"Can't our esteemed accountant make the decision about negotiating with the ratfolk himself? Ding Dang Ear and the others are at the shop too; he could just discuss it with them... Why does he have to ask me?"
Looking at the potion in front of him, its color growing worse and worse, Zheng Qing let out a deep sigh and gave up on saving it.
Life was like the herbs boiling in the crucible before him. One wrong step brought a whole heap of trouble. For the young publicly funded student, choosing to open that little shop off campus seemed to have been just such a misstep.
He could have deposited the income from his hunting spoils in the bank and lived off the interest, so why had he cleverly decided to invest in a business? Running a business felt absolutely terrible. Once the novelty wore off, all he could think about was trouble.
And life's dead ends often appeared at times like this.
When the path you chose ran into trouble, it was hard to know whether it was right to keep going or right to abandon it in time. If that path ultimately led to a good result, people would praise your persistence; if it led to a terrible result, people would praise your decision to give up.
Yet no one could see clearly all the possibilities of the future—not even a Grand Diviner—so whenever people encountered such a predicament, they could only follow their hearts. It was just that most people were brave when they ought to retreat, gave up when they ought to be brave, hesitated when they ought to be decisive, and floored the accelerator when they ought to slow down.
That was one reason success had always remained a scarce quality, widely pursued by