Chapter 4: A Reputation Problem

Lin Fan had always believed bad publicity was worse than no publicity. No publicity could be fixed with a sign, a discount, or standing outside shouting until someone got curious.

Bad publicity arrived before the customer did, and usually brought relatives along to complain.

He watched the merchant caravan vanish around the bend, wheels spinning so fast the last carriage nearly tipped into a ditch.

Lin Fan turned back to the five bandits.

"What exactly did you do to them?"

The leader lowered his head. "We robbed them."

"How many times?"

One bandit raised a hand like a student answering a question he already regretted asking. "The first time was not serious."

"You took all their goods," another bandit said.

"We were hungry."

"You had already eaten breakfast."

"We were preparing for lunch."

Lin Fan stared at him for a long moment. This was, somehow, the most honest excuse he had ever heard.

The leader rubbed his forehead. "We robbed them several times. Sometimes goods. Sometimes Spirit Stones. Once, an entire carriage."

"An entire carriage?"

"It was a very good carriage."

"That is not the part I am questioning."

Lin Fan looked at his small teahouse — new sign, clean chairs, ten Spirit Stones sitting proudly in his cash box — and felt his first-ever business review quietly rewrite itself in his head from Lin's Teahouse to the place where the bandits hang out.

His eyelid twitched.

"Can you explain this without making it worse?"

"We used to stop caravans on this road," the leader said. "That merchant recognized us."

"And ran."

"Yes."

"Why didn't you stop him?"

The leader was quiet for a moment. "Because he was afraid."

Lin Fan had heard customers say they were afraid before — usually about refund policies, or a strange noise from the kitchen. This fear was a different animal. The kind that made a man abandon his own goods on the road and never look back.

Before he could think of anything comforting to say, a shout rang out.

"Stay where you are!"

Only the lead carriage came back, flanked by two guards with drawn swords. The rest of the caravan stayed far behind, as if the road itself had turned into a river full of crocodiles.

The merchant climbed down, pale but standing straight through sheer stubbornness, and pointed at the bandits. "You!"

None of the five reached for a weapon.

That surprised Lin Fan more than anything else that day.

The leader unhooked his saber and laid it in the dirt. The other four followed, one after another, until five weapons sat neatly in a row like they were being turned in for inventory.

Lin Fan clapped once. "Good. Nobody fight near the entrance. I just mopped."

The merchant stared at him.

One of the guards stared at him too.

All five bandits bowed their heads immediately, as if Lin Fan had just handed down a battlefield command instead of complaining about his floor.

"You know who they are?" the merchant asked.

"They're my customers."

The merchant's face went a shade paler.

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"Temporary customers," Lin Fan added quickly.

The leader flinched slightly at that. Lin Fan, focused on damage control, did not notice.

"They're also washing my cups," he said. "Very thoroughly. Nothing's broken."

The merchant looked past him at the five cups gleaming through the doorway, lined up like soldiers on parade. For a moment, nobody said anything.

Then one bandit stepped forward.

"We robbed your caravan three winters ago," he said. "Took the medicine from the second carriage."

The merchant's jaw tightened. "That medicine was for my mother."

"I know."

Another bandit spoke up. "I burned a shop belonging to your cousin."

The merchant's fingers curled into fists.

A third bandit cleared his throat, visibly nervous. "I once threatened twelve people over a shipment dispute. It got out of hand."

The second bandit turned on him. "Twelve people?"

"You burned an entire shop!"

"It was empty."

"There were people near it."

"That's different!"

"Is it?"

A fourth bandit glanced between them, deeply uncomfortable. "Should we... rank ourselves? Is this a competition now?"

"Enough," the leader said, eyes shut, looking like a man who badly wished his staff had a mute button.

The two guards exchanged a look. This had, somehow, become the single worst staff meeting either of them had ever witnessed, and one of them had once worked security at a wedding that ended in a duel.

The leader stepped toward the merchant and stopped a respectful distance away. He did not kneel. He did not beg. He simply stood, hands open at his sides.

"We cannot return everything today," he said. "Some was sold. Some destroyed. Some — used. But we will repay what we can."

He set a small storage pouch in the dirt. The other four did the same. Spirit Stones, weapons, herbs, and odd little treasures spilled out in a small, guilty pile.

The merchant stared at it.

"Why?" he asked. "Why now?"

