Yang Ruoqian believed in manual work.
Not because he respected tradition.
Tradition had never paid him a system reward.
He believed in manual work because manual work consumed people, hours, chairs, electricity, snacks, and patience.
Those were expenses.
Expenses were rare flowers.
Xplendi kept stepping on them by accident.
The batch readiness sheet from yesterday had been too clean.
It had taken his congestion dream and combed its hair.
That was unacceptable.
At nine-ten, Yang called the reviewer lead again.
The reviewer lead arrived with no panic.
Yang did not like employees who entered rooms calmly.
Calm meant they had already prepared an answer.
Prepared answers were usually profitable.
"Batch approvals must stay manual," Yang said.
The reviewer lead nodded.
Yang immediately felt danger.
"I mean truly manual."
"Understood."
"No automation."
"Understood."
"No shortcut."
"Understood."
"No clever board that silently saves everyone time."
