206: Interlude

The waiter led Lin Zifeng a few steps. "There are no seats downstairs, honored guest. Please go to the second floor. If you want a private room, you'll have to go to the third floor."

"Hmm, no need. The second floor is fine." Lin Zifeng nodded. The first and second floors of this restaurant were for the "main hall," the third floor had private rooms, and the fourth and fifth floors were guest rooms.

The scale was quite large. Just considering its size, plus the cost of renovation and decoration, it must have cost at least ten thousand gold in silver and money, right?

Pinghai City didn't have a single restaurant that could compare to this one.

Even the restaurants Lin Zifeng saw when he went to Pinghai City before were at most one or two stories, and their scale was less than one-tenth of this one.

The level of prosperity was indeed quite different, even though the two places were separated by tens of thousands of miles.

But it was enough to show how vast the economic disparity was between them.

The Ling Jue Realm was very, very vast, after all, it was a Level 4 world.

Lin Zifeng went up to the second floor, and the waiter led him to an empty seat.

"There's a menu on the table. Once you've chosen, just tell me," the waiter said to Lin Zifeng.

"No problem." Lin Zifeng nodded, picked up the menu, and began to read it, then noticed out of the corner of his eye that the waiter was waiting nearby.

"You can go attend to other things first. I'll call you later," Lin Zifeng said to the waiter.

"Alright!" The waiter nodded. "We offer one-on-one service here. I'll just wait nearby, so call me if you need anything."

The waiter said, then moved a bit further away, but still within a distance where Lin Zifeng could easily call him.

It was then that Lin Zifeng realized there were indeed quite a lot of waiters in this restaurant. Basically, every table had a dedicated person serving it.

Good heavens! Lin Zifeng couldn't help but exclaim. This was quite interesting! No wonder they managed to make it so big!

Just the service alone was excellent, and the cost of employing so many people must be considerable!

Although Lin Zifeng didn't count precisely, he roughly glanced around and saw that there were at least thirty tables on one floor, with more than two meters between each table.

The first floor was full, and Lin Zifeng saw that the second floor was pretty much the same. However, it was dinnertime now, so with it being so packed, earning a fortune daily should not be a problem.

Lin Zifeng glanced at the menu. The cheapest dish cost at least one or two silver taels.

It was indeed not a place ordinary people could afford to come to.

Lin Zifeng looked through the thick menu, which had a vast array of dishes. Although they were all categorized, Lin Zifeng, having a bit of decision-making difficulty, waved his hand again.

"Yes, what can I do for you!" The waiter almost immediately, within two seconds of Lin Zifeng's wave, quickly approached him.

"Bring me your restaurant's signature dishes, enough for three people," Lin Zifeng said to the waiter.

"Alright! Please wait a moment! I'll go place your order!" The waiter nodded and said, then turned and left.

Lin Zifeng sat there gracefully, his ears listening to the conversations of the people around him.

It was well-known that there were two places where one could most easily gather information and intelligence: a restaurant and a tavern.

Crash! Suddenly, a sound erupted nearby, drawing the attention of all the guests on the second floor.

A table had been overturned, and fragments of bowls and plates, mixed with the food, were scattered across the floor.

"What do you Fuxing Sect people mean!" The three men at that table, all male, said to a man and a woman at an adjacent table.

The man and woman were wearing sect robes with a large star surrounded by scattered small stars, the sect's emblem.

They were clearly disciples of the Fuxing Sect, as mentioned by the person earlier.

"What? We invited you to drink, but you couldn't handle it, overturned the table, and now you're blaming us?" The man, with a handsome face, took a small sip from a cup of wine, then calmly glanced at the three men.

The three men gasped with indignation, looking at the Fuxing Sect disciples. They seemed to have lost their temper for a moment, but then, upon realizing their situation, dared not speak out despite their anger.

Lin Zifeng realized that these three men were likely rogue cultivators. He hadn't noticed what happened earlier, but it seemed the Fuxing Sect people were causing trouble.

After all, rogue cultivators generally wouldn't actively provoke immortal sect members, especially given the current situation... it was clear these three rogue cultivators were "suffering a loss."

The nearby waiters had all retreated far away, afraid of being caught in the crossfire.

"What? Who's causing trouble in our Jinglan Grand Restaurant?" At that moment, a middle-aged man, accompanied by four younger individuals, descended from upstairs.

The five of them wore uniform attire, and their sect emblem did not seem to belong to any of the three immortal sects near Jinglan City.

"Another immortal sect?" Lin Zifeng was somewhat surprised, and he briefly probed the middle-aged man's cultivation with his divine sense.

He couldn't fully discern it. Even with his Spirit Sensing Qi Induction Profound Tattoo, Lin Zifeng couldn't fully sense the opponent's cultivation, but he had a general guess: it was at least at the late-stage Heavenly Bridge level of cultivation.

The moment Lin Zifeng probed, the middle-aged man's gaze turned towards Lin Zifeng.

Lin Zifeng immediately knew that the other party had detected him, so he quickly cupped his hands, showing an apologetic expression.

The middle-aged man merely gave Lin Zifeng a cold glance, nodded slightly, and then continued to deal with the matter at hand.

As soon as this person appeared, the three rogue cultivators' expressions changed, and they proactively admitted their mistake. With the middle-aged man standing there and the people behind him "speaking on his behalf," they quickly settled the bill, paying ten times the price, and then hurried away.

The two Fuxing Sect disciples frowned slightly, stood up, and cupped their hands towards the middle-aged man.

"Don't cause trouble for me," the middle-aged man told the Fuxing Sect disciples, then turned and left.

The two Fuxing Sect disciples only wiped the cold sweat from their foreheads and sat back down after the middle-aged man had left.

Seeing that the matter was resolved, the waiter quickly began to clean up the mess.

"Who was that person?" Lin Zifeng heard someone he didn't know quietly ask the person next to them, and he quickly perked up his ears to listen.

"That's the manager of the Jinglan Grand Restaurant! The Jinglan Grand Restaurant is backed by a large immortal sect. Did you see that middle-aged man just now? I heard he's an outer elder of that large immortal sect! He's also the manager of this Jinglan Grand Restaurant, and he's in charge of the branches of this grand restaurant in Jinglan City." Someone who knew a bit explained to the inquirer.

"A large immortal sect! How terrifying! No wonder the Fuxing Sect disciples didn't dare to speak up just now!" The person suddenly understood.

Everyone clearly understood what a large immortal sect represented.

Just a single existence at the Dao Concealment level could control the life and death of a small or even medium-sized immortal sect.

An existence at that level could already be considered a magnate, a big boss! They would be an honored guest wherever they went. As long as they didn't seek death, basically, no one would be willing to engage in a life-and-death battle with a Dao Concealment level expert.

Even those of the same level were like this.

After all, at the Dao Concealment level, one had already touched the edge of laws, and the stronger one was, the more one cherished their life. Unless there was deep-seated hatred, there would be no talk of a life-and-death battle.

Furthermore, at this level, there were countless methods, and killing them was extremely difficult.

Let alone Dao Concealment, even experts at the Divine Charm level were very difficult to kill among those of the same level. They had too many methods, unless the gap was very large, or an expert of a higher level, the Eight Extremes Realm, made a move.