baiyuyi 27: Sparing the Rod Spoils the Child

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Chapter 27: Sparing the Rod Spoils the Child

“You stinky! That woman insulted us, so Big Sister is in the right!”

Although Yuan Chenglei had surprised the little girl into temporary silence, one of the little boys had the audacity to seize another chair and attempted to throw it at the woman hiding behind him.

Pah-!

Several other customers screamed as Yuan Chenglei blocked the chair, shattering it.

He ended up using one of the Eight Fists techniques, but it couldn’t be helped; he wouldn’t have been able to react in time otherwise.

He hadn’t expected such little children to be so malicious!

Yuan Chenglei really wanted to reach over and spank them until their bottoms swelled up and turned red, but … even if he didn’t know about the Mount Hua Sword Sect, he was reluctant to discipline their children on his own initiative and risk offending them.

Stopping the children’s rampage was one matter, but striking them was another.

Even mundane women would be outraged if a stranger disciplined their children without permission.

“I see. So your sect is full of people who bully the weak and justify their actions by violence!”

Yuan Chenglei tried taunting them a little, and as expected, the three children became angry.

“What did you say!? How dare you slander the Mount Hua Sword Sect!”

“Saying such things against the Mount Hua Sword Sect, do you want to die?”

“We won’t forgive you for looking down on the Mount Hua Sword Sect!”

The children were getting red-faced and their expressions were turning ugly.

“What, am I wrong? You’re the first people I’ve met from the Mount Hua Sword Sect, so naturally, I can only assume that your actions represent their teachings!”

When Yuan Chenglei said that, the children suddenly went quiet.

“Y-you’re stupid!” one of the little boys said, but the other two children had become somewhat pale.

Not only were they creating a ruckus, they had actually snuck out against the direct orders of the Elders.

If it was found out that they also raised their hands against mortals, wouldn’t they be in big trouble?

Even though they had been told that cultivators would be well-advised to avoid causing a disturbance in J City, here they were!

The little girl didn’t think that the well-being of one or two mortals would matter much, but from the attitude of this Big Brother, maybe she was wrong?

If that’s so, then they were going to be in big trouble!

She needed to silence him so the Elders don’t find out, but her biggest trump card, the name of the Mount Hua Sword Sect, was not effective!

Even though it was usually enough to send any cultivator trembling to the floor, why wasn’t it working against this Big Brother?!

The little girl thought frantically for a moment before she came to a decision.

Right … … then let’s run away!

“H-hmph! Fine, I didn’t want any of this trash food anyway! Let’s go!”

She gestured to her two partners in crime to leave.

“O-ou-! That’s right, this place smells gross anyway!”

“That’s right, who’d want to eat here! ptu-!”

Although they were leaving, these spoiled children’s pride wouldn’t let them go quietly.

One of the children even spit on the table!

Yuan Chenglei calmed himself on the inside.

At least they were leaving without anyone dying, so let’s just be happy about that…

Yuan Chenglei turned to the waitress.

“Miss, I will compensate you for the damages, so can you forgive them and let them leave?”

Even if they were on the cheap side, the two chairs had to be at least 2,500rmb.

It might not wipe out his savings, but 2,500rmb was still a blow to a poor student.

Furthermore, the woman was actually injured, so he should also take that into account with the compensation.

Actually, Yuan Chenglei wasn’t inclined to help these spoiled brats out of trouble.

Sure, he was considered a generous guy, but even he had the right to choose who to be generous to!

Rather than paying for these brats, he was paying so that this poor waitress and this poor store could survive the calamity!

Besides, these little brats have been going, “Mount Hua Sword Sect,” “Mount Hua Sword Sect,” so Yuan Chenglei had the full intention of tattling to Laoban to have this Mount Hua Sword Sect pay him back!

These little brats are obviously trying to run away, but did you think this Big Brother was going to let you off so easy?

Even though he shouldn’t discipline them, let’s see what happens when your Elders find out you’ve been running around, doing whatever you please!

It took a bit for her to understand Yuan Chenglei’s intentions, but the waitress, who had regained some of her senses, looked over at the restaurant’s laoban in panic – oi. Why are you hiding behind the counter – well, Yuan Chenglei understood why, but…

In response to the waitress’ look, the laoban just nodded his head frantically as if to say, “Yes, yes, just get them out of here!”

Yuan Chenglei breathed a sigh of relief.

They were lucky if money could solve this problem, without the police having to be called in.

