Chapter 70: Seto Tamae

Akiwara Yuto saw the person coming and couldn't help but look at her.

This Teacher Seto Tamae was wearing a plain blue visiting kimono. Her facial features were ordinary, just like a traditional RB woman—but on her, there was a kind of knowledgeable and reasonable temperament.

According to Imamura Yuto's statement, the other party is already nearly 50 years old this year, but Akiwara Yuto feels that she looks much younger than her actual age, as if she is only in her early 40s.

He was not surprised. Living in such a large villa, he thought the other party should have spent a lot of money to maintain herself. The older the same-age women who maintain and don't maintain are, the more obvious the difference in appearance will be.

Imamura Yuto saw Seto Tamae, immediately stepped forward and said "Good senior," and introduced Akiwara Yuto's identity. Akiwara Yuto also immediately bowed and saluted: "Sorry to bother you, Teacher Seto."

Seto Tamae was a bit curious about this "genius" writer who had been quite famous within Mantanshe recently, so she also looked at him a few times, then bowed and saluted, and said in a gentle tone: "Don't be so polite, come in first."

After saying this, she pushed the door to let the two walk in, and reached out to lead them inside, while saying: "Today is just a literary writer exchange of Mantanshe, other writers have already arrived."

Along the small path paved with stones in the yard, the three soon arrived at their destination—a Sukiya (tea room). In this tea room, 6 people had already gathered, sitting on the tea seats on the left and right sides respectively.

After Seto Tamae's introduction, Akiwara Yuto learned the identities of these people.

The four people sitting on the left were signed authors of *Tokyo Literature*: Sugimoto Shuto, Ishii Yu, Yasuhara Ryodai, and Nakamura Koki. The two sitting on the right were signed authors of *New Novel*: Hasebe Eisuke and Mizuki Yuma.

Akiwara Yuto was a bit ashamed, finding that he didn't even know the writers serializing in the same magazine. When he finished bowing and introducing himself, a familiar voice suddenly sounded behind him.

"Yo, isn't this our genius writer Teacher Akiwara of *New Novel*?"

Akiwara turned his head and frowned. The other party was exactly the person he wanted to see the least—Kadowaki Yuzhen.

Kadowaki Yuzhen finished saying this, sat in the position on the right, and then said in a very rude voice: "Teacher Akiwara, like a genius like you, why come to the gathering of ordinary writers like us?"

On the word "ordinary writer," he added extra emphasis. Akiwara Yuto also discovered his intention, which was to put himself in opposition to everyone.

Sure enough, after Kadowaki Yuzhen said this, the expressions of everyone in the field changed subtly. Seeing this scene, Imamura Yuto was about to say something, but Seto Tamae, as the host, spoke first.

"Teacher Kadowaki, Teacher Akiwara was specially invited by me to ask Imamura to invite him. I think Teacher Akiwara's talent is worth our careful study, so if you have any opinions, just tell me."

Although the tone of her speech was very flat, the meaning in her words was unquestionable.

Hearing this, Kadowaki Yuzhen's expression also changed. He bowed his head slightly and said politely: "Since it is a guest invited by Teacher Seto, then I won't say anything, sorry, excuse me."

Compared with Akiwara Yuto, who has no foundation, Seto Tamae is a proper old-school writer. She has relationships up and down the publishing house, and her seniority is ranked in the entire Nihon literary world. He doesn't want to offend the other party.

Akiwara Yuto was a bit surprised. He was still considering whether to scold Kadowaki Yuzhen again, but didn't expect the other party to soften so quickly. He leaned over to express his gratitude to Seto Tamae and found an empty seat on the right to sit cross-legged.

Imamura Yuto saw the atmosphere in the field ease and secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

Seeing everyone seated, Seto Tamae shook the bell hanging on the door, greeted the servant to pour tea for everyone, and then knelt and sat in the main seat in the room—that is, the position furthest from the front door.

As the writer with the oldest seniority and the greatest fame among those present, it is reasonable for her to sit in this position.

She looked around at everyone, and then said in an unhurried tone: "Then let's explore the previous topic, when creating the murder in a detective novel, how should we design the trick? Teacher Ishii, please continue to tell your own point of view."

Akiwara Yuto took a look and found that the other party was the writer Ishii Yu of *Tokyo Literature*. After hearing Seto Tamae's request, he put down the tea in his hand, coughed, and started to talk.

"It's shameful to say, the way I design tricks is inseparable from the chemistry major I studied myself. When designing tricks, I often look for some chemistry textbooks, and then according to the characteristics on them, such as the combustion of sodium, the dissolution of rust, the luminescence of magnesium, to conceive and design the murderer's murder method."

Seeing him pause, Imamura Yuto sitting next to him inserted a sentence: "Teacher Ishii, your methods are already very powerful, after all, most authors can't even think of these methods of yours."

But to Imamura Yuto's surprise, Ishii Yu shook his head, "Teacher Imamura, you don't know, recently some book reviewers have criticized me, thinking that I have increased the threshold for readers to guess the murderer. After all, if even detective writers can't think of these methods, then most readers will be even less able to think of them..."

Imamura Yuto was speechless for a while. Akiwara Yuto, on the other hand, moved in his heart. He thought that Teacher Ishii's idea was a bit too biased. After all, the essence of reasoning lies in innovation, and the purpose of writing it may not be for all readers to guess it.

Like in his past life, Higashino Keigo also adopted quite a few physical and chemical tricks, and his works could still sell well.

However, he didn't say these words. After all, after being provoked by Kadowaki Yuzhen just now, it was not suitable for him to be too high-profile, so it was better to hide his clumsiness.

After this Teacher Ishii shared his point of view, an author with square-rimmed glasses on the right also shared his point of view.

"I agree with Teacher Ishii's point of view. I think the essence of the work is to let most readers enjoy it. So I will first design a plot, this plot must be very interesting, and then add a relatively reasonable trick method. In this way, even if the trick is not very prominent, readers will read it in one breath because of the interest of the story."

Once this point of view came out, there were obviously different views among everyone. Some people thought it was right, and should design trick methods with the story as the premise, while others thought that they should not yield to readers, but design ingenious trick methods.

Among everyone's chatter, the atmosphere in the field was quite lively.

Akiwara Yuto did not insert into the topic. He had seen similar points of view in his past life, and there was nothing new at all.

Seto Tamae saw that he had been silent, and took the initiative to ask: "Teacher Akiwara, regarding the design of trick methods, what kind of view do you have?"

She was really a bit curious whether this genius who had been rumored to be popular recently really had talent, or was just another product of "hype."

"Teacher Akiwara, you are a 'genius writer' after all, this aspect is not difficult for you at all, right?"

Kadowaki Yuzhen saw this and also took the initiative to insert words, emphasizing the words "genius writer." To be honest, he didn't believe that Akiwara Yuto had any research on this aspect.

He had studied the series of novels written by the other party, which were nothing more than horror and novelty as themes, belonging to "pseudo-reasoning" novels with no reasoning elements at all. And he also learned about the other party's background of growing up in a welfare institution.

Through this information, he didn't think Akiwara Yuto could say anything, so he directly satirized it.

Akiwara Yuto sighed in his heart. He originally wanted to keep a low profile, but didn't expect to be pulled out.

Forget it, I'm not a Nihon person anyway, so don't play that set of looking at the atmosphere.

He put aside his concerns and, under everyone's curious gaze, spoke directly: "In my opinion, there are nine types of trick designs..." ===== CHAPTER 71 =====