Chapter 62: Higher Needs

Akiwara Yuto did not know that someone was preparing to target him; at this moment, he was holding a bankbook, sorting through his recent income and payments.

In the two-plus months since he began submitting to *New Novel*, he had received 10 installments of writing fees, totaling about 2.5 million yen; additionally, there was the 300,000 yen for helping Akemi Ikawa write a script, and the 2 million yen bonus brought by Asano Aiko, bringing his total income to nearly 4.8 million yen.

This money seemed like a lot, but it was merely half a year's salary for a high-level white-collar worker in Tokyo.

Not only that, but because of various expenses such as donations, rent, and living costs, he now had only a little over 2.3 million yen left.

If he spent it sparingly, this money would be enough to support his life for another half year without issue.

However, he did not pay it much mind; after all, as a writer, the fixed writing fees from the magazine only satisfied his basic needs. The bulk of his true income would undoubtedly depend on the future royalty income from the collected volume.

According to the contract he had signed, he could receive 10% of the retail price of the collected volume.

Moreover, because *New Novel* was currently selling like wildfire, his first printing would have a circulation of at least 100,000 copies, and the retail price would be around 2,000 yen.

This meant he could receive an income of around 20 million yen. If compared to annual salaries across Tokyo, he was firmly in the top 10% of the pyramid, definitely counting as a high-income bracket.

Judging by the current progress, the time until he could receive this money would not be too far off.

This afternoon, Kikuchi Tai had called to inform him that after the serialization of the next issue ended, they would begin the layout and cover design for the collected volume. If nothing went wrong, printing and distribution could begin in a month.

Akiwara Yuto agreed at the time, but he proposed that he hoped to communicate with the person in charge of the cover design regarding the style, so as to achieve the effect he wanted.

But to his surprise, after hearing this request, Kikuchi Tai instead hemmed and hawed, saying it was not very convenient, which made him feel somewhat astonished.

One had to know, this was a request so small it couldn't be smaller, and it was no big deal; it would only take an hour or two of communication.

Akiwara Yuto was a bit confused, but he did not insist; after all, he was not a member of the publishing house, so it was better not to probe too much into this aspect.

He thought for a moment and could only tell his design requirements to Editor-in-Chief Kikuchi, entrusting him to convey them on his behalf. He also demanded that he must personally confirm the final cover effect.

Although he respected Kikuchi Tai, the quality of the cover directly affected the sales of the collected volume, and the volume of sales was closely related to his bank savings.

Therefore, on this point, he absolutely could not make concessions.

Seeing that Akiwara Yuto was insistent, Kikuchi Tai could only agree to his request, and after some simple pleasantries, the two ended the call.

Akiwara Yuto stuffed the bankbook in his hand under the bedsheet, then returned to the desk, sat in the chair, and looked at the street outside the window where people came and went from time to time, falling into deep thought.

Since coming to this world, his goal had been to ensure he would not be destitute, and even to be able to support himself and establish a foothold. Looking at it now, this point had already been achieved.

But his needs were not static; according to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, after satisfying basic physiological, safety, and social needs, his needs had changed to the two higher-level requirements of being respected and self-actualization.

In his plan, to achieve these two points, he had to continue moving forward on the path of the literary world.

Besides achieving sales for his works, he also had to add bricks and tiles to his personal resume, such as first winning the Gold Prize of the Mantanshe Literary Award, then winning the Newcomer Award and Grand Prize of the Mystery Writers Association, and finally obtaining the highest award in the literary world of this world's Neon—the Uemura Award.

Only after all these awards were realized could he be considered successful and famous, and then he could consider his own life problems, such as marrying and having children, or buying a house to settle down.

Perhaps by that time, returning to China to be a teacher at a decent university would also be a good choice. After all, he had never considered himself a Neon person; deep down, he still yearned for the life of his homeland.

However, these thoughts could be put aside for now; as it stood, he still had to achieve his own success in his career.

To achieve this step, he had to make good use of the big tree that was Mantanshe and continue to form a community of interests with *New Novel*.

He saw it very clearly: most of the awards in the literary world today were basically carved up by the big publishing houses.

Thinking about it, it made sense; only award-winning books could be known by readers and sell well, so those giants naturally would not easily let go of the big cake that was the awards.

It wasn't that it was impossible for small publishing houses, but the probability was truly pitifully small; after all, they had no people, no money, and being small and weak, how could they have the ability to arm-wrestle with those big publishing houses?

He thought for a while and noticed that the sky outside had darkened, and there were more pedestrians on the street; it seemed it was time to get off work.

At this moment, he suddenly remembered a question.

Next Monday was the final issue of his work's serialization; how would it sell?

According to the statistics department's data, the final weekly sales for this issue of *New Novel* were estimated to be around 140,000 copies, not far from the 150,000 copies of *Tokyo Literature*.

But to be honest, if there were no unexpected events, it would be quite difficult to make up the 10,000-copy gap relying solely on the work, so he didn't hold high expectations.

But he didn't take it to heart either; after all, he believed that as long as he could make good use of the works in his mind, letting *New Novel* surpass *Tokyo Literature*, or even surpass the current number one literary journal, *Tokyo Youth*, was just a matter of time.

Akiwara Yuto put aside his concerns in this regard; he stood up, preparing to find a ramen shop on the street to forage for food, as eating instant bento from the convenience store every day was truly becoming hard to swallow.

But to his surprise, just as he reached downstairs, he heard the ringing of a telephone.

He picked up the receiver and asked politely, "Hello, I am Akiwara Yuto, may I ask who this is?"

"Akiwara, it's Asano." Asano Aiko's familiar voice came from the phone, but for some reason, her voice sounded a bit excited.

"Is something the matter?" Akiwara Yuto was a bit puzzled, as Kikuchi Tai had only just contacted him recently.

Asano Aiko on the other end of the phone took a deep breath, then calmed her mood and replied, "Akiwara, congratulations..."

While Akiwara Yuto was confused, the other party told him another piece of news, which made him feel deeply surprised...