Yang Ruoqian decided color was too weak.
If yellow marks saved time, red lines could be poisoned.
Red lines looked serious.
Serious things could become annoying.
Annoying things could become expensive.
At nine, he announced:
"All red lines are unreliable."
The assistant lead asked, "Even when they show exactly what changed?"
"Especially then."
Finance looked up.
"Why?"
"Because exactness is how they sneak past labor."
The room accepted the sentence only as sound.
That was enough for a meeting.
At ten, Yang tried the first method.
"Tell owners red lines are for reference only."
The assistant lead typed:
Red lines are for reference only.
Yang liked it.
Reference sounded powerless.
Then the operations manager said, "Staff can still use references."
"Tell them not to."
"Then why accept red lines?"
"To store them."
"For reference?"
Yang looked at him.
The trap had been built from his own sentence.
At eleven, an owner sent a red-lined contract.
