Chapter 8: The New Worker

The stranger tried to leave.

He made it two steps before his knees buckled and he had to grab the wall to stay upright.

Lin Fan caught him by the back of his robe before he hit the floor.

"You're still injured."

The man looked down at the hand gripping his collar. Then at the broom in Lin Fan's other hand. Then at the five bandits watching from behind the counter like an audience at a very tense play.

Not, all things considered, a great position for someone who'd just woken up in a strange teahouse.

"I need to leave."

"You can leave after paying."

"I already told you, I have no money."

"Then you can work."

His eyes went cold — the exact same cold Lin Fan had seen on Young Master Han right before he'd caved and paid up.

Lin Fan raised the broom a fraction, just for emphasis. "Don't misread this. I'm not asking for a lifetime of servitude. Just enough to cover the treatment."

The man stared at him.

"Two Spirit Stones," Lin Fan said. "Wash cups until it's settled."

Five bandits nodded, solemn as monks.

The man looked between them, visibly recalculating. Five dangerous cultivators — one with a scar down his cheek, one still wearing yesterday's soap suds like a badge of honor — all silently agreeing with an ordinary-looking shopkeeper holding a broom like it was a scepter.

He reached out with his divine sense, quietly, testing the room.

He felt nothing. Not the owner, not the cups, not the kettle, not even the table under his own hand — his senses just slid off everything like water off a leaf.

This is not a normal teahouse, he thought, and got noticeably more careful.

Lin Fan mistook the silence for hesitation. "If washing's too much, you can sweep instead."

He pointed at the broom.

The man's gaze sharpened on it immediately. He'd survived an ambush stacked with formations, poison, and seals designed by people who wanted him very dead. He'd crossed half a continent with his body falling apart. And now some unreadable owner was pointing at a broom like it was the final trial of his life.

Obviously a test.

"What's your name?" Lin Fan asked.

A pause. "Crimson."

"Just Crimson?"

"That is enough."

"Fine. Lin Fan. This is my teahouse. You currently owe me two Spirit Stones."

Crimson's eyes narrowed slightly. The owner had handed over his own name freely, then gone straight to the debt — no probing questions about his identity, no fear, not even a flicker of flattery.

He had fought countless people who wanted his bloodline, his treasures, his life. None of them had ever talked to him like he was a customer three coppers short on a bar tab.

"I will repay it," Crimson said.

"Good."

"But I have matters to attend to first."

"After work."

Crimson looked at him for a long moment.

Lin Fan gestured at the table. "You're hurt. Rest first. Wash cups once you can stand without falling into my basin."

"You're — ordering me to rest?"

"I'm telling you not to bleed on the floor near people's tea. Bad for business."

Crimson lowered his head slightly, processing this. The man was letting him recover and offering an easy way to clear the debt. No oaths. No demands for loyalty. Just a job.

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He had genuinely not expected that.

Lin Fan pulled out a fresh sheet of paper.

Temporary Worker RecordName: CrimsonPosition: Dishes, customer servicePayment: Debt repaymentRules: No fighting. No killing. No stealing. No threatening customers. No breaking cups.

Crimson read it twice. "No killing?"

"Correct."

"Even if they deserve it?"

"Especially if you think they deserve it."

His expression turned genuinely thoughtful. "And if the person is my enemy?"

"They can be your enemy somewhere else. In here, they're a customer."

Crimson said nothing to that.

The five bandits exchanged a look. "The Owner's law covers every scenario," the leader whispered, awed.

"It's a no-fighting rule," Lin Fan said, without turning around.

Crimson read the paper one last time. "I accept."

"Good. First job — those cups."

He pointed at the basin. Crimson walked over.

The leader followed, chest puffed slightly. "I will instruct you."

Crimson glanced sideways at him. Two men who had once each commanded fear wherever they walked, now standing shoulder to shoulder at a wooden basin, discussing dishware.

Neither looked thrilled about it.

"First," the leader said, "hold the cup gently."

Crimson picked one up. It made a faint, ominous crack.

Lin Fan spun around instantly. "What did you do."

Crimson loosened his grip. The cup went quiet.

"Nothing."

The leader looked at him with real respect. "Senior has remarkable restraint."

"He nearly crushed it."

"He stopped before it broke."

"That's the bare minimum, not a compliment."

Lin Fan handed Crimson a cloth. "Less strength. It's a cup, not an assassin."

Crimson eyed the cup with open suspicion. "That remains to be seen."

Lin Fan closed his eyes and silently prayed for patience.

