Chapter 592: The Secret of a Blade of Grass

February 10, 1992, approaching noon.

Tokyo, Odaiba, Saionji Tower.

Yamada Toshihiko sat on the sofa in the reception room, having lost count of how many times he had adjusted his sitting posture.

He felt that he really shouldn’t have worn this suit today.

The clothes were bought three years ago when attending a friend’s wedding. They fit just right back then, but now they were a bit tight. Especially around the shoulders and waist, leaning back even slightly would cause the clothes to stretch taut.

To make matters worse, the sofa beneath him was excessively soft.

The moment he sat down, he almost sank completely into it, and quickly scooted forward until only the edge of his buttocks touched a small spot at the front of the sofa, barely managing to find a relatively decent posture.

But after sitting like that for a short while, he began to wonder if this was too constrained.

After all, this was a reception room, not a classroom.

A guest should be allowed to sit a bit more comfortably, right?

Thinking of this, Yamada tried leaning back.

As soon as his body relaxed, his gaze fell upon the spacious coffee table in front of him.

The coffee table was dark-colored, with a surface polished so smoothly that no seams could be seen. On top of it sat a set of white porcelain tea ware, next to which was a glass plate filled with pastries.

Yamada didn’t understand furniture, nor did he understand porcelain.

But he felt that all these things looked very expensive.

Thus, he silently sat straight again.

Come to think of it, ever since this morning, he had been in this state.

As someone who had lived in Hokkaido since childhood and later worked entirely within the prefecture, Yamada had never truly been to Tokyo before.

When he arrived by Shinkansen yesterday, he had already been somewhat dazzled by Tokyo’s prosperity.

There were people everywhere inside the station, trains on the platforms came one after another, and after exiting the station, tall buildings and shops lined both sides of the street.

Those office workers wearing suits and carrying briefcases seemed to be in a hurry wherever they went.

Completely different from Sapporo.

As for Shakotan…

Yamada thought for a moment.

Well, that was even less comparable.

Yet even so, after actually coming to Saionji Tower, he still felt that his astonishment yesterday was a bit too early.

Because this building was simply too extravagant.

Five hundred meters.

This number previously existed only on newspapers. Until standing in front of the building in person today, he finally understood what five hundred meters really meant as a concept.

Looking up, the black glass curtain wall extended far into the sky; he even had to tilt his neck until it ached just to barely make out the outline at the very top.

And after entering the building, the environment inside was very different from the company headquarters he had imagined.

There were no golden decorations placed everywhere, nor any particularly eye-catching expensive furnishings.

The walls, floors, and furniture mostly adopted black, gray, or dark wood; occasionally some metal decorations could be seen, and the lighting was not dazzling either.

Yet for some reason, Yamada just felt that this place was very expensive.

Especially when taking the elevator just now.

That elevator rose so fast and steadily that it even gave him the illusion that he wasn’t moving at all.

Only by seeing the floor numbers on the display screen constantly change did he realize that he was leaving the ground at a rather astonishing speed.

If all the electricity bills of the Shakotan Research Institute for a whole year were pulled out, I wonder if it would be enough to pay for one day’s electricity bill of this building?

Yamada couldn’t help letting his mind wander.

Then, his gaze quietly shifted toward the entrance of the reception room.

Standing there were two security personnel wearing dark uniforms.

Both figures were tall, with their hands behind their backs, feet apart, maintaining a very standard stand-at-ease posture.

Ever since Yamada entered the reception room, they had been standing there, barely moving.

Moreover, their waists always made Yamada feel very concerned.

Inside the black holsters, a section of something he had previously only seen on television was exposed.

…A handgun?

Yamada blinked.

Looked carefully once more.

That’s right.

It was indeed a handgun.

And it looked like the kind that could actually be used.

Wait.

Can large companies in Tokyo now allow employees to go to work with real guns!?

He suddenly remembered recent reports in the newspapers about the special security system for private enterprises.

He heard that the Parliament was amending the law, and in the future, large enterprises meeting the conditions could even have their own armed security guards.

Could it have already been implemented?

This speed was just too fast, right?

Although his stomach was stuffed with questions, Yamada certainly couldn’t proactively run over and ask whether the things hanging on their waists were real guns.

In contrast, the old man sitting opposite him clearly had none of these troubles at all.

“…Incredible.”

Kiryu Seiichi muttered in a low voice.

He was fifty-six years old this year, his hair had turned quite white, and a pair of thin-framed glasses rested on the bridge of his nose.

