Early October 1991, Tokyo.
Hongo, Saionji Main Residence.
A little past 3:00 PM, the sunlight in the courtyard had already begun to slant.
The small sitting room on the west side of the main residence did not have the overhead lights turned on, and the light from outside the floor-to-ceiling windows passed through the trees in the courtyard that were just beginning to turn yellow, falling diagonally between the carpet and the low table.
A light-colored sofa was placed by the window.
Satsuki was sunk entirely into it, with one leg curled to her side, holding a small white porcelain dish in her hand.
On the dish was a piece of chestnut cake freshly sent from the kitchen.
She didn't like things too sweet, so the cream made by the kitchen was spread in only a thin layer, and not much sugar was put into the chestnut paste either.
Satsuki used a silver fork to cut a small corner, put it into her mouth, and chewed slowly, but her gaze remained fixed just a few steps away.
Kenjiro was sitting there.
An open folder was spread across his knees, and several other stacks of categorized materials were placed beside his hand.
"...On Saionji Construction's side, last month they requested a recalculation of the equipment procurement budget for the Odaiba Phase II project. I had them break down the original quotation into five parts: the equipment itself, transportation, installation, maintenance, and subsequent consumables, and submit it again."
"The final total hasn't changed much, but among them, three suppliers have driven down the first year's maintenance fee very low, while the prices for the subsequent three years are significantly higher than similar contracts."
"In response to this situation, the procurement department has already renegotiated."
Kenjiro turned the page.
"And S-Food. The supply volume from Hokkaido to the Prince Hotel this winter is expected to continue to rise; the cold storage capacity is temporarily sufficient, but the transportation peak from Sapporo to several ski resorts will require additional backup vehicles."
"I've already told logistics to rent them first, not buy."
"At least run through a complete snow season before deciding whether to expand the fleet."
Satsuki's hand holding the fork paused for a moment.
This decision was quite prudent indeed.
Kenjiro didn't notice her subtle movement, lowered his head to look at the documents, and continued to talk about several internal tasks of the S.A. Group.
From the office equipment repeatedly purchased among several subsidiaries, to the relocation order of various departments after Odaiba is successively put into use, down to how several companies newly incorporated into the system should connect to Saionji's original financial, logistics, and procurement network.
These matters were all trivial and could not be considered particularly earth-shattering.
But to truly sort them out one by one was by no means as simple as it appeared on the surface.
Especially before Satsuki went to the United States, she directly packaged and handed over a considerable portion of affairs originally coordinated by Endo and the Head of Household's Office to Kenjiro.
At the time, she actually harbored some intention of testing him.
Whether the uncle could actually be of use after returning could not always be proven by how many bags of cement he carried six years ago or how many problems he spotted in the warehouse.
Once truly inside the S.A. Group, with dozens of companies operating together, every department felt that its own matters were the most important, and every person in charge could produce a complete set of reasons to prove why others should cooperate with them.
At a time like this, whether one could still suppress and manage things was the true ability.
"In addition, regarding Sanyo—"
Kenjiro was preparing to continue, but his voice slowly trailed off.
The room fell silent for a few seconds.
He raised his head.
Only a little less than half of the chestnut cake in Satsuki's hand remained.
Yet she was neither looking at the plate nor the documents in her own hand.
She was looking at him.
To be precise, she was looking at his stomach.
Kenjiro looked down at himself with some puzzlement.
A dark gray suit jacket with a white shirt inside.
His tie was also tied properly.
It seemed there was no problem at all?
He raised his head again.
Satsuki's gaze was still fixed there.
"...Satsuki."
"Hmm?"
"Are you listening?"
"I am listening."
Satsuki swallowed a bite of cake and replied.
Only after finishing, she looked Kenjiro up and down once more, and finally her gaze fell back near his waist and abdomen.
"Hmm..."
Kenjiro was even more baffled.
But Satsuki suddenly nodded.
"You really have lost weight."
"Lost weight?"
"Father said that Uncle has already undergone a transformation."
Satsuki moved the cake dish a little closer to her knees and looked at him seriously again.
"Now it seems, at least on the outside, that's the case."
"Uh..."
For a moment, Kenjiro didn't know whether he should interpret this sentence as praise or something else entirely.
But thinking carefully, he really had lost weight over this past month or so.
When Satsuki was in the United States, the memo she left him followed him almost every day. Running between the headquarters and several companies during the day, and having things left behind by Endo to review when returning home at night.
On the busiest days, he even solved lunch inside the car.
He had already lost quite a bit of weight at the construction site, but he didn't expect it to continue dropping even after returning to the main residence.
