January 20, 1980 (Showa 55), two o'clock in the afternoon.
Inside the largest bookstore chain in Japan, Kinokuniya Bookstore.
Miyuki Ikei, who has worked as a tally clerk in the "mystery section" of a bookstore for twenty years, discovered something very strange.
Starting at 11 o'clock today, three or four sneaky-looking people wearing sportswear, hats, sunglasses, and masks suddenly appeared in the bookstore.
Miyuki Ikei could tell at a glance that these people did not look like people who came to buy books.
After all, who would wrap themselves up tightly in a place with sufficient air conditioning, as if they were afraid of being seen by others?
Miyuki Ikei originally didn't want to care about these people. After all, in the service industry, she would always meet a few strange people in a day.
But these people seemed to only shuttle around the mystery novel area, and they communicated with each other using gestures, as if they were planning something strange.
Under this situation, Miyuki Ikei's curiosity was naturally aroused.
After all, if they don’t come to the bookstore to read, then what on earth are they here for?
With a curious attitude, Ikei Miyuki pushed the cart and pretended to do the tallying, and followed one of the men with ponytails not far or near.
But in the end, Miyuki Ikei discovered the truth that made her very angry!
I saw the man with the ponytail standing in the mystery novel section. Seeing that there was no one nearby, he secretly pulled out a few books from the bookshelf nearby.
He stuffed the pulled out book into the front of the bookshelf in front of him, blocking the books on the shelf that were supposed to be displayed to readers!
Miyuki Ikei has been working as a tally clerk for twenty years, and she hates this method extremely!
Because this is the most "unpretentious" business war, one of the methods of using human power to discredit, block, and influence other publishing houses or authors!
Although this method seems ridiculous, it is very useful in the struggle of publishing houses.
Because in fact, due to the high status of Japanese writers, this also leads to the fact that whether it is mystery literature, other literature, or pure literature, it always has something to do with ideals.
The goal of many people is to become a writer.
But the reality is that whether a person can become a writer requires not only talent and ability, but most importantly, the support of editors, editors in chief, directors, and presidents!
Although these people who can influence the fate of writers also like geniuses, they prefer geniuses who can create huge benefits!
Therefore, most publishing houses will choose to use the water testing mechanism to test the personal potential and value of each writer.
To put it simply, five thousand copies will be issued first. If the sales are good, more copies will be printed. If the sales are better, more copies will be printed. When a certain sales volume is reached, the privilege of making "bunku copies" will be given. If the copies are sold, Even better, there is the privilege of "reprinting" or "single volume".
And if a book is available for a limited period of time, it will still have a large amount of inventory in the market.
So no matter what the reason is for this inventory, no matter how good the quality of the book is, the publisher will not give it a second chance.
This has led to many books that are obviously of high quality, but are only published once and then completely shelved.
And this method of covering the target book with other books is very likely to cause the covered book to fail to achieve sales within a time limit and be hidden from now on!
As for why Miyuki Ikei hates this kind of behavior?
On the one hand, it’s because I have a sense of justice in the medium of books, and I don’t like this kind of bad speculative behavior!
On the other hand, as a tally clerk, I have finally managed to arrange the books that need to be displayed in order, and now they are messed up by these bastards!
Thinking of this, Miyuki Ikei suppressed her anger, summoned the security personnel in the bookstore, and kicked all the speculative guys out of the bookstore.
It took Miyuki Ikei about an hour to finally restore the messed bookshelf to its original state.
When he was free, he used the bookstore's phone number to explain the situation to his superiors.
But what Ikei Miyuki didn't expect was that this kind of thing didn't only happen in Kinokuniya Bookstore.
Starting from this afternoon, many large bookstores in Tokyo have successively appeared many replaced books.
The books that were replaced were all from the same publisher, which was the most popular Kodansha at the time!
This result clearly shows that the popularity of Kodansha and Maijo Keisuke made many publishing houses red-eyed, so they united to take action against Kodansha...
——
Maijo Kyousuke woke up leisurely from his room on the second floor of the "Jyuyo no Yu".
Seeing that it was still early for the autograph session, Maijo Kyousuke put on his coat and planned to go out to eat some delicious food.
After all, personal signings are very physically demanding work. How can you work if you don’t have enough to eat?
Picked up the phone and called Jiang Liumei, but no one answered.
The same thing happened when I called Uyama Hinodeomi.
It was obvious that the two of them were either busy arranging for a book signing, or attending meetings or working.
Maijo Kyousuke sighed, shrugged, and walked towards the second floor of "Longevity Hot Spring".
As expected, the little miko Myojin Kiyone downstairs has not returned yet. Only her grandmother Myojin Soko is sitting at the counter, knitting something like a scarf or a sweater.
Maijo Kyousuke did not disturb the other party.
He pushed open the door of the "Soup of Longevity", rubbed his hands and walked out of the "Soup of Longevity".
Maijo Keisuke's idea is very simple. When he came to this parallel world, he ate Japanese food most of the time. It had been a long time since he had eaten authentic Chinese food!
So I planned to go to the main road a hundred meters away from "Jangmei no Yu", take a taxi, and go to Ebisu in Shibuya, Tokyo, because there are many Chinese-owned restaurants there.
But this short one hundred meters made it extremely difficult for Maijo Kyousuke to walk.
Because there is always the sound of feet stepping on the snow behind me.
Listening to the sound, Maijo Kyousuke felt chills running down his spine, and couldn't help but think of the kidnapping plot in crime movies.
Just when Maijo Kyousuke was about to turn around suddenly to see who was behind him.
The abdomen received a heavy blow!
The force was like a truck running over Maijo Keisuke, causing him to lie directly on the ground and curl up, almost thinking that he had been punched in two!
Just when Maijo Keisuke endured the severe pain and wanted to get up to see who the other person was, a thick arm stretched out from behind Maijo Keisuke and violently pinched Maijo Keisuke's neck. Hoop!
The next step was a painful kick on the ribs!
The huge pain caused Maijo Kyousuke to faint without even humming...
