Chapter 23: The First Customer Complaint

The teahouse was an absolute warzone of efficiency and terror. Steam hissed from the kettles, the bandits blurred back and forth with empty trays, and Crimson stood like an executioner behind the counter, staring down every customer with eyes that promised swift, bloodless annihilation.

It was mid-afternoon when the rhythm finally broke.

A burly, heavily scarred man wearing the robes of a local mercenary sect slammed his hand onto table four. He had been waiting twenty minutes for a pot of standard tea, and his patience had officially run out.

"Hey!" the mercenary barked, his voice carrying across the packed room. "How much longer is this going to take? I've been sitting here half an hour while you serve these soft-handed nobles! Is this how a reputable shop treats paying guests?"

The moment the words left his mouth, the entire teahouse went dead silent.

The clinking of teacups stopped instantly. Sect Master Lu froze mid-stride with a tray of bread. The five bandits stopped wiping tables, turning their heads in terrifying, synchronized unison toward table four like a firing squad locking onto a target.

At the counter, Crimson slowly turned his head.

The temperature in the room plummeted so fast frost began to crawl up the window panes. A dense, suffocating wave of Saint-realm killing intent leaked from Crimson’s shoulders, pressing down on the floorboards with enough weight to crack stone.

The mercenary’s arrogant expression instantly vanished. The color drained from his face, replaced by a sudden, bone-chilling realization that he had just insulted the staff of a man who commanded entities capable of destroying mountains.

He immediately regretted being born. Every life choice he had ever made, from choosing to become a mercenary to waking up this morning, felt like a catastrophic mistake.

Crimson glided out from behind the counter, appearing beside table four in a blur of motion. He drew his black sword a mere half-inch from its scabbard, the metallic scrape sounding like a guillotine dropping.

"You have..." Crimson whispered, his voice vibrating with lethal, hollow menace, "...a complaint?"

The mercenary’s chest tightened. He couldn't breathe. His soul felt as though it were being ripped from his body. He opened his mouth, but only a pathetic wheeze came out. He braced himself to be erased from the mortal plane.

"CRIMSON!"

The shout echoed from the kitchen door.

The killing intent vanished instantly, evaporating into thin air as if it had never existed. The frost on the windows melted in a single heartbeat.

Lin Fan wiped his hands on a clean towel and walked out from the kitchen, looking thoroughly exasperated. He marched straight over to table four, where the mercenary was currently hyperventilating and clinging to the edge of the table for dear life.

Lin Fan looked at the sweating, terrified customer, then glared back at Crimson. "We discussed this. No killing the patrons, no matter how annoying they are."

"Yes, Owner," Crimson murmured respectfully, stepping back.

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Lin Fan turned back to the mercenary, his expression softening into standard, polite retail service. "I'm very sorry about the wait. The rush caught us off guard. As an apology, let me replace your tea on the house, and please accept this small plate of bread as compensation."

The mercenary stared up at Lin Fan.

He had expected death. He had expected his soul to be scattered to the winds.

Instead, the supreme, unfathomable hidden expert standing before him was actively apologizing and handing him free food.

"S-Senior..." the mercenary stammered, trembling as he accepted the fresh cup of tea. "I... I am unworthy..."

"Just enjoy your tea," Lin Fan sighed, turning back toward the kitchen. "And try to let us know if there's an actual delay next time without yelling."

By the next morning, however, the incident had undergone a dramatic mythological evolution.

When the mercenary recounted the tale to a packed tavern that night, it wasn't about a delayed tea order. By the time it spread across the town square, the story had morphed into something entirely different:

"I dared to question the Supreme Expert's establishment," the mercenary whispered dramatically to a crowd of wide-eyed listeners. "The Saint standing guard tried to execute me on the spot, but Senior Lin intervened. He personally apologized to me and bestowed a divine compensation tea upon my soul. If you survive his wrath, you receive Heavenly rewards!"

The next morning, when Lin Fan flipped the open sign, he immediately realized something was wrong.

The line outside wasn't just filled with normal customers. It was filled with opportunistic cultivators who had clearly spent all night plotting.

The moment the doors opened, a smug-looking Foundation Establishment cultivator practically dove into a chair near the front, raised his hand, and spoke in a loud, deliberate voice designed to grab attention.

"Owner! My chair is perhaps... slightly uncomfortable?" the cultivator announced, flashing a greedy, expectant grin.

Two tables down, another cultivator chimed in. "Owner! My tea may be... one degree too cold!"

Across the room, a third raised his hand. "Owner! The lighting in this corner is terribly uninspired!"

Lin Fan stood behind the counter, his eye twitching.

He looked at the fake, pathetic complaints. They weren't genuine issues. These people were manufacturing complaints on purpose, hoping to stage a fake grievance, get "punished" by Crimson, and then receive some kind of legendary, life-altering compensation from Lin Fan.

"..." Lin Fan remained silent, a deep, burning annoyance settling into his chest. They are scamming me for free stuff. They are literally complaining just to farm compensation.

Beside him, Crimson’s eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. A familiar, bloody aura began to swirl around his fingertips.

"May I remove them?" Crimson asked coldly.

"No," Lin Fan said.

Crimson’s gaze brightened. "Permanently?"

"ESPECIALLY NO." Lin Fan rubbed his temples, feeling a headache coming on.

Then, a dark, brilliant retail realization hit him. If he rewarded fake complaints, every scammer would start nitpicking his shop. He needed to set an example.

Lin Fan pointed a finger directly at the smug cultivator who complained about the chair.

"Crimson," Lin Fan said flatly. "Throw them out. And warn everyone else while you're at it."

Crimson’s face broke into a rare, genuinely joyful smile. Finally! Real action!

"With pleasure, Owner," Crimson whispered.

Before the cultivators could even blink, Crimson vanished from behind the counter. A terrifying spatial shockwave rippled through the dining room.

WHOOSH.

Crimson reappeared, his hands moving in a blur. He grabbed the chair-complainer by the collar, scooped up the temperature-complainer under his other arm, and kicked the lighting-complainer into the air with a single, perfectly calibrated roundhouse motion.

With a trio of sonic booms, the three cultivators were launched straight through the front doors, flying vertically into the stratosphere at Mach speed. They vanished into the clouds as tiny twinkling stars, disappearing over the horizon with no indication of where—or when—they would ever land.

The entire teahouse went dead silent. The remaining customers shrank back into their seats, holding their breath.

Crimson dusted off his hands, stepped back behind the counter, and announced to the terrified crowd with a cheerful, customer-friendly smile:

"Management would like to remind all patrons that complaints are entirely optional. However, if your complaint is not genuine, you will be launched into low Azure orbit. Have a wonderful morning."

Lin Fan nodded in quiet satisfaction, picking up his polishing rag.

By nightfall, a new rumor had completely replaced the old one across the entire region:

You can only voice a genuine complaint in Senior Lin's teahouse if you are fully prepared to be dead.

And miraculously, the service became exceptionally fast.