Chapter 37 — Order, Tokens, and the Meat Crisis

Sect Master Lu, who was leaning heavily against the prep table with white flour dusting his thick eyebrows, wiped his forehead with a damp cloth. "A reservation system? Shopkeeper, in the world of cultivation, establishments usually beg high-stage immortals to grace their doors. If you impose strict rules and turn powerful cultivators away, will they not take offense and attempt to burn the building to the ground?"

"They are welcome to try," Crimson remarked smoothly from the dark corridor behind the kitchen, his red eyes narrowing with an icy, tranquil light. "I shall happily convert anyone attempting arson into high-grade organic fertilizer for the rear vegetable garden."

"Let us please avoid turning our paying customers into fertilizer," Lin Fan said, rubbing his temples. "Look, the issue isn't that people are angry. The problem is that our food is absurdly cheap, our quality is divine, and our dining hall is far too small. If we don't bring structure to this chaos, our staff will collapse from overwork, and our kitchen will burn out. We need operational discipline!"

Lin Fan pulled out a stack of blank bamboo slips and a jar of dark calligraphy ink. With swift, practiced strokes, he carved numbers directly into the smooth wood, establishing three distinct operational pillars for the new policy.

First, the Token System. Only fifty numbered bamboo slips would be distributed at dawn for the lunch shift, and another fifty at dusk for the dinner shift. No slip meant no entry, regardless of whether a customer was a humble mortal merchant or an inner sect elder riding a flying sword.

Second, the One-Incense Dining Window. Each table would be equipped with a tiny brass incense burner holding a single, forty-five-minute stick of aromatic incense. The moment the food hit the table, the incense stick would be lit. When the final speck of ash fell onto the brass tray, the meal was officially over, and patrons were expected to settle their tab and clear the table for the next token holder.

Third, the Daily Meat Quota. To protect the kitchen’s output capacity, the inn would strictly limit sales of the famous Slow-Braised Beast Meat to precisely one hundred portions per day. Once the hundredth bowl left the pass, the dish was marked as sold out until the next sunrise.

"This is madness..." Scartail muttered, scratching his scarred cheek as he stared at the numbered bamboo slips. "You're telling a room full of hot-tempered sword cultivators that they only get forty-five minutes to eat their dinner?"

Lin Fan smiled—a sharp, calculating smile born from years of studying modern commercial marketing. "Scartail, you don't understand the cultivator mindset. If you give people unlimited access to something, they take it for granted and waste time. But if you tell them a resource is strictly limited and hard to obtain, their brains will instantly convince them it's a divine treasure worth fighting for."

The following morning, Lin Fan’s prediction manifested with terrifying, absolute accuracy.

At four o'clock in the morning, long before the sun had even hinted at rising over the eastern peaks, the stone street outside Lin's Inn was already dead silent—except for the soft, rustling sounds of dark-robed figures crouching in the shadows.

When Xiao Yu unbolted the heavy front doors at six o'clock to hang the new policy board beside the entrance, he nearly dropped his wooden broom in shock.

Standing directly on the stone porch was a line of over two hundred cultivators, standing shoulder-to-shoulder in complete, disciplined silence. Some were meditating cross-legged on the cold stone pavement; others were hovering silently three inches above the ground to conserve space. At the very front of the queue stood an inner elder from the Thunder Gale Sect, looking like a man who had been standing guard over a secret ancient ruin for seven straight hours.

"Is it time?" the Thunder Gale elder rasped, his eyes bloodshot, staring intently at the wooden box of numbered bamboo slips held tightly in Xiao Yu's arms. "Give me Token Number One! I have brought my spirit stones! I demand the braised meat!"

Xiao Yu swallowed hard, stepping back slightly, but remembered Lin Fan's strict instructions. He cleared his throat, raised his chin, and projected his voice with administrative authority. "Honored patrons! Lin's Inn is now operating under the Official Token Reservation System! One token per person! Please form an orderly queue! Pushing, shoving, or flexing spiritual pressure will result in immediate disqualification and permanent banishment by Head of Security Crimson!"

At the mention of Crimson’s name, the surging crowd instantly froze. The intimidating elder lowered his hands, cleared his throat, and took a extremely polite step back. "Ah... of course. Orderly queue. Very reasonable."

Within less than five minutes, all fifty morning tokens were completely handed out.

