Rebirth in Japan: The Heiress Who Conquered the World

Satsuki pushed her teacup aside and picked up the folder again.

She flipped to the page with Weber’s personnel list and tapped her finger on the first name.

”The first type — people.”

Her speaking speed was faster than before. Endo could feel it — Satsuki had switched from ”gathering information” mode to ”deconstructing problems” mode.

”Gruber, Lange, Hoffmann...”

”After reunification, the legal status of these three men is that of West German citizens. As ordinary citizens, they are naturally free to move, and of course, free to choose their own employment.”

She pushed the list a little closer to Endo.

”We can choose to go through work visas and sign formal employment contracts. We will hire them to come to Japan as foreign citizens.”

”Therefore, the legal risk is not high.”

She paused for a moment.

”The only competitive risk is whether West German Carl Zeiss will also want to keep Gruber.”

Endo nodded.

”Yes. Gruber does aspheric ultra-precision grinding. His ability is too conspicuous. If West German Carl Zeiss notices him in advance, no matter how high our offer is, we might not be able to take him away.”

Satsuki took a sip of tea. Her brows furrowed slightly at the astringency, but she quickly returned to her upright posture.

”Might not?”

She repeated the word, her voice trailing off softly.

Endo immediately corrected himself.

”We need to confirm whether they have already included Gruber on their retention list.”

”Very good.”

Satsuki placed the teacup back on the saucer and pressed her fingertips against the corner of the document page.

”Use that company in Frankfurt.”

Endo looked up.

”S.A. Precision Optics GmbH?”

”Mm.”

Satsuki pointed at the company name on the list.

”When it was registered last year, its purpose was to provide Weber with a legal identity for his activities in Europe. Now it can take on a little more work.”

”Set up an office in Jena,” Satsuki said. ”The pretext will be ’East German Optical Talent Re-employment Support.’ Actively responding to the federal government’s call to ’rebuild the East,’ providing overseas employment opportunities for unemployed optical technicians.”

She held up three fingers.

”But in reality, we will only precisely target these three people. As for the rest, just symbolically recruit a few capable people as cover.”

”Pay attention to the scale of the job fair. It is best to hold it in a semi-public form so as not to alert West German Carl Zeiss. Offer a salary 1.2 times that of West German peers, plus a full family resettlement plan — housing, children’s education, and retirement security.”

Endo quickly calculated the cost in his mind. Three people plus their families, all migrating to Japan, including resettlement costs and the first three years of salary guarantees — about 200 to 300 million yen. On S.A.’s books, this figure didn’t even count as a rounding error.

Endo closed his notebook.

”The Frankfurt office can be operational today. The Jena office can be set up as a branch using an existing shell company. We can have the sign up within a week at the earliest.”

”The second type, knowledge.”

Satsuki turned to the page about the recipe notebooks from the Jena glass factory.

”Over thirty volumes of handwritten notebooks. Legally, they are state-owned assets belonging to the Jena glass factory.”

”After reunification, they will be handed over to the Schott Group along with the enterprise.”

She looked up.

”Putting the notebooks in a box and taking them away directly is called theft of federal property.”

Endo stood motionless, waiting for her to continue.

”But what we really need,” Satsuki flipped that page over and pressed it against the table, ”is the content recorded inside.”

She leaned back in her chair.

”For this situation, I have prepared two plans.”

”The main plan: acquire knowledge through people.”

”Lange has worked at the Jena glass factory for over twenty years. The composition ratios, firing curves, and annealing parameters are all stored in his brain.”

”If we successfully recruit Lange, after he joins us, we will have him reorganize the entire recipe system based on his professional memory under the guise of ’rebuilding the experimental database’ —”

She paused for a beat.

”Legally, this is called ’personal skill transfer.’ No law can prohibit a person from using the professional knowledge they have legally mastered.”

Endo ran through this logic chain in his mind.

As long as Lange himself signed a new employment contract and did not take any physical media such as paper, disks, or film from the Jena glass factory, the knowledge in his head was his own.

But he also noticed a problem.

”Milady,” Endo spoke up, his tone cautious. ”Twenty years of recipe data — even for Lange himself, it is likely difficult to guarantee complete and accurate reproduction. Composition ratios are precise to two decimal places, and annealing curves involve time parameters for different temperature steps... Human memory ultimately has limits.”

Satsuki swirled the tea in her cup.

”I know.”

She pressed her temples. It seemed the hangover was still affecting her.

”Therefore, the ’people’ in the phrase ’acquire knowledge through people’ does not just mean Lange alone.”

She flipped the file back to the page with Weber’s notes and tapped her finger on a line of annotations.

