Chapter 3: The First Employees

Lin Fan had seen customers cry before.

Usually they cried because the restaurant ran out of their favorite dish.

Once, a man cried because his soup had one piece of cilantro in it. Lin Fan did not understand the reaction. He still brought a new bowl. That was customer service.

He had never seen five armed men cry because of tea.

The five bandits still sat around the table. One had his forehead on the wood. Two wiped their faces with their sleeves. Another stared into his cup like it had personally betrayed him.

The leader had both hands over his face.Lin Fan stood behind the counter, holding the kettle.He had already checked it twice.The kettle looked innocent.

Lin Fan no longer trusted innocent-looking kitchen tools.

"Would you like some water?" he asked.

The bandit who remembered the broken bowl shook his head.

"No."

"Why not?"

"I am already full of regret. There is no room left for water."

Lin Fan stared at him.

That was not a side effect listed in any restaurant manual he had ever read.

The leader slowly lowered his hands. Eyes red. Face pale. All his earlier confidence had drained out of him like air from a punctured pig bladder. Lin Fan almost felt sorry for him.

Almost.

He still remembered the weapons. The scars. The way these five had walked toward his teahouse like they already owned it and were just deciding whether to burn it down first or after lunch.

"If the tea is too strong," Lin Fan said carefully, "you can stop drinking it."

The leader looked at his cup.

"It is not strong."

"Then why are you crying?"

The leader opened his mouth. Closed it again.

The bandit who had shouted at everyone to stop crying pointed at him with a shaking finger. "Because he has finally understood his sins."

The leader turned on him. "You are also crying."

"That is different."

"How is that different?"

"My sins are more complicated."

The bandit with the runny nose wiped his face. "Mine are also complicated."

"You kicked a bowl."

"It was a very important bowl."

"It belonged to a child."

The second bandit started crying again, this time louder, as if he'd just lost an argument he badly wanted to win.

Lin Fan set the kettle down and rubbed his temples.

He had dealt with unreasonable customers for years. This was new territory. These particular customers had walked in to rob him, been handed free tea, and were now having a shouting match over whose crimes were sadder.

The Beginner Cooking Recipe Book had no chapter for this.

"Do you want to file a complaint?" Lin Fan asked, mostly out of habit.

All five bandits turned to look at him.

Lin Fan immediately regretted his choice of words.

"About the tea," he added quickly. "Not your — everything else."

The leader looked down at his cup again.

"There is nothing wrong with the tea."

"So you like it."

The leader was silent for a long moment.

"It is very good."

Lin Fan's eyes lit up.

Finally. A useful answer.

"Excellent." He grabbed a wooden board and a piece of charcoal. "Please rate the tea from one to five."

The five bandits stared at the board like it was a sacred oracle.

The leader's face turned serious. He had faced blades, poison, and death without blinking. A customer satisfaction survey, apparently, was harder.

"Five," he said.

The others nodded through their tears.

Lin Fan wrote it down.

Tranquility Tea: 5/5.

He looked from the score to the five sniffling men.

"So you're satisfied?"

The leader's gaze went distant again. "No one should be satisfied remembering the things I've done."

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Lin Fan lowered the charcoal slowly.

This was going to be a difficult entry to file.

He checked the System panel. No satisfaction result yet. Maybe five stars required the customer to actually stop crying first. Or maybe it required fewer regrets. He decided not to ask which.

The leader wiped his eyes and looked up.

"Owner."

Lin Fan straightened. The man was still terrifying even with a wet sleeve and swollen eyes — he had the bearing of someone used to being obeyed.

"Yes?"

"We would like another cup."

Lin Fan looked at the empty first cup. Then at the five men. Then at the kettle, which he was starting to suspect had opinions.

"Another one?"

The broken-bowl bandit nodded weakly. "Perhaps the second cup will explain the first."

Lin Fan's business instincts snapped awake instantly, elbowing his sympathy out of the way.

"The first cup was free," he said smoothly. "The second cup is two Low-grade Spirit Stones."

The leader reached into his robes and pulled out a small cloth bag. He set it on the table.

It landed with a heavy, satisfying clink.

Lin Fan's eyes tracked it like a hawk.

Spirit Stones. Actual income.

"Ten Low-grade Spirit Stones," the leader said, pushing it forward.

Lin Fan opened the bag. Ten pale stones sat inside, glowing faintly.

He had never in his life been so happy to see rocks.

[Legitimate customer revenue recognized.][Customer satisfaction: Positive.][Hospitality Points increased: 100 → 115.]

Fifteen points. Not enough for a divine weapon. Not even enough for a second chair. But it was real, and it had come from five men who, twenty minutes ago, had been planning to rob him.

Lin Fan closed his hand around the bag.

"Thank you for your patronage."

The five bandits sat up straighter, as one.

The leader's expression turned complicated.

Patronage.

After everything they'd admitted — the shakedowns, the fear they'd left behind them like smoke — this stranger still called them customers.

Not monsters. Not criminals to be chased off with a broom.

Customers.

The leader bowed his head. "This one should thank Owner."

Lin Fan waved a hand. "It's just business."

Just business.

The words landed harder than the tea had.

Lin Fan, entirely unaware of the emotional devastation he'd just caused, turned back to the kettle and brewed five more cups.

This time the bandits drank slower. Carefully. Like men approaching a cliff edge on purpose.

The leader closed his eyes as the memories came back — the merchant's name, the wife who'd begged, the moment he'd decided their lives weighed less than a cart of goods. The tea didn't excuse any of it. It just made him look, without the usual armor of anger and habit in the way.