The leader glanced back at the teahouse.

"Because we finally remembered what we did."

"And because someone gave us tea," a bandit added, entirely serious.

The merchant blinked. "...Tea?"

Lin Fan pointed helpfully at the kettle sitting on the counter, as if that fully explained anything.

The merchant took one careful step backward, deciding this was not a question he wanted answered further.

The leader picked up a single Spirit Stone and held it out. "This is only the beginning. We will find the families we've wronged. If they want revenge instead of repayment, we will accept that too."

The air went heavy. Even Lin Fan, who had been quietly doing math on how many Spirit Stones were now sitting in his dirt, stopped thinking about profit for a moment.

The tea hadn't made the leader a saint. He was still dangerous, still capable of terrible things. But for the first time in a long while, he was facing his past instead of outrunning it.

The merchant looked at the pile of treasure for a long moment. His fear hadn't vanished. Neither had his anger.

"I don't know if I can forgive you," he said finally.

"You don't have to," the leader said.

That answer seemed to land harder than an apology would have. The merchant said nothing else. He climbed back into his carriage slowly, glanced once at the teahouse sign like he was memorizing it for a report to the local authorities, and rode off.

Lin Fan quietly let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

Then the leader turned around, walked back to the teahouse, and dropped to one knee.

Lin Fan's heart nearly stopped. "Wait — what are you doing?"

"Owner," the leader said gravely, "allow us to repay your kindness."

"You can repay it by finishing the dishes."

"We will."

"And by not scaring off my future customers."

"We will protect your customers."

"That's not — that is not what I meant."

The leader bowed his head lower. "Please allow us to follow you."

Lin Fan froze solid.

Behind him, four more bandits dropped to their knees in perfect unison, like they'd rehearsed it.

Lin Fan looked at the five kneeling men — wet sleeves, red eyes, soap foam still stuck in one beard — and felt the specific horror of a man watching his life turn into a novel trope without his permission.

"Follow me where?" he asked, already dreading the answer.

"Wherever Owner's path leads."

Lin Fan's scalp went numb.

He knew this scene. Powerful, guilt-ridden experts kneel before a mysterious young master, swear loyalty, and together conquer the martial world one arc at a time.

He did not want to conquer the martial world.

He wanted to buy more firewood before it got dark.

"I am not starting a bandit sect," Lin Fan said firmly.

The five men glanced at each other.

"We know," the leader said.

"Then why are you kneeling?"

"Because we wish to work."

Lin Fan blinked. "...Work."

"We will wash cups. Carry supplies. Sweep the road. Guard the teahouse. Repay every debt we owe, one cup at a time if we must."

Lin Fan looked at five grown, armed, formerly terrifying men kneeling in his dirt yard with the seriousness of soldiers enlisting in a holy war, all because he had once said the words wash the cups.

He had not planned for a staff meeting today. He had not planned for a staff, period.

He rubbed his forehead slowly. "...Fine. But there are rules."

The five straightened at once, at full attention.

"First — no robbing customers. Second — no killing customers. Ever. Third — no threatening customers, even a little, even as a joke. Fourth — wash the cups properly, and stop bowing to the soap."

The leader nodded solemnly after each rule, as though receiving sacred scripture.

"We accept every word."

"Also, you're not employees yet. You're on probation."

The five exchanged uncertain looks.

The leader's expression turned deadly serious. "We will pass this trial."

"It's dishwashing. There's no trial. You either wash the cup or you don't."

"We will not fail the cup."

Lin Fan sighed with his entire soul.

His teahouse had been open for less than a day. In that time he had earned a five-star review, ten Spirit Stones, an emotionally unstable merchant, a small treasure pile in his front yard, and five extremely intense new employees who apparently could not do anything without turning it into a spiritual vow.

The System panel blinked into view, unbothered as always.

[Employee group formation detected.][Hospitality standards required.]

Lin Fan stared at it. The five bandits stared at him, waiting for his next profound instruction like he was about to reveal the secret to eternal life.

He looked at the muddy floor, the drying cups, the empty road where a very frightened merchant had just disappeared, and felt a headache building somewhere behind his eyes that no amount of tea was going to fix.

"Tomorrow," he said, "we're making a work schedule."

The five bowed together, deeply and in perfect sync.

"We await the Heavenly schedule."

Lin Fan closed his eyes.

He had only meant that everyone should show up on time.