”Weber mentioned in the notes that Lange had trained at least four technicians. Two of them had been with him for over ten years, and the other two for five to seven years.”

She moved her finger away from the line of text and returned to an upright sitting posture.

”The system of glass recipes is very vast, but it can be broken down into modules.”

She extended her fingers, ticking them off one by one.

”Raw material composition. This is Lange’s core territory. He is most familiar with it.”

”Melting temperature curves and stirring parameters. These are things at the daily operational level that people who have followed him for ten years repeat every day.”

”Annealing process — heating rate, holding time, cooling steps — this part is where memory bias is most likely to occur because the correction coefficients for different batches are different. But if two or three people recall it independently and then cross-check it...”

She stopped.

She glanced at Endo.

Endo picked up: ”The errors can be identified.”

”Mm,” Satsuki nodded. ”A person’s memory can have biases. But if for the same annealing curve, Lange writes down one number and his student writes down the same number, then that number is highly likely to be correct. If the two sides don’t match — then mark it as questionable, and verify it later through experiments.”

She placed the teacup back on the saucer.

”Therefore, we must get at least two of Lange’s four students. The priority is after Gruber and Hoffmann, but before the ’cover recruitment’ quota.”

Endo quickly jotted it down in his notebook.

Satsuki continued.

”The working method after the personnel are in place...”

”Step one: let Lange himself independently conduct a round of systematic recall and organization. Categorize by glass type — one volume for zero-expansion series, one for optical crown series, one for infrared transmission series. Each volume should be laid out in four stages: ’composition-melting-annealing-inspection.’ Give him plenty of time. Do not rush him.”

”Step two: the students separately record the recipes they have handled. No communication with Lange, no referencing each other.”

”Step three: cross-check. Compare Lange’s version with the students’ versions item by item. If they match, they go directly into the database. If there are discrepancies, mark them as disputed, and subsequently arrange small-scale firing experiments to verify which version is closer to the true parameters.”

Her voice was flat and clear as she read slowly.

”Doing this has another benefit,” Satsuki added. ”Even if Lange has indeed forgotten details on some obscure recipes, his students may not have forgotten the same parts. People’s memory blind spots are different. By covering for each other, we can reconstruct the full picture to the greatest extent.”

Endo closed his notebook, then opened it again.

”Lange’s four students were only written with numbers and job descriptions in Weber’s notes, no names. We need to have Weber confirm.”

”Go ask today,” Satsuki said. ”Have Weber list the complete names. Name, age, area of specialization, family status.”

She paused for a moment.

”Also...”

”Before Lange officially leaves Jena, give him a special task.”

Endo waited.

”Have him read through all thirty-plus notebooks again during his final time there.”

Her voice lowered a degree.

”Find any excuse — ’internal inventory for handover’ or ’assisting the Trust Agency with asset verification’ will do. The point is: before he leaves, have him refresh all the recipes in his mind one last time.”

”Especially those obscure, special-batch recipes that he himself does not often come into contact with. Memories from twenty years ago are completely different from memories refreshed just yesterday.”

Endo understood.

The essence of this step was utilizing the window where Lange had not yet left his job and still had legal access to the files, having him complete a ”full backup” in his mind without taking away any physical objects.

No stealing, no robbing. It was just an old employee nearing retirement, flipping through the things he had worked with his whole life one last time before leaving.

No one could say anything about it.

”Auxiliary plan,” Satsuki continued. ”If the window before Lange’s official resignation is not long enough — for example, if Schott completes the takeover faster than we anticipated, limiting employees’ access to files —”

”Then make arrangements in advance. Have S.A. Precision Optics GmbH sign an ’Academic Cooperation Memorandum’ with the Jena glass factory. Write the content as ’technical exchange on the application of special optical glass.’ With Lange as the factory’s technical liaison, he can legally browse and discuss relevant recipes under the framework of the cooperation.”

”During the discussion, complete the systematic memory reinforcement.”

Her voice lowered by half a degree.

”Given the current level of chaos — there isn’t even proper management in the factory — no one will read a grandly worded cooperation memorandum carefully.”

Endo marked this plan with a risk level in his mind.

Medium-low.

The premise is that Lange himself is willing to cooperate, and the time window is wide enough.

”Finally, there is one last layer of insurance.” Satsuki looked up.

”Even if all the above measures are taken, I do not intend to use the final compiled recipe system directly for production.”

Endo raised his eyebrows slightly.

”All of them must go through an advanced experimental verification process. Every recipe must be verified with small-scale test firings to validate the parameters. Only when the test data of the actual product matches the indicators recalled by Lange can it be considered finally confirmed.”

Endo nodded gently.

