Chapter 62: Smug Ichiro Hashishita
When Hiroshi Nohara woke up alone on the soft big bed in the hotel, the sunlight outside the window was already like melted gold, slowly flowing over the glass curtain walls of the closely packed skyscrapers.
There was no familiar faint fragrance belonging to Misae in the air.
He stretched lazily, listening to the crisp sounds from his joints, feeling that the reception which had drained all his energy in recent days finally came to a fairly satisfactory end at this moment, along with this peaceful sleep.
He knew that Misae’s family had been arranged by him into three other rooms.
Misae shared a room with Mother.
Convenient for whispering some private words.
Big sister-in-law and little sister-in-law shared a room, and occasionally the mother and daughters would visit each other, chatting about women’s topics.
And that father-in-law who seemed stubborn but had actually been completely conquered by a bottle of Juyondai, enjoyed a suite alone with a view overlooking the Tokyo nightscape, with excellent scenery!
Also convenient for taking photos!
Of course, this accommodation expense was not cheap, but for the string of steadily growing numbers on the bankbook, it was just a drop in the bucket.
What Hiroshi Nohara wanted was this composure.
After washing up, when he appeared in the hotel’s buffet restaurant dressed in casual yet proper attire, the Oyama Family had already been waiting there.
“Uncle, Aunt, big sister, and Mage, good morning everyone!” Hiroshi Nohara was still very polite.
“Mm, very good.” Yoshiharu Oyama’s face was still stern, but those eyes that were always sharp as a hawk softened noticeably upon seeing him, even carrying a trace of barely perceptible satisfaction.
“Hiroshi, come eat something quickly. You’ve been troubling yourself with everything lately.”
Mother Takao Oyama warmly called him over, pushing a freshly toasted slice of toast slathered with butter in front of him.
That look was truly a mother-in-law looking at her son-in-law with ever-growing satisfaction.
“Brother-in-law! Where are we going to play today? Senso-ji Temple or Tokyo Tower?” Little sister Mogae’s face was full of undisguised excitement, her big sparkling eyes shining with the purest longing for this bustling city.
“Both.” Hiroshi Nohara wore a gentle smile on his face. Looking at Misae’s little face next to him, which looked even more delicate after a good sleep, his tone carried a hint of indulgence: “I’m your exclusive driver and tour guide, responsible for presenting the best side of this city to you.”
The atmosphere was now extremely harmonious.
……
The black Toyota glided silently through Tokyo’s crisscrossing veins like a tamed giant beast.
Outside the car window was this city’s kaleidoscopic ukiyo-e.
Senso-ji Temple’s ancient eaves and the modern silhouette of the Skytree in the distance complemented each other, the icy cold luxury goods in Ginza’s shop windows and the last few falling cherry blossoms in Ueno Park together staging a silent drama about time and desire.
The Oyama Family’s gasps of amazement became the best background sound for this drama.
Tokyo Metropolis in the 90s was truly an international metropolis.
Classical and modern blended together.
Even modern people who had seen countless metropolises in Huaxia in later years would feel that Tokyo Metropolis now was prosperously overwhelming.
This was no wonder.
After all, Tokyo Metropolis now was still at the tail end of its golden era.
The lost thirty years had begun to brew.
But it hadn’t come yet.
However, those lost thirty years were a blow to ordinary people, but for those rich and famous people…
They would still live extravagantly.
Hiroshi Nohara just drove calmly, occasionally glancing through the rearview mirror at Misae’s little face filled with happiness and pride, feeling a sense of peace in his heart.
He had no interest in reminding Neon.
After playing with the family for a morning, lunch was arranged at the French restaurant on the top floor of the Imperial Hotel.
Outside the huge floor-to-ceiling windows was the magnificent view of the entire Tokyo Imperial Palace, underfoot was a soft Persian carpet that could sink high heels into, and in the ears was the faint sound of a violin.
Service staff dressed neatly and properly walked back and forth.
The service was excellent.
Yoshiharu Oyama held a glass of red wine, his posture still impeccable, but that always tense face no longer showed any of yesterday’s stubbornness and anger.
He looked at the greenery outside the window symbolizing Neon’s power center, feeling for the first time that he, an ordinary civil servant from Kumamoto Prefecture, seemed to have touched the unreachable sky at the top of this country.
And the one who gave him all this was the young person beside him who was patiently cutting steak for his daughter.
‘Beep beep beep!’
In this nearly perfect harmonious atmosphere, the pager at Hiroshi Nohara’s waist suddenly emitted a series of urgent vibrations.
