"Ah!"
Bai San sighed for the twenty-seventh time.
"Stop sighing already!"
Liu Zheng had finally had enough.
"I'm telling you, Third Brother Bai, if you've got something on your mind, just say it. Stop sitting there going sigh, sigh, sigh. Your sighing is practically clogging up my earholes."
He complained.
"What thoughts could I have? This isn't Liu's fault. I'm just plain unlucky."
Bai San said with a bitter smile.
First, his most promising son had met with trouble. Now, the Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Jade Spring, which had been fine for centuries, had turned haunted the moment he went there. He was starting to wonder whether he had been cursed.
"Don't put it like that. This might actually be a good thing, you know?"
With him putting it that way, Liu Zheng felt too embarrassed to snap back at him.
"Huh?"
Bai San looked completely bewildered.
How could this possibly be a good thing?
"Exactly. Think about it. Before, whenever your Bai Family collected spring water, you had to sneak around, terrified that someone would discover the cave dwelling's location, right?"
"Right."
Bai San nodded.
"Now you can trade openly and honestly. Plus, someone is guarding the source for you. Isn't that much better than sneaking around?"
He continued.
"But before, it was a business with no capital investment."
As a core member of the family, Bai San immediately grasped the key issue.
"Raw material costs aren't the only costs. Time costs, security costs, and labor costs are all costs. Think about it: if you went to war with Cang Xue, how many members of the Bai Family would die? And if you hired outside help, how much would that cost?"
"Besides, Cang Xue knew you were stealing water before, so he definitely wouldn't leave you much. Now that it's an