Hikigaya wants to be a novelist

Preface: This chapter and the next chapter involve some descriptions of the narrative tricks of "Malice" written by Keigo Higashino, and do not involve any spoilers. If you read this chapter before reading the novel, it may affect your reading ideas and make the ending of the original work less shocking, so please pay attention.

A month passed quickly, and the December issue of All Readings was delivered to the mailboxes of thousands of households across Japan on time. After receiving the magazine, many readers began to look for the page in the catalog where the second volume of Confessions was located.

the publication of the first volume of "Confessions" , it has undoubtedly become a social topic in the past month, and even many members of parliament have begun to quote the content of "Confessions" in their political commentaries.

While everyone was marveling at the excellence of the novel, they developed a stronger interest in the mysterious " Hachiman ". The more mysterious the person was, the more it aroused the public's curiosity. Everyone wanted to know more about this 15-year-old junior high school writer.

Yukinoshita Haruno was one of them , and she was the first to investigate Hachiman. On the night when the first chapter of "Confessions" was published, she learned through her father's relationship that Hachiman should be living in Chiba City.

" Japan is big, but Chiba is small. "

This is what Yukinoshita Haruno thought at the time . With the Yukinoshita family's network of connections, it would be too easy to find a talented junior high school student in their base city.

Although there are many junior high schools in Chiba City, and the number of junior high school students is countless , nothing happens without warning, this is Yukinoshita Haruno's belief, she believes that Mr. Hachiman must be very good at writing, maybe she can find clues from the essay competitions participated in by students from these schools.

As for the pen name " Hachiman " , Haruno didn't care too much about it. She simply checked it on the Internet and found that " Hachiman " was the name of a place in Kamakura City, Kanagawa Prefecture. It was unremarkable. Maybe the author got the pen name from this place, or maybe not. It didn't matter. Haruno believed that no one would directly use his real name as a pen name, otherwise what was the point of him being so mysterious?

To sum up, Yukinoshita Haruno, whose search scope was completely off the track, naturally found nothing in a month. Instead, she read a bunch of competition essays written by junior high school students, but naturally couldn't find any one that matched Hachiman's style.

It's not like she hadn't researched Hikigaya Hachiman's middle school, but as she had a preconceived notion that writers wouldn't use their real names as pen names, she naturally overlooked the name of the top-ranked student in the liberal arts in the second-year junior high school midterm exam.

Hikigaya naturally didn't know that someone was investigating him. In fact, he wouldn't worry even if he knew. He dared to use " Hachiman " as his pen name, of course, he had his considerations, for two reasons:

First, the main readers of " All Readings" are almost all office workers. College students who love literature may subscribe to this magazine, but in high school, " All Readings" has basically disappeared, and junior high school students have never even heard of the name of this magazine, so there is no objective risk of his true identity being discovered by his classmates ;

The second is that Hikigaya himself is not well-known at all. Before his soul traveled across time and space, he was a loner and had an instinctive resistance to interpersonal communication. Now, he is obsessed with writing and has no time or energy to communicate with others. Most of his classmates only have a very ambiguous impression of him when they mention him, and it is difficult to directly associate him with the name " Hachiman " .

At this time , Hikigaya had already pushed "Malice" to the part where Nonoguchi Osamu admitted his guilt and accepted punishment. Although he believed that this detective part, which accounted for less than one-third of the book, was already exciting enough, many old mystery fans would certainly be able to see at a glance the tribute to many classic mystery novels, and it would not be difficult for them to guess the result.

When readers are surprised by the arrest of the murderer and have a preconceived impression of the victim , Hikigaya 's goal is achieved. Of course, whether it will have such an effect on readers depends on the two editors Imamura and Machida who volunteered to be guinea pigs. Machida's reaction can roughly represent the general readers, while Imamura naturally represents the old mystery fans.

After sending the electronic version to the two editors respectively, the stage work of "Malice" was completed, and the next step was to wait quietly for their replies.

During this rare free time, Hikigaya began to browse the reactions to the second chapter of "Confessions" on the Internet.

A Tokyo council candidate immediately posted his thoughts on Twitter: The second chapter , titled " Martyr ," turns to the two sharp topics of school violence and educators' negligence, deeply analyzing the causes of school violence and the irreversible psychological damage caused by bullying to students, including the juvenile crimes in the first chapter, which happen every day, but we are reluctant to mention them. Now it takes a 15-year-old boy to bring these dark things to the table to trigger widespread discussion. This is the sadness of our time! ( The following part is the campaign promotion link and has been automatically omitted )

The previous part was a generalization, and then the canvassing for votes began. Many politicians began to pay attention to "Confessions" and used it as one of their propaganda tools without hesitation. Of course, they themselves became propaganda tools for "Confessions", so Hikigaya Hachiman did not dislike this behavior.

In addition, a large number of readers who have experienced bullying have begun to share online their personal experiences of school bullying, or incompetent teachers they have encountered.

" Middle school students' behavior is easily led astray by their impulsive brains. After a rapid growth spurt, they have the physical conditions to commit evil, but their minds are far from mature. This has led to middle school students becoming the most reckless group of school violence. "

This is the analysis of a former junior high school teacher.

" It is precisely because junior high school students are mentally underdeveloped that they need teachers to guide them better, right? If there is a person like Mr. Lianghui in the chapter of ' Martyr ' , wouldn't it inadvertently contribute to the occurrence of school bullying? "

A parent of a student responded like this.

" In fact , bullying in primary schools is also very serious and there is no reason for it. They may even bully others simply because they are jealous of others' excellence. "

This is a comment posted by a user with an overseas IP address. It received many responses, perhaps from an international student.

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