Tokyo Mystery Writers

Chapter 62, a magnificent work spanning over five pages.

Kyosuke Maijo returned to his room with the food for two that he had bought at the Long Life Hot Spring restaurant.

I plan to have dinner with Jiang Liumei and discuss our future plans.

However, through the crack in the door, they discovered that Jiang Liumei was furtively rummaging through her room.

If Maijo Kyosuke hadn't known Eri Ryumi, other people in the city who saw this scene would have thought she was a thief stealing something.

Kyosuke Maijo had no idea what Eri was looking for in his room.

Could it be the black stockings she left here last time?

I'm not some weirdo; I threw that kind of thing away a long time ago!

Although that's what Maijo Kyosuke thought, he didn't want to bring it up.

If Jiang Liumei had already forgotten about this matter, bringing it up again now would inevitably put the two of them in an awkward situation.

So, Maijo Kyosuke could only stand at the door, intending to see what Jiangliu Meili was trying to find in his room.

"Where did it go?"

"Two days ago, when I came to pick up Mr. Maishiro to attend the Edogawa Ranpo Ryusho, I clearly saw him writing something furiously in his room."

"Logically speaking, Ms. Mai Cheng was unaware of the existence of Top Hat magazine at that time."

"Therefore, the book I wrote at that time was definitely not the one I have in my hand called 'Conclusion'."

"It must be the book that Edogawa Ranpo mentioned on the stage at the Ryusho Awards, right?"

"A mystery novel that is already nearing its end, one that no one has ever read, heard of, or been able to write before."

"I really want to see it!"

"While it's quite possible that Ms. Mai was lying back then and didn't actually write the ending, given her writing speed, surely there must have been some trace of it at all?"

When Maishiro Kyosuke heard Jiang Liu Meili muttering to herself in her room, he finally understood what Jiang Liu Meili was looking for in her room.

Thinking of all this, a wry smile appeared on Maijo Kyosuke's face.

He could only pretend that he had just returned and knocked on the door.

"Ms. Mai! You...you're back so quickly!"

When Jiang Liu Meili saw Wu Cheng Jingjie push open the door and walk in, she blushed as if she had been caught red-handed, and showed a rare expression of panic and embarrassment.

When Maijo Kyosuke saw Jiang Liu Meili's helpless expression, he wanted to laugh but dared not.

He could only walk to the bedside table, remove a wooden board from the wall, and take out a thick stack of manuscript paper from the narrow hole.

Jiang Liumei glanced at it and felt that the stack of manuscripts was at least three hundred pages long!

If we consider the standard of 500 to 600 words per page for long manuscripts, this stack of manuscripts must contain at least 150,000 words!

Considering the length of most mystery novels, doesn't this mean that the novel is almost finished?

It turns out that Maijo Kyosuke wasn't lying when he stood on the stage at the Edogawa Ranpo Ryusho Awards ceremony.

He really is writing that mystery novel that no one has ever read or could write!

"The Convergence" is already so amazing, and it was described by Maijo Kyosuke as a mystery novel that no one has ever read and no one but him could write. What kind of magnificent masterpiece must it be?

As Jiang Liumei was pondering, she saw Maishiro Kyosuke reach into the hole again and pull out about two hundred pages of manuscript paper.

Then, carrying nearly five hundred pages of manuscript paper, he walked towards Jiang Liumei.

"Miss Jiang Liu, this is what you've been looking for, right?"

Maijo Kyosuke placed over five hundred sheets of paper in front of Jiang Liu Meili with a beaming smile on his face.

This made Jiang Liumei feel both angry and amused.

What's infuriating is that no wonder I spent most of the day searching for Maijo Kyosuke's manuscript.

After all that, it turns out that Maijo Kyosuke is so careful and cautious that he actually hid the manuscript inside the wall to prevent it from being lost!

The funny thing is that he himself was clearly caught by Maishiro Kyosuke, who had seen him rummaging through Maishiro Kyosuke's room like a thief!

However, we've been discovered.

Anyway, I was indeed looking for this unfinished novel.

After comforting herself, Jiang Liumei focused her gaze on the thick stack of manuscript papers.

