Tai Yang Tai Yin

"How many did Clan Leader Quan say?!"

"Reporting to you, my lord: exactly one hundred Mermaid Tears! The Quan Clan and the Leng Clan each presented fifty! I counted them myself—there can be no mistake!"

Quan Linghan's words rang like struck metal as he raised the brown pouch in his hands a little higher.

At the end of July, the second batch of Mermaid Silk dividends in Huang Province had arrived. The sum was staggering. After reaping another two rounds of profits from major trade deals with the imperial court and overseas, good days lay shining brightly before them.

A soft mouth comes from eating another's food; short hands come from taking another's gifts. Being able to repay Liang Qu made the merfolk feel just as content. "Good, good... Clan Leader Quan, you've brought a hundred Mermaid Tears tonight. I truly don't know what to say. This is such a wonderful surprise!"

Liang Qu took the leather pouch in both hands, his face flushed with red light from delight.

He felt the heavy weight in his palms, the bulging fullness of satisfaction.

Real! Solid! The Mermaid Tears collided within the pouch, producing a dense, crisp chime more pleasing than true gold and silver. Each Mermaid Tear contained roughly two thousand five or six hundred units of essence, with some holding as many as two thousand eight or nine hundred.

This pouch held, by conservative estimate, two hundred fifty thousand!

It was not only Liang Qu. The Fat Catfish, Fist, and the other Water Beasts in the water were also overjoyed.

The Fat Catfish flapped its fish fin and thrashed with all its might.

Looking again at the three additional strands of Long Qi inside the Ze Cauldron.

One red, one gold, one silver.

They flowed and turned around one another,