Chapter 89: Reasonable Crime

After paying the consultation fee, Akiwara Yuto left the law firm and headed instead to a large library in Chiyoda Ward.

Upon arriving at the library, Akiwara Yuto submitted a slip of paper with "Anjiu Bookstore" written on it to the staff in charge; after the latter entered the keyword into the computer's index system, a book list index was printed out shortly thereafter.

Based on the entries in this book list, Akiwara Yuto went to find a relevant magazine from the publishing industry—it contained statistical tables on the publication volume of related books over the past few years.

Through this statistical table, he could obtain the publication volume of Anjiu Bookstore's publications in recent years and use it to analyze the business status of this publishing house.

In order to persuade that President Anjiu, this point was indispensable.

After all, if the other party's publishing house was in a dire business situation, he would have no choice but to abandon his plan of using the copyright of "The Devotion of Suspect X" as collateral for deferred payment and would have to find other ways to publish this book.

However, the only methods he could think of were to borrow money from Mr. Seto or to hand "The Devotion of Suspect X" over to another large publishing house to be published in the form of a royalty partnership.

But these conflicted with his current plans.

Akiwara Yuto found a table to sit down at, took out paper and pen, and began to write, thinking as he wrote.

Looking at the types of publications, it could be seen that before the economic crisis, the books published by Anjiu Bookstore were mainly aimed at housewives and business professionals, including many works such as "Ceramic Making," "Wine Appreciation," "How to Dress Exquisitely," "Etiquette for Business Travel," and "Sincere Bowing."

However, most of these works only sold 20,000 to 30,000 copies, with only "Wine Appreciation" and "How to Dress Exquisitely" selling 100,000 copies.

This proved that Anjiu Bookstore's business situation could only be considered average: for most books with sales under 20,000 copies, the publishing house often only broke even or made a small profit; only those two books with sales exceeding 100,000 copies could bring the publishing house significant profit.

But the sales of these two books also encountered a downturn after the economic recession—after all, since everyone had no money in their pockets, they naturally wouldn't spend extra money to buy books to read.

Therefore, in the past year, the works published by Anjiu Bookstore had turned into a large number of "XX Autobiography" and "Learn XX with XXX." These works were clearly self-published at a glance, as there weren't even sales statistics for them.

In short, the other party could only be described as a small-to-medium-sized publishing house that was barely scraping by.

Akiwara Yuto sighed, feeling a bit doubtful about his plan.

Forget it, he should still prepare the relevant legal documents. Then he would tell President Anjiu his request and let him decide for himself.

……

At 2:00 PM the following afternoon, Akiwara Yuto arrived at Anjiu Bookstore with the prepared documents.

After walking through the front door, a girl wearing a high school uniform spotted him and said with surprise, "Is that Mr. Akiwara?"

Hearing this, Akiwara Yuto was somewhat surprised, but he soon realized that this girl was the bookstore clerk he had seen last time.

Upon seeing him, the girl immediately hurried over, holding a notebook in her hand, "Mr. Akiwara, my name is Anjiu Haruna, I have read the 'The Devotion of Suspect X' you wrote."

Anjiu Haruna was very excited; she hadn't expected to meet the author of this work just after finishing it.

Originally, she had little interest in works that came to the store for self-publishing, as those kinds of books were generally not market-oriented and were purely for the purpose of the publisher's self-aggrandizement.

But after discovering that her father was very obsessed with this Mr. Akiwara's work, she developed a very strong curiosity.

So, taking advantage of when her father wasn't paying attention, she secretly took a copy to read for a while, only to find that the more she read, the more immersed she became in the plot; especially Ishigami's selfless devotion to the Hanaoka mother and daughter moved her deeply, even to the point of shedding tears.

Loving the house and its crow, she naturally also admired Akiwara Yuto, who had written this work.

On the other side, hearing this surname, Akiwara Yuto immediately realized that the other party must be the daughter of President Anjiu, so he also smiled and greeted her.

At this moment, Anjiu Haruna stepped forward, bowed, handed over the notebook, and said, "Mr. Akiwara, could you please give me an autograph?"

Just as Akiwara Yuto took the notebook to sign it, Anjiu Haruna said again, "Mr. Akiwara, couldn't you arrange a better ending for Ishigami, letting him live happily with Hanaoka Yasuko?"

Hearing this, Akiwara Yuto subconsciously looked up at this Young Lady Anjiu and, seeing the exceptionally serious expression on her face, could only reveal a helpless, bitter smile.

"Young Lady Anjiu, sometimes, regret is also a kind of beauty."

In fact, this reason was something he had made up; his true inner thought was that if a work wanted to be impressive and a bestseller, tragedy was often indispensable.

In other words, if the ending were changed to Ishigami having a peaceful conclusion through his plan, the most poignant part of this story would undoubtedly lose much of its luster, and it might even lose its potential for discussion, becoming just another work that fades into obscurity. It was estimated that sales would also be significantly affected.

Anjiu Haruna was not very satisfied with this explanation and said seriously, "Mr. Akiwara, wouldn't that make Ishigami too pitiful?"

Akiwara Yuto shook his head and said, "Anyone who does something wrong must have the responsibility to bear the corresponding punishment, and Ishigami is naturally no exception."

He paused, then stared into Anjiu Haruna's eyes and continued, "Young Lady Anjiu, the happiness of the Hanaoka mother and daughter is certainly important, but is the life of that homeless man not important?"

Seeing Anjiu Haruna speechless, Akiwara Yuto smiled and did not continue. But to be honest, that was indeed what he thought in his heart.

He did not believe that anyone could build their own life's happiness on the sacrifice of another person's life's happiness. That murdered homeless man might also have had his own family, and people who loved him and whom he loved.

From this point of view, if "The Devotion of Suspect X" had been designed with Ishigami escaping the crime, it would undoubtedly have caused huge controversy among his reader fan base.

In fact, looking at mystery works from his past life, if one wanted the murderer to escape legal punishment without the readers having too much objection, three aspects must be designed well: first, the nobility of the murderer's motive; second, the reasonableness of the victim's cause for being harmed; and third, the crime process not harming others.

For example, in Agatha's "Murder on the Orient Express," the murderers' reasons for killing were all for revenge, and the victim himself was also a despicable murderer; or like the mystery film "Drishyam," the protagonist's purpose was to cover up his family's crime, and the reason his family committed the crime was that they were threatened.

In these two works, the perpetrators' motives all carried a certain nobility and did not harm other innocent people.

Conversely, in "The Devotion of Suspect X," although Ishigami's starting point of protecting the Hanaoka mother and daughter was good, and the ex-husband as the victim was enough to make people angry and despise him, regardless, Ishigami still harmed an innocent person for his own purpose.

Akiwara Yuto quickly finished signing his name in the notebook and handed it to Anjiu Haruna; although Anjiu Haruna got the autograph she wanted, she still felt unhappy about "Ishigami's" ending and said "thank you" before leaving.

At this moment, a "creak, creak" sound came from the stairs; it turned out to be Anjiu Tsuyoshi, who had come down after hearing the commotion downstairs.

When Anjiu Tsuyoshi saw Akiwara Yuto, he was a bit surprised for a moment; after all, only a few days had passed, and even the initial proofreading of the manuscript hadn't been completed yet.

Although puzzled, he still asked, "Mr. Akiwara, what brings you here?"

Soon, Anjiu Tsuyoshi heard an answer that shocked him greatly.

"President Anjiu, I have come to inform you of one thing: regarding the subsequent payments, I may not be able to deliver them on time."