The boss hadn't even seen what the attacker looked like; he had his back to the enemy the entire time, and was therefore terrified. This was an era lacking legal constraints; power was controlled by the nobility, and the laws themselves were a joke.
No one would care whether a shop owner was killed, after all, he wasn't a nobleman, just a merchant with some assets. If he hadn't recently managed to curry favor with a certain nobleman through gifts, he wouldn't have dared to directly confront Ye Xu.
However, there are plenty of people like the boss in Biyue City. While alive, they can send money to the noble lords, so they are still somewhat useful. Once they die, they're gone. Will the lords avenge him? No, they will only take in other sensible small merchants.
Knowing he was in deep trouble, the shop owner quickly begged for mercy in a low voice, repeatedly saying that he had been bewitched: "I only wanted to steal this shop's base sauce recipe, but I didn't steal anything. Please forgive me, sir! I'll never do it again!"
This nonsense was utterly unbelievable. The man glanced at the alchemical tool in the shopkeeper's hand; it was a delayed-detonation device. Why would someone need a magic bomb to steal the base ingredients?
This bomb is incredibly powerful. Even if its range is limited and it doesn't affect the houses across the street, it would still destroy the hot pot restaurant and two neighboring houses. The broth recipe would definitely be destroyed if this bomb detonated; they don't even bother to think before they lie.
The boss clearly had no concept of "avoiding collateral damage." In his pursuit of revenge against his competitors, he completely disregarded the casualties of innocent bystanders, which was truly despicable.
The man coldly used the last binding scroll he had on him to restrain the shopkeeper. Magic scrolls were expensive, and he no longer had the money to buy such luxuries; luckily, he still had one in his stock.
Seeing that his sophistry had gone unanswered, the shopkeeper knew the man hadn't believed him. He thought to himself that he could only pray that the nobleman who accepted the gift was influential enough to frighten the enemy into letting him go, so he prepared to utter some blustering but ultimately cowardly threats.
When he tried to open his mouth, he felt his whole body stiffen. The guy behind him seemed to have used some kind of magic, rendering him completely unable to move except for his eyes. He was terrified, knowing he was completely finished.
But the man in black did not kill him. Instead, he silently turned and left, walking back towards the crack in the wall, intending to quietly wait for the dawn to arrive.
However……
Han Yingchen noticed something, looked up, and came face to face with Ye Xu, who was opening the window on the fifth floor to get some fresh air. Ye Xu gave an awkward but polite smile, wanting to ask what he and the other guy in a strange posture were doing, but he was too embarrassed to ask.
Han Yingchen originally intended to disappear without a trace, concealing his identity, so that Ye Xu would mistakenly believe he was a kind-hearted magician passing by offering assistance. He had no intention of revealing himself; helping Ye Xu was something he wanted to do, and he didn't need Ye Xu to know.
But now that they've been caught, they can't turn around and run away. Han Yingchen saw Ye Xu gesturing to him, and stood stiffly in place, waiting for the other to come downstairs.
A moment later, Ye Xu hurriedly ran downstairs. As soon as he opened the door, he saw a sleazy-looking man in black robes standing close to the outside, holding something in his hand and looking fierce.
"Ah!!" Ye Xu immediately took a step back; this was too terrifying in the middle of the night.
However, Ye Xu quickly realized that the person outside the door seemed to be frozen in place and posed no threat whatsoever. Moreover, even if he wasn't frozen in place, Ye Xu, as the manager of the interdimensional shop, possessed the system's invincible shield and had no need to worry about his personal safety.
After calming herself down, Ye Xu went forward and opened the door. As soon as the door opened, a cold wind rushed in, making her shiver. Even though she had been chilled once before from opening the window and had already put on a cotton coat, she still felt very cold.
"This person looks familiar." Ye Xu wrapped his clothes tighter and muttered to himself, afraid that his voice would disturb the nearby residents' sleep.
Han Yingchen, sparing with words, replied: "The owner across the street."
"It really is him." Ye Xu was already a little suspicious, but he couldn't see clearly at night, and he hadn't memorized the other person's appearance carefully, so he couldn't be sure for the moment.
Although he didn't know what the boss was holding, Ye Xu had a gut feeling that it wasn't anything good. He looked at Han Yingchen with questioning eyes, hoping to get an answer.
Han Yingchen tried to say as few words as possible: "Magic Bomb."
A bomb?! Ye Xu was startled, but quickly calmed down.
Shuangshuang once said that the dimensional shops may look no different from ordinary shops, but they are actually located in special spaces.
If you attack a shop from ten meters away, you won't be able to reach it at all due to the different spatial conditions. However, once you step into the ten-meter radius, you will be bound by the rules of this special space, and the damage of all your attacks will be greatly reduced.
The power of this magical bomb is unknown, but even the most powerful weapon, in a special space, will only function like a small balloon exploding—and that's only if the balloon is the size of a palm. This weakening effect is imperceptible to enemies before they attack; otherwise, adventurers wouldn't have entered the restaurant so confidently.
