The October rain in Tokyo always carried a penetrating chill.
In the courtyard of the Saionji main residence, the shishi-odoshi bamboo tube filled with water and struck the stone with a dull thud, its usual resonant note muffled by the dampness. Rainwater dripped steadily from the eaves, forming small rivulets that flowed across the bluestone slabs and swept a few withered yellow leaves toward the drain.
Inside the family study, the light glowed a dim amber.
The old butler, Fujita, entered with careful steps, cradling a large, rather grimy package in his arms.
"Master, this was just delivered by the post office."
He first spread a clean cloth over the table before placing the package in the center of the rosewood desk, which gleamed like a mirror. It landed with a heavy thud.
"It is from… China."
Shuichi set down his teacup, removed his glasses, and rubbed the bridge of his nose to ease the dull ache.
"Sent by Takahashi?"
He rose and approached the table, examining the package with its distinctly foreign and somewhat primitive appearance.
The outer layer was coarse burlap, sewn with large, clearly hand-stitched seams and covered in colorful stamps and overlapping postmarks—red, blue, and several blurry black circular seals. In the recipient field, traditional Chinese characters had been scrawled crookedly: Bunkyo Ward, Tokyo, Japan. A strange scent began to rise from it.
It was a mixture of cheap cardboard, the salty brine of long sea voyages, and the smoky tang of coal soot. The rough odor felt sharply out of place in the study, which usually smelled of aged Kyoto sandalwood, and carried a faintly pungent edge.
"Scissors," Shuichi said, extending his hand.
Fujita promptly offered a silver letter opener.
Rather than opening the package with his usual elegance, Shuichi sliced forcefully through the thick burlap.
*Riiip—*
The fabric tore open to reveal a flimsy corrugated cardboard box whose corners were already beginning to disintegrate.
Shuichi frowned and lifted the lid.
There were no gold or silver treasures inside.
Instead, the box was messily stuffed with white cotton goods.
T-shirts.
Dozens of them, piled together without individual packaging like salted fish in a wet market, many already wrinkled.
Shuichi pinched the top one between two fingers and shook it out.
It was an utterly ordinary crew-neck short-sleeved T-shirt—pure white, devoid of any pattern, with a blank tag sewn into the collar that had not even been printed.
He ran his fingers over the fabric. The texture was unexpectedly thick: 100% pure cotton, without the slippery feel of synthetic fibers.
Yet his gaze soon settled on the stitching at the cuffs and hem. The stitches were uneven in length; in some places the thread had been pulled so tight that it puckered the fabric, while in others it hung loose, with stray threads dangling.
He checked the seams beneath the armpits. A small black oil stain, no larger than a grain of rice, stood out glaringly against the pure white cloth.
"This…"
Shuichi sighed and tossed the T-shirt back onto the table.
"Is this what Takahashi has spent more than half a year working on?"
His voice was thick with disappointment.
As head of the Saionji family, Shuichi had worn shirts tailored from Egyptian long-staple cotton by Kyoto's finest artisans since childhood. Even the so-called "low-end" shirts once produced at the Nagoya factory had stitching precise enough to be measured with a ruler.
The garment before him, by contrast, looked like a primary school handicraft project.
"Master, shall I dispose of it?" Fujita asked quietly. "This… is hardly fit to be seen."
"Leave it for now."
Shuichi shook his head. He reached into the bottom of the box and rummaged deeper.
There, pressed beneath the pile, lay a thick manila envelope.
On its surface was written: "To be opened personally by President Saionji Shuichi."
Shuichi tore it open.
A thick stack of handwritten letter paper, along with several reports bristling with receipts and invoices, slid out.
He picked up the letter first.
Takahashi's handwriting was hurried and uneven, with smudged ink in places, clearly composed in haste or under difficult conditions.
"President,
I hope this letter finds you well.
Winter in Shanghai is far colder than in Nagoya. There is no heating here, and the indoors feel colder than the streets outside. I can only write to you while wrapped in two layers of quilts.
The situation is ten thousand times more complicated than I imagined. The language barrier is constant, power outages are frequent, and although the workers are obedient, they have no concept of 'quality.' To them, a garment is acceptable as long as it is not torn.
