"This bunch of southern barbarians refuses a toast only to be forced to drink a forfeit. We kindly and warmly asked to buy, and the price we offered was even fifty percent higher than the market rate. You won't sell? If you aren't selling, what are you showing off for?"
"Where in the world is there any logic of forced buying and selling? We've already said, this isn't ordinary spirit fish. Instead, it's a sacrificial spirit offering brought back after a water burial. It concerns our closest kin, how can we sell it?"
"Since you aren't selling, what are you hedging about when we ask you where the fish are produced?"
"Ridiculous. We only just laid the coffin to rest. How can we inform the likes of you and disturb the ancestors?"
"Heh, this is clearly just your stalling excuse. Do you think I don't know your backgrounds? The Tianfa Ling Sect of the southwest specializes in raising and trading spiritual birds and beasts. People die in your sect, and you run all the way to Xi Yu Lake for a water burial? If you want to monopolize resources, see first whether the men of our Xiyu Alliance agree!"
Right then, people all around chimed in and cheered, but others sneered in secret: running to Xi Yu Lake to catch fish and sell them? These young masters truly didn't have the slightest idea what business was! Of course, it was also possible they were casually finding a reason to seize some righteous banner or other.
If not, morally speaking, the group of young masters stood on shaky ground.
Around Xi Yu Lake, there genuinely was a tradition of "water burial." The ritual roughly involved close kin carrying a coffin deep into the lake waters, settling it down as deep as