He glanced at the number displayed on it, his brows furrowing imperceptibly.
It was a call from Iwata’s Classroom’s internal telephone.
“Sorry, excuse me for a moment.” He gave everyone an apologetic look and got up to walk to the public telephone booth outside the restaurant.
The icy cold handset pressed to his ear instantly pulled him from this warm and tender illusion back to the reality filled with gunpowder and scheming.
“Section Chief Nohara!” On the other end of the phone came Yō Kitagawa’s voice, anxious and somewhat distorted: “This is bad! Just now… the director team’s deputy director came over, they… they said they hope to take over the production of An Shizhi Season 3! And they said… they want to talk to you about purchasing the copyright!”
“Purchasing the copyright?” Hiroshi Nohara was slightly stunned upon hearing this.
Then, in those always calm eyes, a playful smile emerged, like the unique amusement of a chess player seeing an opponent make a blunder.
What he worried about most was not the opponent’s strength, but the opponent’s stupidity.
As a traverser, he knew better than anyone the life trajectory of An Shizhi.
The first season’s sudden emergence was a genius’s flash of inspiration, enough to establish a sect.
The second season’s hot pursuit pushed this novel mode to the extreme, enough to achieve godhood.
But starting from the third season, this fixed mode would inevitably fall into a quagmire of ‘aesthetic fatigue’.
The audience’s freshness faded.
Ratings hit a bottleneck, even severely… declining.
In his previous life, the third season was a complete fiasco, until the fourth and fifth seasons, when the production team, having learned painful lessons, added more new elements and narrative techniques, ushering in a second creative peak.
And now, someone actually wanted to jump out at the moment when he, Hiroshi Nohara, had polished this reputation to its brightest and highest value, to take over this hot potato about to burn hands?
This was no longer simple commercial behavior; this was precise poverty alleviation, delivering heads from a thousand miles away!
“I understand.” The corner of Hiroshi Nohara’s mouth curved slightly, his voice calm without a ripple.
That composure traveled through the cold phone line, instantly soothing Yō Kitagawa’s panic: “Tell them, regarding the copyright, wait until I return to the station on Monday to discuss it personally with them. As for the production team, tell them not to panic, everything as usual.”
“But… but Section Chief, they’re going to snatch our project!” Yō Kitagawa’s voice still carried unwillingness.
“Don’t worry.” Hiroshi Nohara chuckled lightly, that laughter carrying a confidence that saw through everything: “Some things can’t be snatched. Let them be happy for a couple of days.”
After hanging up, he returned to the table, his face still wearing that gentle smile, as if the call just now was merely an insignificant greeting.
……
While in the ‘Hiroshi Nohara Special Production Team’ room at Tokyo Television Station, now with a brand new nameplate, the atmosphere was far from calm.
“Outrageous! This is outright robbery!” Hoshi Minamimura slammed his fist on the table, his young face full of anger: “The territory we worked so hard to build, why should they reap the benefits?!”
“Exactly! It’s just because our An Shizhi is popular that they want to pick the peaches! These people have the ugliest table manners!” Roji Hase was trembling with rage.
Everyone in the office was filled with righteous indignation.
Only Ichiro Hashishita kept his head down from start to finish, silently sipping his tea.
He looked at those indignant young faces, his gaze like watching a group of lambs about to be pushed onto the altar without knowing it.
There was no anger in his heart, only a nearly cruel calm and a trace of barely perceptible smugness.
He knew that this ship, which seemed to be riding the wind and waves, was about to hit the reef.
Without Hiroshi Nohara, the soul figure, An Shizhi was just an empty shell. And what Deputy Director Takada and Section Chief Iwata wanted was this empty shell.
They would repackage this empty shell with the most lavish resources, then use a seemingly brilliant failure to thoroughly drag the newly risen myth of ‘Hiroshi Nohara’ back to the mortal world.
And himself, Ichiro Hashishita.
As the only smart one who saw through the truth and jumped ship early, he would watch all this coldly from a sturdier and more glamorous big ship.
He had even thought ahead: once the copyright deal was done and the production rights for the third season were officially transferred to Iwata’s Classroom, he would formally submit his resignation to Hiroshi Nohara on the grounds of ‘ideological differences’.
Then, in everyone’s astonishment, he would turn gorgeously and step into that office symbolizing true power.
He could almost already see the shocked and disappointed looks on Hoshi Minamimura and Roji Hase’s faces.
He was even a bit looking forward to it.
Because he knew that jealousy could only find its most thorough sweet consolation when seeing the envied one fall from a high place.
