By the time the three of them finally came out of PARCO, it was already approaching noon.
The things bought throughout the morning were far more than they had initially expected.
Fujita Tsuyoshi had already come over twice to pick up shopping bags midway, and the batch they had just bought was now being loaded into the cars by the security personnel, with several bags stacked together, almost covering half of one person's arms.
Satsuki stood to the side and watched for a while, a genuine sense of satisfaction from completing a task welling up in her heart.
"We must have spent quite a bit today, right?"
"Definitely a lot."
Ayako answered quickly and glanced back at those cars.
"Just the stuff sent back alone is already this much."
Reiko also nodded.
"By the standards of ordinary college students going shopping, today cannot be considered normal consumption at all anymore."
Satsuki was even more satisfied upon hearing this, and even felt that the one billion target given by her father in the morning did not seem quite so difficult after all.
She turned her head to look at Chizuru.
"How much is the total right now?"
Chizuru had been organizing the receipts for her all the way, and upon hearing this, she took out a few folded records from her small bag and reconfirmed them.
"About 5.6 million yen."
The smile on Satsuki's face froze instantly.
She had originally thought she would at least hear a larger number, and after being stunned for two seconds, she asked somewhat uncertainly:
"...5.6 million?"
"Yes, Eldest Miss."
Chizuru glanced at the records in her hand again.
"That is currently about the amount."
Satsuki did not speak.
She slowly turned her head, looked at the cars parked not far away, and then looked at those shopping bags in Fujita Tsuyoshi's hands that had not been sent over yet.
Throughout this morning, they had clearly browsed so many shops.
They bought a pile of clothes, took no shortage of shoes, and bags, accessories, perfumes, and all sorts of messy little items were already so numerous that she could not even remember the count.
The result added up to only just over five million?
Reiko quickly calculated the remaining number beside her.
"In other words, from one billion..."
She looked at Satsuki, the corners of her mouth already unable to help carrying a trace of a smile.
"There is still a shortage of over 994 million."
Satsuki's slight sense of achievement from just moments ago vanished completely and cleanly.
She stood there pressing her lips together for a while, and in her mind, she recalled her attitude of "It is just one billion, just buying whatever casually is fine" when facing her father in the morning, and the more she thought about it, the more embarrassed she felt.
Shopping in the ordinary sense seemed to truly have no way of solving this problem.
At the current speed, even if the three of them shopped from morning until the department store closed, it would probably be very difficult to even touch a fraction of one billion.
Satsuki murmured a sentence in a low voice.
Ayako did not hear clearly and turned her face to look at her.
"What is wrong?"
Satsuki narrowed her eyes and looked toward Seibu Department Store not far ahead.
"He did this absolutely on purpose."
In the morning he said something like "Do not come home until you finish spending it," and she had not taken this matter to heart at all back then.
Looking at it now, her father probably knew from the very beginning that she would encounter this kind of situation.
Thinking of this, Satsuki instead slowly developed a bit of unyielding defiance.
Did not he say she did not know how to spend money?
Then today she really had to let her father see.
Besides knowing how to make money, Satsuki was also very good at spending it.
"Let us go."
She started walking again.
Reiko followed closely.
"Where to?"
Satsuki raised her chin slightly, gesturing toward Seibu Department Store ahead.
"Over there."
She paused for a moment, the corners of her mouth curving up again.
"Next, spending seriously."
After entering Seibu Department Store, the speed of spending money finally accelerated noticeably.
While in PARCO clothes and accessories were only tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of yen each, here, even for items just casually picked up to look at, the prices quickly crossed hundreds of thousands and millions.
Satsuki was quite satisfied with this, at least finally having a bit of the feeling of seriously completing a task.
She no longer intentionally calculated how much every single transaction spent.
She would try on any clothes she liked and keep them if they felt right; if a wristwatch looked pleasing when worn on her wrist, she would directly have the clerk wrap it up.
Ayako and Reiko would still help her compare a few words at first, but gradually discovered later that as long as Satsuki had her eyes on something herself, their opinions basically only served the single purpose of judging "whether it looks good or not."
Passing by a jewellery store, Satsuki's attention was once again drawn to a necklace in the display window.
The main stone was not exaggerated, and the style was very simple.
She asked the clerk to take it out for her to try on, then stood in front of the mirror, brushed her long hair falling over her chest to one side, and turned her body slightly to look.
The diamond happened to fall just below her collarbone.
"How is it?"
Ayako leaned a little closer.
"Quite pretty, and not too formal."
Reiko also glanced at it a few times.
"Mhm, this suits you."
Satsuki herself was obviously very satisfied, checked the mirror from another angle, and then reached out to unclasp the necklace.
"Then let us go with this one."
The clerk took the necklace and quickly stated the price.
Eighteen million yen.
Satsuki just nodded and had her wrap it up directly.
Reiko stood to the side watching the whole process, and only laughed after the clerk walked away:
"You are getting more and more skilled at this now."
"Well of course."
Satsuki tidied her hair, which had been caught and messed up by the necklace just now, in a good mood.
"Ability to learn is my strong suit after all."
"I am talking about spending money."
"Is spending money not considered an ability? There are not many people who are as good at spending money as I am."
Satsuki retorted righteously.
Ayako could not hold back her laughter upon hearing this.
They had been browsing in Seibu for about twenty minutes when someone in the store finally recognised Satsuki.
At first, an employee on a certain floor just thought she looked familiar. Today Satsuki was dressed completely differently from when she usually appeared publicly, and she was followed by two girls of similar age, making it hard for anyone to immediately associate her with the Saionji heir who frequently appeared in financial news.
What truly allowed the Seibu side to confirm her identity were still the security personnel scattered nearby.
