The editor thought about it and agreed, saying, "Okay, I'll arrange it right away. In addition, we have contacted several mainstream newspapers and magazines to conduct in-depth reports, citing relevant content from China's Poetry Journal and People's Daily to confirm Hai Zi's Chinese identity."
"very good."
The editor-in-chief nodded in satisfaction. "We must make this news a hot topic so that more people know about Hai Zi and these two novels."
Soon, "The Wounded" and "Bright Sword" were officially published in the Japanese serialized magazine "Bungaku Sekai".
Meanwhile, major newspapers also published groundbreaking news—the great poet Hai Zi, who was highly regarded in the Japanese poetry scene, was not Japanese, but a true Chinese!
The poems "Facing the Sea, with Spring Blossoms" and "A Generation" were both written by this Chinese poet.
The news caused an immediate uproar in Japan's poetry and literary circles.
This blunder has had a surprisingly wide-ranging impact.
After all, many big names in the Japanese poetry world had been lavish in their praise for this "rising star"!
But now...
"What? Hai Zi was Chinese? How is that possible!"
"We used to think of him as a rising star and hope in the Japanese poetry scene, and now he's actually Chinese?"
"How embarrassing! For so long, we actually treated a Chinese poet as one of our own, and kept praising him!"
In the poetry world, many Japanese poets and critics immediately felt ashamed.
They had previously praised Hai Zi's poems highly, with some even saying that Hai Zi was the future of Japanese poetry. Now that the truth about Hai Zi being Chinese has come to light, their praise has become a joke.
"This Hai Zi is definitely hiding his identity on purpose, trying to deceive us!"
One poet immediately expressed his anger, saying, "His poems are good, but this behavior is simply disgraceful! Moreover, if he had revealed his Chinese identity earlier, his poems would never have been published."
"Exactly! We cannot accept a Chinese person deceiving Japanese readers and the literary world in this way! This Hai Zi, his conscience is absolutely wicked!"
Some people have called for a boycott of Hai Zi's works, demanding that serialized publications stop publishing "The Wounded" and "Bright Sword".
However, to the surprise of the Japanese literary world, their anger and protests did not resonate with the general public.
On the contrary, the general Japanese public became very interested in the literary blunders and misjudgments.
"So Hai Zi was Chinese. That's really interesting."
"I only knew about his poetry before, I didn't expect him to write such good novels, I have to go and check them out."
"What would a story about the War of Resistance against Japan written by Chinese people be like? I'm a little curious."
Many Japanese people who didn't usually read literature became very interested in Hai Zi's novels because of this news, and they bought the serialized magazines and read "The Wounded" and "Bright Sword".
The human struggles and emotional entanglements during that special period depicted in "The Wounded" allowed the Japanese public to experience a different side of Chinese society, finding it novel and shocking.
This part of Chinese history is frequently mentioned and quite exaggerated in Japanese news reports.
However, these reports are rather broad and lack genuine historical sentiment, making it difficult for the Japanese public to empathize with them.
However, once "The Wounded" was published, the experiences and remorse of the female protagonist and her mother immediately made the Japanese people feel the atmosphere of China in that era.
The story in "Bright Sword" was even more eye-opening for them.
In Japan, many novels and books about the war of aggression against China are seriously distorted from historical facts, and their fundamental purpose is to whitewash the war.
However, in the novel "Bright Sword", the bravery and fearlessness of the Eighth Route Army soldiers, Li Yunlong's unruly nature, and the cruelty and intensity of the war all made them feel excited.
This captivating storyline transcends national and cultural boundaries, leaving the Japanese audience thoroughly engrossed and unable to put it down.
In particular, the book's use of the term "little devils" to refer to the Japanese did not elicit any resentment from them; instead, many found it rather endearing.
Here's an explanation: the character "子" is generally used as a affectionate suffix in Japanese, such as in "樱子" (Sakurako) or "惠子" (Keiko). It naturally carries a touch of cuteness. So when Japanese people hear Chinese people calling them "小鬼子" (Little Devil), they inexplicably find it a somewhat adorable term of endearment. Isn't that absurd?
"This Li Yunlong is really something else!"
"The term 'little devils' is quite interesting; it feels very apt."
"So this is what China's War of Resistance against Japan was like. It's completely different from what we learned in our textbooks."
More importantly, "Bright Sword" realistically depicts the various crimes committed by the invading Japanese army in China—burning, killing, looting, massacring civilians, committing all kinds of evil deeds, and even not sparing children.
This greatly shocked many Japanese people.
In the history textbooks revised by the Japanese government, they have been consistently taught that Japan's invasion of China was driven by a righteous goal: to liberate the suffering Chinese people and achieve the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.
But in "Bright Sword", the invading Japanese army is portrayed as such a brutal figure, practically beasts.
"This is impossible! It must be a Chinese author distorting history!"
"How could this happen? How could our army do such a thing?"
This chapter is not finished yet. Please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