However, this incident also made Ye Xu discover a new problem—if the enemy doesn't step into the ten-meter range and instead throws bombs in a wider area around them, although the dimensional shop won't be affected, other houses in the vicinity will be impacted.
Ye Xu would definitely not accept it if others were implicated because of his own situation.
However, this problem is not so easy to solve. The only solution is to try to locate the shop in an open space with no other buildings nearby when opening shops in dangerous worlds like Western Fantasy Cultivation.
The location of the hot pot restaurant wasn't chosen by Ye Xu; it was automatically matched by the system. He initially thought the street had good foot traffic, never imagining that the area, mostly populated by commoners with no nobles, would allow some heartless individuals to recklessly drop bombs.
Ye Xu smiled at Han Yingchen with lingering fear, and said solemnly, "Thank you very much this time!"
But how to deal with this dangerous individual has plunged Ye Xu into a new headache. The laws of the current plane are too inadequate, like a child's game, completely unreliable, and he doesn't know if the plane system has its own punishment measures.
Ye Xu glanced at Han Yingchen, deciding that now was not the time to discuss this with the system, so he had to put it aside for the time being. He first called a robot to carry the neighbor across the hall into the house so he wouldn't freeze to death, and then invited Han Yingchen in to rest.
Seeing Han Yingchen still wandering around so late, Ye Xu strongly suspected that he was now homeless. This wasn't just a wild guess; given Han Yingchen's situation, it was very possible that he couldn't afford to rent a place to live, and being homeless would be too tragic.
Even if the other person had a place to stay, it couldn't compare to the warmth and comfort of the shop. Ye Xu thought that since the other person had helped him so much, he should still express his gratitude, at least by letting them stay for the night.
So what if the system has a protection mechanism? Who knows if this person might think one bomb isn't enough and plant a few more ten meters away? So stopping it in advance is a great act of merit!
Unable to refuse, Han Yingchen followed him into the house with a heavy heart. He felt that the more he tried to repay his debt of gratitude, the more indebted he became. What should he do?
A note from the author:
Why not repay him with my body?
Better to be a cow or a horse √
Chapter 24 Self-Recommendation
Not knowing how to deal with the owner across the street, Ye Xu thought for a moment, then woke up a robot and asked it to help take the man to the third floor and tie him up, to be dealt with later.
The robot went back to charge after finishing its work to avoid affecting tomorrow's business.
It was too late to chat, so Ye Xu took Han Yingchen to a small private room that had been moved to the fourth floor. Since Ye Xu was using that small private room as a staff lounge, there were no tables or chairs in it, but instead a small bed for resting.
"Rest here for the night, we can talk about it tomorrow." Ye Xu pushed him inside without further ado and brought him warm water to wash up.
Han Yingchen passively accepted this kindness, and he couldn't help but be moved. After silently tidying himself up and lying in bed, he was still thinking about how to repay Boss Ye.
Ye Xu didn't take the matter to heart, yawned, and went upstairs. After this ordeal, he finally felt a bit sleepy and, not wanting to stay up all night dealing with troublesome matters, decided to take a nap first.
The next morning, the two met at the top of the stairs on the fourth floor. It wasn't open yet, so Ye Xu invited him to sit down on the third floor and chat.
"Thanks to you last night." Ye Xu smiled kindly, "From now on, everything you eat at the store is free."
Han Yingchen helped out to repay Ye Xu's kindness, so how could he accept a free meal? He immediately refused, resolutely refusing to accept it.
Other things can be compromised, but not this.
Ye Xu didn't insist. After a moment's thought, he changed his mind: "Then from now on, when you come to the store to eat, I'll charge you at cost price. Is that alright? I heard you only eat one meal a day. Your health will collapse if you keep doing that. If you consider me a brother, then don't refuse anymore."
Han Ying remained silent, clearly feeling that charging the cost price wasn't quite right. He even considered asking Ye Xu to retract the previous discount, but thinking about his current situation, he felt he shouldn't refuse someone's kindness for the sake of so-called pride.
But Han Yingchen didn't want to receive something for nothing, so after much hesitation, he came up with a compromise: "How about this, you provide me with three meals a day at cost price, and I'll keep an eye on the dangers around the shop for you."
Han Yingchen wanted a plausible excuse to help Ye Xu with this. He worried that if he kept a close watch on the shop without informing Ye Xu, he would be misunderstood as having ulterior motives. If he could exchange food for force, he would feel more at ease.
"Cost price won't do. If you're going to give it to me, it has to be free meals." Ye Xu retorted subconsciously, but after retorting, he realized what Han Yingchen had said, and immediately became incredibly tempted.
Ye Xu really wanted to agree. Who wouldn't be happy to get a highly skilled security guard in exchange for just three meals? But he couldn't decide whether to hire the interdimensional shop; the system required him to draw a card first.
Thinking about this, Ye Xu was in a dilemma. He frantically pressed the system in his mind, but he also knew that the system couldn't read his mind and couldn't hear his thoughts.
No, I need to find an opportunity to talk to the system manager alone.
