I am a literary giant in Japan

Chapter 541 Is this a victory for the times? No, this is Kitagawa-sensei's victory!
Junji Ito was so satisfied with the appetizers, Ju-on 1 and Kara no Kyoukai 2: Murder Investigation (Part 1), that he felt he could accept even if the main course, Ring 2: Spiral, was not entirely satisfactory.

Of course, from 1995 to now, over the past four years, Kitagawa-sensei's novels have never disappointed.

Junji Ito doesn't think "Ring 2: Spiral" is any worse than those two new works by new authors. It all depends on how far this masterpiece, hailed by countless readers as a potential game-changer for Japanese science fiction, can go.

The MPMan Japan1's interface was too small, making it unfriendly to people with severe myopia like Junji Ito for reading novels. Therefore, he decided to use his computer to read "Ring 2: Spiral".

The new story picks up where the previous one left off. At the end of *Ring 1: Bell*, the protagonist's friend, Ryuji Takayama, ultimately dies from Sadako's curse, but in his dying moments, he unravels the secret of the death tape and the true way to escape the curse—

The death videotape was not recorded normally, but rather etched frame by frame through the eyes of the female ghost Sadako.

Rescuing Sadako's body from the well and helping her attain Buddhahood would be meaningless.

The only way to escape the curse of the death tape is to spread the curse to the next person before it takes effect.

The protagonist of the previous book escaped the curse in this way.

This virus-like curse-spreading mentality amazed countless horror book fans in the 90s, and after being adapted for the big screen, the mystery of "The Ring" has continued to be talked about by audiences.

Even after 2020, Taiwan produced a similar horror movie called "The Curse," which became a sensation and caused quite a stir.

Junji Ito vividly remembered the ending and the mystery. When he saw the opening of the second part, in which forensic doctor Ando, ​​who was once Ryuji Takayama's college classmate, was ordered to dissect Ryuji's body, a strong sense of unease immediately surged up from his stomach.

As one of the male protagonists of the previous film, does Takayama Ryuji not even get a peaceful ending?
Junji Ito seemed to see the oppressive atmosphere of the entire "Ring" series in Ryuji Takayama's tragic ending.

The dissection of Ryuji Takayama was calm and professional, without any outrageous descriptions or plot points, which seems to be Kitagawa-sensei's way of introducing a new story.

Having read Kitagawa's "The White Tower," Junji Ito was not surprised that Kitagawa knew so much about forensic medicine and the Japanese medical system.

It is these details, woven together bit by bit, that make readers so captivated by Kitagawa's novels.

But as he watched and the story unfolded, a strange sense of fear slowly crept into Junji Ito's heart.

After listening to the report analysis, Ando casually asked, "By the way, what was found in Ryuji's tissue sample?"

The pathological findings of Ryuji Takayama's remains were primarily examined in the pathology research laboratory in Miyashita.

'That matter...' Miyashita suddenly let out a long sigh.

'What's the matter?'

"How should I put it? I really don't understand. What do you think of Professor Guan?" Professor Guan is a professor in the pathology research laboratory, and he is very famous for his research on the forms of cancer cell production.

"Why are you suddenly asking this?" Ando asked, puzzled.

'After obtaining and testing Ryuji's cell samples, the old man started saying strange things occasionally.'

What exactly did he say?

Professor Guan believes that Ryuji's cause of death was not coronary artery occlusion. He offers another perspective: Ryuji had ulcers in his throat, do you remember?

"Of course." Ando recalled that he almost missed this part during the dissection, and only removed it after being reminded by his assistant.

"I only glanced at it with the naked eye, but when Professor Guan saw the ulcer, guess what he said?"

Stop beating around the bush and just tell me!

He said it looked a lot like the ulcers of smallpox patients.

'Smallpox?' Ando couldn't help but exclaim.

Smallpox has been eradicated from the earth thanks to vaccines.

According to records, the last patient was found in Somalia in 1977, and there have been no further reports of smallpox infection in the world since.

In 1979, the World Health Organization issued a declaration that smallpox had been eradicated from the world.

Smallpox can only be contracted by humans. The absence of patients means that the smallpox virus no longer exists.