What happened next was pure commercial insanity. Instead of walking away disappointed, the cultivators who failed to secure a token immediately created an underground secondary market right on the street outside.

"Selling Token Number Seven!" a young rogue cultivator shouted from an alleyway, holding a wooden slip high in the air. "Fifty low-grade spirit stones! Starting bid!"

"I offer sixty!" a wealthy merchant yelled, waving a leather pouch.

"Seventy spirit stones and a low-grade iron flying sword!" an outer disciple bellowed, pushing through the crowd.

Inside the dining hall, the new system worked with frightening, mechanical perfection.

Xiao Yu managed the floor with cool, effortless grace. As each token holder was seated, tiny Xiao Mei scampered over to place a clean napkin and light the small brass incense burner at the corner of the table.

The presence of the burning incense stick created a hilarious, high-stakes dining atmosphere. Cultivators sat at their tables, staring intently at the tiny glowing tip of the incense while shoveling Golden Egg Fried Rice into their mouths at record speeds.

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"Eat faster, Junior Brother!" a sword cultivator hissed, his chopsticks moving like a blur of lightning as he scooped up a piece of braised meat. "The incense is already halfway burned! If we don't finish the wild vegetable soup in ten minutes, the ex-bandit enforcer is going to kick us out into the street!"

Across the room, Scartail walked between the rows of tables, holding a large wooden clipboard and wearing a sharp black apron. He paused beside a window table where an old cultivator was lingering over his teacup, chatting lazily with his companion.

Scartail tapped the brass tray with the tip of his finger. Clink.

"Time's up, Elder Qing," Scartail said gruffly, his single eye staring down with absolute zero tolerance. "The ash has touched the copper. Please settle your bill at the counter. Token Number Eleven is waiting at the door."

The old cultivator looked at the fallen ash, let out a dramatic, heartbroken sigh, and hurriedly gulped down the last drop of his tea. "Cruel... so profoundly cruel! Yet the braised meat was so divine I shall return tomorrow at three in the morning for another token!" He slapped eight spirit stones onto the wood and scurried out the door.

By one o'clock in the afternoon, the turnover rate of the dining room had reached an all-time high. Tables were cleared, wiped, and re-seated in under two minutes. The chaotic shouting of yesterday was completely gone, replaced by the rhythmic, focused sound of satisfied patrons eating as efficiently as humanly possible.

In the kitchen, Lin Fan wiped the sweat from his neck, looking out through the serving window at the clean, orderly floor. He felt a deep, profound sense of corporate pride swelling in his chest.

"See, Lu?" Lin Fan said, leaning against the marble counter with a triumphant smile. "Systematic organization wins every single time. We controlled the crowd, we maintained our sanity, and we generated maximum profit in half the time."

"It is truly a marvel, Shopkeeper," Sect Master Lu admitted, pulling a fresh tray of golden, steaming hearth bread from the iron oven. "The turnover is astounding! We served fifty full meals in under two hours without a single altercation!"

Just as Lin Fan was about to celebrate his victory, the double doors of the kitchen burst open.

Xiao Yu rushed inside, his face pale and his breath coming in short, rapid gasps. He held an empty wooden ledger in his hands, his eyes wide with sheer panic.

"Shopkeeper!" Xiao Yu cried out. "We have a massive problem!"

Lin Fan raised an eyebrow, keeping his calm demeanor. "Calm down, Xiao Yu. Did someone break the incense burners? Did someone try to fake a bamboo token?"

"No, sir!" Xiao Yu panted, shaking his head frantically. "Because the customers are eating so fast to beat the incense timer, our total food consumption rate has quadrupled! The afternoon quota of one hundred meat portions... was completely sold out twenty minutes ago!"

Lin Fan blinked. "Sold out? Already? Well, just inform the remaining token holders that we only have vegetable soup, fried rice, and bread left for the rest of the shift."

"We tried, Shopkeeper!" Xiao Yu squeaked, pointing toward the crowded counter in the dining hall. "But the customers outside heard that the braised meat was running low, and they are begging us to sell them more! Elder Zhao from the Thunder Gale Sect is holding a pouch of thirty mid-grade spirit stones, offering to pay triple the price if we cook him just one more bowl! Others are offering high-grade herbs and spiritual daggers as bribes!"

