Hailar had not been born a merchant, but he had lived for three hundred years and dealt with countless merchants. He had long since learned the tricks of doing business.
Businesspeople did not like to do things straightforwardly. They generally had to beat around the bush, play a few tricks, employ a few tactics. The most common example: suppose an item cost you fifty gold coins to acquire. You absolutely could not simply add ten percent profit and quote fifty-five. You had to adjust according to the customer and the shop.
For instance, if you ran a fairly steady roadside stall, hawking goods on the streets of a small town year-round, then you should quote eighty, let the customer haggle, trade nonsense back and forth for a while, and generally sell it in the end for somewhere between fifty-three and fifty-eight.
But if you were in a great city like the Supreme Tower, running a luxuriously decorated high-end shop on its busiest street, then you could not lower yourself like that. You ought to put a price tag of two or three hundred gold coins on the item, casually set it outside, and not even bother haggling. You had to put on the air of, "This trifle isn't worth discussing. If we're talking, let's talk big business."
Given Hailar's current status, coupled with the situation before him, it was more or less the sort of case where "the goods are excellent, the customers may or may not buy, but I have to sell." So he had to throw out a bombshell first to provoke Mir City's upper ranks, then throw out a second bombshell to stir them up again. Only when their hearts wavered, when they wanted to agree but could not bear the price, would he reveal his true