Tokyo Literary Masters: Starting from the Late 1980s

Chapter 194 Kitahara Iwa's New Book

By mid-1991, summer had arrived earlier than usual in Tokyo.

But this city no longer has the bustling atmosphere of the past, filled with the smell of money.

The neon lights of Ginza are still on, and the jewelry, handbags, and imported wines in the shop windows are still displayed under the spotlight, but the flow of people on the street has become visibly thin.

Taxis that used to line up in long queues at night are now often left empty on the roadside.

Outside the upscale restaurants, there were no longer so many drunken bankers walking out with women in their arms.

Even the entrance to the members-only club has lost its former hustle and bustle. The doorman stands in the summer night breeze, glancing towards the street corner from time to time, but he waits for a long time without seeing any familiar regulars.

The extravagance that once held Tokyo aloof is like a layer of gold leaf soaked in rainwater; its edges have begun to curl and peel, revealing the damp, blackened, and moldy walls underneath.

The aftermath of the massive collapse has finally come to a full-blown effect.

The wave of unemployment first swept through the finance, real estate, and construction industries.

White-collar workers who used to wear sharp suits, carry briefcases, and hurry between bank buildings and real estate companies are starting to disappear from companies one by one.

Some people claim that they are only on temporary leave, some comfort themselves that they are waiting for a job transfer, and many more still put on their neat suits every morning, leave home and take the tram, trying their best to maintain the dignity of the head of the household in front of their wives and children, just like in the past.

But they had nowhere to go.

As a result, groups of silent men appeared in Tokyo's parks.

They were dressed in suits and ties, their shoes polished to a shine, briefcases neatly placed on their laps, yet they could only sit on benches from dawn till dusk.

Around noon, they would go to the convenience store to buy the cheapest rice ball and wolf it down under the shade of a tree.

At five o'clock in the afternoon, they would stand up again on time, brush the dust off their trouser legs, and squeeze back onto the tram during the evening rush hour.

When you get home, you have to stand quietly downstairs for a moment, adjust your tired expression, and push open the door as if you have just returned from a busy company.

But lies are destined not to last long.

Mortgage payments won't stop just because a man is wearing a suit, and bank collection calls won't become gentler just because a child is doing homework in the next room.

One after another, cold and unforgiving payment notices, salary reduction notices, termination letters, and additional collateral requirements piled up in the entryway of ordinary families, like fallen leaves that can never be swept away in winter.

In the height of summer, more and more bankrupt middle-class people began to appear in Tokyo's subway stations.

They are not like homeless people in the traditional sense; some of them are even wearing expensive coats, only the cuffs are worn white.

Some people are still clutching their old briefcases tightly, which no longer contain business plans, but rather a few changes of clothes and a stack of loan notices that will never be repaid.

They stood blankly beside the ticket vending machine, staring intently at the bustling platform, as if they still didn't fully understand how they had fallen from the cozy living room of their upscale apartment to this dark and gloomy underground passage.

An intense, pervasive sense of death began to permeate Japanese society.

It doesn't just come from the ever-increasing suicide statistics in the newspapers, nor from the bodies hanging one after another in the Aokigahara Forest, but it permeates every family waiting in line for bank service, every enforcement notice posted on the door, and every phone call that rings late at night but no one dares to answer.

When the Nikkei index falls from its peak, the numbers on the screen may just be a cold, hard curve.

But when the curve crashes down on an ordinary person, it becomes a noose that chokes them.

The disasters that were foreshadowed in "The Collapsed Tower" began to materialize in reality, becoming even more sinister, filthy, and unbearable to behold than depicted in the novel.

On this day, the social news headlines were filled with a murder case involving insurance money.

The deceased was an elderly woman in her seventies.

The initial report to the police was of a car accident at night.

The old van crashed through the guardrail on the mountain road, overturned down the slope, and was badly damaged.

The family members were crying so hard they could barely stand. Neighbors also said that the elderly man was usually in poor health, so it wasn't surprising that he had a car accident at night.