The leader demonstrated properly — warm water, a touch of soap, gentle strokes. Crimson copied him with the focus of a man memorizing a lost sword manual passed down through nine generations.

The first cup took him a full minute. The second took two, because he checked it from every angle for hidden inscriptions. The third slipped clean out of his hand.

It landed in the basin.

It did not break.

Crimson stared at it like it had personally defied him.

"Why do you look surprised?" Lin Fan asked.

"I expected it to shatter."

"It's a wooden cup."

Crimson said nothing, mostly because explaining that he'd once turned a jade brush to powder simply by holding it wrong while feverish felt like it would raise more questions than it answered.

"Relax," Lin Fan told him. "These cups are tougher than they look."

Something shifted in Crimson's expression. Ah. So even the cups are hidden treasures.

Footsteps at the door. The old woodcutter and his grandson.

The boy pointed straight at Crimson. "Grandpa, there's a new scary one."

Crimson stood up too fast. The old man froze mid-step.

Lin Fan jumped between them. "He's new. Still learning how to greet people."

Crimson turned, cleared his throat, and delivered his lines like they'd been carved onto a tombstone.

"Welcome to Lin's Teahouse. Please enter. No one will harm you."

The old man looked at Lin Fan.

Lin Fan smiled through gritted teeth. "He's improving."

The boy studied Crimson's bandages with frank curiosity. "Did you lose a fight?"

Crimson's eyes went cold.

"He fell," Lin Fan cut in fast.

"From where?"

"The sky."

The boy's eyes went round as coins. "Can anyone fall from the sky?"

Lin Fan glanced at Crimson. "Apparently, if you're unlucky enough."

Crimson said nothing, which was, at this point, basically his full personality.

The old man ordered two cups. Lin Fan brewed them and handed the tray straight to Crimson.

"Carry these over."

Crimson took the tray in both hands like it was live ordnance. He'd carried mountains of weapons off a battlefield. He'd fought balanced on the shattered hull of a starship, mid-collapse, without spilling a drop of his own blood.

Six steps with two cups of tea, apparently, required an entirely different kind of concentration.

He set them down without incident.

The boy beamed. "Thank you!"

Crimson looked at him blankly. "Your thanks are unnecessary."

Lin Fan's whole face fell.

The leader stepped in immediately, whispering like a stagehand feeding lines. "Say 'you're welcome.'"

"Why?"

"Because that is customer service."

Crimson turned back to the boy with visible effort.

"...You are welcome."

The boy nodded, fully satisfied, as if he'd just extracted a sacred vow.

Lin Fan nearly smiled.

The old man finished his tea and left two Spirit Stones on the table.

[Legitimate customer service recorded.][Hospitality Points increased: 119 → 121.]

The boy glanced back at Crimson on his way out. "Will he be here tomorrow?"

Lin Fan considered Crimson, who was currently holding an empty cup like it might attack him.

"If he doesn't break anything."

"I will not break anything," Crimson said, with the deadly seriousness of a man swearing an oath before ten thousand witnesses.

The boy nodded like he'd just received a formal military promise and skipped off after his grandfather.

Once the shop cleared out, Lin Fan put together a simple staff meal — rice, vegetables, a little meat. Nothing fancy. Crimson stared at the bowl in front of him for a suspiciously long time.

"Eat," Lin Fan said. "You can't wash cups on an empty stomach."

Crimson picked it up slowly. He had eaten in palaces. He'd tasted spirit fruit older than most sects, hunted beasts that could level mountains, and none of it had ever come from someone who wanted absolutely nothing from him beyond an honest day's work.

He took one bite.

It was simple food. It was warm. It was, against every possible expectation of this godforsaken day, genuinely good.

He lowered his eyes and said nothing.

Lin Fan misread the silence completely. "If it's bad, tell me. I need honest reviews."

Crimson tightened his grip on the bowl. "It is good."

"Then finish it."

He finished every last grain.

That evening, Lin Fan added his name to the record.

Crimson — probationary worker.

The System panel chimed.

[Employee suitability: High.]

Lin Fan stared at the words, then over at the terrifying man scrubbing a cup with the intense concentration of someone defusing a bomb.

"High," he repeated flatly. "He almost murdered a teacup an hour ago."

Crimson bent lower over the basin, saying nothing.

He had survived poison. Betrayal. An ambush by men who wanted him erased from history.

And now his greatest ongoing challenge in life was earning back two Spirit Stones through excellent customer service.

For the first time since arriving at the teahouse, Crimson quietly concluded that dying might genuinely have been the easier option.