As the chief committee member in the biotechnology field of the Saionji Group Technical Committee, he possessed a quite high reputation in Japan’s plant biochemistry community.

Previously, he had long engaged in research on plant cell walls and lignin biosynthesis at Kyoto University, publishing a massive number of papers over several decades.

Before coming to Saionji, he was even one of the most weighty scholars in the domestic relevant field.

However, at this moment, this great scholar’s image could hardly be described as majestic.

His suit jacket was casually draped over the sofa armrest, his tie was loosened, and his cuffs were rolled up a section.

On his knees lay a thick technical report.

The report had been flipped through somewhat messily, with colorful tags pasted in many places, and the blank spaces were filled with various annotations.

Ever since Yamada sat down, he had been staring intently at this report.

Sometimes frowning.

Sometimes suddenly nodding.

Seeing certain data, he couldn’t help muttering a few words in a low voice.

“I see…”

“It can even be done like this…”

“The reaction degree here… No, this factor should be considered again…”

As he spoke, he flipped back to a certain page earlier.

Yamada stealthily glanced at him.

The data in that report—he had actually seen a part of it himself.

After all, the initial experiments were all completed by himself.

But ever since the Technical Committee took over and organized further analysis, more and more terminology that he didn’t recognize at all began to appear in the report.

Especially those complex molecular structure diagrams.

Yamada studied in the Department of Agriculture; although he had also studied biochemistry during university, after graduation he had always been engaged in crop breeding work.

Those contents involving polymer chemistry and enzyme-catalyzed synthesis pathways had long exceeded his professional scope.

Therefore, right now he actually wanted to know more than anyone else what this professor had managed to see.

“Professor Kiryu…”

Yamada hesitated for a moment, and finally couldn’t help speaking up.

“Is there a problem?”

“A problem?”

Kiryu suddenly raised his head, his eyes behind the lenses startlingly bright.

“Yamada-kun, the problem is huge!”

Yamada’s complexion instantly turned somewhat pale.

His first reaction was that the set of experimental data he brought from Shakotan had some fatal loophole discovered by the headquarters’ advanced equipment.

But Kiryu’s subsequent reaction completely exceeded his expectations.

“Yamada-kun, I have been studying lignin for over thirty years.”

The old man reached out and patted the report on his knees.

“Such analytical results, I truly have never seen before!”

As he spoke, he picked up the report again and glanced at one set of data.

“No wonder no matter how you handled it previously, it was wrong… Turns out what’s truly special is right here.”

“Professor?”

“Truly remarkable…”

Kiryu raised his head and looked toward Yamada.

“Do you know what you have actually discovered?”

“Uh… A plant potentially suitable for producing fuel ethanol?”

Kiryu stared at him for two seconds.

Afterward, the old man suddenly began shaking his head.

“What a pity.”

“…Ah?”

“Your previous research direction is simply such a pity!”

Yamada opened his mouth, temporarily not knowing how to reply.

He even somewhat doubted whether there was some serious problem with the experimental materials he had submitted earlier.

But Kiryu had already lowered his head again, picked up a fountain pen, and quickly wrote a few lines on the report.

“Forget it, let’s wait until Miss Saionji arrives.”

“This matter, I must personally explain it clearly to her!”

After finishing, he no longer paid attention to Yamada, grabbed his pencil again, lowered his head, and rapidly calculated on the report.

Leaving Yamada sitting alone opposite him, sweat gradually oozing from his palms.

He looked at the pot of SF-01 living ramet on the coffee table that he had carried all the way from Hokkaido, and then looked at Professor Kiryu opposite him who was still muttering words, feeling even more nervous in his heart than before.

What on earth had this big figure, renowned in the plant biochemistry world, discovered from his blade of grass?

…

The door of the reception room opened a dozen minutes later.

Yamada was originally still lowering his head to tidy his tie.

Hearing movement come from the doorway, he immediately raised his head.

Chizuru walked in a step ahead.

Subsequently, a young girl wearing a dark suit appeared at the doorway.

Her age looked even younger than Yamada had imagined.

Her long black hair hung smoothly behind her shoulders, her figure was not tall, and her face carried a faint smile.

Yamada recognized her almost immediately.

Saionji Satsuki.

Now the true person in power of the Saionji Group.

He hastily stood up, and even because his movement was too hurried, his knee accidentally bumped into the edge of the coffee table.

“S-Sa-Miss Saionji!”

“Hello!”

Just as Satsuki was about to speak, she heard a flurry of rapid page-turning sounds coming from opposite.

She turned her head to look.

