[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-tokyo-you-call-this-normal-equipment":3,"chapter-tokyo-you-call-this-normal-equipment-tokyo-you-call-this-normal-equipment-chapter-526":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","Tokyo: You Call This Normal Equipment?",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":20,"prevChapterSlug":21,"totalChapters":22,"novelImage":23},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":16,"volume":17,"translator":18,"content_hash":19},1952501,2739,"Chapter 526","tokyo-you-call-this-normal-equipment-chapter-526",526,"\u003Cp>Late night at the publishing house.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The pointer passed 11:50.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The large open office area was already empty, and the noise, phone rings, and keyboard tapping sounds of the day had all sunk into the cold darkness and silence at this moment.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Only group leader Miyagi Kazuu was still in the office.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He had maintained one posture for a long time—his back slightly hunched, his left hand pressed on the spread manuscript, his right hand suspended in mid-air, his fingertips still retaining the touch of unconsciously rubbing the paper pages when he was reading just now.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In front of him was the stack of \"Snow Country\" photocopy manuscripts he had been reading for nearly five hours.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The last period on the last page had already fallen into his field of vision.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Xia Xia Xia Mujun: Thank you.]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The message was replied to in seconds.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Akita Sana: (#^.^#) I watched your competition today, you actually beat two such strong opponents, it’s really too amazing!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>By the way, why don't we celebrate tomorrow?]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Xia Xia Xia Mujun: Tomorrow, I might not have time tomorrow, I have to go to work.]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Xia Xia Xia Mujun knew that although he had competition prize money now, the royalties had not yet truly landed in his pocket.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Relying only on the current competition prize money, if an emergency occurred, he might still be stretched thin.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Before the income was truly stable or there were other clear plans, it was better to maintain the status quo.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Akita Sana: Work... that’s completely fine! After all, I originally planned to come over to your house with some late-night snacks tonight, play games with you for a while, and then go back.]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Xia Xia Xia Mujun: But I don't get off work until around ten at night... is it really okay for you to come over so late? Won't your family say anything?]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Akita Sana: It’s fine, after all, I originally planned to go to Miki’s house to play today, and Miki’s house is near your house, so I’ll just stop by your house to celebrate, and then go back to her house to spend the night!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And also, I’m also very curious about the manga progress of Ruri-chan and Reisa-chan, so I just thought about going over to see... is that okay?]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Xia Xia Xia Mujun: So that’s how it is, of course it’s okay.]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Akita Sana: (〃'▽'〃) That’s great, then it’s settled!]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Xia Xia Xia Mujun: Mm.]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After replying to Akita Sana.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Xia Xia Xia Mujun clicked on Kondo Miyuki’s message.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Kondo Miyuki: Xia Xia Xia Mujun-kun, congratulations on successfully advancing to the sixth round of the competition.]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Xia Xia Xia Mujun: Thank you.]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The reply came quickly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Kondo Miyuki: But I really didn't expect that your strength would be so strong.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But since your strength is so strong, why didn't you play shogi seriously before?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I heard from your father that you clearly had no talent in shogi, but now you are so...]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Xia Xia Xia Mujun read this and decided to use his sister’s previous explanation to deal with it for the time being.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Xia Xia Xia Mujun: ...I was more playful before, liked playing games, so I didn't play seriously with Dad, thinking I could just deal with it and then go play.]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>On the other end of the screen, Kondo Miyuki was stunned for a moment after seeing this message, then shook her head helplessly with a smile.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She had never expected that the truth would be like this.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But thinking back carefully, it was reasonable.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At that time, Xia Xia Xia Mujun-kun was indeed addicted to games.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was just that she didn't expect him to be so addicted that he would rather hide his shogi talent just to race against time to play games.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>However, thinking that Xia Xia Xia Mujun almost never touched games now, and was either studying or running around for his sister and livelihood, she fell into silence again.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She only felt sorry for this child...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At such a young age, he actually had to abandon his favorite hobbies and bear the responsibilities that only adults had.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Kondo Miyuki: Please definitely keep working hard in the subsequent competitions, Aunt Miyuki will definitely continue to cheer for you.]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Xia Xia Xia Mujun: Thank you, I definitely will.]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After replying to everyone one by one.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Intense fatigue surged like a tide.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Xia Xia Xia Mujun plugged his phone into the charger.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He still had to go to school tomorrow.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He closed his eyes and soon sank into a dream.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Late night at the publishing house.