Chapter 171 A Bold Idea: How Many Mothers Do You Have?

Qin Xiangxiang hung up the phone and then called Meng Dadan, saying that she would start testing the improved military-grade three-in-one blended fabric.

Master Meng was stunned: "You're changing cotton to real silk? Making a three-in-one imitation silk?"

"Isn't it good?"

"Great! That's fantastic!" A thought immediately flashed through Master Meng's mind. "Factory manager, you're incredibly quick-witted! Let's switch to a military-grade three-in-one formula. This formula is perfect, and our factory has experience with it."

Qin Xiangxiang said, "I also think that with our experience, we should be able to make it quickly. Besides, this is a formula that has passed military testing. We can replace the cotton with silk to increase the luster."

"I'll have the workers get it done for you tomorrow."

Qin Xiangxiang happily went home with her silk pajamas. The thin layer of silk had a natural luster and felt soft and comfortable to the touch. Qin Xiangxiang carefully washed and gently dried them.

Li Jianzhi glanced at her calmly a few times, "Get me one next time."

Qin Xiangxiang: "Shameless! I'll dress you in silk mixed with linen."

“I’m a family member, I should enjoy family benefits.” Li Jianzhi walked over and kissed her with a smile, “Share some good things with me.”

"Alright, alright." Qin Xiangxiang smiled and pushed him away. "That Factory Director Chen is really strange. Last time when we needed a machine, she inexplicably recognized someone as her mother. Did she really think she was my mom?"

"She was acting really strange today. She said I'm a scheming woman and that I'm a thousand-year-old witch."

"Look at me closely, do I look like a fairy?" Qin Xiangxiang didn't think too highly of herself. In the original book, she was a foolish and pretentious female supporting character, the kind who was a little clever, but not that smart.

Li Jianzhi: "It's probably the Dihua halo."

"Who told you to marry such a good husband like me?"

Qin Xiangxiang clicked her tongue twice: "If you and Xiaopang were a little less confident, I would feel much more at ease."

Qin Xiangxiang tried on the silk pajamas for a few days, but she felt they weren't very pleasant. They weren't suitable for lazy people, wrinkled easily, were difficult to care for, and looked worse after being washed a few times.

Qin Xiangxiang sighed: "This thing either shouldn't be washed, or it should be thrown away after being washed a few times."

"A thing for the aristocracy and the petty bourgeoisie."

If the market economy is liberalized in the future, people with money can buy several sets of silk clothes, wear them a few times and then throw them away, or have a nanny to manage their silk clothes. Otherwise, there's really no need to go through that trouble.

Qin Xiangxiang has completed the assessment of the silk pajamas. They are comfortable, but not suitable for ordinary people. Even those who are "moderately wealthy" are not suited to silk. Only the extremely wealthy are suitable to wear silk clothes.

For ordinary people, silk clothes are actually a hassle.

After thinking for a moment, Qin decided: "Let's mix some hemp feed into it!"

She had barely made the decision when she successfully improved the military formula.

Master Meng said with delight, "Factory manager, you're doing really well. You haven't encountered any technical difficulties. The only problem is in dyeing; there's a difference in dyeing polyester and silk."

"However, the low-temperature staining with glacial acetic acid solved the problem of inconsistent staining rates."

"The cotton blend produced this way is really good; it has the appearance of silk, the luster, the crispness, and it's also durable..."

Qin Xiangxiang touched it and examined it with a magnifying glass: "The blend ratio of this fabric is indeed good, and it is also suitable for making officers' uniforms... military dress uniforms, suitable for honor guards, cultural troupes, and performance costumes."

"It's only one-third silk, so it's great value for money!"

"I'll go find Representative Jie later and ask him to find someone to help send it for military testing."

Since military-grade formulas are being used anyway, why not conduct a round of military-grade testing, such as data on combustion, infrared resistance, and other aspects?

"Factory manager, could you give us a name?"

Qin Xiang thought hard: "We changed the name of the seersucker yarn to East China Sea Wave Yarn. We try to make the name related to the ocean as much as possible, which is in line with the characteristics of our island factory."

"I heard before that this military-grade blended fabric has better infrared protection than cotton, which can reduce the probability of being detected by infrared radiation, meaning it can hide... hide... fish... fish scales, no, no, no, how about calling it Hidden Scale Silk, the 'scale' of the unicorn."

“A hidden talent, you could call him Yinlinchou, the 'Lin' in fish scale.”

Master Meng: "The 'Lin' in 'Qilin' is better."

"Then let's go with Hidden Scale Silk! It's a nice name too."

Qin Xiangxiang sent the newly developed Hidden Scale Silk to Representative Xie, asking him to conduct military testing.

Representative Jie: "...My God! This is real silk? The silk clothes made in our factory?"

"Is this silk?"

Qin Xiangxiang: "It really is a silk blend! A three-in-one blend. The formula for the three-in-one military uniform has been changed, and the cotton material has been replaced with silk. Since everyone is already familiar with three-in-one cotton, it will be easy to get used to three-in-one silk. There are no major technical difficulties."

"And the results are quite good. It looks just like silk, and it's wear-resistant and wrinkle-resistant, but its breathability is still not as good as pure silk."

Representative Jie said, "I thought it was impressive to wear the new three-in-one military uniform, but the hidden-scale silk from our factory is even more impressive!"