However, the insurance company asked a few more questions before processing the claim.

Because the life insurance policy had just had its coverage increased shortly before the car accident.

The person who applied to change the insured amount was the deceased's son.

This man runs a small building materials company.

At the height of the bubble, in order to expand his business, he borrowed money to buy land, add equipment, and also signed joint guarantees for several related loans.

At that time, the banker told him that the construction industry would continue to boom, and as long as land prices continued to rise, the debt burden could soon be covered by new mortgages.

Later, everything stopped.

Construction sites are shut down, orders are canceled, and banks are tightening lending.

The housing agency is asking for additional documents, and the payment reminder calls are getting more urgent every day.

The properties under his name that were originally valued at very high prices had their prices significantly reduced after re-evaluation.

What could have been a smooth process suddenly all became stuck in the same winter.

The debt of tens of millions of yen was like a stone soaked in water, getting heavier and heavier with each passing moment.

The wife initially thought they were simply driven to desperation by the bank.

But it wasn't until the police came to her door and presented the insurance documents, debt records, and suspicious details of the accident that she realized the so-called car accident was never an accident in the first place.

The husband sat in the interrogation room for a long time.

Finally, he only said one sentence.

"That money was just enough to pay off the most urgent portion."

When this statement was made public, it felt as if a cold wind had swept through the whole of Japan.

Because everyone understood.

In that husband's eyes, his mother was no longer his mother.

In the abyss of despair and debt, a vibrant life is completely transformed into an insurance policy, a claim payment, a piece of flesh that can be torn from the flesh and blood of a family and stuffed into the hole of high leverage.

When this case was first exposed, many people found it horrifying, and newspapers only sensationalized it as a rare and extreme tragedy in the social section: a mad son, a family devoid of humanity, and a chilling murder involving insurance money.

But not long after, this deadly plague began to spread throughout Japan.

Local tabloids have been reporting a series of unsolved cases involving elderly people falling from buildings, slipping in the bathroom, and gas leaks. Police investigations have uncovered high-value insurance policies that were suddenly added before the incidents occurred.

Subsequently, a small shop owner on the verge of bankruptcy attempted to disguise the unnatural death of a relative as a family accident.

Many more cases fail to reach the point of "death" because neighbors report them to the police, insurance companies refuse to pay, or relatives notice something amiss and the truth is revealed prematurely.

From the outskirts of Tokyo to the area around Osaka, from old residential areas in Nagoya to remote towns in Hokkaido, this tragedy is being replicated at a breathtaking pace.

What's most chilling is the identities of these killers.

They were not the thugs often portrayed in social news, but ordinary company employees, honest small shop owners, diligent contractors, and gentle housewives.

They were once ordinary people who were seen by others as respectable, dutiful, and diligently cultivating small moments of happiness.

But it was this out-of-control macro debt that gradually drove them into a dead end.

Unable to sell their houses, suffering huge losses on their stocks, and having their bridge loans completely cut off; when bank collection efforts come knocking like death knells, real estate agencies coldly shirk responsibility, and housing agencies only recognize cold contracts and guarantees, these ordinary citizens, whose last drop of social resources has been squeezed dry, finally fix their bloodshot eyes on the only thing in their homes that can still be converted into cash—their lives.

Meanwhile, on the other side of Tokyo, a random attack occurred.

The perpetrator was a 43-year-old former securities firm employee.

I've been unemployed for three months, but I haven't told my family.

He leaves home promptly at 7:20 every morning, wearing a suit, tie, and carrying a briefcase.

First, stand on the tram for forty minutes, then spend the whole day sitting in Hibiya Park.

Inside the bag was an outdated business manual, a crumpled termination notice, and several letters he had written to his wife but never sent.

On the day of the incident, he was sitting on a park bench as usual.

Around 3 p.m., he suddenly stood up and rushed toward a group of young people who were talking and laughing by the roadside.

There is no goal.

There was no hatred.

It's like a wire that's been bent for too long, finally snapping completely at some point.