Thinking on the bright side, at least he was no longer some greasy uncle.
Looking at the man before her—whom it was already hard to connect with that pot-bellied uncle from six years ago who thought only of rapidly expanding the factory even while sitting at a funeral—Satsuki felt more and more satisfied the more she looked.
Ever since concluding that six-year-long "family trial" and returning to Saionji, Kenjiro had begun taking over the S.A. Group's affairs bit by bit.
Initially, it was just some work within the Head of Household's Office that required cross-company coordination.
Later, when Endo returned to work and the doctor only allowed him to work half a day every day, a large amount of matters originally weighing on Endo naturally continued to remain with Kenjiro.
As a result, doing it step by step, even Satsuki began to feel somewhat surprised.
This convenient uncle seemed to have genuinely been tempered and honed.
Needless to say about the past, he was of the direct lineage of the Saionji House and had also sat in the position of executive director, so he knew what the upper echelons were thinking.
Then he spent another six years at the bottom, holding positions too numerous to count on two hands, so he also knew how the grass-roots level would operate.
When headquarters issued a notice, passing down layer by layer through department managers, Section Chiefs, and supervisors, what it would finally look like when it reached the site, he knew clearly.
When a pretty report was sent up from below, what might be hidden in the middle, he also knew clearly.
What was more troublesome was that most of those little tricks used by the lower levels to deal with superiors were things he had seen with his own eyes.
Some he had even done with his own hands.
Coupled with the financial, logistics, and management knowledge he had crammed over the past few years, once the experience from both directions was pieced together, the resulting effect was even better than Satsuki had originally anticipated.
Now, truly speaking of comprehensive management ability within the S.A. Group, Kenjiro had become part of the very top tier.
In some areas, even Endo might not be as sensitive as him.
More importantly—
His surname was Saionji.
Placed within today's S.A. Group, this condition was simply precious to an excessive degree.
Those outstanding professional managers outside could all be in charge of a company, or even manage a business group.
But family funds, SIS, overseas accounts, political and business connections, and those things that would never appear in any public organizational structure—someone had to be able to touch them.
For such positions, ability was merely the threshold.
Trust was the hardest thing to find.
Thinking of this, Satsuki placed the porcelain dish in her hand onto the table.
Then she stood up.
Kenjiro watched with his own eyes as she bypassed the low table and came to his side.
"Uncle."
"What is it?"
Satsuki raised her hand with a serious expression.
Kenjiro looked at her, then looked at the hand clearly heading for his shoulder, fell silent for a fraction of a second, and very naturally bent his knees a little.
Satsuki successfully patted his shoulder.
She patted it twice with satisfaction.
"You've changed."
That tone was so aged and pretentious, it was just like some seventy- or eighty-year-old retainer evaluating a younger generation.
"You are truly worthy of the family's cultivation!"
The corners of Kenjiro's mouth twitched upward unnaturally, which he suppressed, and then they twitched again.
"Not at all..."
While Kenjiro was being modest with his mouth, his hand subconsciously rose to touch the shoulder that Satsuki had just patted.
Satsuki had already turned around, preparing to return to the sofa.
Looking at that retreating figure, he still couldn't help speaking up.
"So, Satsuki."
"Hmm?"
Satsuki stopped and turned back to look at him.
Kenjiro gave a light cough, trying hard to make his tone sound casual.
"Those six years of mine... they really count as the family's trial, right?"
"Why is Uncle suddenly asking about this again?"
"Just confirming."
Kenjiro raised the documents in his hand slightly.
"After all, you just mentioned 'family cultivation' earlier."
Satsuki blinked.
Then she nodded very naturally.
"Of course."
After speaking, she walked back to the sofa and picked up the plate of dessert from earlier.
"Otherwise, what did Uncle think the family spent so much effort for?"
"...That's true."
Kenjiro nodded solemnly.
After Satsuki sat down again, he lowered his head to adjust his tie and pulled down the hem of his suit jacket.
Yet the corners of his mouth simply couldn't be kept down.
Why did hearing those words feel so satisfying?
Especially coming out of Satsuki's mouth.
She herself admitted it out loud.
Those six years of his were indeed a trial!
And not just what he had previously deduced as 'should be.'
Now it was personally stamped and approved by Satsuki herself.
Kenjiro settled back down with a fairly good mood and adjusted the folder on his knees upward.
In fact, ever since returning to Saionji, he had also specifically looked into this matter.
After all, the data access permissions he could touch nowadays were completely different from six years ago.
