Chapter 6: The Customer Who Refused to Pay

By noon, Lin Fan had learned four things about running a teahouse.

One, ordinary customers were far less frightening than bandits.

Two, children gave the most brutally honest reviews.

Three, legal firewood was somehow more expensive than the illegal kind.

Four, five bandits could turn a single cup of tea into a full military operation.

The old woodcutter had left two hours ago. His five helpers were still talking about it like it was a battle that had shaped the fate of the continent.

"The old man was testing our discipline," the leader said.

"He drank tea," Lin Fan said. "That's it."

"That was merely the surface."

"The surface is usually enough, when someone's paying for it."

The leader nodded slowly, like Lin Fan had just cracked open some ancient truth instead of stating the obvious.

The other four had crowded around the counter, staring at a System message like it was carved on a stone tablet.

[Hospitality Points increased: 115 → 117.]

Two points. To Lin Fan, that was barely worth mentioning — one cup, one payment, done. To the bandits, it might as well have been a proclamation from heaven.

"The Owner's organization has received two marks of recognition," one bandit announced.

"They're points."

"Points of recognition."

"They're just points."

He fell silent immediately. "The Owner does not wish us to grow proud."

Lin Fan gave up arguing and added a new line to the schedule instead.

Do not explain System notifications to customers.

The leader read it and nodded gravely. "Understood."

"This rule is for you."

"We are also customers."

Lin Fan opened his mouth to disagree, and the System panel beat him to it.

[Customer status: Previous customers.]

The leader bowed as if the heavens themselves had just sided with him. Lin Fan quietly crossed the line back out, deciding some arguments simply couldn't be won.

That was when three young cultivators showed up.

Clean blue robes, swords with silver filigree, the kind of posture that only comes from never having washed a single dish in your life. The one in front wore a jade pendant and the expression of a man who'd never once heard the word "no."

His two friends peered around at the four plain tables like they'd stepped into a barn.

"This is the teahouse from the rumors?" one muttered.

"The one with five bandit cultivators working for the owner," the other confirmed.

All three turned toward said bandits, currently one holding a broom, one holding a bucket, and one cradling a single clean cup with both hands like it was a newborn.

The leader was reading the work schedule with his lips moving.

The young cultivator in front snorted. "Rumors get more ridiculous by the day."

Lin Fan heard it and let it go. Customers could think whatever they liked, right up until they started breaking chairs about it.

The young man sat at the biggest table. "Bring your best tea."

"We have Tranquility Tea."

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"Then that."

"Two Spirit Stones."

He looked at Lin Fan the way a man looks at someone who's just insulted his entire ancestral line. "Do you know who I am?"

"No."

His two friends stiffened visibly.

"I am Young Master Han," he said, "of the Clear River Sect."

Lin Fan waited politely for this to mean something.

Nothing happened. It could have been a legendary sect. It could have been three cousins and a well.

"Congratulations," Lin Fan said. "It's still two Spirit Stones."

One friend turned away to hide his face.

Young Master Han slapped a hand flat on the table. "I do not pay for common tea."

"Then feel free to drink common air. That one's free."

Dead silence.

The five bandits stopped what they were doing entirely. They had heard Lin Fan haggle over tea prices before. This was new.

Young Master Han's face went cold. "You should watch yourself."

Lin Fan glanced down at the table under the man's fist. "I am watching myself. That's why I want payment first."

The young man let his spiritual pressure loose. The air went thick, the windows rattled, both friends snapped rigid, and the bandits' hands flew to their weapons.

Lin Fan felt a faint breeze on his cheek and glanced sideways.

"Is a window open somewhere?"

The pressure stopped like someone had unplugged it.

Every bandit stared at Lin Fan. To them, the room had just been flattened under a mountain. Lin Fan had responded by checking for a draft.

Young Master Han's confidence took a visible hit.

"Pay first, or leave," Lin Fan said.

"I'll pay after I drink it."

"No."

"You dare refuse me?"

"Yes."

It came out so fast it surprised even Lin Fan, but he wasn't about to take it back now.

Young Master Han stood. "You'll regret this."

"Maybe."

Lin Fan pointed at the door. "You're welcome to leave."

The young man turned to go.