When the police pinned him to the ground, he didn't struggle, but just mumbled desperately, "I can't go home."

"I can't let them know."

But when Kitahara Iwa read this part, his fingertips paused for a long time.

These cases were not initially placed directly on his desk.

It was the patrol chief who had once escorted him home from the alley entrance who brought in some clues.

After the attack, although the police chief was suppressed by the Metropolitan Police Department leadership and unable to further investigate the dark secrets behind Miyazawa Shinko, his still-intact police heart knew better than anyone that the country was rotting from the root.

Over the past few months, he has been secretly sending publicly available information, case file summaries, and fragments of information that social affairs reporters have not yet compiled into reports for several special cases to Kitahara Iwao.

Sometimes it's an unsigned brown paper bag.

Sometimes they are photocopies tucked inside old newspapers.

Sometimes it's a very short phone call late at night.

"Teacher Kitahara, you'd better take a look at that insurance case in Yokohama."

"The unemployed office worker in front of Ikebukuro Station has a background very similar to that in Chapter Seventeen of your book."

"There have been too many similar cases lately. The authorities say it's a public security issue, but I don't think so."

Faced with this weighty intelligence, Kitahara Iwa never asked any questions. Instead, he would simply turn the pages of the documents one by one in the quiet of the night.

There are no obscure stock price curves, no macroeconomic analysis, and no grand policy rhetoric from officials of the Ministry of Finance.

Only people.

People crushed by debt.

People struggling in the ruins.

A person who sits in a park waiting until dark to avoid letting his family know he lost his job.

In order to save their house, they dragged their parents, wife, and siblings into the role of joint guarantors.

People who push their loved ones to their deaths for tens of millions of yen in insurance money.

When Kitahara Iwao wrote "The Collapsed Tower," he already knew that bubbles would burst.

Those financial elites in their expensive suits will eventually pay the price for their greed.

But when Kitahara Iwa actually saw these cases from the bottom of society, his heart sank.

Because the collapse of the macroeconomy never ends up on the financial pages of newspapers.

It will transform into a man-eating vengeful ghost, descending downwards, penetrating towering bank buildings, crushing cold real estate companies, wandering through subway stations and parks, and finally settling on the dining tables of ordinary families.

There, debt is strangled with shame, fear, kinship, and resentment, eventually fermenting into a poison more chilling than poverty itself.

However, the expectations that the outside world had for Kitahara Iwa were completely different from what he was thinking at that moment.

In their eyes, "The Collapsed Tower" has successfully torn off the hypocritical mask of the Ministry of Finance and the banking system.

Now that the prophecy has come true—the Nikkei has collapsed, housing prices have plummeted, and hundreds of billions of bad debts have surfaced—Kitahara Iwao should press his advantage and write an even more scathing, sharper sequel that directly names and judges high-ranking financial officials and corrupt bureaucrats, thus nailing those traitors to the pillar of historical shame.

The supplements of major newspapers have even begun to generate buzz ahead of time, with headlines like, "Will Kitahara Iwao release a sequel to 'The Collapsing Tower'?"

Will your next work directly expose the dark side of the housing industry?

How will a literary giant wield his pen to judge the bubble economy?

Everyone is anticipating a grand top-level purge.

Even within Shinchosha itself, a highly provocative publicity plan has already been drafted.

When Kenichi Sato handed Taro Murata a proposal titled "After the Tower, Who Will Judge the Ruins?", the large office fell silent.

The promotional copy below is sharp and incisive: "He once wrote a critical condition notice in advance, and now the patient has started vomiting blood. Kitahara Iwao will unveil the sins of the nation after the collapse of the bubble economy with a brand-new social realism masterpiece."

This plan precisely targets the current public opinion pain points: anger, revenge, and trial.

Everyone longed to see Kitahara Iwa continue to wield the butcher's knife, pressing the bureaucrats of the Ministry of Finance, bank executives, unscrupulous real estate developers, and those hypocritical experts who had spouted nonsense on television into bloody words.

The market desperately craves this kind of trial frenzy, and readers also urgently need an outlet for their pent-up emotions.

