Fukuoka, Japan, July 1924.

It has been three months since Guo Moruo returned to Japan, he left Shanghai in early April, missed the big criticism of Tagore, and thought that it would be better off in Japan, but the reality is very cruel.

After the Guanzhong earthquake, Japan's economy has not yet recovered, and all industries are depressed.

He first received a 300 yuan of international student return fee subsidized by the government of the Republic of China, and barely survived.

Later, he translated "Social Organization and Social Revolution" by the famous Japanese pioneer of Marxist research, Ha Shangzhao, and wanted to make money to support his family by publishing it.

In the process of translating, he accepted the socialist revolution in the USSR and greatly appreciated Lenin.

However, the reality is that even if the book is published, it will not be able to extract royalties until it is sold, and he is still poor.

How poor was Guo Moruo at this time?

The family was evicted by the landlord and had to live upstairs in a pawnshop warehouse, where they relied on pawns for a living, pawning everything they could in the house, including winter clothes and quilts.

He tried to translate Turgenev's New Era, hoping to get some money.

It was in this poor situation, in the face of the cruel reality, that his thinking changed, from the romanticism of the past to the path of realism.

While translating "New Era", Guo Moruo came across a Japanese literary magazine.

He was caught in a literary review about a novel called Snow Country, which he praised as a model of traditional Japanese aesthetics.

Guo Moruo took a look and felt that the storyline was familiar.

He thought about it carefully, wasn't this the novel that Yu Dafu translated last year?

At the time, they were speculating about who wrote this masterful novel, but they didn't expect that "Snow Country" is now highly regarded in Japan and has become a phenomenal work.

Guo Moruo found some literary magazines again. It was found that without exception, there was a pursuit of "Snow Country".

Many young Japanese writers even think that this is a new creative path.

This is especially true of writers such as Yasuki Kawabata, who define themselves as "neo-sensibility".

In July 1924, Kawabata Yasujo united a group of like-minded writers to create a magazine to promote his own literary ideas, called "Literary Times", which was the propaganda front of the New Sensibility.

The book "Snow Country" is a bestseller in Japan and is published by Venusdo in Japan.

This is the result of Kawabata's contact on his behalf. He wrote to Lin Zixuan to express his admiration.

Lin Zixuan wrote a reply in the name of Murakami Harujutsu, and the letter naturally had to be translated into Japanese, and the two began to exchange letters.

Yasushi Kawabata believes that there is indeed a Japanese expatriate named Harushu Murakami in Shanghai, China, and Lin Zixuan feels a bit like a fake name registered on the Internet to chat with netizens in later generations.

He also had to give the fake name a complete background information, such as age and life status.

Fortunately, this netizen did not ask to meet, otherwise he would have died of seeing the light.

There is also a Japanese director named Kenji Mizoguchi who wants to make "The Dancing Girl of Izu" into a movie.

Lin Zixuan used the reason that all the copyrights of "Snow Country" belonged to Vientiane Bookstore, and pushed these things to Ping Banya, anyway, as long as the Japanese paid for it.

Guo Moruo found "Snow Country" in a bookstore in Fukuoka and opened it. Sure enough, it was the one translated by Yu Dafu.

In the author's introduction column, there are only a few words "living in China".

He inquired with the bookstore owner and learned that the novel was very popular with readers because of the hype in the literary critics' circles.

He had the heart to write to Yu Dafu to tell him the news, but after thinking about it, the contract he signed was to buy out the translation copyright, and even if "Snow Country" was a hit in Japan, Yu Dafu would not get royalties.

But when he turned to the afterword, he couldn't help but be stunned.

This postscript was written by Yasuki Kawabata. Describes how he discovered Snowpiercer.

Originally published by Vientiane Books in Shanghai, Snow Country was donated to Japan by Vientiane Books during the earthquake. It was discovered by him by chance, and it can be described as very legendary.

This postscript reminded Guo Moruo of a lot of things in China.

He and Yu Dafu still don't know who wants to translate "Snow Country", but they get a large amount of remuneration through an intermediary, which allows the Creation Society to support it for a while.

Unexpectedly, "Snow Country" was published by Lin Zixuan's Vientiane Book Company.

He remembered Lin Zixuan's abrupt act of donating books during the earthquake in Japan, and always felt that there was some mysterious connection in it.

A thought appeared in Guo Moruo's mind, could it be that the real author of "Snow Country" is Lin Zixuan?

But why is he so mysterious?

If someone else writes such a classic novel. I wish the whole world knew, why hide it so much.

If it wasn't written by Lin Zixuan, Guo Moruo really didn't know that there were any great writers among the Japanese in Shanghai's Hongkou District, and he often went in and out of Hongkou District because his wife was Japanese.

This mystery made Guo Moruo puzzled. He wrote to Yu Dafu and told him his guess.

Yu Dafu was more direct and didn't guess the riddle, he wrote to Lin Zixuan to ask about it, and told Guo Moruo's guess together.

Lin Zixuan didn't expect Guo Moruo to guess the answer correctly, but unfortunately there was no reward.

It can be seen that everything will leave clues, as long as you think about it carefully, you can always find the answer, this incident tells Lin Zixuan to be more cautious in doing things in the future.

He did not admit that he was the author, and as for what others thought, it was up to them.

Although Yu Dafu also had doubts, he felt that since Lin Zixuan didn't admit it, there was a reason not to admit it, this was a private matter, and it had nothing to do with him, so he didn't think about it anymore.

Only Guo Moruo, who is far away in Japan, is still thinking about why Lin Zixuan didn't admit that he wrote "Snow Country".

This is unreasonable, there must be some unknown inside story, and he even suspects that Lin Zixuan murdered the Japanese expatriate named Murakami Harushu and seized the manuscript of "Snow Country".

Otherwise, Lin Zixuan had never lived in Japan, how could he write such a Japanese-style novel.

The original manuscript of "Snow Country" was written in Chinese, which is another doubt, and the whole thing is full of weirdness.

For a while, Guo Moruo incarnated as Conan, constantly reasoning, guessing the reason, and he decided that after returning to China, he must find out the truth and find the Murakami Chunshu.

He was convinced that there was only one truth.

The contrast between his own translation and a best-selling novel that no one acknowledges is hard to accept, but he won't give up.

After translating Turgenev's "New Era", Guo Moruo is ready to return to China, and he will devote himself to the great era of revolution.

In his letter to Cheng Fangwu, he said: "I am going back to China, and China is the most important thing on the road of revolution. I want to send the second half of my life meaningfully. ”

But reality gave Guo Moruo another blow.

Because the war between Zhejiang and Jiangsu, which was about to start in the vicinity of Shanghai, he had to take his wife and children to Saga, a neighboring prefecture in Fukuoka, which was a necessary stop on his way back to China from Nagasaki.

They found a cheap place to live in the mountain village as a transition, while they recuperated and recuperated while the fighting subsided. (To be continued.) )