Ding Ding did not consider himself an honest man.
Working with fabrics always involved plenty of surprises, especially at the final dyeing stage. Even when the process stayed the same, the workshop's temperature and humidity, the fuel ratio, and how tightly the machines rolled the fabric after washing before it left the factory could all affect the quality of the finished product.
Producing a bulk order exactly identical to the customer's sample was almost impossible.
To ensure a bulk order shipped successfully, dealing with the customer's quality inspectors inevitably required a thick skin.
To put it bluntly, it meant brazening things out.
Insisting there was no color difference when he could see one, insisting there were no horizontal streaks when he could see them-Ding Ding had done plenty of things like that.
So when Bai Congming tearfully accused him of lying, Ding Ding really did doubt himself for a second.
What had I lied to Little Bai about?
Ding Ding could not think of anything. He felt he had been honest enough. If he really had to name something, it was only that, occasionally, "one last time" had not actually been the last time.
In those twenty seconds of silence, Ding Ding solved the case on his own, deciding that the lie Little Bai meant probably was not the sort of lie he was thinking of.
Perhaps it was only a rebuttal, since they had just been talking about death.
So Ding Ding carefully wiped the tears from Bai Congming's face with the pad of his finger, pitching his voice to make it sound gentler.
"What did I lie to you about?"
Bai Congming turned his head and looked around, then suddenly reached out and pulled Ding Ding into a nearby alley with no streetlights.
*Not afraid of the dark