Tokyo Mystery Writers

Chapter 134 Structural Definition of Hard-Hard Style

"Mr. Nishimura has arrived."

Maishiro Kyosuke gently patted Eri's beautiful shoulder.

Seeing Jiang Liu turn around in surprise, Maishiro Kyosuke pointed with his chin at the drunkard in the distance.

Jiang Liu Meili looked in the direction Mai Shiro Kyosuke was pointing and sure enough, she saw Nishimura Toshiyuki carrying a high-end whiskey and swaying towards them.

Seeing Nishimura Toshiyuki's expression, Jiang Liu Meili asked Mai Shiro Kyosuke beside her with some confusion, "Mr. Mai Shiro, Mr. Nishimura is known as the 'King of Hard-Hard Mystery,' and in the genre of Japanese hard-hard mystery, he's considered a pioneering figure."

"Logically speaking, he shouldn't be short of money, so why—why does he always act like a professional alcoholic?"

"It's one thing to keep drinking whiskey, but why does he look so unkempt?"

Looking at Nishimura Toshiyuki, who could barely walk and seemed about to fall at any moment, Maishiro Kyosuke shrugged helplessly: "Whiskey, cigarettes, worries, cynicism, and a critical spirit towards society—aren't these the elements of 'hard-boiled mystery'?"

"Although Professor Nishimura Toshiyuki is our enemy, to be honest, I admire him quite a bit."

"Because this style of aligning knowledge with action is really like the hard-boiled detective in 'hard-boiled' mystery films, it even has a bit of a performance art feel to it."

Perhaps it was the strong smell of alcohol on Nishimura Toshiyuki, or perhaps it was the black sunglasses he was wearing that gave him an intimidating appearance.

Even without security personnel intervening, all the readers waiting for autographs made way for Nishimura Juko, much like "Moses parting the sea".

Nishimura Hisashi walked up to Maishiro Kyosuke's table, took off his sunglasses, and grinned at Maishiro Kyosuke, saying, "Maki-sensei, prepare to face my challenge!"

"Hosho Shirakawa has agreed to your terms."

"This! Is my challenge to you!"

After speaking, Nishimura Toshiyuki took out a challenge letter from his pocket and threw it at Maishiro Kyosuke.

Maijo Kyosuke reached out and caught the challenge letter that flew towards him. He felt as if the letter had been run through an oak barrel, and it had a strong whiskey smell on it.

Maijo Kyosuke casually tore open the envelope.

A handwritten letter, filled with various rules, was presented to Maijo Kyosuke and Eri Miri.

There are as many as forty or fifty rules listed above.

But upon closer inspection, it turns out that most of them are rules that don't really need to be elaborated on.

Seeing that Maishiro Kyosuke was frowning as he looked at the challenge letter, Nishimura Toshiyuki took a sip of whiskey and said with a smile, "Mr. Maishiro, there's no need to pay special attention to a lot of the content in this letter. The main reason it's included is to make our competition seem very formal."

"You only need to remember a few of the rules."

Nishimura Toshiyuki raised his index finger with the hand holding the whiskey bottle: "The first rule is that since you, Mr. Maishiro, have increased the stakes in the competition, if Maishiro Kyosuke ultimately wins the competition, then not only will I retire from writing as agreed, but the president of Takarajima-sha, Hosei Shirakawa, will also bring 30 million yen to Mr. Maishiro's door to apologize."

"Because of the requirement to increase the stakes, Mr. Maishiro, you cannot use 'orthodox mystery' works in the competition."

"Only 'hard-boiled mystery' can compete with me in terms of sales!"

Nishimura Toshiyuki swayed his neck from side to side, sat down in the chair prepared for the fans, and continued, "To prevent you, Mr. Maishiro, from accidentally breaking the rules, as someone with experience, let me explain the themes and structures of 'orthodox mystery' and 'hard-boiled mystery'."

"Don't let my well-known works fool you; I actually wrote quite a few classic mystery novels when I was younger."

Nishimura Toshiyuki took a sip of sake and said with a smile, "Honkaku simply means 'authentic'."

"It follows the five masterpieces of Edgar Allan Poe, which are the most original detective novels derived from them."

"These are locked-room murder cases pioneered by 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue'."

"The Mystery of Marie Rogé pioneered the concept of an armchair detective who solves cases purely through deduction using clues."

"The Golden Beetle pioneered the use of coded symbols to decipher events, a cipher-breaking case."

"Psychological mystery in 'You Are the Murderer'."

"And the crime-solving method in 'The Stolen Letter' that uses blind spots as a starting point."

No matter what kind of classic mystery it is, it cannot escape these five categories.

Nishimura Toshiyuki paused halfway through his sentence, a faint smile appearing on his face: "I almost forgot to mention, there's a sixth special case."

"That is, Mr. Maicheng's article 'Conclusion' published in the second issue of 'Top Hat' magazine on the 21st."

