The office was too quiet.
Yang Ruoqian distrusted quiet.
In ordinary companies, quiet meant nothing had happened.
In Xplendi, quiet meant something had happened so efficiently that nobody needed to shout.
The quiet source today was the first mistake not paid.
It had taken first mistakes and removed the portion Yang had been counting on.
The wasted portion.
The human portion.
The beautiful, expensive, repeatable portion.
At nine-thirty, Chang Zhiqing brought him a printed comparison sheet.
The paper had no color.
No color usually meant nobody had tried to impress anyone.
That made it harder to attack.
The top row contained the first mistake not paid.
Yang narrowed his eyes.
"This looks like internal housekeeping."
"It is."
"Internal housekeeping is how systems grow organs."
"Then this organ is preventing repeated questions."
Preventing repeated questions was a terrible organ.
It sounded cheap to maintain.
It sounded worse than cheap.
It sounded useful.