He thumbed through his wallet.

“Is it about 3,000rmb for two chairs? I don’t have that much on me right now, but here’s my student ID as collateral. I’ll go to the bank and return right away -”

“Little Friend, there’s no need for that.”

Cutting him off, a deep, charismatic voice thundered through the store.

The children, who had just jumped down from their chairs and were going to start heading to the door, immediately turned pale as if they were facing death the instant they heard it.

An elderly man with flowing white hair and a long white beard entered the restaurant.

Despite being elderly, the man’s body and height were impressive, giving the impression of a valiant war hero standing on the battlefield.

This Elder’s qi … was much, much too high in both quality and quantity to be properly compared to Yuan Chenglei’s qi.

That said, Yuan Chenglei wasn’t overwhelmed by it, since he had experienced Laoban Song and Chef Gaojie’s qi.

And those two bigshots’ qi’s were far beyond this Elder’s.

Despite that, this Elder couldn’t be anything else than a Senior!

The Elder took in the scene at a glance.

Given these three, undisciplined children, how could he not understand what was going on?

After they returned to the Mount Hua Sword Sect’s branch location, not only was he going to make sure they were strictly punished, if he didn’t make sure their Master was also punished for neglecting to instill proper discipline into his students, this Elder wouldn’t allow himself to retain his position!

“Little Xiao, Little Ren, bring these three back immediately. They are under house arrest and are not permitted to leave their rooms for any reason before I return.”

The firm voice that held an angry tremor seemed to strike deep into the children’s hearts and, unable to say a word, they meekly allowed themselves to be taken by two men in black suits that had entered behind the Elder.

All the people in the restaurant, whether they were the customers or the staff, were relieved once the little terrors had disappeared out the door.

“I’m deeply apologetic. Our house’s children have smeared dirt on our reputation, and it was due to my negligence that allowed it to happen. Please accept this apology.”

The Elder waved his hand, and another black suit appeared with a large stack of bills.

The waitress and laoban were already far too terrified to accept the large amount of money.

Don’t joke! We had so much trouble just with your house’s children that we feared for our lives! If you decide later on that this amount of money was too much to let go of, won’t we just die on the spot from the trouble that would bring?!

At the same time, however, they were also too terrified to turn this Elder down.

Yuan Chenglei coughed.

“Er, Senior, I mean, Mister, compensation should be given in proportion to the damages, or else the receiver will be placed in your debt instead. If I might suggest, 5 times the calculated physical damages should be enough to compensate for the mental injuries and temporary loss of profits, so 15,000rmb should be enough.”

Actually, Yuan Chenglei wasn’t sure of the exact multiple that normally went with this kind of compensation, but with the restaurant’s laoban nodding frantically, it didn’t seem like he was wrong.

The Elder’s severe look softened into gratitude as he looked at Yuan Chenglei.

“Then, I will leave 20,000rmb to pay for the other diners’ meals, so that they may also be compensated for the disturbance.”

Yuan Chenglei looked over at the restaurant laoban, whose eyes had regained their vigor as he nodded.

Bowing with cupped hands, Yuan Chenglei said, “I thank Mister for his generosity.”

As the black suit separated 20,000rmb from the large stack and handed it to the laoban, who had stopped cowering behind the counter, the Elder turned to Yuan Chenglei.

“As for this little friend, I thank you for intruding into this matter, and for leading the situation to a proper resolution. May I ask for this little friend’s name?”

“I am Yuan Chenglei, Sir.”

“Little Friend Chenglei, this Elder Yuankong gives his thanks.”

One of the black suits handed Yuan Chenglei a small, impressive, fabric covered box.

It was about the size and type of box that usually contained expensive writing brushes, or a fancy letter opener.

“That’s not … thank you, Elder.”

At first Yuan Chenglei thought of refusing it, since he hadn’t really done much, but when he thought about it, it would be better for him to accept.

Earlier the compensation to the restaurant had to be done in accordance to mundane standards, and so Yuan Chenglei stepped in since mundane money was treated like ordinary stones on the road by cultivators (given how many millions of rmb this Elder had presented to the poor, terrified laoban), but at this moment, the gift between the Elder and Yuan Chenglei was a transaction between cultivators.

Thus he, who did not understand the values of items in the cultivation world, should not refute the Elder’s ability to judge that this item was suitable to what he had done.

When Yuan Chenglei had accepted the box, the Elder bowed his head curtly before leaving the restaurant with his black suits.