Existing smallpox viruses are frozen in liquid nitrogen and stored in laboratories in Moscow, Russia, and Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

Therefore, if smallpox cases were to appear somewhere in the world now, the only possible explanation would be a virus leak from one of the research labs, which seems unlikely.

Junji Ito recalled that in the final revelation of the first part, it was mentioned that Sadako had smallpox, and that she had spread the virus to her stepfather and teacher because of their bestiality.

Sadako's body was destroyed to cover up the crime, and the smallpox virus was eradicated by vaccines, so the matter was never mentioned again.

Is Kitagawa-sensei going to write about the legendary "US military conspiracy" or the supernatural "virus spread"?
Junji Ito felt that Kitagawa-sensei would definitely not be so cliché.

He also couldn't pinpoint the source of the fear and dread that arose from this.

Even though the plot of the first part has come to an end, the whole story seems to have ended, making it a very good horror novel.

Could there be some surprising developments or twists in the second part?

Junji Ito couldn't wait to continue reading. The novel's plot also changed from the style of Kitagawa-sensei's previous pure literary works, becoming short, fast-paced.

The autopsy of Ryuji Takayama's body brings the death videotape incident back to the forefront. Mai Takano, who had dated Ryuji Takayama and knew about the existence of Asakawa, the protagonist of the previous part, also begins to investigate the truth of the incident with Ando.

Mai Takano accidentally watched a copy of the videotape at Ryuji's house and has been missing ever since.

Upon learning of Asakawa's existence, Ando wanted to further investigate Takayama Ryuji's cause of death, only to discover that Asakawa had been in a traffic accident before him and had been in the ICU ever since, still unconscious.

Later, while searching for Mai Takano, Ando also unexpectedly watched the death videotape.
The series of climaxes captivated Junji Ito; he had never read a novel with such a tight pace and thrilling plot!
As expected of Kitagawa-sensei!

This is completely different from previous popular literature and pure literature!
It's somewhat like the previously very popular mystery novels, and also somewhat like the currently booming light novels.

"Now, Ando finally understands: Takano Mai must have erased all the contents of the videotape and recorded something else for some reason after watching it."

However, the beginning part is difficult to erase, so the first few seconds of footage are still left behind.

Why did the videotape that Asakawa found in the cabin end up in the hands of Takano Mai after being passed around so many times? Ando gathered his thoughts.

No, they're not the same!
The tape that Asakawa found in the cabin was different from the one in Takano Mai's room.

Asakawa's report stated that the tapes he found in the cabin had no titles, while the tapes in Takano Mai's room had titles written in pen, meaning they were copies!
The 'replication' mechanism of spread is very similar to that of viruses, and the nature of the replicas is also very similar to that of viruses, which exist between life and non-life.

So, did Mai Takano really disappear because she watched the videotape?

Since then, her room has remained empty; she has neither gone to school nor contacted her family.

But Ando has not seen any reports of young women dying suddenly.

Ando, ​​lost in thought, imagined what might happen to Mai Takano.

The thought that she was only twenty-two years old and in the prime of her youth, yet might die somewhere unknown, made his chest tighten. Moreover, he harbored feelings of love for Takano Mai, which made his heart ache even more.
Suddenly, the sound of the machine running brought Ando back to consciousness.

Ando thought, "Instead of making wild guesses, the most important thing now is to figure out what the videotape contains."

"Don't be foolish, Ando-san!" If he could, Junji Ito would love to rush into the novel and stop Ando, ​​the only survivor, from watching this death videotape.

Unfortunately, he didn't have that ability.

He could only keep turning the pages and reading about the fates of the characters in the novel.

However, when Junji Ito clicked on the next page, he discovered that it was the last page of the book.
Damn!

The chapter is abruptly cut off at the most exciting part!
Teacher Kitagawa must have attended some kind of essay writing training course!
Junji Ito mentally scoffed, then instantly slumped back in his chair.

He read the serialized parts of all three novels in one go, especially the last one, "Ring 2: Spiral". Almost every chapter was an experience of extreme excitement, which left him with a strange feeling of exhaustion.

No wonder Kitagawa-sensei said that light novels will usher in a major revolution in Japanese literature. Many older authors who can't keep up with the times will be eliminated, while new authors who can keep up with the trends will control industry resources.

