Kawasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture. The abandoned Mitsubishi Heavy Industries shipyard.
Several workers in hard hats pushed open two heavy iron gates. Dust swirled in the thin morning light, and the air carried the heavy scent of mold and the pungent odor of long-oxidized machine oil.
Five technical supervisors from Saionji Information System stood outside the gates. The lead supervisor adjusted his rimless glasses and looked past the rusted threshold into the factory building.
Inside the vast, high-ceilinged factory, tens of thousands of kraft paper file boxes were stacked in dense rows.
The boxes were piled against the load-bearing pillars all the way to the steel trusses at the top, forming a suffocating wall of paper.
A clerk from the Mitsubishi General Affairs Department stepped out from the shadows behind the factory door.
"Good morning, senior supervisors of the Saionji Family."
The clerk stopped in front of the five men with a formulaic smile and gave a flawless, slight bow.
"Following Chairman Iwasaki's instructions, Mitsubishi Group will fully cooperate with your request to establish a Joint Special Resettlement Office.
To demonstrate our sincerity in investigating the flow of funds, the General Affairs Department worked through the night to transport all original documents involving personnel transfers, logistics procurement, and outsourced work orders from the past ten years from the underground warehouse at Marunouchi headquarters to this location."
The Saionji Information System lead supervisor adjusted his rimless glasses, his gaze sweeping over the boxes that reached the ceiling.
"Mr. Clerk, the responsibility of the joint supervision team is to monitor the flow of the 20 billion yen in new special funds," the supervisor said, his voice steady.
"Providing old archives from the past ten years seems to deviate from the focus of the audit."
The clerk stepped aside and raised his right hand, palm up, gesturing toward the mountain of file boxes inside the factory.
"Mr. Supervisor, this is precisely where Mitsubishi Group's sincerity in pursuing absolute financial transparency lies."
The clerk lowered his hand and folded both hands over his abdomen.
"Your purpose here is to supervise the whereabouts and fund implementation for the five thousand newly recruited workers.
To prove to you that Mitsubishi has not used these special funds to fill past financial gaps, nor disguised any existing employees as newly recruited unemployed laborers, we need you to first establish an objective historical financial and personnel baseline.
Only by having you verify all the old personnel lists and regular procurement documents from the past ten years to build an exclusive database can we ensure, through cross-referencing, that every expenditure of the 20 billion yen in special funds in the future is truly used for newly added unemployment relief."
"There are a total of 23,000 standard file boxes here, containing millions of original invoices and payroll records."
The clerk took half a step back.
"There is a compliance regulation that needs to be explained to you in advance. This factory area was once involved in the processing of heavy machinery components for the Maritime Defense Agency and is a restricted confidential area.
To prevent leaks, we cut all telephone lines and network interfaces connecting this archive to the outside world last night."
He glanced at the black briefcases held by the Saionji Information System supervisors.
"All data verification must be completed within the physical boundaries of this factory. Any attempt to take paper documents or copies out of these iron gates will result in the Mitsubishi Legal Department immediately initiating charges of commercial theft.
To ensure mutual decorum, we ask you supervisors to verify everything here yourselves."
After speaking, the clerk took another half step back and made a gesture of invitation.
He stood by the door, prepared to enjoy the expressions of collapse on the faces of these high-end suit-wearing auditors when faced with this pile of moldy paper.
At normal manual accounting speeds, even if these five people worked without eating or sleeping for three years, they would never find the true whereabouts of those five thousand workers among these twenty thousand boxes.
The Saionji Information System lead supervisor quietly listened to the long-winded confidentiality warning.
He nodded.
"Mitsubishi Group's financial compliance requirements are rigorous. We accept this proposal."
The supervisor's tone was calm. Instead of stepping into the factory, he turned around and gestured toward a row of black SUVs parked on the perimeter of the factory grounds.
The SUV convoy quickly dispersed to both sides.
Three heavy box trucks with "S.A. Data" printed on them had their engines roar deeply as they slowly reversed, their rears aligning with the shipyard gates.
The smile on the Mitsubishi clerk's face faltered slightly. He looked at the massive trucks, his brow furrowing.
Several movers in dark work clothes jumped down from the truck beds. They skillfully opened the metal side panels and pushed several industrial-grade diesel generator sets with huge cooling fans toward the vents.
Then, the tailgates of the trucks slowly lowered.
The Mitsubishi clerk's eyes widened.
The interior of the trucks was not filled with conventional tables, chairs, or shelves, but was a closed space encased in all-metal anti-static panels.
Inside the three trucks, two rows of black UNIX graphics workstations, two sets of local server cabinets with redundant arrays, and six massive American-made high-speed drum scanners with shimmering metallic shells were secured in place.
The Saionji Information System supervisor walked to the truck's tailgate and reached out to pat the cold metal body.
"Mr. Clerk, since Mitsubishi emphasizes that data must never leave the premises, we have specifically brought in this local area network mobile data center."
The supervisor turned his head to look at the stiff-faced clerk.
"This system has had all external communication modules and radio transmitters removed, retaining only the LAN data exchange function.
Data will only flow within the local hard drives, perfectly meeting your physical isolation requirements."
