Chapter 4066 — All Out of Stock
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 3
"Hmph! Fine! Just fine! This manager has learned today what they mean by the fickleness of the world and the chill of human feeling. You're all looking at me, a man whose meridians have been shattered, and deciding I'm nothing but a cripple now, aren't you? I tell you, a healing elixir can restore me from an injury like this—and even if it can't, I am still your manager, and your very lives remain in the palm of my hand! Excellent. This manager has seen how each one of you has behaved, and not a single one of you will come to a good end!" Si Haitao raged on and on without pause.
Just then, the young clerk nearest to him—one whom he had beaten and cursed at every turn in the days before—suddenly spoke up: "Whether we come to a good end, we don't yet know. But you certainly won't. Your affair reached the headquarters yesterday, and the higher-ups there have already pronounced your punishment. To give the mistress of West Island and the master of the Chongtian Pavilion a fitting account, you have been struck from the rolls of the Hong Clan Merchant Guild entirely—never to be employed again!"
"What? Impossible! You're spouting nonsense! You wretch, you dare to hoodwink this manager—have you a death wish?" Si Haitao's body convulsed in disbelief, and then he burst into a frenzied roar.
"Hoodwink you? Open those dog eyes of yours and look properly before you speak! A branch manager as short-lived as you has truly no precedent in our Hong Clan Merchant Guild—sir, you may well call yourself the first of all time, ancient and modern!" The clerk gave a cold sneer of contempt and pointed at a notice pasted dead center on the wall.
Upon it was written, plain as day, the disposition of Si Haitao by the senior leadership of the Hong Clan Merchant Guild's Mid-Island offices, and the seal stamped there was indeed the exclusive seal of the headquarters. In that instant Si Haitao felt a thunderbolt split his skull, and his mind went utterly blank.
Yesterday he had still been a manager high and mighty in his own domain—all because of one drunken, lust-addled moment of harassment, he had actually been expelled from the Hong Clan Merchant Guild forever?
Si Haitao lay sprawled at the doorway like a man whose soul had flown from his body, but no one in the Hong Clan Merchant Guild paid him any mind; they went on with their own business. New sovereign, new courtiers—what they needed to consider now was when the new manager would arrive. As for a fool like Si Haitao, whether he lived or died was no concern of theirs.
In but a brief moment, Si Haitao seemed to have aged decades. He raised his head with great effort and said, "Even if I am no longer your manager, I wish to buy medicine now—I wish to buy a healing elixir. Surely I still count as a valued customer of yours. Is this how you treat a valued customer?"
The clerk nearest him could not help but sneer at this: "A valued customer? Have you lost not only your meridians but your wits along with them? Oh, of course—to have done what you did yesterday, you never had much in the way of wits to begin with. So let me, in my great mercy, remind you: I'm sorry to say you have been blacklisted by the Hong Clan Merchant Guild. Go to any branch, go to the headquarters—you will not be received!"
At this, Si Haitao was completely silenced. He stared longingly at the healing elixirs in the display cabinet, yet there was nothing he could do.
"A good dog does not block the road. I'd advise you, sir, to find somewhere else to lie, or if you interfere with the Hong Clan Merchant Guild's business, you will not be able to bear the charge." The clerk's sneer was ugly.
Si Haitao gritted his teeth. In the old days he would have slapped the life out of this boy, but now he was a commoner with nothing to his name—worse, a cripple who could not even walk. However unwilling his heart, for the moment he could only swallow his anger.