He opened his eyes. "I should find that merchant's family."

The bandit beside him blinked. "You remember where they went?"

"No."

"Then how will you find them?"

The leader looked toward the window. "I will search every road until I do."

The broken-bowl bandit stared down at his own hands. "What about my village?"

Nobody answered. There were a great many villages. A great many merchants. A great many people who'd learned to be afraid of them.

For years, they'd simply kept walking, never once looking back, because no one had ever made them.

One cup of tea had turned them all around at once.

Lin Fan gathered the empty cups, oblivious to the fact that he'd just accidentally started five separate personal crises.

The leader stood.

Lin Fan grabbed the broom on instinct.

The leader froze. Lin Fan froze.

A silence stretched between them, weighted with mutual suspicion.

"Why did you stand up?" Lin Fan asked, broom held at a slight defensive angle.

The leader slowly sat back down. "This one wished to repay Owner's kindness."

"You already paid for the second round."

"That is not enough."

Lin Fan looked at the ten Spirit Stones sitting on his counter, which he personally considered a very generous tip. But he understood the sentiment. Some customers believed a big tip erased shouting at the waiter. It never did.

Still — he had a business to run.

"If you want to repay me," Lin Fan said, "you can wash the cups."

The five bandits went completely, utterly still, as if he'd just handed down an ancient decree.

Lin Fan pointed at the counter. "There are ten of them."

The leader's face shifted into something solemn and grateful. Not kneeling. Not begging. Not dying for their sins in some dramatic last stand.

Dishes.

"This one accepts," the leader said gravely.

"Good."

Lin Fan pointed to a wooden basin. "Use water. Don't break them. They're System property."

Five heads bowed as one, as if he'd just imparted a technique passed down for ten thousand years.

Lin Fan watched them march toward the basin with the seriousness of soldiers entering a real battlefield, and briefly wondered if he'd made some kind of mistake.

"Just wash the cups," he called after them.

The leader reached the basin and bowed to it.

"We will comprehend the meaning behind your instruction."

Lin Fan's hand froze halfway to the counter. "There is no deeper meaning."

The five lowered their heads further.

Of course. Senior does not wish us to grow arrogant.

The first bandit lifted a cup with both hands like it was a priceless heirloom. The second poured water into the basin with the solemnity of a man beginning a sacred rite. The third stared at the cloth in his hands like it might bite him.

Lin Fan handed him a small bar of soap. "Use this."

The bandit's pupils shrank.

Lin Fan sighed before the man had even said anything. "It's soap."

"...Is this the medium of cleansing?"

"It removes dirt."

"From the soul?"

"From the cups." Lin Fan pinched the bridge of his nose. "Not from your soul. Probably."

That last word did not help even slightly. The bandit looked crushed.

They were, without exception, terrible at washing dishes.

One scrubbed a single cup so hard Lin Fan feared it might file a formal grievance. Another kept turning his cup at odd angles toward the light, checking for hidden inscriptions that were definitely not there. A third apologized to a cup he'd almost dropped.

Only the leader worked with any real skill — rinsing twice, drying with a clean cloth, lining each cup up perfectly straight, like he was arranging soldiers for inspection.

"You've done this before?" Lin Fan asked, surprised.

"No."

"You're strangely good at it."

The leader straightened with visible pride. "Owner's guidance is profound."

"I said you're good at washing cups."

"This subordinate will not forget your words."

Lin Fan rubbed his forehead and decided some battles weren't worth fighting.

By the time the last cup gleamed dry, five bandits stood in a neat row behind the counter. Sleeves soaked. Eyes still puffy. One had soap foam stuck in his beard like a very confused snowman.

They looked less like feared cultivators and more like the most dangerous dishwashing crew in the history of Azure Origin World.

The System panel chimed.

[Customer service interaction completed.][Customer satisfaction: Positive.][Employee suitability analysis: Incomplete.]

Lin Fan blinked. "Employee suitability?"

The System offered no further comment, which by now he understood to mean it had absolutely no intention of explaining itself.

The leader, unable to see the glowing panel, only noticed Lin Fan's expression shift.

"Owner, has this subordinate failed another test?"

"No."

"Then what is our next task?"

Lin Fan looked at the row of clean cups, the still-empty road, and five armed men standing at attention like they were waiting for battle orders from a general who had, until an hour ago, been terrified of them.

He had wanted customers. He'd gotten five bandits.

He had wanted revenue. He'd gotten ten Spirit Stones and a very confusing amount of emotional labor.

He had wanted to survive the day. He now had five grown men asking for more chores.

Lin Fan looked toward the road.

In the distance, a merchant caravan had stopped. Several people were pointing at the teahouse.

One of them shouted, "Those are the bandits!"

The caravan spun around and fled.

Lin Fan's smile dropped clean off his face.

The leader and the other four turned to look, expressions darkening in unison.

The tea had made them remember their crimes.

Now, it seemed, someone else had remembered too.

"Why is everyone running?" Lin Fan asked, already suspecting he wasn't going to like the answer.

The leader set the last clean cup down with the gentleness of a man setting down a funeral offering.

"Owner," he said, voice heavy with shame, "it seems our past has caught up to us."

Lin Fan looked at the empty road.

Then at the five bandits.

Then at his own teahouse sign, still swinging gently in the wind, utterly indifferent to how badly things were about to go.

His first business day was not yet half over. It already contained one mass emotional breakdown, a five-star review, ten Spirit Stones, five unpaid employees, and an incoming reputation crisis.

Lin Fan closed his eyes.

"I should have opened a noodle shop."