The first envelope. New York postmark. Encryption code starting with "F."
Frank.
A letter opener sliced along the seal, and three pages of A4 paper in full English were pulled out.
Satsuki's gaze lingered on the numbers the longest. As for the rest of the text, she scanned through it line by line and turned the page.
"How much is it?" Shuichi asked from beside her. Although he had promised not to open the letters, that didn't mean he hadn't been running the figures in his head over the past few days.
"Thirty-eight billion dollars."
Shuichi caught his breath. The hand holding his teacup paused in midair.
Thirty-eight billion.
The number was so large it lost any sense of reality.
Salomon Brothers' clearing channel was like a dark river, quietly swallowing and spitting out that astronomical flow of funds, yet not a single ripple could be seen on the surface.
"Frank has done a good job," Shuichi said slowly as he set down his teacup. "He put in a lot of effort to get this dark channel to this scale without being noticed."
"Mm." Satsuki nodded. "However—"
Her gaze fell to the last line. A footnote. The font size was two points smaller than the main text, tucked into the bottom margin.
"Arthur Vance was recently transferred to the CFTC, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Suggest monitoring."
Satsuki tapped her index finger on that line. The arc of her fingernail pressed down on the four letters: CFTC.
"Vance?" Shuichi frowned. "Someone from the SEC?"
"Mm. Transferred to the CFTC."
"From securities regulation to commodity futures regulation…" Shuichi's brow furrowed even tighter. "Is he eyeing our crude oil positions?"
"It's too early to draw conclusions." Satsuki drew a tiny circle next to the footnote with a pencil—meaning continue to track.
"But since Frank specifically mentioned it in a footnote, he must have sensed something. Just have Frank keep an eye on it."
Shuichi nodded. "This Vance—I remember Endo mentioned him before. Very stubborn."
"Yes. That's why we need to watch him closely."
The second envelope. No postmark. Delivered directly via SIS internal logistics. The envelope was made of anti-static composite paper, with a subtle matte grain on the surface.
A letter from Dr. Klaus Weber.
She opened it.
It was a handwritten report in German. The letter paper was standard A4 engineering paper with pre-printed grid lines along the edges. Weber's handwriting filled five pages densely.
"Weber can't stop once he starts writing," Shuichi said, leaning over to glance at the dense German script. "Wasn't the last report three pages? Why are there two more this time?"
"Because he ran into a new problem."
Satsuki flipped to the middle of the fourth page. A schematic diagram of the reflective optical system architecture took up the entire second page.
Her gaze stopped on a paragraph of text.
"Multi-layer coating process—Mo/Si alternating sputtering—target purity must reach 99.999%.
Existing domestic suppliers can only provide 99.99%. The gap is in the fifth decimal place. Impurities at this decimal place will cause reflectivity to drop from the theoretical value of 67.5% to 61.2%. Unacceptable."
"A digit in the fifth decimal place," Satsuki said, turning the report around so Shuichi could see the numbers clearly. "A six-percentage-point difference in reflectivity."
Shuichi looked at the numbers and was silent for two seconds.
"Is it really impossible… if it's just that little bit off?"
"This is the world of semiconductor lithography," Satsuki said, turning the report back to continue reading.
"A single speck of dust can determine success or failure. The zero between 99.99% and 99.999% could be the difference worth billions of dollars."
She flipped to the last page. Weber's handwritten German had grown a bit sloppier, as if he'd been in a rush near the end.
"Wenn wir die Magnetron-Sputteranlage aus Jena bekommen könnten, wäre das Problem gelöst."
—If we could get that magnetron sputtering equipment from Jena, the problem could be solved.
"Jena…" Shuichi whispered the name of the place. "Zeiss."
"Yes. Zeiss's home base."
Satsuki closed the report and placed it on the left side of the desk. She wrote two letters on the cover with a pencil: "J.K."
"Weber wants equipment from Zeiss," Shuichi said, leaning back in his chair. "That's not something you can just buy with money."
"That's why we need to think of other ways." Satsuki didn't elaborate, but Shuichi knew from the look on her face—she was already working on a solution.
The third envelope. Brown kraft paper. Very thin. The seal was wax, embossed with a tiny chrysanthemum pattern.
It was from Kagawa.
She opened it. There were two items inside.
An A3-sized table, folded in thirds. When unfolded, the horizontal axis showed dates, and the vertical axis listed company names.
The internal credit ratings of the three core affiliates of the Fuyo Group—Nippon Steel Pipe, Nissan Chemical, and Taisei Corporation—were all listed. Next to the numbers were red arrows.
All pointing downward.
The other document was the first monthly statement of the "Tobashi Account" at the Akasaka branch. Just two thin sheets of paper. But the numbers on them—
Satsuki narrowed her eyes. The corners of her mouth slowly curled up.
"Kagawa has started to deliver."
Shuichi also leaned over to look at the statement.
"Speaking of Kagawa—" He picked up his teacup. "He sent a message through an intermediary last week. He said his position at the bank has temporarily stabilized. But Fuji Bank has a round of internal personnel changes next month."
Shuichi's voice dropped by half a degree.
"He hopes we can inform him of the list in advance."
Satsuki folded the two documents, tucked them back into the envelope, and placed it on the right side of the desk.
"He's just timid," Satsuki said, shaking her head with a trace of helplessness in her tone. "Every time there's the slightest disturbance at the bank, he's the first one to panic."
"However…" She wrote four words on the back of the envelope: "Endo to follow up."