"After," Lin Fan added, "you pay for the tea you already ordered."

He stopped mid-step. "I haven't even drunk it."

"You ordered it."

"Then bring it."

"You haven't paid."

"Then I'm leaving."

"Then pay first."

They stood there going in a small, tight circle of logic neither one was willing to break. Lin Fan reached for the broom, mostly out of habit, and the whole room seemed to hold its breath along with him.

Young Master Han couldn't sense a shred of spiritual energy off that broom. It was just wood and bristles. And yet something about the way Lin Fan picked it up made his instincts scream at him to stay very, very still.

Lin Fan just rested it on his shoulder like a man about to sweep a porch.

"If you can't pay," he said, "you could always wash cups."

The leader perked up instantly. "Owner, shall I fetch the basin?"

"No. Give him a chance first."

Young Master Han's face went through three distinct shades of red. He had walked in to remind everyone exactly who he was. He was currently one insult away from being handed a sponge by a teahouse owner while five reformed criminals watched.

"Young Master," one friend whispered, "we should just pay."

"Silence."

"I agree with him," said the second friend.

Han's jaw clenched so hard Lin Fan half expected to hear a tooth crack. He dropped two Spirit Stones on the table like they'd personally wronged him.

Lin Fan checked them, pocketed them, and smiled pleasantly.

[Legitimate customer service recorded.][Revenue recognized: 2 Low-grade Spirit Stones.][Hospitality Points increased: 117 → 119.]

"Good. Sit."

He sat.

Lin Fan brewed the tea and set it down. Han's hands were steady lifting the cup, though his pride clearly wasn't.

He took a sip.

The tea was warm, easy, and it loosened something behind his ribs he hadn't asked to have loosened. His father's voice, telling him a cultivator's name mattered more than coin. Himself, laughing once when a servant dropped a tray of dishes and had to pay for it out of a month's wages. Himself, never once in his life checking the price of anything, because someone else always did that for him.

None of it made him cry. It just made him deeply, quietly uncomfortable, like wearing a robe that didn't fit anymore.

Lin Fan noticed the frown. "If you don't like it, feel free to leave a review."

"It's... acceptable."

"So you don't like it."

"It is acceptable."

"Three stars, then."

He set the cup down slowly. "What is a star?"

Lin Fan produced the review board. All five bandits instantly gathered behind him like a jury.

Young Master Han looked at the board. Then at the bandits. Then at the broom, still resting against Lin Fan's shoulder.

"Five stars," he said.

"You just called it acceptable."

"It is five-star acceptable."

Lin Fan wrote it down without arguing further — a man knew when to stop pushing his luck.

Han stood and walked to the door. He paused there, back straight, trying very hard to leave with some dignity intact.

"I will return. With my elder."

"Bring exact change," Lin Fan called after him.

The two friends practically sprinted to catch up. All three figures shrank down the road until they vanished around the bend.

The leader turned to Lin Fan, eyes practically glowing.

"Owner has just defeated a Clear River Sect Young Master. With a broom. A price list. And two Spirit Stones."

"I didn't defeat anyone."

"He surrendered."

"He paid."

"The distinction," the leader said solemnly, "is profound."

Lin Fan put the review board away and counted two more Spirit Stones into the box, plus a five-star review from a man who had complained about literally everything on the menu, including the menu.

Business, he decided, was a very strange thing.

That evening he closed up and sat down to count the day's earnings, feeling — for the first time since crossing worlds — something close to normal.

Then the sky above the road turned red.

All five bandits bolted outside. A streak of dark crimson light tore across the clouds, screaming downward, headed straight for the teahouse roof.

Lin Fan's first thought was someone's attacking us.

His second thought was I never got around to insuring this building.

"Do NOT land on the roof!" he shouted, for reasons that felt entirely reasonable at the time.

The streak jerked sideways at the last possible second and slammed into the empty dirt beside the road instead, throwing up a wall of dust that rattled every window in the teahouse.

The bandits froze mid-step.

Lin Fan stared at the smoking crater.

Something large, and unmistakably covered in blood, shifted inside it.

The leader's face drained white. "Owner," he whispered, "a terrifying expert has arrived."

Lin Fan picked the broom back up.

"Then somebody go tell him customers still pay before they sit down."