153: Chapter 153 The Cui Family's Dilemma

Hearing this, Cui Ruiyuan also felt a massive headache coming on.

To seek help from the Heyuan Luo Clan, the Cui Clan had spent nearly three hundred thousand taels.

As agreed, the Heyuan Luo Clan had dispatched their only Grandmaster, Grandmaster Luo Dingpeng, to oversee Deep Water Harbor.

The Cui Clan was naturally overjoyed by Grandmaster Luo Dingpeng's arrival.

With a Grandmaster presiding, they assumed the forces attacking the Cui Clan from the shadows would no longer dare to be so arrogant.

The Elders thought that the Cui Clan's crisis was now completely resolved.

Unfortunately, they had oversimplified matters.

Grandmaster Luo Dingpeng's arrival not only failed to solve the Cui Clan's crisis but instead made their situation even worse.

It was as if they had invited a high-and-mighty lord whom they couldn't afford to offend.

They had to provide for his every need, yet they couldn't even give him orders.

Factoring in the losses of the merchant ships, in just two months, the Cui Clan hadn't earned a single cent; instead, they had paid a price of seven to eight hundred thousand taels.

This caused the silver reserves accumulated in the Cui Clan's treasury over the years to drop by several tens of percent.

If this continued, the clan treasury would be emptied within six months at most. By then, let alone operating Deep Water Harbor, the Cui Clan would be lucky not to have to sell it off.

At this moment, the Cui Clan was like a frog being boiled in lukewarm water.

Cui Ruiyuan was well aware of Cui Ruihao's concerns.

Cui Ruiyuan asked in a heavy voice, "What do you want to do?"

"Big Brother, how about this? The enemy has been trying to obstruct our Cui Clan's merchant ship transportation business. In my opinion, we should simply stop this business for a while and rent the merchant ships to other forces. That way, we won't have to bear the risks of transportation."

Cui Ruiyuan rejected it immediately. "No."

Cui Ruihao asked with a look of confusion, "Why?"

In his view, transferring the risk was the most suitable solution at the moment.

However, Cui Ruiyuan's next words struck at the heart of the problem. "Setting aside whether any force is willing to rent our Cui Clan's merchant ships, even if someone were willing, once we rent them out, our Cui Clan might avoid risks in the short term, but our profits would likely be less than a third of what they used to be."

"Furthermore, if the merchant ships we rent out are still attacked, even if we receive compensation, what then? Once word gets out, other forces likely won't rent our ships anymore, and even the rest of our Cui Clan's business would suffer a major blow."

"Besides, other forces aren't fools. Can we really hide everything that has happened to our Cui Clan over the past six months? If our Cui Clan cannot break this deadlock, everything will be in vain."

Hearing this, Cui Ruihao also realized his plan was full of holes. At a time like this, what force would be willing to wade into these muddy waters?

The reason other forces chose the Cui Clan's Deep Water Harbor was precisely because its transportation was safer and cheaper.

If safety was gone, no matter how cheap it was, other forces wouldn't take the risk.

Realizing this, Cui Ruihao understood the key to the matter.

To solve the problem of the Cui Clan's Deep Water Harbor, they either had to eliminate the forces attacking from behind the scenes or force them to compromise.

The situation of the Heyuan Cui Clan at this moment seemed to have fallen into a deadlock once again.

"Big Brother, why don't you go and persuade Sister-in-law? Have her go to that old fellow Luo Dingpeng and get him to escort the ships more often. That way, if he goes out enough times, there's bound to be a chance to encounter the forces attacking us," Cui Ruihao continued.

Cui Ruiyuan shook his head; his younger brother's thinking was still too simplistic.

Even though the Luo Clan was related to the Cui Clan by marriage, in reality, they were only there for the benefits.

Ultimately, Grandmaster Luo Dingpeng was a Grandmaster of the Luo Clan, not of the Cui Clan.

Expecting Grandmaster Luo Dingpeng to go all out to help the Cui Clan would depend entirely on his conscience.

And how much was a conscience worth?

It was true that Grandmaster Luo Dingpeng had agreed to support the Cui Clan, but whether he could completely solve the problem and how much effort he would actually put in were different matters.

Judging by his attitude over the past two months, it was already quite clear.

Now, the Cui Clan found it easy to invite a deity but hard to send one away; they were riding a tiger and couldn't get off.

Internal troubles and external threats followed one after another.

Grandmaster Luo Dingpeng didn't treat himself as an outsider either; the Cui Clan had now become his provider.

At this point, getting him to act would be easier said than done.

Back then, the Cui Clan Elders wanted to do things on the cheap, fearing their own interests would be damaged.

Now, they had simply lifted a stone only to drop it on their own feet.

Nevertheless, he still explained to Cui Ruihao, "Ruihao, this method won't work. Getting Grandmaster Luo Dingpeng to act once a month is already his limit."

But as soon as Cui Ruihao heard this, his anger flared up. "This won't work, that won't work... is our Cui Family just supposed to wait for death?"

Cui Ruihao's sudden outburst did not cause Cui Ruiyuan to lose his composure.

The Cui Clan had suffered too many blows over the past six months. Aside from some heartless clansmen, most were feeling incredibly suppressed.

Especially for the high-level members who cared about the Family, the pressure in their hearts was even greater.

Cui Ruiyuan said nothing, only watching Cui Ruihao quietly.

The air was so still that one could almost hear a pin drop.

Before long, Cui Ruihao finally calmed down. Looking at the silent Cui Ruiyuan, he said apologetically, "Big Brother, I was wrong."

"Enough, let this matter end here. I will find a way." Cui Ruiyuan spoke expressionlessly, his voice a bit more somber.

...

On the other side.

After leaving Jinxiu City, Pei Qingyun did not choose to return to Longxi with Ancestor Yuhuan, but instead took a different route.

Having been away from Wuyang for so many days, Pei Qingyun thought it was time to return.

However, before leaving, Pei Qingyun tried to use his Analysis Technique to analyze the pure essence pill.

But clearly, the remaining two hundred-plus points of family luck were not enough to do it.

Previously, Pei Qingyun had tried to analyze the Bloodline Spiritual Artifact. After learning it required ten thousand points of family luck, he chose to give up.

Although analyzing a pure essence pill didn't require ten thousand points of family luck, it still needed two thousand five hundred.

Based on Pei Qingyun's experiments with the Analysis Technique, analyzing a Tier 1 Medicinal Pill took roughly one to two hundred points; Tier 2 was between two to four hundred; and Tier 3 was between five hundred to one thousand.

Tier 4 Medicinal Pills were mostly between one thousand to two thousand.

Anything over two thousand points should correspond to a Tier 5 Medicinal Pill.

In other words, the level corresponding to the pure essence pill was a Tier 5 Medicinal Pill.

As for the value determination, it couldn't be calculated simply by family luck.

For instance, the price difference between Tier 4 Medicinal Pills could be more than double; a five to ten-fold difference was also normal.

This caused Pei Qingyun to temporarily abandon the idea of analyzing it.

In truth, his main reason for wanting to analyze the pure essence pill was to understand the Materials needed to refine it.

After all, while the sources of many Medicinal Pills were controlled, the difficulty of gathering Materials was one of the most important reasons for their low production.