The moment the words "triple the price" and "bribes" escaped Xiao Yu's mouth, a sudden, violent shiver ran straight down Lin Fan’s spine.

An instinctual, phantom ache throbbed in his lower body.

In an instant, a glowing red, high-priority System warning banner flashed directly across Lin Fan’s vision, accompanied by a deafening, terrifying mental chime:

[SYSTEM WARNING: Rule — Exact Pricing Enforcement (Anti-Exploit Clause)]

[Mechanism: The System strictly enforces designated menu prices for all goods and services sold by Lin Fan.]

[Prohibitions: Lin Fan cannot accept tips, overpayments, extra gifts, bartered high-grade treasures, or extortionate fees above the System-defined price, regardless of how much a customer insists or offers.]

[Violation Penalty: Immediate 100,000-Volt Heavenly Lightning Bolt delivered directly to the Owner's pelvis.]

Lin Fan broke into a cold, violent sweat. His hand flew down to protectively cover his waist, his face turning as white as Lu’s flour.

The terrifying memory of the System's initial warning rushed back into his mind. One hundred thousand volts. Directly to the pelvis.

"Absolutely not!" Lin Fan squeaked, his voice cracking into a high pitch before he quickly cleared his throat and assumed a stern, righteous expression. "Xiao Yu! What kind of place do you think we are running here?! Lin's Inn is a pillar of absolute commercial integrity! We strictly adhere to our designated menu pricing! We do not accept bribes! We do not take tips! We do not gouge our patrons with triple prices!"

Xiao Yu blinked, taken aback by his shopkeeper's sudden, impassioned stance on business ethics. "A-Ah... under stood, Shopkeeper! You are truly a man of noble virtue!"

"Virtue... yes, virtue," Lin Fan muttered, still holding his pelvis with a nervous twitch in his eye. "Tell Elder Zhao that if we have extra meat, a bowl costs five low-grade spirit stones. Not a single copper stone more, and not a single copper stone less! If he tries to hand you extra money, tell him I will personally have Crimson throw him out!"

Lin Fan took a deep breath, trying to calm his frantically racing heart. "Let me check the cold storage. If we have spare flanks of beast meat left from Crimson's hunt, I'll prepare a small extra batch to sell at the normal price."

Lin Fan turned on his heel and walked toward the large, frost-enchanted cold storage larder at the back of the kitchen. He grabbed the heavy iron handle of the cold storage door, pulled it wide open, and stepped inside the chilly, mist-filled room.

He stopped dead in his tracks.

The self-righteous, relieved smile on his face instantly frozen.

Expectation: A thirty-foot-high mountain of Saint-grade Tyrant Bull meat, dozens of frozen spirit pheasants, and giant silver flood dragon fish.

Reality: Empty stone shelves, a frosty, vacant floor, a single, lonely chicken wing resting in the far corner, and two withered sprigs of wild garlic.

Lin Fan stood completely motionless in the middle of the freezing room, his jaw slowly dropping open as his brain struggled to compute the devastating visual data. The massive, absurd mountain of high-grade wild meat that Crimson had brought back—the massive supply he had calculated would easily last the establishment at least two full months—was completely, utterly gone.

Between the ravenous appetite of the local cultivators, the staff's daily consumption, and the unprecedented, high-velocity turnover created by the new token system, the entire stock had been completely wiped out in less than forty-eight hours.

Lin Fan slowly turned his head toward the kitchen doorway.

Crimson was standing quietly near the entrance, holding his dark sleeves, his face as stoic and unreadable as a marble statue.

Lin Fan stared at him, his voice trembling slightly. "Crimson... where is the bull?"

"Consumed, Master," Crimson replied calmly, without a single flicker of hesitation. "The structural density of Saint-grade muscle tissue degrades rapidly upon cooking, yielding smaller net portions than initially estimated. Furthermore, the patrons demonstrated an unexpectedly high caloric intake."

Lin Fan stared at the bare stone shelves, then at the single chicken wing, and finally out the kitchen window at the crowd of thirty eager cultivators waiting in the dining hall for their braised meat.

A cold bead of sweat rolled down Lin Fan's neck as the terrifying reality hit him like a mountain collapsing from the sky.

He had solved the floor management problem. He had successfully avoided the System's pelvic lightning strike. But in doing so, he had slammed face-first into the absolute worst nightmare of any restaurant owner:

They had run completely out of ingredients.