Only to see the other guest still lowering his head, almost burying his entire face into the report.

Seeing this, Yamada hurriedly reminded him in a low voice.

“Professor Kiryu…”

No reaction.

A bit of cold sweat popped out on Yamada’s temples, and he had to raise his voice slightly:

“Professor, Miss Saionji has already—”

“Wait a minute! The proportional data of this ester bond I haven’——”

Kiryu waved his hand without raising his head, and halfway through his sentence, he finally realized that the atmosphere in the room was a bit off.

He raised his head blankly.

Through the lenses of his reading glasses, he found that Satsuki had walked up beside the sofa at some point, lowering her eyes and sizing him up with considerable interest.

“It seems that what Professor Kiryu found today is even more attractive than me.”

“Ah! Miss… Miss Saionji!”

Kiryu snapped out of his trance, jumped up abruptly from the sofa, and flusteredly tried to tie his loosened tie. As a result, one hand was still gripping the report, and he almost flung the analysis chart clipped inside out.

He quickly bowed slightly in greeting:

“I am truly sorry! I was just too engrossed in reading the latest structural analysis report!”

“It’s fine.”

Satsuki waved her hand.

“Since the professor is so serious, it seems you really have something very important to tell me today.”

“Important! Of course it’s important!”

Kiryu picked up the conversation almost immediately.

“Miss Saionji, no matter what, I hope you will seriously consider this research report today!”

As he spoke, he had already placed the thick stack of documents on the coffee table.

Standing nearby, Yamada suddenly felt that something wasn’t quite right.

According to the previous arrangement, shouldn’t he be the one to introduce the original research results first today, followed by Professor Kiryu supplementing the technical committee’s evaluation opinions?

How come now it seems…

It seemed like there was nothing left for him to do?

However, Satsuki did not let Kiryu start right away.

She looked at Yamada first.

“Mr. Yamada Toshihiko, right?”

“Y-Yes!”

“I heard this grass was discovered in Hokkaido?”

“Yes, it was collected in the lower reaches of the Ishikari River three years ago.”

“And at first it was just to find feed for our family’s cows?”

“…Yes.”

Yamada felt a bit embarrassed.

Satsuki’s gaze fell beside the coffee table.

A rather small flowerpot was placed there.

The plant in the pot was still in a greenhouse-cultivated seedling stage, with only a few slender green leaves. No matter how one looked at it, it looked like nothing more than an ordinary weed.

“Is this it?”

“Yes!”

Yamada instantly perked up.

“This is a living split of SF-01. The original material number is F-47. After split-preservation and evaluation, we started using the current numbering.”

“I see…”

Satsuki leaned down and looked closely.

To be honest.

She couldn’t see anything special about it at all.

If she hadn’t already read the report in advance, she probably wouldn’t have doubted it even if someone told her it was a weed casually dug up from beside the building.

However…

Such a blade of grass could release sixty-one point eight grams of sugar under such mild conditions.

It was quite interesting.

“Then, Professor Kiryu.”

Satsuki sat back down.

“You just said that Mr. Yamada’s research direction is such a pity?”

“That’s right!”

Kiryu immediately straightened his posture.

“Miss Saionji, I believe that the technical committee’s previous evaluation of this research needs to be completely redone!”

Yamada’s expression changed instantly.

Re-evaluate?

Could it be to revoke the previous recommendation?

Before he could speak, Kiryu had already taken out the first set of materials.

“What Yamada-kun initially submitted was a feasibility study on using SF-01 to produce cellulosic ethanol.”

“This direction itself is not a problem. In fact, if his experimental results can be verified on an industrial scale, reducing the saccharification cost alone is enough to secure long-term investment for the project.”

“But the problem is…”

Kiryu paused here for a moment.

Then, he extended his finger and heavily tapped on the report.

“We found that the most valuable aspect of SF-01 might not be ethanol at all!”

Satsuki raised an eyebrow slightly.

“Oh?”

“Please take a look at this first.”

Kiryu pulled two printed charts from the folder and laid them flat on the coffee table.

One was marked with the chemical analysis results of the cell walls of ordinary Miscanthus plants, and the other showed the comparative data of the original material F-47 and the split SF-01.

Kiryu straightened his somewhat crooked reading glasses and posed a question to Satsuki:

“Miss Saionji, do you know why wood and weeds, despite containing a large amount of carbohydrates, cannot be squeezed directly for sugar water like sugarcane?”

“I do know a little bit about that.”

