By morning, blue had become worse.
Yang Ruoqian discovered this from a spreadsheet he had not requested.
The spreadsheet was titled:
External Color Interpretation Summary.
He closed it immediately.
Then he opened it again because spreadsheets did not vanish from moral disgust.
The first row read:
Blue: likely wait.
The second row read:
Blank: likely screening.
The third row read:
No reply: likely silent review.
Yang looked at the fourth row.
It was empty.
For three seconds, the empty row comforted him.
Then finance entered and said, "We left room for future external interpretations."
Yang deleted the file from his screen.
Deleting from his screen did not delete it from the world.
He had learned this at cost.
At nine, he held a ban meeting.
"No color status."
The assistant lead nodded.
"No blue."
"No red."
"No yellow."
"No green."
"No color metaphors."
Lu Shuyuan asked, "What about blacklisted?"
Yang looked at him.
Lu Shuyuan lowered his pen.