This whole logical chain closed here — multi-person modular memory, cross-checking to filter out deviations, full refresh before leaving, and finally, experimental verification as a safety net.

Four layers of redundancy. Even if any single layer fails, the overall information loss rate can be controlled within an acceptable range.

”The personnel resettlement budget needs to be increased,” Endo said. ”Four students plus their families —”

”Include it,” Satsuki interrupted decisively. ”Process them as a package with Lange. Same batch of visas, same resettlement standard.”

She turned the document to the next page.

”The third type — equipment.”

Satsuki’s voice stopped.

The silence was longer than for the previous two types. Endo estimated it was nearly ten seconds.

Her fingers rested on the edge of the folder, her thumb slowly rubbing the paper surface — this was her habitual action when thinking about thorny problems.

”ZSM-2200,” she finally spoke. ”Legally, it belongs to the Trust Agency. There is no room for maneuvering on this point.”

She moved her gaze from the document and looked at Endo.

”But the key question is — will West German Carl Zeiss want it?”

Endo did not rush to answer. He knew Satsuki was just asking herself.

”West German Carl Zeiss has its own sputtering equipment production line. It is at least one generation more advanced than the ZSM-2200. They come to Jena to pick things, but they are picking talent, brands, and customer relationships.” She slowed her speaking speed, enunciating every word clearly.

”A magnetron sputtering machine made in East Germany twenty years ago... for them, it might not even be on the procurement list.”

”If West German Carl Zeiss doesn’t want it —”

Endo picked up.

”Then it is an unclaimed surplus asset in the hands of the Trust Agency.” [Note: Because they are Japanese, selling to them will not be subject to the restrictions of the CoCom agreement.]

Satsuki glanced at him and nodded with satisfaction.

Endo straightened up and began to explain the plan he had already conceived while waiting.

”Utilize the political pressure on the Trust Agency for ’rapid privatization.’ The two core indicators given to the Trust Agency by the federal government are — sell as quickly as possible, and create jobs as quickly as possible.

If S.A. Precision Optics GmbH applies to buy the entire workshop on the third floor of Building B — including all the equipment abandoned by West German Carl Zeiss, such as the ZSM-2200 — on the condition of ’setting up an optical processing center locally in Jena and hiring fifty local employees’...”

He leaned forward slightly.

”Then on the Trust Agency’s books, this is a perfect ’job creation’ transaction.” [Referencing the ”1 Mark Factory”; historically, the Trust Agency would sell assets to the other party for a symbolic 1 Mark, provided the buyer guaranteed employment.]

Satsuki did not speak. Her fingers were still rubbing the paper surface.

Endo added the final piece of the puzzle.

”Carl Zeiss Jena’s 27,000 employees are about to be cut to 3,000. The Thuringia state government is currently most anxious about the unemployment rate. If we can promise to take in fifty people before the wave of layoffs erupts...”

”Then the state government will not only not block us,” Satsuki picked up, ”but will actively help us lobby the Trust Agency.”

But she immediately held up one finger.

”The premise is — West German Carl Zeiss really does not want the ZSM-2200. This information must be confirmed.”

Her gaze was fixed on Endo’s face.

”Endo, can you get the priority procurement list submitted by West German Carl Zeiss to the Trust Agency?”

Endo nodded.

”I will have the people at the Frankfurt office contact the middle-level handling personnel at the Trust Agency. This type of list is not marked with a security classification when circulating internally. We should be able to get a copy by spending some money.”

Satsuki closed the folder.

She picked up the cup of black tea, which had already cooled slightly, and took the last sip.

As the tea went down her throat, her brows furrowed almost imperceptibly — cold Darjeeling’s astringency becomes prominent.

She placed the cup back on the saucer.

”Three to six months,” she said.

”Yes.”

”That will be enough.”

She stood up. The folder was tucked under her left arm.

After walking two steps, she stopped.

Endo waited.

”Weber’s last page of notes,” Satsuki did not turn back, ”about the accordion — make a note of it.”

”Already noted.”

Satsuki nodded.

Then she walked out of the dining room.

Endo was left alone in the spot.

He took the red signature pen out of his jacket pocket and capped it.

Outside the window, the October sunlight streamed in through the floor-to-ceiling windows, making the empty bone china teacup on the dining table shine. The tea stains remaining at the bottom of the cup drew a dark brown ring on the white porcelain.

Endo put the pen away and turned to walk towards the entrance.

There were many things to do today.

Contacting the Frankfurt office, initiating the registration procedures for S.A. Precision Optics GmbH in Jena, arranging the contact plan for the Trust Agency’s middle-level staff, calculating the budget for the full personnel resettlement costs —

And confirming the size and weight of an accordion.