Chapter 216: Effect
“Alright, stop shaking.”
Looking at the timid waiter in front of him, Zhang Qian irritably picked him up and pressed him onto a seat nearby.
“Besides this huge bill, does the shopkeeper position have any other special aspects that you didn’t tell me about before?”
Just one bill was already bad enough; if there were more messy things… Zhang Qian felt he needed to seriously consider whether to take this shopkeeper position.
After all, he just wanted to leave; if that didn’t work, being a shop assistant wasn’t bad either.
If being this shopkeeper really meant fixing one mess after another from before, Zhang Qian could only say sorry to the waiter.
Fortunately, the waiter didn’t give more bad news, either because it really didn’t exist or because he didn’t dare say more for fear of angering Zhang Qian.
He smiled awkwardly to soothe Zhang Qian’s emotions. “Shopkeeper, rest assured, this position generally has no restrictions. That share to be handed over is already the biggest obstacle.”
“Thinking positively, the shopkeeper identity should actually bring you some help.”
“For example?” Zhang Qian raised his chin, signaling him to continue.
“Uh…” The waiter’s eyes darted around twice, hesitating. “For example… you can now formulate the Employee Handbook, making all joining employees follow your rules.”
“And without the main store’s influence, you can freely formulate rules, making employees loyal only to you, the shopkeeper.”
Hearing this, Zhang Qian immediately followed up, “You didn’t say before: what happens to employees who breach the Employee Handbook?”
Although the waiter kept saying the handbook must be followed, Zhang Qian didn’t know the principle behind it.
Was it that they wouldn’t even think of violating the handbook, or would they receive some punishment after violating it?
“Probably sent back to the main store to be made into new dishes?” the waiter guessed, his eyes dazed as he recalled his past experiences working in a branch store.
“Breaches are really rare, after all, the shopkeeper warned us countless times to follow the rules above, or there would be very terrifying consequences.”
“For the so-called longevity, to survive, none of us waiters dare have thoughts of defiance. Besides, we’re mostly ordinary people; even resisting wouldn’t cause much waves.”
“But one person was different. It was probably a period before I entered the Ghost Ship; a young man suddenly came to the restaurant.”
“I’d seen plenty of newcomers, but he was different. After leaving the dining area, he actually wielded the strength of a fierce ghost.”
Hearing this, Zhang Qian asked curiously, “Was he a Ghost Controller?”
Come to think of it, there were no traces of a fierce ghost in the waiter’s body, only some faint supernatural aura; clearly not a Ghost Controller or fierce ghost.
However, by his own account, conservatively estimated he’d lived over a hundred years, yet he still looked like a young man.
Plus, his mind was clear, he had a cowardly appearance, and didn’t seem like a Ghost Slave either.
Who knows what method the Ghost Restaurant used to keep him youthful, even immortal.
“Yes, on his first day entering the restaurant, he found me and showed me some strange abilities.”
The waiter nodded. “I immediately knew he wasn’t like us; even away from the dining area, his supernatural power was more terrifying than us in fierce ghost form.”
“He called himself a messenger, seemingly entrusted by someone to deliver a letter to the boss. But the boss is usually very mysterious, so he resorted to this to probe inside the Ghost Restaurant for clues.”
“Messenger, huh…” Zhang Qian murmured to himself.
Undoubtedly, that messenger was from the Ghost Post Office; he just hadn’t expected the Ghost Post Office to already have dealings with the Ghost Restaurant in the Republic of China Era.
If the two sides really had a grudge, perhaps he didn’t need to worry about this bill on him.
With some hope in his heart, Zhang Qian pressed, “Then why did he tell you all this? If it was a real task, shouldn’t he do it quietly?”
Like Zhang Qian himself, when delivering a letter to the old house, he didn’t dare reveal his purpose, fearing he’d violate some taboo and get attacked and killed on the spot.
This unknown messenger had quite the guts; just unknown how miserably he died in the end.
The waiter thought for a moment, then sighed. “Maybe he was confident enough? After all, with his ability, he could completely wipe out the branch store I was in.”
“And he did exactly that.”
“I definitely wouldn’t betray the boss over his few words, which delayed things a bit. Then we happened to encounter the branch shopkeeper coming to check the situation. That self-proclaimed messenger didn’t talk nonsense; with a swing of his hand, he chopped off the branch shopkeeper’s head.”
“But before the shopkeeper’s head even hit the ground, he was dragged away by suddenly appearing arms right in front of me—probably the punishment for him breaching the rules.”
Listening to the waiter’s account, Zhang Qian rubbed his chin. From this, the Employee Handbook itself had no binding force. What they called rules was more like artificially defining a pattern of attack.
And employees followed these rules just to avoid attacks, not because their behavior was truly controlled.
“This attack comes from the main store. On the Ghost Ship, the so-called handbook probably wouldn’t be useful, right?” Zhang Qian glanced at the waiter nearby.
The so-called Employee Handbook surely had rules against betrayal. This guy acted as a traitor once and didn’t die—probably thanks to the Ghost Ship.
Using the Ghost Ship to evade the Ghost Restaurant’s attacks, using the Ghost Restaurant to evade dangers on the Ghost Ship—had to say this guy knew how to play. If he hadn’t run into him, he probably could have lingered in death forever.
The waiter didn’t hide it, saying straightforwardly, “I was just guessing before, but now it’s probably confirmed. Otherwise, I couldn’t help you this much, Shopkeeper; I’d have been caught by the main store right after submitting.”
“So this ability is useless on the Ghost Ship, but if you could go to the outside world, it’s indeed a very binding method.”
Zhang Qian nodded. With the Ghost Restaurant as enforcer of the handbook, breaching it meant almost no chance of survival.
“But now this branch store has only me. Even if I write a long list of rules, what’s the use?”
After saying that, Zhang Qian paused, glancing sideways at the waiter beside him. “Not just me, perhaps plus one you?”