The corner of the clerk's mouth twitched.
"As expected of the Saionji Family, your preparations are indeed thorough." The clerk bowed slightly, his tone carrying a hint of admiration.
"However, as the assisting party, I still have a duty to offer a reminder."
The clerk pointed to the nearest file box.
"The records in these tens of thousands of boxes are mostly the casual handwriting of old employees from ten years ago.
Many of the papers have turned yellow and brittle, and some even have mold spots. I hope your advanced machines can successfully read those old ink marks."
He politely stepped back half a pace, clearing the workspace.
"If, after trying, you supervisors still need to conduct a manual review, please feel free to ask. We at Mitsubishi will provide you with the most sufficient lighting equipment and goggles."
In the mind of this Mitsubishi General Affairs Department clerk, current scanning technology simply could not recognize the scribbled, old-era Japanese kanji stained with water damage. The machine would only produce a pile of blurry, useless photos.
He only needed to stand to the side, maintaining a cooperative posture, and watch these Saionji Family people break down in front of screens filled with garbled code, eventually being forced to manually flip through those scraps of paper again.
The supervisor did not respond to the clerk's feigned kindness. He raised his hand and issued instructions to the technicians behind him.
The diesel generator sets ignited, their low roar echoing through the empty factory area.
Two technicians quickly entered the factory, using utility knives to slice open the outermost file box.
They grabbed a stack of personnel file sheets with yellowed and curled edges, slapped off the dust, and fed them directly into the paper tray of the high-speed drum scanner in the first truck.
The technicians tapped a few times on the mechanical keyboard of the UNIX workstation and pressed the Enter key.
The Mitsubishi clerk stared at the CRT screen inside the truck, trying to find a flaw in their operation.
He saw yellowed forms, scanned into digital images, flashing rapidly across the screen. The handwriting on those forms was incredibly messy, with some parts even blurred into black blobs by ink.
However, the images on the screen only stayed for less than a tenth of a second.
Immediately following, on another monitor to the right of the workstation, a code execution window with a solid black background popped up. Lines of green numbers began to refresh downward like a waterfall.
Accompanying the execution of the code, a clean electronic spreadsheet was generated at the bottom of the screen.
[Name Field: Unrecognizable] [Department Field: Unrecognizable]
[Fund Flow Field: 2,500,000 JPY] [Account Suffix: 4458]
The clerk's breathing stopped.
How could it extract the numbers? Those numbers were clearly mixed in the same box as the handwritten kanji.
He quickly adjusted his slightly stiff facial muscles and replaced his expression with a polite smile once more.
"The Saionji Family's equipment is truly eye-opening," the clerk said, bowing slightly, his tone filled with admiration.
"As far as I know, even with the most cutting-edge image recognition technology available today, it seems difficult to extract numbers so accurately from aged, water-stained handwritten kanji.
May I ask what kind of advanced recognition algorithm your side is using? It has truly been an eye-opener for us."
The supervisor shifted his gaze from the screen to the clerk, his tone flat.
"This is an internal core secret of Saionji Information System. I'm afraid I cannot disclose it."
The clerk could only offer a sheepish smile.
In reality, the success in extracting the data had to be credited to the rigorous bureaucratic system within Mitsubishi.
Over the past decade, the "No. 4A Financial Expenditure Form" and "No. 7B Personnel Scheduling Chart" they had been using had never changed by even a millimeter in border size, table placement, or even the spacing of the margins.
Based on this rigid physical layout, the underlying scraping script simply skipped those handwritten notes.
The program merely locked onto the pixel block at the specific coordinate point of X-axis 150, Y-axis 300 on each scanned image. That was exactly where the 2x4 centimeter box for Mitsubishi's fixed financial transaction flows and bank numbers was located.
This batch scraping targeting fixed coordinates rendered the paper labyrinth the clerk was so proud of completely useless.
The program didn't need to know the specific context of these documents. It only needed to extract the core elements from every piece of paper in those twenty thousand boxes and hand them over to the backend server.
These ten truckloads of waste paper would be converted into a massive and clear "Historical Exclusivity Database" within forty-eight hours.
Once this baseline foundation was established, every newly recruited worker's name and every procurement invoice submitted by Mitsubishi Group for that 20 billion yen special fund would be cross-referenced in real-time within this database.
As long as a single duplicated old invoice appeared in that list of five thousand people, the Saionji Family could take this data and directly accuse Mitsubishi of using old employment records to impersonate unemployed laborers, involving 20 billion yen in financial fraud.
The rigid bureaucratic forms had become the breakthrough point to shatter their defense line.
The clerk watched the total amount on the screen continuously increasing, his legs feeling slightly weak.
Were these people actually going to read through all this data? No, that's not right. Could all this data really be leaked?
"Thank you for providing such complete original vouchers."
The supervisor looked at the clerk, whose face had turned ashen.
"Ten truckloads of base documents. The joint task force will complete the full audit within forty-eight hours," the supervisor said, pointing at the roaring diesel generator set beside the truck bed.
"During the audit, please ensure Mitsubishi provides an ample supply of diesel. Do not let the machines stop running."
...