Not long after, a person in charge of this store brought people over.
The other party did not make too big of a commotion, and just as they approached and were about to greet her, Satsuki had already guessed their purpose.
"No special arrangements are needed today."
She gestured toward Ayako and Reiko beside her.
"I am out having fun with friends, and do not clear the store either, otherwise it will not be fun."
The other party had obviously heard of this Miss Saionji's personality long ago, quickly understood, left only people from the foreign merchant department to accompany and coordinate, and did not continue to disturb.
Satsuki originally felt that even this person was not necessary to leave behind, but after continuing to browse two more stores, she found it quite convenient after all.
The items just bought did not need to be handed over to Fujita and the others to carry back and forth to the cars anymore; Seibu could uniformly deliver them to the main residence; sizes and styles temporarily unavailable in the store could also be directly transferred from other places.
Later on, whatever Satsuki took a fancy to, she only needed to leave the items behind, and naturally someone would handle the rest of the matters.
Ayako quickly adapted to this method, handing over even the few bags she insisted on carrying herself at the very beginning.
Satsuki glanced at her.
"Did not you just say a moment ago that shopping only has the right feel when you carry the things yourself?"
"That was just a moment ago."
Ayako moved her wrists, which had been strained somewhat sore.
"People grow."
Satsuki was amused by her and could not be bothered to expose her.
With people from the foreign merchant department following along, the shopping afterwards became noticeably much more relaxed.
Satsuki looked all the way from high-end ready-to-wear to wristwatches and jewellery, picked out a few kimonos and home decorations, and occasionally when encountering something she liked, she decided to keep it without even finishing listening to the prepared introduction.
By the afternoon, when compiling today's consumption again, the number finally looked much more decent.
"Just over 200 million yen."
After hearing this, Satsuki subconsciously nodded.
"200 million..."
This number was much more pleasing to the eye than those 5.6 million from the morning.
But after she calculated briefly, her brows, which had just smoothed out, quickly knitted together again.
"There is still a shortage of 800 million."
Ayako was drinking something, and upon hearing this, she raised her head to glance at her.
"Student Satsuki, do you know how annoying what you just said sounds?"
Satsuki did not react for a moment.
"How is it annoying?"
Reiko smiled and explained for her from the side:
"Because normal people probably would not fret over 'only spending 200 million yen' today."
Satsuki only then realised where the problem lay, and she could not help laughing either.
"But Father's task is one billion, after all."
As she spoke, she glanced at the consumption summary in her hand again.
Continuing to buy like this was certainly not impossible, but if it was just to fill in the remaining money by deliberately hunting down the most expensive things, it did not seem to have much meaning anymore.
Walking forward, Satsuki pondered what else she genuinely wanted to buy today.
When her gaze inadvertently fell upon the traffic outside, she suddenly thought of that garage this morning.
She had originally enthusiastically wanted to drive a sports car out, but ended up looking all the way from the Century and President to that Porsche older than herself, and in the end simply could not find a single one she actually wanted to drive.
Thinking of this, Satsuki's footsteps slowed down.
At that time she had also thought that she must buy a new one another day.
Since she was already out spending money...
Why wait for another day?
"Ah."
Satsuki stopped abruptly.
Ayako, walking behind, almost bumped into her and quickly stepped aside.
"What is wrong?"
Satsuki turned her head back, the expression that had still been somewhat worried just now completely swept away.
"I have thought of what to buy."
"What?"
"Cars."
As soon as this answer was spoken, the more she thought about it, the more suitable it felt.
She wanted to buy one in the morning already.
And the family really did not have any she liked.
The price was also high enough.
No matter how you looked at it, it was much more reasonable than continuing to stubbornly pick jewellery in the department store just to fulfil the numbers.
Satsuki immediately turned her head to look at the Seibu foreign merchant personnel who had been following alongside the whole time.
"Where in Tokyo can you directly look at sports cars?"
The other party pondered for a moment and quickly answered:
"If you want to look at imported sports cars, you can contact Cornes. There is a car showroom over in Ohashi, and there should be cars in stock that you can look at directly."
"Can we go right now?"
"Yes, I will confirm for you right away."
Satsuki nodded with satisfaction.
"Then let us go there."
Hearing this, Ayako finally confirmed that she was not just casually talking.
"Are you really going to buy a car?"
"Of course it is real."
Satsuki had already started walking again.
"This morning, it was precisely because there were not many cars at home that I wanted to drive that I ended up coming out with the motorcade."
Reiko's expression upon hearing this was somewhat subtle.
"But there should already be a lot of cars in your family's garage, right?"
"There are a lot."
Thinking of that whole row of black sedans from the morning, Satsuki still could not help pouting slightly.
"The problem is with so many cars, when it actually came to me picking, there unexpectedly was not a single one I wanted to drive."
This was precisely what made her the most dissatisfied.
The garage was already so large, yet after picking and choosing, it was still the Century, President, and Mercedes.
Since that was the case, it was better to simply buy a few more that she liked and put them in.
In the future when she wanted to drive, it would also spare her from encountering that kind of situation from this morning again.
As soon as this thought popped up, Satsuki suddenly felt it was logical and justified.
"Perfect."
She reached out to tuck the hair falling beside her face behind her ear, the corners of her mouth curving up again.
"Let us buy a few more back today."
Reiko looked at her and did not speak.
For some reason, she suddenly felt that the "a few" in Satsuki's mouth might be somewhat different from the "a few" understood by ordinary people.
But Satsuki was already walking outward with high spirits.
"Let us go."
"To Ohashi."
Tossing about for an entire day, the one billion yen left behind by her father finally allowed her to find something she genuinely wanted to buy.