Just as Ye Xu was about to find an excuse to go out for a while, the employee hiring interface suddenly popped up and led him to the card pool of the Western Fantasy game. The original three cards in the window remained unchanged, but suddenly another card was drawn from the card pool, squeezing into the three cards and making it four cards side by side.
Upon seeing this, Ye Xu was slightly taken aback, then overjoyed. The system was truly reliable; all the praise he'd given it hadn't been for nothing!
The newly released card is none other than the assassin guy in front of you—
"UR Top Assassin Cold Shadow"
Dimension: Western Fantasy;
Rarity: UR grade;
Salary: Three meals a day are provided (the store manager can adjust the salary as needed);
Additional: Self-recommended UR employees are willing to provide more service to the store. Please discuss the details with the individual. Ye Xu almost choked on his saliva. So you can self-recommend for UR cards? Then he can just subtly or overtly suggest that his target apply for the job and use his UR card without limit?
Without giving a second thought, Ye Xu quickly clicked "hire." Now that the system had recognized Han Yingchen as an employee, he certainly couldn't let him go, lest he lose what he had almost got his hands on.
Almost at the same moment Ye Xu pressed the confirm button, Han Yingchen also vaguely sensed the power of the contract. He realized where the contract came from, so he did not resist and obediently accepted it.
Once the contract is finalized, the employee's panel pops up, its functions are somewhat rudimentary than the store manager's, lacking access to the store's backend. However, sections like Entertainment Zone and Points Mall are quite comprehensive.
"What is this?" Han Yingchen asked, somewhat surprised.
Ye Xu also saw the other party's panel. The newly opened panel hadn't yet selected the anti-spy screen mode, making it completely exposed. Of course, this was only exposed to people who also had panels; ordinary natives couldn't see it.
"Ahem." Ye Xu opened his mouth, wanting to explain what a dimensional shop was, but he didn't know how to say it most appropriately. He wasn't quite sure if self-recommended employees like this could travel to other dimensions with the shop, or if they could only have a temporary contract and would be forced to separate once they left Western Fantasy.
After much thought, Ye Xu decided it was more appropriate for Shuangshuang to answer the question. So he asked Han Yingchen to wait a moment, opened the Pet Paradise panel, swiped to Shuangshuang's door, and rang the doorbell.
A moment later, the little elf opened the door and flew out: "Shopkeeper, is something wrong?"
Ye Xu summoned Shuangshuang to his side to prevent her from flying down from the fifth-floor exit. He briefly explained what had happened from last night to today, and then handed over the introduction to her.
Shuangshuang has always been a very reliable little helper. She has experience guiding store managers to become familiar with the interface before, and she is very good at teaching Hanyingchen.
As Ye Xu watched them teach and learn, he suddenly remembered that Luna, Tangtang, and Xiaoyu didn't seem to have any character panels? In other words, none of the pets had any character panels.
Luna looks almost like an intelligent race, so why isn't she considered an employee? Is it because she's too small to do the work? Is the system really this realistic...?
"Now that you've become an employee, I'm going to talk to you about the employee benefits." Seeing that the training was over, Ye Xu cleared his throat and put on the air of a store manager. "UR-level employees can receive 2% of the store's profits every month, and room and board are provided. You can't refuse either of these."
Han Yingchen was about to speak when he was silenced, his face showing even more world-weariness.
Ye Xu pretended not to see: "All employees must be treated equally. We cannot discriminate based on your personal reasons, otherwise it will affect our store's recruitment in the future."
Having said all that, what could Han Yingchen do? The contract was already signed, and there was no going back. Even though Ye Xu forcibly transferred money into his system account every month, he couldn't return it.
Realizing there was no room for negotiation, Han Yingchen had no choice but to agree.
However, compared to the high salary, Han Yingchen clearly cared more about the free meals and accommodation. He originally thought that being able to solve the problem of three meals a day would be pretty good, but he didn't expect that even accommodation could be arranged.
When this was brought up, Ye Xu couldn't help but ask, "Where did you live before?"
Han Ying said in a deep voice, "A relief center."
"Uh..." Okay, a real handsome guy won't say a word more than necessary.
Shuangshuang wasn't intimidated by his taciturn nature and kept pressing him for answers, finally uncovering the whole story of why Han Yingchen was homeless. She was a little angry. How could he do this? That merchant who bought monster meat was too wicked!
"How is he now? Has he suffered any retribution?" Shuangshuang asked indignantly.
Han Yingchen: "I'm recuperating from my injuries."
Having had previous experience with their conversation, both of them understood the subtext of his words—I beat him up, and he's recovering from his injuries now.
"Speaking of which, why do other adventurers seem to make a lot of money every day?" Ye Xu finally asked, voicing his doubts. "They're probably not as good at hunting as you. You don't even catch many prey, let alone them."
How exactly do these people manage to spend so much money and patronize the hot pot restaurant every day?
"The nobles are recruiting bodyguards," Han Yingchen said calmly, adding a few extra words this time, "If you don't have connections, go farm; if you don't have land, wander and beg."
That's true; everyone has their own way of surviving. There are adventurers who are doing poorly, but there are none who continue to do poorly. Han Yingchen is the only one, which makes him seem so special and so down on his luck.