Satsuki sat down on the sofa, glanced at the black tea Chizuru served, and answered casually:

“Because the sugar in plants mostly exists in the form of cellulose and hemicellulose, and the outside is tightly wrapped by lignin. It must undergo chemical or biological processing to extract the sugar inside.”

“Completely correct!”

Kiryu nodded vigorously, his finger immediately pointing toward the first chart:

“The reason why the cell walls of ordinary plants are difficult to process is because lignin, hemicellulose, and cellulose are tightly intertwined through various complex chemical bonds. To expose the cellulose inside, traditional industrial methods can only use high temperature, high pressure, or strong acids and alkalis to bash through it forcefully.”

Speaking of this, his finger suddenly moved to the second chart:

“But this SF-01, along with its original maternal plant F-47, is completely different!”

He turned to the second chart.

“After independently repeating Yamada-kun’s saccharification tests, we specifically analyzed the cell walls before and after pretreatment.”

“As a result, we found that there are exceptionally obvious alkali-sensitive linkages between the lignin and hemicellulose of SF-01.”

“Some of the cross-linked structures related to ferulic acid, as well as some internal connections of lignin, behave particularly special!”

As he spoke, the pen in his hand tapped on one set of data.

“Ordinary silvergrass requires harsher treatment to make the cell walls noticeably loosen.”

“However, SF-01 has already shown quite sufficient structural changes under lower temperatures and lower alkali concentrations!”

“We also detected separation products consistent with the cleavage of special ester bonds.”

“Although we cannot yet completely determine all of its molecular structures, we can at least confirm that the direction Yamada-kun suspected previously is correct.”

Kiryu raised his head.

“Its peculiarity is by no means just a relatively low lignin content!”

Sitting nearby, Yamada was already listening in a daze.

He had indeed guessed these things before.

But he never found a way to truly prove them.

“Professor Kiryu…”

He couldn’t help asking.

“In other words, the mild treatment effect I discovered earlier is really related to those chemical linkages?”

“It is very likely the case!”

Kiryu turned his head.

“And Yamada-kun, do you know what surprised me the most?”

“What?”

“Your experimental records are extremely complete!”

Kiryu picked up another page of the report.

“Different temperatures, different alkali concentrations, different enzyme dosages, and materials from different harvest batches.”

“Not only did you record the final sugar release amount, but you even kept those trials that didn’t work well.”

“Precisely because of this, we were able to discover that under certain stronger treatment conditions, this plant’s effectiveness actually decreased!”

The more he spoke, the more excited he became.

“If it were just ordinary low-lignin material, this phenomenon would be hard to explain.”

“However, when we take the special linkage structures of the cell walls into account, many originally strange places suddenly become possible to explain!”

Speaking of this, Kiryu couldn’t help but glance at the flowerpot on the table once more.

“It’s truly incredible…”

“Such a plant could actually appear naturally.”

After listening for a long time, Satsuki finally understood a bit.

“So, the cell walls of ordinary plants are hard to break apart, but this grass has some connections inside that are particularly easy to destroy?”

“Yes!”

“As long as we find the right processing method, we won’t need to invest a massive amount of energy and chemical reagents like before?”

“Completely correct!”

Kiryu nodded almost immediately.

However, he quickly added:

“Of course, this does not mean that SF-01 can decompose automatically. We still need enzymes, chemical reagents, and subsequent processing technology.”

“However, if we can determine the locations and reaction conditions of those special linkages, we will have the opportunity to separate its different components at a lower cost!”

Satsuki nodded thoughtfully.

“I see.”

She turned her head to look at Yamada.

“Mr. Yamada, why didn’t you discover these before?”

“Um…”

Yamada scratched his head somewhat awkwardly.

“Because our research institute doesn’t have this kind of analytical equipment.”

“What I mainly measured before was the lignin content, fiber digestibility, and sugar release after saccharification.”

“As for those internal molecular linkages…”

He glanced at Kiryu.

“To be honest, even if you gave me the equipment, I’m afraid I wouldn’t know where to start the analysis.”

“That’s completely normal.”

Kiryu took over the conversation.

“Yamada-kun is a crop breeding researcher, not a polymer chemist.”

“For him to discover anomalies under existing conditions and step-by-step carry out the saccharification test to that extent is already quite remarkable.”

As he spoke, Kiryu looked at Satsuki again.

“But we are different.”

“The technical committee can mobilize professional analytical instruments, and we also have personnel who have long studied cell walls and lignin.”

“We can further study those complex molecular structures.”

“And…”

He suddenly paused.

Yet the excitement on his face did not diminish at all.

“The truly interesting part is just starting now!”