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The pointer passed 11:50.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The large open office area was already empty, and the noise, phone rings, and keyboard tapping sounds of the day had all sunk into the cold darkness and silence at this moment.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Only group leader Miyagi Kazuu was still in the office.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He had maintained one posture for a long time—his back slightly hunched, his left hand pressed on the spread manuscript, his right hand suspended in mid-air, his fingertips still retaining the touch of unconsciously rubbing the paper pages when he was reading just now.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In front of him was the stack of \"Snow Country\" photocopy manuscripts he had been reading for nearly five hours.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The last period on the last page had already fallen into his field of vision.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>But he did not move.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was as if that period were not an end, but a bottomless well, drawing in all his thoughts and senses, leaving him unable to return.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The office was deathly quiet, save for the low hum of the central air conditioning and the sound of his own heartbeat, which had stalled and then resumed with a heavy, rhythmic thud.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Slowly, agonizingly slowly, he released his hand from the manuscript.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Then, as if afraid to disturb a fragile dream, he used both hands to solemnly close the thick stack of papers.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yet, there was no darkness before him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Instead, countless images, clear enough to make his heart ache, came rushing in, accompanied by the cold, crisp scent of the prose—\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was the boundless, sound-swallowing snow that crashed into view after passing through a long tunnel.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was the face of Komako, reflected in the mirror under the dim light of the hot spring inn, ethereal and breathtakingly beautiful.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was the voice of Yoko, so clear it bordered on tragic, shattering above the fire on that snowy night.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The futile running, the futile writing and loving—beneath all these beautiful things flowed a cold, dark river called \"futility\" and \"emptiness.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Under the wash of these memories, Gongcheng Gongcheng Heyu’s breathing became deep and labored.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was not as if he had never read excellent literary works.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As an editor, he had chewed over countless texts—some ornate, some profound, some sharp.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But *Snow Country* was different.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Its prose did not feel \"written\"; it felt as if it had \"crystallized\" out of a frigid, transparent void.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Every word seemed purified through the strictest refinement, stripped of all artifice, leaving only the refined lines of a skeleton and the cold luster of jade.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>There was no excessive sentimentality, no indulgent description.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>With the most restrained strokes, Teacher Xia Mu gently outlined the contours of snow-capped mountains, hot springs, mirror reflections, and firelight, and the images came to life on their own, rushing toward the reader with a tragic, fragile, and fleeting beauty.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This was not just a story.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was an atmosphere, a state of mind, a vast, transparent \"field\" woven from language.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Once you stepped inside, you were gently enveloped and permeated by that pervasive sense of \"emptiness.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>You could clearly feel the heat of love, yet simultaneously see its weakness and futility in a world of ice and snow; you could touch the vivid texture of life, yet hear the cold echo of time passing and all things returning to silence beneath it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Beauty and sorrow, life and death, reality and reflection, existence and nothingness—all these grand themes were effortlessly dissolved by the author into a single snowflake, a single sigh, a single fleeting spark of fire.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"This prose is truly too beautiful...\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A low, gasping sound escaped Gongcheng Gongcheng Heyu’s throat, little more than a sigh.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He reopened his eyes, his gaze falling upon the closed manuscript, but his eyes remained unfocused, as if his vision had pierced through the paper to some unreachable distance.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He felt a rare, professional tremor rise from the base of his spine.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was not fear, but... reverence.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Reverence for a sixteen-year-old boy who could possess such seasoned, precise literary skill and construct such a complete and profound aesthetic world.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He now fully understood the incoherent excitement and praise of Gao Gao Qiaochun and Xin Xin Yuanxiangzhi.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>No, even their descriptions were insufficient.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This was not just \"excellent\"; it was... terrifying!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>With *The Devotion of Suspect X*, Xia Xia Xia Mujun had displayed a narrative structure as rigorous as a precision clock and a surging power of logic.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yet this *Snow Country* displayed the exact opposite extreme—it was the contemporary incarnation of the \"mono no aware\" and \"yugen\" spirit in Eastern aesthetics, the art of ultimate \"negative space,\" and a poetic grace that danced calmly and cruelly on the edge of the abyss of nothingness.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>To reach such terrifying heights in two diametrically opposed fields—commercial mystery and serious literature?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>How could such a talented boy exist...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Perhaps... to call him a genius would be to belittle him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>One had to remember, Xia Xia Xia Mujun was only sixteen!