Dinner at Old Lins'

Raizel rented the shop for six months. He stocked it up and paid for a little renovation. With time 600,000 his credits slowly dwindled to about 250,000 credits. 

His days were going very well. He woke up, practised his sword, cultivated, ate breakfast, sat down to mind his shop while practising his talisman crafting, ate lunch, cultivated, ate dinner and went to bed.

It was a peaceful, beautiful life, the perfect life. There was just one problem, his shop was deserted. He had not seen a single customer in over two weeks. Ben said that the plaque is the problem, so he ordered a new one done but it seemed like the plaque was not the problem in the end as the empty doorway remained the same.

He bent down as he focused on the talisman paper he was crafting. The tip of the brush that was stained sufficiently in ink floated atop brown and soft talisman paper, drawing line after line of smooth and winding talisman markings. His brush technique was light, precise and extremely flexible like his hands were like a snake, boneless

His speed slowed and the last marking slowly came to form on the brown talisman paper. Hundreds of greenish markings curled into one single pattern. The talisman shone abruptly before returning to normal. Seeing the completed Spirit replenishing talisman, Raizel felt satisfied.

A loud clap distracted him and he looked up to find Peter standing beside him, "So wonderful. Raizel, only a few people can craft talismans with the same skill as you. You must have worked hard."

Raizel simply looked at him. He was glad that the man had stopped asking him if he was shocked to see him. He did not want to lie so he did not answer, how could he be shocked? 

The moment entered his vicinity, he knew. The arrays around his shop were that formidable and even if Peter would bypass his arrays, would he also escape his senses? He was not born with the Primordial Void Spirit for nothing.

How are both of them entangled? The day after he visited his shop, Peter had rushed over the next morning to insist that he never said he would process the materials for him for free. Raizel paid him thinking it would be the end of it but Peter had shown up the next evening and the one after that. Eating dinner with him had become routine.

As he prepared himself to close up for the day, he heard a small hiss behind him. He looked and Peter was analysing the talisman judiciously, "This was crafted with the nether vine."

Raizel nodded while turning the tag on the door from open to closed.

"Which tier is this talisman?" Peter asked not taking his eyes off the talisman, he was simply admiring Raizel's speed and precision as he crafted. It was only now that he was shocked at the power contained within the single talisman.

"Tier-3 talisman, the Spirit replenishing talisman." Raizel introduced the talisman and his eyes brightened a bit. Is he going to have his first customer?

"It is the spirit replenishing talisman, just that this one is so beautiful, it would hurt to activate it. Is there any need to make it this pretty, it is going to burn anyway?" He said placing the talisman back on the table.

He looked at the sky and he smiled even wider, "Come, let us celebrate your second week without a customer. I placed a huge bet on your head. You have to wait patiently till the fourth week before you get a customer."

As the man chattered on and on, Raizel just looked wistfully at the talisman on the table then at the man now outside the shop and finally at the keys in his hand. Should he enter inside and close the door behind him? 

He really did not want to be associated with this man anymore.

Peter looked back and saw Raizel still stalling at the door. "What are you still standing there for? Hurry up, those old men will soon finish everything."

Raizel walked towards him, his face was still as melancholic as ever but his pace was noticeably faster. So fast that he reached Peter in three steps and passed him.

Peter chuckled, he didn't call him out on it and just slowly followed him through a quiet alleyway into a small one-story building. 

Upon entrance into the house, one could hear the crispy, melodious sounds of a knife chopping against a board. Raizel couldn't perceive any aroma of food but as if he was well conditioned, his slender neck gulped as he moved to join the rest of the people in the sitting room.

"Ah! Old Peter, Little Raizel, please come, sit." The owner of the bookstore near his shop called out.

Raizel resolutely ignored him. He had expressed the distaste he had for the suffix the man added in front of his name but it was like pouring water on a stone. The man refused to change his form of address and Raizel made up his mind to completely ignore his existence. 