The permissions Satsuki gave him were shockingly high.
As long as it did not involve her personal highest-level private information, a vast amount of internal family materials could be directly accessed.
One evening after work ended, he specifically had people pull up the old files related to himself from six years ago.
As a result of this investigation, it made his original judgment even firmer.
The first construction site job indeed had someone putting in a word for him.
Later on, the positions at the Shinagawa warehouse, delivery company, cold storage, and machinery plant could all be traced along internal records.
As for his wife's cleaning job, people at the property management company had likewise received hints about it.
Even the debts that had originally chased him down for collection had long been quietly bought up by a company associated with Saionji.
The other party continued to collect debts in the original manner.
Wages were deducted as usual.
Interest was calculated as usual.
The only extra requirement was that violent debt collection was strictly prohibited, and people could not be pushed to the brink of survival.
When he saw this, Kenjiro sat in the archive room for a very long time.
As expected.
The family had always been watching him.
However, there was still one question that never found an answer.
Why did they happen to make him go through the grassroots levels of almost all of Saionji's important industries?
This part completely lacked any so-called "six-year training program."
Many arrangements even came directly from Shuichi.
It looked as if it were truly just decisions made temporarily, time and time again, after the older brother's heart softened.
But Kenjiro knew Shuichi.
That his older brother would worry about him starving to death and secretly handle troubles for him—these he believed.
To have his older brother design a complete training path spanning construction, warehousing, logistics, retail, food, and manufacturing six years in advance?
He wouldn't believe it even if it killed him.
And Satsuki happened to know everything.
Then who else could the answer be?
Thinking of this, the action of him flipping through the documents suddenly paused.
"Right."
Kenjiro pulled one out from that stack of materials.
"Speaking of which, if I hadn't spent so much time down at the grassroots before, I really might not have been able to spot a problem this time."
"Oh?"
Satsuki had just scooped a small spoonful of dessert and raised her eyes upon hearing this.
Kenjiro flipped the document to the middle page.
"The Kanto cold chain adjustment report sent over by S-Logistics last month."
He stood up, walked over to the coffee table, and handed that document to Satsuki.
"On these routes from the Chiba distribution center to western Tokyo, they made the vehicle utilization rate look very good."
"Originally, the average load factor was only seventy-one percent, but after adjustments, it reached eighty-six percent. The transportation cost per ton of goods also dropped by nearly ten percent."
"Just looking at this table, the person in charge should even get a bonus."
Satsuki took the document.
The several sets of numbers on it were indeed quite impressive.
"There's a problem?"
"Yes."
Kenjiro sat down beside her and reached out to flip to the back.
"I didn't catch it at first either."
"But when I saw this part, I felt it was a bit strange."
His finger stopped on a very inconspicuous line of numbers.
Number of temporary supplementary deliveries.
Nearly forty percent more than last month.
"The explanation given by the person in charge was that with the recent increase in stores and the new routes just beginning to be integrated, allocation errors occasionally occur."
"That also sounds reasonable."
Kenjiro turned another page.
"Yet the vehicle utilization rate of their regular routes had only just increased, while temporary supplementary deliveries had increased by so much."
"Putting these two numbers together reminded me of when I used to work the night shift in Chiba."
Satsuki raised her eyes.
Kenjiro had already pulled out another copy.
Those were several dispatch records.
"What is cold chain delivery most afraid of?"
"Empty trucks wasting money."
"Therefore, one thing site supervisors love to do most is to pool as many goods as possible before dispatching."
"I've seen it when I worked the night shift. If a truck that was supposed to leave at 10 PM was only seventy percent loaded, some shift supervisors would deliberately wait for another batch of goods arriving at 11 PM."
"In this way, the truck was full."
"And the load factor on the table looked good too."
"The problem is—"
Kenjiro reached out and tapped one of the times.
"The store that was originally supposed to arrive at 12:30 became 1:30."
"For those further down, it might drag on until three or four in the morning."
"If it were just regular dry goods, being a bit late wouldn't be a big problem. But refrigerated foods, fresh foods from central kitchens, and things to be put on shelves early the next morning all had their own timelines."
"When stores ran out of stock, they couldn't just close the shelves and wait for headquarters to slowly deliver."
"So they would call to urge them."
"Once urged, the distribution center would temporarily dispatch a small vehicle to supplement."
Kenjiro placed the third item in front of Satsuki.
This time it was expense sheets from several stores.
"The money for the temporary trucks was not counted in normal trunk line transportation."
"Part of it went into store emergency delivery fees, and another part was counted under regional operation expenses."
