Pathway to Japanese Literature
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The Weeping Steel GirdersAuthor: Unno Juza
| Original Title | 夜泣き鉄骨 |
|---|---|
| Author | 海野 十三 |
| Genre | War & Social Literature |
| Author Type | Male Author |
| Summary | In a sprawling industrial complex shrouded in perpetual gloom, whispers spread among night-shift workers: steel girders wail like tormented spirits when midnight strikes. Skeptical foreman Kiba dismisses these tales until veteran laborer Untei confesses hearing metallic screams from a derelict factory’s abandoned crane—a machine supposedly powered down for months. As tensions escalate, Kiba organizes a clandestine investigation, dragging reluctant workers into the Ninth Factory’s oil-stained darkness. Their flashlights reveal claw marks on rusted metal and a control switch mysteriously disengaged—yet the crane lurches to life, screeching across the vaulted ceiling as if guided by invisible hands. \nThe haunting intensifies when Osei, Kiba’s secret lover and cable-factory worker, plunges into a molten lead furnace. Her distraught colleague Masa nearly follows, saved only by Kiba’s last-second intervention. Amidst growing paranoia, a disgraced pharmacist uncovers traces of corrosive chemicals and surgical tools in Kiba’s quarters—artifacts pointing to a grisly secret involving unwanted pregnancies and calculated revenge. As dawn approaches, the factory’s groaning steel frames seem to echo not with ghostly lamentations, but the consequences of human cruelty festering beneath its corroded surface. |
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