Peter laughed heartily, "Stubborn Old Bill, you have met your match."

Old Bill grunted and continued his game of chess with Oliver, a middle-aged man that sold potions and other strange concoctions, he called his inventions. 

Perhaps this was another form of stubbornness, Raizel has been coming to this house for thirteen days. Old Bill had played with Oliver every day and he had lost every day. 

"Raizel, did you not have any customers today?" Ben asked, his small eyes intensely fixed on Raizel. Raizel just gazed at him for a moment before he spat, "No."

Ignoring Peter's laughter, Ben's eyes grew even more desperate. "Why? Have you changed the plaque?"

"Yes." Raizel replied, waiting to see if Ben would give him any other advice. 

"What should we do? The shop is not the problem, then what." His eyes lit up as he had thought of something interesting. 

Raizel suddenly had a bad feeling and sure enough, Ben suddenly said, his voice lower than usual, "Have you not thought that perhaps the problem is from you." 

He then sighed, "How can you get customers, when your face looks like someone killed your lover. You need to go to the temple to pray away bad chi."

A melodious voice like little bells soon rang out, "Raizel doesn't pay any attention to Uncle Ben, he has not sold a single demon beast for months. Uncle Ben, you are a cultivator, what are you praying to heavens for?"

"Meng'er, you are back." A gruff voice called from the kitchen.

"Grandpa." Lin Mengmeng greeted before she moved to sit next to Raizel. Her grandfather hated help in the kitchen so she didn't bother to offer.

"How was work today?" Peter asked the beautiful woman.

Lin Mengmeng said sorrowfully, "Uncle Peter, we worked overnight throughout yesterday till this morning, I feel like we have stumbled on to something. I am just so tired." Consolations came from everybody except the man that was sitting next to her. Her eyes locked on Raizel. Her eyes were filled with expectation.

Raizel ignored her, patiently waiting for Old Lin to serve the food. After the fifth nudge from Peter, he couldn't hold it anymore, he stiffly turned to Lin Mengmeng, "You have worked hard."

Lin Mengmeng watched the awkward and stiff face before her and she burst out laughing. Peter watched the both of them and wiped imaginative tears from his eyes, 'Youth' He exclaimed, his eyes glimmering with ulterior motives.

Someone else entered the sitting room, It was Simon. Lin Mengmeng stood up upon seeing him and greeted with a cupped fist, "Uncle Simon."

There was a strange silence as everybody paused what they were doing to greet him. He sat a little bit distant from everyone else. He closed his eyes as he joined the wait for dinner.

Old Lin soon entered the sitting room, bowls floating behind him, "Today's dinner is Donburi."

Immediately the bowls were opened, the scalding yet thick fragrance overpowered the taste buds, leaving one slightly numb.

The Pearl rice was chewy and the beef sauce was thick with flavour, it was the meat of a 2nd grade Iron foot cow. Everybody gobbled down the rice, their spoons never stopped moving as chumps of rice disappeared into their mouth.

Even Lin Mengmeng, who had grown up eating her grandfather's food ate without constraints, as she ate, she felt a hot sensation in her stomach. Turbulent spiritual energy flooded her body and she closed her eyes as she tried to control and refine it.

Raizel's eyes were shut as he acted as if he was refining the energy inside the meal. The energy was really just a drop in his spiritual sea, for a meal to affect him it must be at least 1000 times more potent than this. 

The spiritual energy was not the reason he came here every evening; no. Old Lin's meal was extremely delicious. He must be a Level 4 spirit chef or even higher.

After the meal was drinking time. As Oliver produced a bottle of wine, Raizel knew it was time to go, he stood up, dropped 10 spirit stones on the table before nodding to Old Lin. One of his rules included that each meal was 10 spirit stones, nothing more, nothing less.

He returned to his store and opened the room at the very end. Spiritual energy was at least 10 times more potent than the one outside enveloped him and he nodded. It was a beautiful life.