Tang Xiaonan glanced at Adrian Hawthorne, deciding not to expose his lie. He wasn't telling the whole truth; he had made at least fourteen or sixteen yuan. But she understood him. A merchant would never reveal their bottom line.
Even if business was booming, they'd publicly claim they were just scraping by. But if business was truly awful, they'd insist it was going well—even better than in previous years. A customer might haggle a fifty-yuan item down to ten and walk away gloating, thinking they've gotten a huge bargain. But in reality, the owner is celebrating too, because they might still have a five-yuan profit margin.
You can't be a merchant without a bit of cunning. A simple, honest person could never make it in business.
"Are we coming back to sell tomorrow?" Jim Thorne hadn't had his fill of the excitement yet.