"Timid people are actually easier to use," Shuichi said with a smile.
"Father… is wise∼."
The fourth envelope. White. SIS letterhead.
Mitsubishi audit.
Scanning completion: 80%. Preliminary anomaly discovered—an off-balance-sheet special purpose entity under Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, English abbreviation SPC. Scale: approximately 120 billion yen.
Satsuki tapped her index finger lightly on the desk.
"Father."
"Hmm?"
"There's an unexpected surprise. Mitsubishi is hiding a big one."
Shuichi leaned forward slightly. "How big?"
"120 billion. Off-balance-sheet SPC."
Shuichi's eyebrows shot up. He set the teacup onto the armrest.
"120 billion…" He repeated the number. "Hidden off-balance sheet?"
"Mm. If we hadn't forcibly scanned ten truckloads of paper files page by page to build a database, this entity would probably have stayed hidden for several more years." Satsuki wrote a line of small text in the upper right corner of the report: "Remaining 20%, deadline one week."
"Hah." Shuichi leaned back in his chair and shook his head. "They really know how to hide things."
"This shows that what's inside is worth digging for," Satsuki said, closing the report and setting it on the right side. "The remaining twenty percent must be scanned within a week. We can't give them time to react."
The fifth.
There was a sticky note attached to the envelope. The note had the letterhead of the University of Tokyo Faculty of Engineering, and a smiley face was drawn on it with a black marker, crooked and wobbly.
Emi.
When Satsuki saw that smiley face, her entire aura softened by a few degrees.
"A smiley face again," Shuichi said, also seeing the sticky note, and shook his head with a smile. "This girl draws one every time."
"Because it's Emi," Satsuki said, opening the envelope. Her tone carried obvious favoritism.
Three pages. The first two were the test report for the third-generation prototype of the hardware gateway board. Data, charts, timing diagrams. Throughput had increased fourfold compared to the second generation.
"Fourfold." Satsuki looked at the numbers, a satisfied light shining in her eyes. "This girl's progress is even faster than I expected."
The third page was a handwritten memo from Emi. The handwriting was crooked and slanted, and some places were covered with correction fluid, with the words rewritten beside them.
"Professor Murai said: The main line of the WIDE backbone network is going to expand capacity and upgrade speed next month.
He asked me if I could make a custom version of the gateway that adapts to the new bandwidth. I said I could. (Actually, I haven't fully figured out how to do it yet, but I promised first!)"
The sentence in parentheses had been crossed out by Emi herself with a wavy line. But the ink was too light, and it couldn't be crossed out completely. Every word was still clearly visible.
Satsuki held the page up to the window light and looked at it again, then laughed out loud.
"This girl… 'Promised first,'" she said, putting down the paper and shaking her head gently. "It's really her style."
Shuichi also leaned over to look at the crossed-out parentheses.
"…Her personality is actually quite similar to yours back then."
Satsuki paused. "Me?"
"Mm." Shuichi's gaze grew distant. "You were like that when you were little too. You'd make big promises first, then try your hardest to find a way to fulfill them. And every time, you managed to."
Satsuki pursed her lips. For once, she didn't respond.
She wrote one word in the lower right corner of the report: "Approved."
The sixth. Dark gray envelope. No markings. The sealing wax on the seal was a miniature dagger—the internal mark of the S.A. Security Department.
Dojima Gen.
Middle East Security Briefing.
The second round of rotation for the special task force is complete. Personnel status is good. Ammunition and medical supplies are well-stocked.
The scale of coalition forces gathering within a thirty-kilometer radius continues to expand. Prediction: The time window for launching a ground offensive is within sixty to ninety days.
There was only one line of text at the end of the report: "Request: Is it necessary to evacuate non-combat personnel in advance?"
Shuichi saw the header mark of that report from the side and was silent for two seconds. The matter in the Middle East—it was always a heavy stone in his heart.
"Over there… how is the situation?" His tone grew serious.
"Dojima is asking whether to evacuate people in advance." Satsuki drew a line under "sixty to ninety days" with a pencil. "Don't evacuate for now. Have them stand by."
Shuichi didn't press for specific military judgment—that wasn't his area of expertise. But he couldn't help adding:
"Have Endo confirm the logistics supplies for the front line again. They can't be short. People are the most important."
Satsuki stopped writing and looked at Shuichi.
Father's focus is always on "people."
Well, that's not wrong either.
"Okay. I'll have Endo verify it again."
She wrote a note in the blank space: "No evacuation for now. Stand by."
The last one. White envelope, with a tiny anchor pattern printed in the upper left corner. It was Itakura's mark.
She opened it.
Registration schedule for the Hong Kong shell company "S.A. Industrial (Shanghai) Limited."
The candidate for the legal representative had been locked in. Name: Lucas Sterling. Canadian passport. Vancouver resident.
Engaged in trade brokerage for over twenty years. No political organization background. No criminal record. No history of media exposure.
Itakura wrote a sentence in the remarks column: "The level of cleanliness of this person is rare in the Vancouver Chinese business community. Confirmed usable. Expected to complete all procedures within two weeks."
Satsuki closed the document.
"The shell company in Pudong will be established within two weeks." She placed the document on the right, turned her head to look at Shuichi, and the corners of her mouth curled up slightly.
"You see, the arrangements for going to Shanghai in three years have already begun."
Shuichi smiled. He thought of what his daughter had said earlier about "going to eat crab roe xiaolongbao" and "shengjian."
"All right. You'll be in charge of leading the way, and I'll be in charge of eating."