Once they had gone, an audible sigh of relief sounded throughout the entire store, and another waitress came to support the poor, victimized waitress who had promptly lost all her strength.

The store laoban coughed and said, “I-I’m sorry, dear customers, for the d-disturbance… since that Elder has generously paid for your meals, please be at ease, take your time, and leave at your leisure,” before he instructed the serving staff to put the “Closed” sign out in order to keep others from entering.

They also cleaned up the splintered chairs and spilled tea, and the poor waitress was taken to the break room in the back to recuperate and check the state of her twisted ankle.

The store laoban then wanted to thank Yuan Chenglei for his intervention, but Yuan Chenglei just laughed.

“I didn’t end up doing too much, and they were just children whose make-believe went too far, so please compensate the Miss who got injured.”

With that, Yuan Chenglei hoped to cover for those children’s reckless talk about the cultivation world.

Luckily the Mount Hua Sword Sect sounded chuuni enough that one could assume a child made it up…

With any sort of luck, everyone would just assume that Yuan Chenglei had joined in on their make-believe in order to talk the children down.

As for him splintering the chair with no damage to himself… let’s hope everyone just assumes he’s an ordinary martial arts expert or something.

When Yuan Chenglei left the restaurant amid the gazes of thanks and admiration, he slipped the Elder’s gift into his pocket and checked the cakes to make sure they hadn’t gotten too damaged when he jumped out to catch the tea cup or when he struck down the chair.

Aaah… he was going to be really late…

—

Extra

“Aaa…aaii…”

The waitress groaned as her coworkers helped ice her ankle.

“No good… I don’t think it’s broken, but we should call a taxi to take you to the hospital. Look, it’s swelling so much.”

“Ugh… you guys, you should have come help me…”

The waitress cried a little, but ever since the children had left she was feeling much better, so currently she was pouting cutely at the others.

“Haha… somehow, weren’t they like rich people? I have an allergy to getting involved with the stupidly rich…”

One of the waiters joked, but the others tilted their heads.

“Come to think of it, they were just children, but for some reason, I was too scared…”

“Yeah… maybe it’s that rich-kid aura…?”

“Ah, did you hear about that rich playboy who ran over a kid the other day? He didn’t even get a warning, his daddy just paid everyone off.”

“Yeah, I heard about that… there’s all sorts of those stories, right? Not wanting to offend rich people because they can buy your life.”

Even as they were making excuses, no one was really sure why they hadn’t come help.

Was it just their imagination that they had been unable to move in terror, like their blood had frozen in their veins?

But… it was just a bunch of young children, right?

Everyone was confused.

“That was the first time I saw Laoban refuse money, too.”

“Aah, but don’t you understand, somehow? Like… there was this feeling that made you not want to stand out and never deal with those people ever again.”

The gossiping staff in the break room nodded their heads.

They were just a small soup dumpling restaurant, and it wasn’t like they were struggling to get by or anything, but extra money is always nice.

Especially when you’re the boss; why would you turn down extra money?

Yet somehow everyone, the laoban and the staff, were unwilling to get anymore involved with either the children or the grandfather.

It would be bad to stick out as greedy people who tried to take advantage of the situation when you’re faced with people like that!

Although they didn’t know it, the bloodlust from the children and unfathomable pressure from the Elder cultivator’s aura had felt just like a savage beast’s presence, making everyone have the exact same thoughts.

We don’t want anything to do with them!

…

…

“… Ah, but didn’t you think that student looked pretty good?”

“Eh? Ah, the one who saved us. He was also strong.”

“I hope he didn’t hurt his hand earlier… Maybe he left so fast because he went to the hospital?”

“I didn’t notice if he was hurt or not…”

“Oh… I wonder if he hid it so we wouldn’t worry about it!”

“He’s got a nice face and nice personality, we were really lucky.”

“Yeah, he’s definitely the type you wouldn’t be embarrassed to show to your parents or friends, but I prefer the more ‘dangerous’ type!”

“Jeez… you’re going to get yourself into trouble one of these days!”

The idle gossip of the staff in the restaurant began to go off topic as the fear of death faded from their minds.

Yuan Chenglei’s talents as a harem king: 25 points out of 100: Nice Guy.

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<a/n:(2/2)

20,000rmb is a couple hundred shy of 3,000usd.

Yuan Chenglei’s first great act of heroism is scolding a bunch of little kids.
He is truly the hero we deserve…

New original chinese-style ln: The Sage of Bamboo Manor >