The editor rubbed the child's head in surprise. "You're very observant, kid."
Jiang Xia glanced at his hand. "I remember your magazine's proofreading has always been quite strict. This shouldn't be an ordinary printing error, should it?"
"Of course not!" The editor waved his hands repeatedly. "We originally wanted to correct it and make the formatting more consistent. But before the story officially began serialization, Mr. Niimi emphasized again and again that the expressive power of words was the life of a novel, and that we absolutely could not alter them without authorization.
"He even said that if we didn't publish the original text exactly as written, he would immediately stop the serialization. He even wrote that into the contract.
"Correcting a typo probably didn't count as 'altering' it, but to be safe, we wanted to contact him and ask first. However, we couldn't reach him. So after weighing it up, we ultimately didn't make the correction."
—Otherwise, what if they changed it and that great writer stopped writing out of spite? Writers were a strange bunch, often stubborn in ways others found hard to understand. Compared to that, a little inconsistent formatting was much easier to accept.
After extracting everything the editor knew, Jiang Xia nodded. "Can this novel of yours really be serialized through to the end?"
The editor froze. "What do you mean?"
Jiang Xia pointed at Conan, who was holding the manuscripts up to the light. "A total of seven manuscripts have been delivered so far, and each one bears the author's handwritten signature. The signatures on manuscripts one through six all differ slightly, but the signatures on the sixth and seventh manuscripts are identical."
"This..." The editor was worthy of being a mystery novel editor. He abruptly understood, and his expression changed drastically. "The signature