Long Xiao turned slowly to see a young woman smiling at him.
"Brother Long, Madam assigned me to be your temporary guide. She said I should show you the ropes." She walked toward him, though a strange, nervous energy bled through every single one of her movements.
"My name is Ru Ling. Everyone here calls me Little Ling. Please do not hesitate to ask me any questions."
She handed him a thick scroll. "Per Madam's orders, this contains your daily tasks. Don't worry, Brother Long, I'll walk you through it calmly." She gave a thumbs up, her proud smile twitching slightly.
"Excuse me," Long Xiao said, his voice completely flat with utter disbelief. "Are we all just going to pretend that nothing just happened? A person literally just died."
The rest of the workers stopped scrubbing. Their heads turned as one, staring at him blankly with hollow, exhausted eyes, before they immediately and wordlessly resumed their frantic work.
"Nothing happened, Brother Long," Zhaoge affirmed. He had just returned from disposing of Lina's body, his voice entirely devoid of human emotion.
"Nothing happened!?" Long Xiao exclaimed, running a hand through his hair in frustration. "You lot look like you've seen this horrific dance a hundred times before!"
"Brother Long..." Ru Ling's voice dropped to a hesitant whisper. "I think we should really get to work." SShe forced a bright smile, but her eyes kept darting toward the others.
"Follow me," she said, gesturing toward the back doors.
As they walked, Little Ling spoke incredibly quickly, desperate to change the subject. "As I said, the scroll contains your daily tasks. Let me show you the layers of our establishment so you do not wander into the wrong zone."
They stepped into the massive, high-ceilinged kitchen. Instead of a normal mortal cooking space, it felt like an alchemical laboratory. Rows of massive brick hearths were fueled by roaring, low-grade spiritual flames, causing the entire room to hum with heavy elemental energy. Enormous cauldrons bubbled with medicinal broths, and stacks of spiritual beasts—skinned and ready for the cleaver—hung from iron hooks.
"I'm so excited to help you, Brother Long," Ru Ling said cheerfully. "The ground-floor of the inn is officially closed for today, which makes it absolutely perfect for your first lesson. So, lesson number one..."
Long Xiao raised his hand like a diligent student with a question, his voice dripping with heavy sarcasm. "Teacher, are we still going to ignore the fact that the innkeeper could have utilized literally any other form of punishment?"
Little Ling moved closer, her voice dropping to a tight, conspiratorial whisper. "Brother Long, please. Madam did it just for you. That is the innkeeper's way of discipline. You should definitely avoid offending her..." She pulled back, her eyes suddenly filled with a terror so raw that it made the cheerfulness of her smile look like a thin, fragile porcelain mask. "...or else you will end up exactly like Lina."
She cleared her throat loudly, forcing the bright smile back onto her face. "So! Lesson number one: The customer is always right. No matter what unreasonable things they say. Remember, they are always right."
"What kind of absolute nonsense is that?" Long Xiao scoffed. "Of course the customer cannot always be right!"
Little Ling laughed softly at Long Xiao's utter shock. She found him incredibly peculiar. Is this man some clueless young master from a hidden clan? She thought before continuing.
"We must always treat the customers right. It makes them and Madam happy. If anything goes wrong, we as workers should always be legally in the right to gain the innkeeper's protection. Otherwise, she will simply hand us over to the angry customers for them to deal with us as they see fit."
Long Xiao listened patiently on the outside while raging like a wild thunderstorm within his mind.
"Handed over...To be dealt with? Quite effective."
Ru Ling began leading him through the labyrinthine layers of the Mistveil Pavilion.
"This is the Middle Layer," she explained, gesturing to a series of open-air walkways that overlooked a serene indoor garden. The air here was much cooler, scented with expensive spiritual incense.
"The Earth-grade and Heaven-grade rooms are up here. There's a minor spirit vein beneath this section, so guests can recover their qi while they sleep. Whatever you do, do not disturb them. Some of these cultivators consider being interrupted a legitimate reason to murder someone."
While they walked in the corridors, a guest could be heard complaining about a minor disturbance, making Ru Ling panic for a moment.
They then descended a flight of stone steps, passing through a heavy wooden gate that led to the outer perimeter of the estate. The refined scent of incense was instantly replaced by the pungent aroma of straw, raw leather, and beast musk.
"And finally, the Stables," Ru Ling said, waving her hand toward a massive, reinforced iron barn.
Long Xiao's eyes widened slightly. These weren't ordinary mortal horses. Behind the heavy wooden bars of the stalls, magnificent and terrifying creatures paced restlessly. He saw a massive, three-eyed spiritual wolf snarling in the shadows, a pair of fiery-hooved nightmare steeds kicking at the stone floors, and an armored Qilin-beast lazily chewing on iron-infused hay. There were other mutated beasts like frogs with ears and bears with wings.
"The stable duty is the hardest," Ru Ling warned, her wide smile returning.
"These mounts belong to the cultivators upstairs. If they bite off your arm, remember lesson number one: the customer's beast is also always right. You'll just have to clean up the blood before Madam sees it."
"Like seriously?" Long Xiao stared blankly at a fiery steed that just sneezed a ball of literal green plasma. He tightly clutched his scroll, feeling an unprecedented wave of mortal dread wash over his divine soul.
The beasts' noses twitched, their ears flattening as they sensed the faint traces of divine aura leaking from Long Xiao.
Divine beasts were born of heaven and earth, and sensing divine or demonic auras was one of their many survival instincts. They knew the man before them was no ordinary mortal.
Clutching his scroll, Long Xiao watched as the beasts cowered, trying to make themselves smaller.
Ru Ling narrowed her eyes, sensing something quite amiss. She glanced at the trembling beasts to Long Xiao.
"That's it for today, student Long," Little Ling suddenly said.
"It's evening. We'll apply today's lesson tomorrow when the inn opens." She was already at the entrance.
"See you tomorrow, Brother Long. We rise at dawn."
"You live here too?" Long Xiao asked.
Ru Ling shook her head. "I live with my grandmother. Only those who have nowhere else to go stay in the west wing."
With that, she left him standing at the entrance to the stables.