Vice President Kagawa stopped outside the partially obscured blinds of a document room. Fuji Bank, Akasaka branch, second-floor corridor.
Kagawa pressed his body against the wall, his gaze peering through the slightly tilted gap in the blinds into the document room.
Inside, there was only one employee from the Finance Department in his thirties. This employee had unbuttoned two buttons of his shirt, his tie was pulled askew, and his forehead was covered in fine beads of sweat.
He was sitting in front of an old-fashioned English typewriter, his fingers tapping rapidly and forcefully on the metal keys. Click, click, click... The crisp mechanical tapping sounded exceptionally jarring in the quiet room.
Kagawa's gaze moved past the employee's shoulder, locking onto the piece of paper clamped in the typewriter's roller. It was a certificate of deposit printed with the Fuji Bank header.
As the roller turned, a string of clear black ink numbers was typed into the denomination field: 5,000,000,000 JPY. Five billion yen.
The corner of Kagawa's eye twitched.
It was actually real... How did the Eldest Miss know about this kind of thing...
After Kagawa gained the trust of the board of directors, Satsuki had someone send a letter congratulating him on "moving up."
She also casually gave an instruction: go to the Akasaka branch. Someone is forging fake certificates of deposit. Assist him.
The tapping of the typewriter stopped. The employee let out a long breath, turned the roller to remove the paper, and laid the triplicate document flat on the desk.
The employee tore off the top "customer retention copy" and set it aside separately.
Subsequently, he picked up the "data center copy" and "branch base copy" underneath, which were used for inputting into the clearing host, turned directly, and shoved these two internal vouchers, which should have originally been handed over to the backend for entry, into the shredder in the corner.
Accompanied by the dull chewing sound of the shredder, the physical entry traces of this five-billion deposit within the bank were cut into a pile of waste paper strips.
The employee returned to his seat. He reached deep into the drawer and pulled out a heavy brass seal box.
Kagawa recognized the style; it was the high-level authorized seal that only a branch manager was qualified to hold.
He pressed the seal into the red ink pad and stamped it heavily on the bottom right corner of the "customer retention copy."
Authentic anti-counterfeiting paper, an authentic branch manager's seal. Even if this certificate of deposit were handed over to an external non-bank financial institution, such as a housing loan company, the auditors in their legal department wouldn't be able to find a flaw even with a magnifying glass.
Kagawa watched silently from the corridor. After the Ministry of Finance issued the loan cut-off order, small and medium-sized real estate developers outside were willing to pay extremely high interest rates to borrow money.
And this employee had forged this five-billion certificate of deposit and handed it to an external client. As long as that client held this certificate, they could use it as collateral at a non-bank financial institution to defraud them of massive loans.
This five billion created out of thin air had never entered Fuji Bank's clearing host and was completely outside the monitoring vision of the head office.
As long as that client could repay the money within the deadline, this employee could extract a massive kickback, then quietly destroy this fake certificate of deposit, leaving no trace.
Kagawa stood where he was, quietly watching the employee stuff the fake certificate into his briefcase.
According to the bank's compliance procedures, he should push open this door right now, call the security personnel downstairs to pin this fraudulent employee to the ground, and then hand him over to the judicial authorities. But Kagawa did not move.
He recalled the 7.5 billion promissory note that Managing Director Endo had pushed in front of him in that private meeting room at the S-Palace Hotel, as well as the agreement he had personally signed to sell out the head office's secrets.
He had no way back now. Those old fogies on the head office board of directors would push him out to be a scapegoat at the slightest sign of trouble.
He needed a nuclear bomb that could blow up Fuji Bank at any time and force the board of directors to beg him for mercy.
The low-level employee before his eyes who forged certificates of deposit out of greed was a ready-made fuse. A five-billion hole wasn't fatal to the massive Fuji Bank.
This cancer needed time to grow. It needed a safe environment to let it expand to the scale of one hundred billion or two hundred billion.
Kagawa did not push the door open. He stepped back half a step and left the Akasaka branch via the employee staircase.
...
Fuji Bank Head Office, Vice President's private office. Kagawa sat behind the large desk.
He removed the cap of his fountain pen and pressed the nib above the Akasaka branch column of the "Bank-wide Internal Inspection and Physical Seal Inventory Schedule."
As the newly appointed "Internal Risk Investigation Team Leader" of the head office, he had the final signing authority over the audit schedules of all branches.
The fountain pen drew a distinct circle next to the words "Akasaka branch, Finance Department."
Subsequently, Kagawa wrote a note in the blank space at the bottom of the form:
[This branch has recently shown excellent business data, and its internal risk control is sound. Upon the resolution of the investigation team, it is exempted from this quarter's head office surprise vault inspection and physical seal verification.]
After writing the last character, Kagawa put down the fountain pen. He pulled open the drawer and took out the red official seal that represented the authority of a Vice President. At the end of that note, he stamped his seal.
From this moment on, the Akasaka branch became an extraterritorial enclave beyond the law.
That employee would, over the next few months, completely lose all physical oversight and surprise inspections from the head office. He could tap away at that old-fashioned typewriter with impunity, dragging Fuji Bank into the abyss.