Yang Ruoqian had not expected cleanliness to become a problem.
Messy accounts frightened people. Clean accounts reassured them. He had wanted the old cinema to stand alone and look weak. Instead, it stood alone and looked disciplined, like a poor student who kept perfect notes.
The separated account showed exactly what he feared:
Revenue modest.
Costs real.
Growth restrained.
Complaints low.
Community trust increasing without obvious marketing spend.
It was a terrible combination. If revenue was high, he could attack success. If costs were uncontrolled, he could attack waste. If complaints were loud, he could attack operations. But modest revenue, real costs, restrained growth, and low complaints made the project look like something a normal executive would protect for long-term reasons.
Yang Ruoqian was not a normal executive.
He was trying very hard to fail.
"Make the account less clean," he said.
Lu Shuyuan did not move his pen.
