A few moments passed, with both staring at each other. It was a curious sight: the schemer, the one who had planned to teach a lesson to his client, was the one who was clearly uncomfortable, whereas the supposed victim wore a smirk on his face.
Once the idea that the man in front of him was a cultivator took root in his mind, the way the old man saw him changed drastically.
In particular, his eyes—there was something behind those eyes that he couldn't quite explain. It felt as though they were piercing straight through his body. A sense of dread was starting to swallow him whole.
Cultivators—those were beings the average person could never afford to offend.
Ever since he was young, he had heard the same thing from everyone around him: if he ever encountered a cultivator, he should make himself invisible and avoid drawing their attention. Should he fall into their bad graces, he wouldn't be breathing for much longer.
He himself had faced his fair share of cultivators over the years. The city was located near a mountain range that a certain cultivation sect used as their base, and as such, seeing cultivators walking around the city wasn't an uncommon sight.
He had seen firsthand how people lost their lives simply because they hadn't lowered their heads when a cultivator passed by. It made him realize how worthless their lives were in the hands of those people.
The fact that he had reached such an old age was a testament to his prudence throughout his life. He knew how to skillfully avoid the attention of those he could not afford to offend.
And yet, now he found himself in this predicament.
He hadn't just made himself an annoyance to a cultivator. No, he had gone ahead and attempted to smash a bottle cap on their head.
It was hard to fault him, though. Cultivators, due to their arrogant nature and feeling of superiority over those weaker than them, made sure to flaunt their status in the way they dressed and conducted themselves.
This was especially true for the younger cultivators, who, still brash and immature, made sure to show off every time they got the chance.
Nobody would expect someone dressed like a beggar and who conducted himself like a lowlife hoodlum, like that young man, to be a cultivator. His voice was rough, and his words were uncouth and vulgar. It was unlike anything the old man had ever experienced.
His appearance and demeanor had misled him, leading him to a false conclusion. And for this mistake, one nobody could be faulted for committing, he was going to pay a heavy price.
He steeled his mind, trying to come to terms with his current predicament.
A few moments of silence passed between the two of them.
With each passing moment, the tension in the air grew. The pressure was mounting to the point where the old man felt he would soon crumple like a piece of paper.
Lao kept the smirk on his face, fiddling with the bottle cap between his fingers. His eyes never once left the old man, who had his face lowered and back bent, almost as if trying to erase his existence.
Lao found this a curious sight.
He made sure to extend the silence for as long as possible—a little payback for the old man's attempt to hit him with the bottle cap earlier.
As comical as it was, this moment confirmed for Lao just how the relationship between cultivators and mortals truly was.
He had already gotten an idea of how this dynamic played out from the memories of the previous host of his body, but seeing it firsthand made it hard to believe what was unfolding before his eyes.
Especially considering the world he came from, where it was unthinkable for anyone to behave this way toward another.
In his previous world, there was always the sense that, regardless of your social position in society, you were worth as much as anybody else around you. It didn't matter if you were a cook, a teacher, an entrepreneur, a prime minister, or a beggar.
Every person held the same intrinsic value.
Obviously, in practice, not everything played out according to this ideal, but at the very least, inequality wasn't something openly displayed.
Here, however, there was a clear and obvious rift between mortals and cultivators. Mortals were seen as nothing more than ants in the eyes of cultivators. Their lives were only as valuable as the powerful masters of the world deemed them to be.
In this world, the difference in status and inherent value of each individual wasn't something that needed to be hidden. Unlike in his previous world, the opinions and thoughts of the lower class simply didn't matter.
The power that existed in his previous world—the power of numbers—had no sway here. A single cultivator could kill thousands of mortals without much effort. Higher-level cultivators could bring an entire mortal kingdom to ruin with a snap of their fingers.
Here, mortals had no real way to improve their position in the world. Their only choice was to accept their reality and adapt to it.
A man too afraid to even look up, being stared down by a cultivator who, with a smirk on his face, enjoyed the terror his presence instilled in the man before him, was the perfect encapsulation of how this world worked.
Lao decided he had indulged enough. He had already tormented the old man long enough to get back at him for his earlier stunt.
He motioned his hand forward, placing the bottle cap on the table in front of him.
Next, he got up from his seat. His hand moved forward again, this time reaching over the counter in the old man's direction.
There was a visible twitch in the old man's body, followed by the audible clenching of his teeth.
Lao smirked again at this reaction. The old man was really trying his best to keep himself composed in the face of his impending death. It surprised Lao a bit. The old man had an impressive mental fortitude to be able to act in such a manner.
You'd expect most people to immediately break down under such circumstances, desperately crying and begging for their lives to be spared. But the old man, despite his trembling body and barely able to stay on his feet, managed to maintain his dignity.
It was quite impressive.
Lao's hand stopped before it reached the old man, instead grabbing the bottle that was lying on the counter right in front of him.
He brought the bottle closer to himself.
After what seemed like an eternity, Lao finally broke the silence and, with a devious smile on his face, asked the old man, "So, is this the best booze you have in your sorry shop, you old fart? Let's see just how good it really is."