If most of the novels in Kitagawa Bunko had one-fifth, no, even one-tenth, of the writing quality of Ring 2: Spiral, the light novel market would instantly replace the current uneven mass literature market.

And this too.

He glanced at the MPMan Japan1 lying quietly on the table.

This new type of player, called MP3, is sure to cause a sensation in the market. With each generation of innovation, who can guarantee that it won't become an essential electronic product like the pager?
Even the old-fashioned mobile phones that cost hundreds of thousands of yen are now sold for dirt cheap. The speed of technological iteration is much faster than the speed of human thought evolution.

Once MPMan Japan1 becomes popular, e-reading will become a mainstream reading mode on par with print media. Will the new reading market predicted by Kitagawa be far away?

"I guess Kitagawa-sensei is a business genius whose talents were wasted on writing novels!" Junji Ito couldn't help but think to himself.

It's a great honor to work under a boss like that.

Just as Junji Ito was looking forward to the new literary market, several works from the Kitagawa Bunko series, such as "Ring 2: Spiral," also caused a sensation on the internet.

"Ring 1: Bell" successfully achieved a million average subscriptions, becoming a benchmark work of "Kitagawa Bunko". Following closely behind, "Ju-on 1" and "Kara no Kyoukai" also achieved milestone achievements of 500,000 and 300,000 average subscriptions respectively.

The e-reading and light novel market has already made countless capitalists envious.

Unexpectedly, the sequels to these works sparked another reading frenzy, and their influence in China even surpassed that of several popular literary masterpieces written by Kitagawa Hide!

The launch of MPMan Japan1 also shocked the entire country of Japan.

Walkmans are an essential electronic device for many students, thanks to their low price and full range of functions.

As for mobile phones and computers, even though prices have been falling round after round, they are still only affordable for adults with stable incomes, and are irrelevant to these young people.

No one could have imagined that Kitagawa Hide could come up with such an inexpensive gadget that allows you to read novels and listen to music at the same time!
The MPMan Japan1 is priced at 4999 yen, making it affordable. Even students can easily afford one by working during their holidays.

Like other electronic products in later generations, many celebrities had already "sneaked" their MPMan Japan1 before its official release on the 15th, showing it off on various platforms and offline.

Exquisite and compact, yet fully functional, it can do everything a portable music player can do, and it can even read novels!

As a result, Beichuan Technology's official website crashed instantly, pre-orders exceeded 30 overnight, and the estimated first-day issuance exceeded one million, a money tree sprouted from the ground.

Not to be outdone, Japan's six major conglomerates have acquired MPMan Japan1 through various channels, hoping to crack its underlying technology and launch similar products before the second half of the year to seize market share.

They probably never imagined that this thing was a piece of junk that Kitagawa Hide had bought cheaply from the Koreans, and it wasn't even on Kitagawa Technology's research and development map.

Focusing solely on products that will soon be eliminated by the market will only lead to becoming another "little smart phone".

Of course, Kitagawa Hide himself was unaware that the six major conglomerates would invest so much in the research and development of MP3 players as a result.

He personally didn't even intend for Beichuan Technology to develop the MP4 as an iterative product.

There are only two paths for the future development of e-reading:

One is the Kindle e-reader launched by Amazon. It's a niche product, but it has a stable audience and is very popular in small circles, so it has remained popular for a long time.

One is naturally mobile phone reading.

The key lies in the promotion and iteration of mobile phones.

This is not an industry that a fledgling company like Beichuan Technology can get involved in.

So Kitagawa Hide only sent people from Kitagawa Technology to the United States to contact Amazon, which hadn't even taken off yet, so that they could reap the benefits of Kindle in the future.

E-reading—the important thing is reading, not the electronic aspect!
While the new book was becoming a bestseller, Igor was also frantically translating "My Apprenticeship" in Tsarist Russia.

In the eyes of these older scholars, technology and iteration are all nonsense.

Only masterpieces that can be remembered in history are worth their efforts and struggles.

"Childhood" now occupies half of the literary market in Tsarist Russia, and countless Tsarist Russians are eagerly awaiting "My Apprenticeship".

Igor was determined to translate this novel, even if it cost him his life!
At the same time, Kitagawa Hide, who wrote at an astonishingly fast pace, had already finished the first draft of "Lolita".
(End of this chapter)