To teach them to sew a straight seam, I have even had to learn a few choice Shanghainese curses.
Nevertheless, President, please examine the attached cost analysis sheet first.
Before you consign this sample to the trash, you must look at that number."
Shuichi set the letter aside.
He lifted the report covered in Chinese receipts and invoices.
His eyes skipped over the tedious lists of raw materials and utility bills and landed directly on the summary figure at the bottom.
Production cost per unit (including labor, raw materials, and waste): RMB 1.8.
Shuichi paused.
He performed the exchange-rate calculation in his head. The official rate was approximately 1 RMB to 40 Yen; on the black market it might be even lower.
1.8 times 40… 72 Yen?
No, that could not be right.
He read the note again.
"Note: Because we are using export foreign-exchange quotas, the local government has granted substantial tax rebates and electricity subsidies. The actual converted cost in Yen is approximately 45 Yen."
Forty-five Yen.
Shuichi's hand trembled slightly.
That single thin sheet of paper suddenly felt as heavy as lead.
In Tokyo, even the cheapest bottle of Ramune cost 100 Yen. A single subway ride cost 120 Yen.
Yet this pure-cotton T-shirt—crude in workmanship but perfectly wearable—cost only 45 Yen to produce?
Even after adding shipping and tariffs, even if the total doubled, it would still be only 90 Yen.
On the current Japanese market, the cheapest white T-shirts sold in supermarkets carried a wholesale price of around 600 Yen and a retail price near 1,000 Yen.
A tenfold difference.
A profit margin of one thousand percent.
Shuichi jerked his head up and looked again at the pile of "salted fish" he had just scorned.
Salted fish?
No. This was clearly a heap of unrefined, pure gold ore.
The black oil stain and crooked threads suddenly became forgivable—even oddly pleasing—in the face of that single number: 45 Yen.
"Father?"
Footsteps sounded from the doorway.
Satsuki entered with her schoolbag slung over one shoulder. She had just returned from school; a few crystalline raindrops still clung to her hair.
Her eyes brightened at the sight of the disordered pile of clothing on the table. She walked over quickly.
"They've arrived?"
She dropped her bag and picked up a T-shirt at once.
Unlike her father, she did not dwell on the loose threads. Instead, she gripped both sides of the shirt and gave it a firm tug.
*Creak—*
The fabric strained but did not tear.
She then inspected the collar with her fingers and even scraped at the oil stain with a fingernail.
"The cotton is excellent," Satsuki said with a nod. "This is Xinjiang long-staple cotton. Uncle Takahashi has done well to secure raw materials of this quality."
"But the workmanship…" Shuichi pointed to a slanted seam. "If something like this were placed on a Ginza counter, customer complaints would bankrupt us."
"Who said we would sell it in Ginza?"
Satsuki casually pulled the oversized T-shirt over her school uniform. It hung on her petite frame like an empty flour sack.
She walked to the full-length mirror and turned once.
"Father, do you think people would buy this for 300 Yen?"
"Three hundred?" Shuichi calculated quickly. "That would still leave a gross profit of 200 Yen. Of course they would buy it—one could hardly purchase a rag for that price."
"Then it is settled."
Satsuki removed the shirt, crumpled it into a ball, and tossed it back into the box.
"The Japanese people are not yet poor enough to settle for this. They remain lost in the dream of 'I must buy the best.'"
"But every dream eventually ends."
She stepped to the table, picked up the cost sheet, and gazed at the figure of 45 Yen. A cold smirk curved her lips.
"This cost is our nuclear weapon."
"Yet we cannot detonate it yet."
Satsuki turned to her father, her expression turning serious.
"Father, write back to Takahashi."
"Tell him this batch is substandard."
Shuichi looked surprised. "Substandard?"
"Yes. Even if the price is low, we cannot sell trash," Satsuki replied. "The positioning of S-Style must be 'cheap but good,' never 'cheap junk.'"
"If it is junk, customers will buy it once and never return."
"We want them to feel genuine surprise the moment they put it on: 'This is only 300 Yen? Is the owner mad?'"
Satsuki drew a line across the tabletop with her finger.
"Select the ten oldest, most stubborn, and most ill-tempered master craftsmen from the Nagoya factory."