Kenichi Sato knew better than anyone that if this book was written in this direction, it would be a bestseller, and might even generate more buzz than [previous book/another title].

The Collapsed Tower: An Even More Terrifying Tsunami.

However, after reading it, Murata Taro did not immediately nod. He simply placed the proposal silently on the table and, after a long while, asked softly, "What did Kitahara-sensei say?"

Kenichi Sato shook his head helplessly and said, "Teacher Kitahara hasn't responded at all since spring."

Throughout spring and early summer, Kitahara Iwa seemed to have vanished into thin air, refusing all invitations from the outside world.

News programs were eager for his commentary on the Japanese financial crisis, financial magazines begged him to analyze the bad debts of real estate investment companies, and overseas media and literary publications lined up to hope that he would write a lengthy manifesto about "after the collapse of the giant tower".

However, he turned down all these invitations, refused to attend parties, appear on television, write columns, or take revenge on those experts who had mocked him in the media.

One early summer evening, Kitahara Iwa stood alone in front of the floor-to-ceiling window of his apartment.

The city in the distance has long lost the dazzling neon lights of a few years ago. The tall buildings are still majestic and the streets are still wide, but there are countless dim, lifeless voids among the lights.

Next to the convenience store downstairs, an unemployed man in a suit was rummaging through a trash can for a rice ball that was still edible.

Under the overpass not far away, two middle-aged men carrying woven bags sat listlessly on the steps. There was even a pair of shiny old leather shoes next to the man's feet.

Kitahara Iwa silently gazed at the devastated scene, like a silent statue, remaining motionless for a long time.

In his study, a whole drawer was filled with confidential investigative documents about housing black holes, bank bad debts, bureaucratic corruption, and money laundering by real estate developers.

If Kitahara Iwao wanted, he could reassemble these bloody materials into an even sharper and more deadly novel at any time.

Continuing to lash out at the hypocritical Ministry of Finance, condemning greedy bankers, and mocking white gloves like Takahashi Shunichi who have been devoured by the times will undoubtedly earn Kitahara Iwao countless readers' applause.

But Kitahara Iwa knew very well that this was far from enough.

Or rather, for these people at the bottom of society who are about to lose their homes, jobs, families, and even the courage to live, no amount of harsh criticism or trial is meaningful.

A quick meal won't fill your stomach, revenge can't help an unemployed man confess to his wife, and anger can't give someone standing on the edge of a pedestrian bridge a reason to live again.

This country has been turned into a wasteland, and in the wasteland, the one thing people have no shortage of is hatred.

What they truly lack is a spiritual pillar that can help them endure the long, dark night and make it to tomorrow.

Kitahara Iwa turned and walked back to his study, opened a drawer, and quietly stared at the thick stack of deadly files inside, enough to trigger another financial storm.

A moment later, with a crisp "click" of a metal lock, Kitahara Iwa locked the files, along with his desire for judgment, under the table.

Then, Kitahara Iwa laid out a brand new blank sheet of paper.

The sky outside the window gradually darkened, and the remaining lights of Tokyo blurred on the glass, no longer dazzling, but rather resembling faint, lingering sparks on the ruins.

"The Collapsed Tower" has already depicted how prosperity can devour people, but on this devastated wasteland, someone is needed to light that lamp.

Next, Kitahara Iwao will write about how people trek through devastation, about how a lowly ant who has lost his job, house, identity, and dignity, grits his teeth and slowly gets back on his feet after being ruthlessly abandoned by the entire era.

The writing about those crushed by debt is no longer just about the grotesque corpses and madmen in social news, but about how, even in the worst of times, they still clung tightly to the last bit of dignity of being human.

Kitahara Iwa lowered his head, gripped his pen, and calmly wrote the first line on the paper: "After the world ends, the hardest thing isn't surviving. It's believing that tomorrow is still worth coming."

After writing these two sentences, he paused briefly, and then solemnly wrote the book title—"The Long Road"—in the upper left corner of the new manuscript.