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At sixteen, he had written these two works that could be called the pinnacle of their craft.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Even one of them alone would be a peak that many writers could not cross in a lifetime, a \"masterpiece\" beyond reach.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yet he had conquered both peaks in such a short time?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This talent was simply terrifying.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Gongcheng Gongcheng Heyu’s fingers curled unconsciously, his knuckles turning white.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He had experienced this kind of total immersion in a work only a handful of times in his long editorial career.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He was no longer an editor reviewing a manuscript, but a pure reader, thoroughly conquered.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This novel did not need \"promotion.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Those who understood would naturally approach it, trembling, deeply shaken by its magnificence and coldness.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>What kind of waves would it stir in the literary world?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>To what literary heights would it push the boy named Xia Xia Xia Mujun?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Countless thoughts collided and echoed in Gongcheng Gongcheng Heyu’s mind.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the end, all the chaotic thoughts converged into a near-numb confirmation, accompanied by the powerful, heavy beating of his heart, hammering against his nerves—\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Gongcheng Gongcheng Heyu pulled at his hair in deep frustration, with enough force to nearly pull out a few strands.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Why couldn't his publishing house publish pure literature!!!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If they could, this *Snow Country* would inevitably be a massive hit as well!!!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Just thinking about having to hand over such an excellent work to the editors at headquarters made him feel resentful and angry.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He couldn't help but wonder which lucky person would become Teacher Xia Mu’s next editor!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>One might even say...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He was now tempted to apply for a transfer to headquarters just to become Teacher Xia Mu’s exclusive editor.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After all, if Teacher Xia Mu could write these two masterpieces at sixteen,\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>one could only imagine the even more excellent works he would write in the future!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But he knew that in the short term, even if he applied, he would never be promoted.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Even the editor-in-chief of his own branch would never be willing to let him go.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Thinking of this,\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>no matter how frustrated Gongcheng Gongcheng Heyu was, it eventually turned into deep helplessness.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, as if to vent all the stifled frustration in his chest.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Then, he sat up straight, shook his head repeatedly, and all the shock and lingering rhythm of annoyance on his face were restrained, replaced by a decisive, sharp seriousness.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He picked up the internal phone on his desk, his finger hovering over the buttons for a moment, wanting to contact the group leader he knew at headquarters, but after a moment's thought, he did not press them.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Because it was too late.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And if he called directly like this, he wouldn't gain much benefit himself.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It would be better to wait until the editor-in-chief came to work tomorrow and let him see *Snow Country* first.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If the editor-in-chief introduced it, he imagined it would certainly make *Snow Country* more valued by headquarters.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And most importantly, he would then think with the editor-in-chief about how to hand this novel over to headquarters in a way that would secure the greatest benefits for himself and the branch.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Because to let such an excellent work go so easily—it was truly painful for him!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The next day.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The morning light was faint.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Xia Xia Xia Mujun and Natsume Ruri arrived at the Shibuya station platform.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Just as they arrived,\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>many commuters noticed Xia Xia Xia Mujun.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After all, he was handsome and had a clean aura, making him quite conspicuous in the crowd.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But more than that,\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>quite a few people approached him directly, smiling and congratulating Xia Xia Xia Mujun on his brilliant victory in the shogi tournament the day before.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Most of them were young women, their faces filled with admiration and a hint of shyness.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Xia Xia Xia Mujun could only awkwardly and politely dismiss these enthusiastic strangers.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Fortunately, there weren't many of them, and after Xia Xia Xia Mujun responded simply and thanked them, the crowd dispersed; at most, a few gazes still followed him secretly, and no one else came to disturb him for the time being.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He secretly breathed a sigh of relief and took out the shoujo manga *Kimi ni Todoke* that his sister had given him from his bag and began to read.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He figured since he had started it, he might as well finish the ending.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Meanwhile, Natsume Ruri, seeing that her brother was becoming more and more popular, couldn't help but puff out her cheeks, looking like a little pufferfish.\u003C\u002Fp>",2364,"2026-06-15T07:10:31.195Z","2026-06-15T07:45:40.648Z",1,"Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite","1d564071cf2640db051f800d459c429c23638d88adcdedd5590523c667c87c2c","tokyo-you-call-this-normal-equipment-chapter-527","tokyo-you-call-this-normal-equipment-chapter-525",624,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Ftokyo-you-call-this-normal-equipment-cover.jpg"]