"It pioneered a sixth mode of reasoning, a mode that completely transcends Edgar Allan Poe's five famous works, becoming the sixth possibility of 'orthodox' reasoning."

"But in any case, all six possible 'orthodox' schools are games of 'setting up puzzles and solving puzzles.'"

"On the surface, it seems like the killer sets up a mystery, but the detective solves it."

"In fact, there is also a game element inside where the author designs puzzles, and the reader solves them."

"There are many types of this structure, such as the most common one, which is the confrontation between villains and heroes, like DC Comics' Batman."

"The Great Kidnapping is a work by Tendo Makoto that inserts the perspective of a victim between the villain and the hero, creating a triangular structure."

"If we continue to investigate, we find that the narrator becomes the murderer, as seen in Agatha Christie's 'The Murder of Roger Ackroyd'."

"If we continue to add narrative structures to this structure, then we will see a story like 'And Then There Were None' where everyone is a villain, or a story like 'Murder on the Orient Express' where one detective confronts everyone involved in the case."

"In short, the core of 'orthodox mystery' is setting up a mystery and solving it."

Nishimura Toshiyuki raised his whiskey bottle and moistened his slightly dry lips. "Next, let's talk about hard-boiled mystery."

The undisputed progenitor of "hard-boiled mystery" is Dashiel Hammett, author of *The Bloody Harvest* and *The Maltese Falcon*, but the one who truly brought "hard-boiled mystery" to its peak was Raymond Chandler, author of *The Long Goodbye*.

Simply put, "cold and hard" means indifference and rigidity!

Unlike the gentlemanly, armchair-chair detectives of "classic mystery," the protagonists of "hard-boiled mystery" are action-oriented characters who investigate cases in a cold world and deal with enemies with a tough personality and methods.

"

"Because of the coldness of the real world and the terror of the enemy, the tough protagonist is often placed in dangerous situations, ending up bloodied and battered; this is how the genre got its name, 'hard-boiled mystery.'"

Although Nishimura Toshiyuki was tipsy, when he talked about writing, he exuded a charm that didn't match his image: "Hardcore mystery" doesn't have the "simple game-like feel" of "mystery and puzzle-solving," but rather deals with real-world crimes in a very realistic way.

Raymond Chandler, the "master of hard-boiled mystery," once offered a very insightful conclusion on hard-boiled mystery fiction.

"The protagonist of a 'hard-boiled mystery' must be an ordinary person, but not so ordinary."

"The protagonist should be in an exceptionally cold, dark, deceitful, violent, and filthy world. In such a terrible world, the protagonist will inevitably be trapped in a predicament, enduring mental and physical torment, and eventually use his own methods to find out the truth of everything."

"As for whether the truth matters?"

Nishimura Toshiyuki poured the last sip of whiskey into his mouth, a signature drunken grin spreading across his face: "Mr. Maishiro, you and I both know, right? The romance of 'hard-boiled mystery' lies not in the truth of the puzzle, but in the protagonist's journey of self-discovery and the impact of the indifferent world through that puzzle!"

Nishimura Toshiyuki casually placed the whiskey bottle on the ground, leaned on the table with difficulty, and then took out a flat bottle from his pocket and opened the cap: "What I just said can be considered as me telling you, Mr. Maishiro, about the theme and structure of our competition."

"Next, let's talk about the specific match time and rules."

"First, there's the punishment. If Maijo Kyosuke loses the competition, he must publicly admit defeat in the newspaper, cease writing altogether, and is forbidden from changing his pen name. He must continue writing under the identity of the 'masked writer'!"

"And if I lose the match, not only will I have to publish an admission in the newspaper that I lost to you and stop writing, but the president of Takarajima Publishing, Hosei Shirakawa, will also have to take 30 million yen to you, Mr. Maishiro, to apologize in person!"

Nishimura Hisayuki's hand, holding the flat sake bottle, hovered in mid-air, as if deep in thought.

It took him a while to come to his senses before he continued, "As for the time, let's set it for a month from now, February 24th. We'll each release our books at Kodansha and Takarajimasha respectively."

"We'll use one month's sales as the criterion; whoever has the higher sales volume at that time will win."

"To ensure this competition is fair and unbiased, and free from external interference, neither of us is allowed to have other authors write reviews for our books, and we absolutely cannot lower the prices to boost sales!"

"Should the manuscript be around 300 to 400 pages?"

"In that case, if we sell it according to the format of a new book release, the price can be uniformly set at two thousand yen per book."

After listening to Nishimura Hisayuki's words, Maijo Kyosuke understood all the rules.

Without hesitation, he picked up the challenge letter and signed his name on it.

When Nishimura Hisayuki saw that Maijo Kyosuke was so decisive and did not hesitate at all, an expression of admiration appeared on his face.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out another challenge letter, signed his name on it, and exchanged it with the one in Maijo Kyosuke's hand.

This resulted in two copies being made.

A fierce battle of sales between hard-boiled mystery writers is about to unfold in the Japanese mystery literature scene!