"Offer them triple pay and send them to Shanghai."
"Let them serve as supervisors."
Shuichi was momentarily stunned, then immediately grasped his daughter's intention.
Those old artisans in Nagoya had spent their lives producing Nishijin-ori for the Imperial Household; they could not tolerate a single speck of dust. Placing them in charge of Chinese apprentices who could not yet sew a straight seam would create pure purgatory.
"Is that not a bit too harsh?" Shuichi asked with concern. "Takahashi mentioned in his letter that the workers there have considerable pride."
"It is precisely because they have pride that they must be tempered."
Satsuki picked up the scissors and, with a crisp *snip*, cut away a dangling thread.
"Tell those master craftsmen not to spare Takahashi any face. If a seam is not straight, they are to rip it apart on the spot and order it redone."
"Ten times, a hundred times."
"Until the workers can sew straight with their eyes closed."
"We will use Chinese costs to produce Japanese quality."
Satsuki set the scissors down; they clattered sharply against the table.
"What about this current batch?" Shuichi asked, gesturing toward the box. "And the 'practice pieces' produced afterward?"
"Ship them all back."
Satsuki's tone was decisive.
"Rent several large warehouses in the suburbs of Chiba or Saitama and stockpile everything."
"Not a single piece is to be sold."
"We must hoard them like squirrels preparing for winter."
"When our warehouses are full, and when the winter of the bursting bubble arrives…"
Satsuki opened her arms in a sweeping, pouring motion.
"We will open the floodgates."
"At that time, these 45-Yen cotton garments will become life-saving straws more precious than gold."
Shuichi regarded his daughter.
Outside, the sound of rain grew heavier, pattering loudly against the glass.
He looked at the battered cardboard box, then at the report with its staggering figures.
He suddenly understood that this was no ordinary business venture.
It was a long, meticulously calculated infiltration.
While the whole of Tokyo speculated on land prices, chased stocks, and drank wine costing tens of thousands of Yen per bottle, the Saionji family was quietly sewing the garments of the coming winter, stitch by stitch, across the sea in that vast and still-poor country.
"I understand."
Shuichi returned to his chair and drew out a fresh check.
He filled in a figure.
Fifty million Yen.
This would serve as the second phase of startup capital for Takahashi.
"I will have Fujita arrange the transfer," Shuichi said, pressing his seal. "I will also instruct the lawyers to register the trademark."
"S-Style."
Satsuki picked up a pen and wrote the name on a sheet of white paper.
The characters were simple and unadorned, exactly like the plain white T-shirt.
"Simple. Smart. Survival."
She read the three words softly.
"This is our creed."
Shuichi looked at the name and nodded.
"Oh, by the way, Father."
Satsuki seemed to remember something and pulled a poster from her schoolbag.
It was one that Shopkeeper Itakura had sent through an acquaintance.
The poster showed a swordsman wearing a green hat against a backdrop of golden land.
The Legend of Zelda.
"I heard Nintendo's stock has risen again?" Satsuki asked casually.
"It has gone mad," Shuichi sighed. "The shares you bought last year have more than tripled. If I had known, I would have purchased more."
"No need to rush."
Satsuki taped the poster to the wall, neatly covering a patch of peeling wallpaper.
"The game has only just begun."
"We plant cotton in Shanghai, buy stocks in America, and build buildings in Tokyo."
"No matter how the world changes—whether inflation or deflation, whether the tide rises or falls…"
"The Saionji family will always have food on the table."
Shuichi smiled.
He picked up his teacup. Though the tea had gone cold, he took a deep swallow.
It was bitter, yet left a lingering sweetness.
"Fujita!" Shuichi called toward the door.
"Yes, Master."
"Go and telephone the Nagoya side. Tell those few most difficult old fellows to pack their bags."
"Inform them that although Shanghai may be rough, the world's finest cotton awaits their skilled hands."
"Yes."
The sound of retreating footsteps faded down the corridor.
Shuichi gazed at the package from Shanghai still resting on the table.
That black oil stain remained glaringly visible.
Yet he knew that in the not-too-distant future, the stain would be washed away completely.
In its place would appear a logo printed on the collar label that would fill every competitor with despair.
Made in China.
Designed by Saionji.