The words "Gu Huo Niao no Natsu" are clearly written on it with a brush.

Even Jiang Liumei, the editor-in-chief of the magazine department, found it somewhat unbelievable that Maishiro Kyosuke could write nearly 500 pages of manuscript in just seven or eight days!

Although she knew perfectly well that Maijo Kyosuke was a fast writer, Eri still found it hard to believe that he could write so fast...

"Take a look? Although it's not finished yet, this book should give you a different reading experience."

"It is nothing more than a mixture of many things about spirit, mind, brain science, religion, and a very strange trick."

"Just like I said, this is a book that no other mystery writer could have written."

Upon hearing what Maijo Kyosuke said, Jiang Liu Meili was eager to open the magnificent work titled "Summer of the Ubume," which was over five hundred pages long, and get a sneak peek.

However, after just opening the first page of the manuscript, Jiang Liumei quickly closed it again:

"Never mind, I'm not an editor in the publishing department. This book should normally be handled by Mr. Yushan."

"If I had secretly read your manuscript before him, it would have been impolite by any means, and it would have made me feel like I was hurting Mr. Yushan."

After Jiang Liumei finished speaking, she reluctantly handed the manuscript back to Maishiro Kyosuke.

He then rested his elbows on the table, cupped his chin in his hands, looked at Maijo Kyosuke, and smiled:

"Since it's inconvenient for me to watch, how about... Ms. Maishiro explains it to me herself?"

"Without giving away any spoilers, I'd like to hear from Ms. Maishiro about just how massive a story this work, 'The Summer of the Ubume,' is, to justify its sheer number of pages?"

Seeing the expectant look on Jiang Liu's face, Maishiro Kyosuke smiled.

While bringing out the food from the bamboo basket, she smiled and told Jiang Liumei about the synopsis of "The Summer of the Ubume":

"Simply put, this is an incredible event that happened in the real world."

"Kuonji Keiko, the second daughter of the Kuonji family who runs an obstetrics and gynecology hospital, was pregnant for twenty months but was unable to give birth."

"But strangely, Gengzi's husband, Mu Lang, vanished without a trace a year and a half ago, like smoke, in a completely sealed room..."

-

Kodansha's afternoons are very busy, as a large number of books printed with the twelve houses of astrology are shipped from the printing plant to Kodansha.

Under the direction of Sales Manager Yasunori Mikoshiba, all the sales department employees divided the 50,000 printed copies of "The Astrological Murder Mystery" into 100 portions.

Everyone drove their cars to deliver the books to the designated bookstores, where they were put on the shelves for sale!

As for why they went to such lengths to use sales staff to transport the books?

Why not choose a truck that is usually used?

This is actually a sales strategy of Yasunori Mikoshiba, the head of the sales department.

Due to time constraints and an uncertain market outlook for "The Tokyo Zodiac Murders".

If books are transported by truck, no one knows when "The Astrological Murder Mystery" will sell out, or how popular or sought-after the book is among the public.

The difference between publishing books and distributing magazines is quite significant.

Most Japanese magazines are priced between 300 and 500 yen.

It's roughly equivalent to most people buying a book on their way to work when they have nothing else to do, and even if they don't like reading it, they won't feel bad about throwing it away.

However, publishing books is completely different from publishing magazines. The price alone is around two to five thousand yen. Most people will not choose to buy them unless they really like the author or the book.

After all, in this day and age, two thousand yen is enough to have a nice meal at a pub.

Therefore, Yasunori Mikoshiba's idea was very simple: choose the bookstore with the highest foot traffic and have the sales staff stand inside the bookstore and watch the books sell!

Ultimately, considering the time it took for "The Tokyo Zodiac Murders" to sell out, as well as the level of appreciation buyers had for the book (whether they bought it because of a trend or because they had read "A Bellflower" and admired Kyosuke Maijo), the number of copies to be reprinted was determined!

If this version sells very well, it will sell out quickly.

So next time, we'll not only need to reprint a large number of original copies.

We also need to have the design and publicity departments produce both portable "paperback" editions and collectible "deluxe editions" for sale together!