Chapter 21: The Most Terrifying Job Review

Lin Fan stood at the head of the dining room, tapping a piece of charcoal against a wooden clipboard.

The morning sun streamed through the pristine windows of the teahouse, illuminating his newly assembled workforce. They stood in a perfect, rigid horizontal line, completely silent, radiating the kind of intense martial discipline usually reserved for the eve of an apocalyptic holy war.

From left to right: Sect Master Lu, five reformed bandits holding various cleaning implements, and Crimson, a newly ascended Saint whose mere presence was currently causing the ambient spiritual energy in the room to nervously vibrate.

"Alright," Lin Fan said, looking at his clipboard. "We are experiencing a surge in customer volume. That means we need structure. We need workflow. Today is our first official staff performance review and orientation."

The bandit leader, holding a feather duster like a sacred halberd, swallowed hard. A performance review. The Owner is judging our worthiness to exist in his domain. I must not fail.

"Let's start with the support staff," Lin Fan pointed his charcoal at the bandits. "You five are on cleaning and table bussing. When a customer leaves, I want that table cleared immediately. Wipe it down. Leave no trace. Do you understand?"

The bandit leader’s eyes widened with profound understanding. He slammed his fist over his heart.

"Leave no trace!" the bandit leader barked. "Understood, Owner! Total erasure! Whether it is a spilled cup of tea or an unruly patron, we shall scrub their existence from the mortal plane! The table shall be a blank slate of the void!"

Lin Fan stared at him. "No. Just the tea. Just wipe up the tea."

"Ah!" The bandit leader nodded furiously, pulling out his notepad. "Target only the impurities! Leave the vessel intact! A precise execution!"

Lin Fan sighed, rubbing his temples, and moved down the line. "Sect Master Lu. Bakery Department."

Lu stepped forward, bowing deeply. "I await your divine instruction, Senior."

Lin Fan reached into a basket on the counter and pulled out one of Lu’s baked creations from yesterday. He tapped it against the edge of the wooden counter. It made a sharp, metallic clink.

"Lu, this is a baguette," Lin Fan said patiently. "I fed a piece of this to the koi fish yesterday, and it sounded like someone mining ore. Bread is supposed to yield when you bite it. Less spiritual compression, more water. It needs to be softer."

Lu stared at the rock-hard bread, his mind expanding with explosive clarity.

Yielding! Lu thought, his breath catching. I have been baking with the forceful, unyielding Qi of the Earth! But the Senior is teaching me the Dao of Water! True strength is not rigid—it flows, it adapts, it yields to the consumer! He is correcting my fundamental martial philosophy through the medium of yeast!

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"I see Mount Tai!" Lu wept openly, taking the baguette with trembling hands. "I shall meditate upon the softness of the river! The dough shall flow like the eternal spring!"

"Just add more water, Lu," Lin Fan muttered, moving to the end of the line. "Crimson."

Crimson stepped forward. The temperature in the room plummeted just slightly, a side effect of his new Saint-level cultivation base trying to aggressively protect Lin Fan from the surrounding dust motes.

"You are front of house," Lin Fan instructed. "Waiter, host, and security. When someone walks in, you greet them. If they drop a spirit stone, you return it. If they are rude, you de-escalate. Here are the core rules of the teahouse, for all of you."

Lin Fan held up three fingers.

"Rule one: No fighting. Rule two: No threatening the customers. Rule three: No stealing. And above all else, cleanliness. Are we clear?"

Crimson’s red eyes narrowed as his absolute loyalty processed the Owner’s divine mandates.

"Profound," Crimson whispered, his voice resonating with Saintly power. He turned to the bandits to translate the Owner's supreme will.

"Listen well," Crimson commanded, his aura pressing down on the room. "Rule one: No fighting. This means a struggle indicates weakness. If an enemy presents themselves, you do not 'fight' them. You suppress them instantly with absolute, overwhelming force before they can draw a breath. A fight implies they had a chance."

"No!" Lin Fan interjected. "It means don't hit people!"

Crimson nodded wisely. "Exactly. We do not strike them. We crush them with spatial pressure so they simply cease to function. A bloodless victory."

Lin Fan opened his mouth, realized he didn't have the energy to argue with a man who could bend gravity, and closed it.

"Rule two," Crimson continued. "No threatening the customers. To warn a target is the mark of an amateur assassin. We do not bark like wild dogs. If a patron offends the Owner, we deliver the void in absolute silence."

The bandits furiously scribbled in their notepads.

"Rule three," Crimson’s voice dropped to a terrifying whisper. "No stealing. To covet is a mortal sin. Everything in this teahouse, everything in this town, everything under the vast heavens already belongs to the Owner. To take a single spirit stone for yourself is to steal from the Heavenly Dao itself. The penalty is the annihilation of your soul."

"The penalty is you get fired," Lin Fan corrected weakly.

"Yes," Crimson agreed solemnly. "Fired into the eternal abyss."

"And cleanliness!" the bandit leader chimed in, eager to prove his worth. "We must scour the filth! We must purge the impurities of the mortal realm from the Owner's sight! Only the pure may step upon the floorboards!"

Lin Fan lowered his clipboard. He looked at the five hyper-violent janitors, the weeping baker, and the terrifyingly calm Saint who was currently planning how to silently fold space around difficult customers.

They were, without a doubt, the most deranged staff in the history of the hospitality industry.

But as Lin Fan looked around the teahouse, he had to admit—the floors were spotless. The tables gleamed. The windows were streak-free, mostly because the bandits had used high-level wind techniques to polish them.

"You know what?" Lin Fan sighed, tossing the clipboard onto the counter. "Whatever works. Just don't break the furniture. Unlock the front door, Crimson. Let's sell some tea."

"At once, Owner," Crimson bowed. He glided to the front door, unlocked it, and pulled it open, his face set in a perfectly terrifying, completely silent mask of ultimate hospitality.

Across the street, three traveling cultivators who had been walking toward the teahouse took one look at Crimson’s expression, immediately dropped their weapons, and bowed in pre-emptive surrender.

Lin Fan walked into the kitchen to put the kettle on. It was going to be a long day.