"Therefore, S-Logistics's own transportation costs did indeed decrease."
"Yet the actual money spent by the group would instead be more than before."
Satsuki lowered her head to look at those receipts and frowned slightly.
Without Kenjiro's kind of "grassroots" experience, she truly wouldn't have been able to spot this problem.
Well, well, someone actually dared to steal the group's money like this?
Kenjiro didn't notice Satsuki's expression and continued:
"Therefore, I had someone pull out a month's worth of arrival times, out-of-stock records, and temporary supplementary deliveries for twelve stores to cross-check them all."
"The most obvious lines all had this situation."
"The trucks were full."
"The delivery reports also looked good."
"It's just that the costs were shifted from the logistics company's accounts to the stores and regional operations."
Saying this, he leaned back slightly.
"Back when I sat in the office, I probably would have only seen a nine percent drop in transportation costs, and then asked them if they could drop another two points next month."
"But after working in the distribution center, I know what kind of places people at the bottom would tamper with just to make a table look good."
"Especially things crossing companies like this."
"S-Logistics only needed to be responsible for its own numbers, and the stores' temporary expenses were none of their concern."
"If no one looked at both sides together from the group level, both sides could even claim they did nothing wrong."
Satsuki's page-turning action paused for a moment.
"Who came up with this?"
Kenjiro was stunned for a moment.
"You mean this scheduling method?"
"Mm."
Satsuki raised her head and tapped her finger twice on one of the temporary supplementary delivery sheets.
"Making one's own load factor and unit transportation cost look good, and then having the stores pay out of pocket for supplementary deliveries."
"Isn't this just using the group's money as a stepping stone for one's own performance appraisal?"
She lowered her head to look at the numbers again.
"Did the person in charge know?"
"Known."
Kenjiro didn't cover for the other party.
"However, I didn't discipline him directly."
Satsuki's brows furrowed a bit more immediately.
Seeing her reaction, Kenjiro quickly added another sentence.
"Because if we really trace it down, the problem doesn't entirely lie with him."
As he spoke, he pulled out the last page and placed it in front of Satsuki.
"In S-Logistics's original appraisal, load factor and unit trunk line costs weighed too heavily, while the stores' temporary supplementary deliveries, out-of-stock items, and the extra expenses incurred by regional companies because of this were not counted against them."
"If I were sitting in that position and only looking at my own appraisal sheet, after a long time, I'd probably also find a way to pack the truck as full as possible before dispatching."
Satsuki had been somewhat displeased, but hearing this, her gaze fell back onto the documents.
Kenjiro pressed his finger down on the new table.
"So I first changed the appraisal criteria."
"From now on, load factor, trunk line transportation expenses, punctuality rate, stores' temporary supplementary deliveries, and out-of-stock losses will be evaluated together."
"If he wants to rely on waiting for goods to fill up a truck again, he'll first have to calculate whether those following items will wipe out his bonus."
Satsuki looked for a few seconds.
The brows that had been slightly furrowed just now slowly relaxed.
"I see."
She picked up the new appraisal table and scanned through it from the beginning again.
"First plug the loophole that lets people do this, and then see if anyone continues to exploit it."
"Right."
Kenjiro nodded.
"For the problems created under the old system, I only gave a warning."
"The new system is already down there. Anyone who does this again in the future will have nothing to explain."
This time, Satsuki nodded several times in a row.
"Mm-hm."
"Handling it this way is very good."
She put the document back on the coffee table and couldn't help adding another sentence.
"Otherwise, just replacing the person in charge would likely lead to another one popping up a few months later."
Kenjiro's eyes immediately gained a bit of smugness.
"I thought so too."
After Kenjiro finished speaking, he reached out to take back the documents.
Satsuki did not let go immediately.
She lowered her head to look at that new appraisal table again, then looked at the uncle in front of her who clearly looked quite smug, and suddenly felt that her father's stroke of blind luck back then turned out to be surprisingly effective.
This kind of problem, even if she sat in the head of the family's room and read ten reports, she might not necessarily be able to spot it. At most, she would use even greater profits strategically to cover up this "insignificant" loss.
But with Saionji's expansion, how many such "insignificant" losses would there be?
At this time, having someone like Kenjiro who could timely detect and correct it was very necessary.
He only needed to see a few supplementary delivery sheets to know what kind of tricks the people below were playing.
Thinking of this, Satsuki instantly became even more satisfied.
"As expected."
"What?"
Kenjiro looked at her.
Satsuki then released the document and said with a serious expression:
"Sending Uncle to spend those years down at the grassroots was necessary."