Qin Xiangxiang said, "The cost isn't high either; it's just that we changed 30% of the cotton to 30% of the silk."

"Our factory has developed a new type of hidden-scale silk!"

"This imitation silk is truly amazing!"

"This completely overturned my understanding of silk. Even after being sanded, it remained perfectly intact!"

"Silly, it contains nylon, making it more durable!"

"Durable and quick-drying!"

...

Sun Qingyuan was dumbfounded. "Wait a minute, when did your factory develop simulated silk fabric?"

Factory worker: "In the next couple of days!"

"How did you develop it? I didn't see you developing it. Where's the formula? Don't you need to conduct comparative tests? Did you just develop it directly?"

Sun Qingyuan, a graduate of an academic school, felt like he was going crazy. How could he suddenly develop a simulated silk cotton material and even come up with a name for it?

Even Su Huihong, a veteran factory worker who considered herself to have sharp eyes, was dumbfounded. "No, when did these people develop this?"

Xue Xiaochuan: "Huh?!"

Yang Qian was going crazy. She had just seen the Hidden Scale Silk with her own eyes. "I don't believe it. It's impossible. How could it be like this just by chance? I don't believe it."

Qin Xiangxiang said, "I modified the military-grade three-in-one formula. Our factory already produces three-in-one products. Now we've changed the cotton material inside to real silk. There aren't any major technical difficulties. We're treating the chemical fiber to resemble silk."

"This blend of silk and natural silk is really good quality; it's durable, wrinkle-resistant, and even more infrared-resistant than pure cotton..."

Yang Qian asked incredulously, "You just changed the formula directly... You can change the formula like that?"

Blending doesn't mean you can just mix and match randomly, but Qin Xiangxiang's casual change of formula, replacing cotton with silk... actually yielded surprisingly good results.

"This... is acceptable?!"

After military testing, Representative Jie brought Qin Xiangxiang some good news: "The Hidden Scale Silk performed exceptionally well. It has a silk-like appearance, is wear-resistant, and wrinkle-resistant, making it suitable for honor guards and performing arts troupes. Director Qin, you have made a great contribution!"

"Silk that doesn't cost much, great! This is wonderful!"

"The higher-ups also said that we should develop more accessible products!"

Encouraged, Qin Xiangxiang found that this deadbeat man's "mischievous ideas" were really effective. She called "Dream Dasty" over and said that she wanted to continue developing the silk-sisal blend, "to make pure natural silk clothes."

Master Meng was stunned: "Silk mixed with hemp?"

"There has never been such a way of mixing them before... However, it is not impossible. Ancient techniques for processing linen were not advanced enough, but modern craftsmanship can make linen finer and softer, so it is not impossible to mix it with silk... It's just that no one has ever thought of doing it this way."

Qin Xiang thought carefully and said, "Let's use a mixture of tussah silk and sisal first, it's cheaper."

Tussah silk is a type of wild silk, and it is inexpensive, costing only one-half to one-third the price of real silk.

“This works. We’ll experiment with the proportions gradually. The hemp content shouldn’t exceed 70%, otherwise it will be too coarse.”

Qin thought for a moment: "We need to save costs as much as possible, but also make sure it's good."

Master Meng smiled and tugged at Qin Xiangxiang: "Tell me again if you have this idea again next time."

"I love these bold ideas!"

"Once I've come to your Feiyan Textile Factory, I don't want to leave!"

Qin Xiangxiang: "..."

The deadbeat man and Master Meng should have a lot in common.

Qin Xiangxiang didn't have a chance to wait for Master Meng's blending results. She first took a boat to the exhibition venue of the 1973 Autumn Canton Fair. Gao Rong was among the people who came with her. They were mainly there to join in the fun.

The only fabrics Qin Xiang brought were Donghai Langyong yarn and Yinlin silk. She wanted to see how the overseas market for Yinlin silk was.

Otherwise, even though this fabric is good, it's only suitable for making performance costumes for domestic song and dance troupes.

This time, the beds were even more scarce, so four people had to share a double room.

"More and more overseas buyers are coming to the Canton Fair. If we don't squeeze in like this, we'll have to sleep on the floor."

Gao Rong: "There are so many taxis outside! I heard that Shanghai provided 200 taxis this time. This is the first time I've seen so many cars on the street."

"These taxis seem to be specifically for foreign guests."

Qin Xiangxiang said, "To celebrate the opening of the Canton Fair this year, a set of Canton Fair stamps was issued. Let's go buy some as souvenirs."

Qin Xiangxiang took the factory workers to buy stamps. These were commemorative stamps issued by the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. A total of four million stamps were issued, with a face value of eight fen. Qin Xiangxiang bought ten stamps in one go to keep as souvenirs.

Gao Rong and others also bought some commemorative stamps.

Back at the guesthouse, she bumped into Factory Director Chen Shulan and others. Upon seeing her, Chen Shulan teased, "Oh my, my good daughter has arrived."

"This isn't over yet," Qin Xiangxiang thought to herself, secretly grumbling that Chen Shulan was taking advantage of her and that she had to get something out of her. "Mom, I miss you so much—"

"Qin Xiangxiang, who are you calling 'Mom'?"

Qin Xiangxiang felt a tingling sensation down her spine. Upon hearing the voice, she froze, too afraid to turn around and look at the person next to her.

"Qin Xiangxiang, how many mothers do you have?"