was chilling.

Although the police later confirmed that these women were murdered and buried by a man under the guise of a "suicide pact," the work still accumulated a large fan base through word-of-mouth because of this "spirited away" gimmick.

In just two short months, it was reprinted many times, and its circulation exceeded 350,000 copies, directly shocking the publishing and news industries.

Now, Akiwara Yuto’s work has also driven the sales of *New Fiction* and led to multiple reprints due to various book reviews and reports.

However, *New Fiction* has its limitations; the first edition was only 40,000 copies, so even with reprints, the sales it can drive would max out at 70,000 copies. Not to mention comparing it to Sudo Shuichi, even compared to the 150,000-copy sales of *Tokyo Literature*, also from Mantansha, the sales are a far cry behind.

But the results are there after all; after all, the perennial bottom-dweller in the industry actually "rejuvenated its vigor" for once, which also attracted the attention of many media outlets.

Some newspapers and periodicals that cooperate with Mantansha even labeled Akiwara Yuto as the "second Sudo Shuichi" or "a genius second only to Sudo Shuichi."

When Akiwara Yuto learned of this news from Asano Aiko’s phone call, he was speechless; he had no interest in being second best.

Moreover, he was also amazed by the ability of the Japanese media to come up with nicknames.

In his past life, because the national men’s table tennis team was too strong, the media gave them a bunch of nicknames, such as the "Imperial Ferocious Tiger" for the player surnamed Zhang, the "Imperial Destroyer Dragon" for the player surnamed Ma, and the "Imperial Great Green Python" for the player surnamed Xu. Besides the sports world, there was also the "once-in-four-thousand-years beauty" in the entertainment industry.

He wanted to complain, but didn't know where to start.

Asano Aiko was very excited; one could hear her high spirits through the receiver: "Akiwara, the publishing house’s publicity bureau has approved the budget, and *New Fiction* can have about one page of promotion every month from now on."

This was indeed good news, especially for the magazine’s sales. Akiwara Yuto couldn't help but smile: "That’s really great."

It seems the reprint of *New Fiction* finally attracted the attention of the higher-ups, who gave a little sweetness to let the editorial department continue to charge into battle.

The two talked on the phone and continued to discuss many internal issues of the editorial department, allowing Akiwara Yuto to learn quite a bit of news.

Matsushima Kazuhiro tried to obtain some of the promotional space but was rejected by Kikuchi Futoshi; Kadowaki Yuma hadn't appeared for some time, and it was unknown what he was doing; additionally, the cover designs for the next few issues had already been arranged and would be handed over to an outside design company.

Akiwara Yuto was a bit puzzled. Shouldn't it be handled by the publishing house’s own art editors? So he asked: "Why is it being handed over to an outside design company?"

"It seems it was decided because Editor-in-Chief Kikuchi Futoshi insisted on it despite opposition." Asano Aiko wasn't entirely sure either, but she still explained the situation: "He believes the style suitable for Akiwara’s covers should be darker and more thrilling."

Hearing this, Akiwara Yuto was a bit speechless for a moment. He believed that the works he wrote were not purely thrilling, but rather contained human nature within the darkness.

Besides, even for such a style, wouldn't it be better for the internal art editors to handle it? If they weren't satisfied, they could just revise it.

He thought about it and gave up on this line of thinking. After all, these matters of the magazine were decided by the editor-in-chief, and as an author, although he had the right to suggest, he shouldn't interfere too much.

By the time the conversation reached this point, nearly half an hour had passed, and the two ended the call after saying goodbye.

Akiwara Yuto returned upstairs and began to flip through a pile of newspapers, preparing to take a close look.

Currently, because of the reprint of *New Fiction*, many small and medium-sized newspapers had taken notice. For example, *Tokyo Daily News*, with Yashiro Toshihiro as the lead writer, highly praised "Seven Rooms," writing as follows:

"In this work, Mr. Akiwara does not want the reader to pay excessive attention to the killer and his identity. To this end, he constructed the 'seven rooms,' which are almost indistinguishable in appearance, bare of furniture, and each only has a lonely iron door and a small water channel running through them."

"The protagonist is locked in such a sealed room without any preparation, and the truth, which he manages to find out after using various methods, is even more suffocating—he can only live for 7 days..."

It was another full half-page, accompanied by a slightly eerie photo of a room.

After reading it, Akiwara Yuto couldn't help but nod. The other party was indeed a capable book critic; the points raised were just right, and it left a deep sense of suspense for the readers.

He was satisfied and prepared to get up to go eat, but when he put down the newspaper, his eyes caught another book review that grabbed his attention.

"Akiwara Yuto, a thriller writer?"

He was a bit curious and picked up the newspaper to read from top to bottom.

"From the initial 'Kozue and Yoko' to the later 'Seven Rooms,' it can be seen that the author is good at outlining a terrifying atmosphere by writing about the weak or the valid. But what makes people curious is, why can the writer write such articles?"

"In interviews with publishing house employees, I learned that Mr. Akiwara grew up in a Fuli Academy, but what exactly did he encounter in the Fuli Academy? It makes me a bit curious, but from such a writing style, it is not hard for us to guess."

As he read on, he felt more and more that something was wrong, because this book critic clearly meant one thing—Akiwara Yuto’s unfortunate childhood experiences made his psychology twisted, which is why he wrote such articles...

He was even more speechless.

He didn't expect that writing novels could earn him a reputation as a psychopath, though it seems many people in his past life evaluated the original author Otsuichi this way too.

Forget it, forget it, as long as it doesn't affect sales, it’s fine.

It seems there was a perverted murderer in Japan in his past life who wrote a fugitive novel after killing someone, earned tens of millions of yen from royalties, and even had many brainless fans?

In addition, there was a Japanese international student who killed and cooked a female classmate while studying in Paris, and after being extradited back, he also published a book and even went into the adult film industry to earn a lot of money?!

Akiwara Yuto felt these two things were simply unbelievable; he could only say that a society like Japan was too indulgent, leading to all sorts of monsters and demons emerging.

Forget it, these have nothing to do with him; he should just focus on writing his own novels...

To his surprise, even though he just wanted to do his own thing quietly, trouble still found him.