After Li Mai finished organizing the six color formulas for the day, and the fabrics were all dry, Zhao Shi and Xi Que helped bring them into Li Mai's room and spread them out on the long table.
A piece of white cotton cloth was laid on it.
Li Mai came over and looked at the six pieces of cloth. She said to Zhou Quan, "You and Dad, help me dye some more cotton thread. Dye some in basins one, two, and three. When you hang them up to dry, be careful of splinters."
Zhou Quan agreed and went to the warehouse to move three baskets of pure-colored cotton thread for dyeing.
“Wheat, what’s the difference between dyeing thread and dyeing?” Zhao asked curiously.
“When we dye cloth, the whole piece of cloth will be the same color. But when we dye thread, we can weave patterns into it. Mother will know this once our textile workshop is up and running.” After saying this, Li Mai neatly folded a few pieces of cloth and placed them in a clean basket to the side. She then took them out to the yard to watch Zhou Quan and Old Man Zhou dye cotton thread.
The cotton thread that Li Mai and Zhou Quan bought was pre-spun thread, in large spools. After they dyed and dried it, they needed to use a thread winch to wind the thread onto the spools. When weaving, they would place these spools on a spinning wheel and use the spinning machine to weave the cloth.
Seeing that it was noon, Zhou Quan and his father hadn't finished dyeing the clothes yet, so Zhao took Zhuzhu and Xique back to prepare lunch.
Li Mai then moved on to work on her next color-dyed fabric project.
In this era, the most common colors people wear are gray, cyan, blue, and green.
Among them, blue is the most prominent color.
The plant primarily used for dyeing blue in this era was indigo.
In this era, indigo was the most abundant plant. Li Mai and Zhou Quan also picked some indigo along the way, intending to make it available for the dyeing workshop.
Li Mai plans to use indigo leaves to make indigo dye tomorrow.
After Zhou Quan and his father finished dyeing the cotton thread that Li Mai had dyed, it was already late afternoon.
Zhao brought them lunch again.
Li Mai and Zhou Quan waited for the threads to dry. After Zhou's father helped clean the furniture and tidy up the site, he cleaned up the remaining soup base and went home. Li Mai and Zhou Quan strolled around the dye shop, planning for the future.
Their dyeing workshop is not large, so Li Mai does not intend to expand it to a large scale.
Most dye houses produce ordinary black, white, and gray dyes, mainly in large quantities. This is the forte of large families that have been running dye houses for generations.
Li Mai's dye shop—Li Mai doesn't intend to do those things; her dye shop mainly serves her garment workshop.
She can source ordinary fabrics from elsewhere, but her dye shop dyes high-quality fabrics and spins unique materials that others don't have, creating her own distinctive style. This is the only way for her dye shop to gain a foothold in this era.
However, not doing those things doesn't mean I don't need to understand and know. Since I have the time now, Li Mai plans to try dyeing her hair in all sorts of colors.
To describe Li Mai's thoughts in a very cursive way, it would be: I can pretend not to know, not understand, or be ignorant, but I absolutely cannot be ignorant or uninformed.
As the sun set, the couple saw that the thread was dry, so they collected it, put it back in the original basket, dried it, labeled it, wrapped it in burlap, and placed it on the shelf in the thread storage room.
After making a record in the ledger, the couple locked the dye shop door and went home.
Before leaving, Zhou Quan placed a prohibition around the courtyard. No one else could enter except him. If anyone damaged the place, they would suffer the same backlash.
Because everyone was quite tired after a busy day, after dinner, the family chatted for a while before going to rest.
After Li Mai and Zhou Quan returned home, Zhou Quan quickly went to boil water for Li Mai, make tea, and prepare water for her to wash up.
The two of them drank a cup of tea before washing up and going to rest.
Of course, before resting, they would still go into the space to cultivate for a while and breathe in the spiritual energy to increase their spiritual power.
Because Zhou Quan is a cultivator, his physique is much better than that of ordinary people. He didn't feel tired even after a busy day, but he was worried that Xiaomai would be tired. She is currently pregnant and still has to do so many things. He felt sorry for her and tried his best to let her only talk and not do anything.
After cultivating for the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, Li Mai's fatigue disappeared. She took a walk in the space with Zhou Quan for a while and shared her guesses about the space with him.
After listening, Zhou Quan thought for a moment and said, "If the space we are in now is a chip implanted in your body, I think he should be able to come here as well."
"One possible reason why he hasn't appeared here is that after his rebirth, his abilities are insufficient, or his core machines are no longer able to help him."
Li Mai nodded, "We think the same thing, which means that the Azure Dragon that disappeared in the space may also be related to him."
“The Azure Dragon is a divine beast, but its dragon soul was sealed in a jade pendant. Do you think this might be related to Gu Zhe’s previous research center?” Li Mai analyzed.
"If we blur the distinction between spacetime and time and ignore it, I think it might actually be related to them. After all, time gets messed up when crossing spacetime, and it's possible that there are gaps of hundreds or thousands of years in between."
"Furthermore, Xiaomai, think about it, why is it that the Azure Dragon and the Qilin were only unsealed because of the two of us, and why did the number of mutated beasts increase during this period? And why did Gu Zhe also appear in front of you at this time?"
“After seeing him yesterday, I felt that his aura was somewhat familiar. Today, I suddenly remembered that I seem to have encountered this aura several times since I was a child. However, I didn’t think much about it because I hadn’t awakened my spiritual power before. Before I met you, I encountered this aura three times. After we got married, I encountered this aura twice.”
“Once, it was after a disaster in our village. We lived on the mountain. After the floodwaters receded, we returned to the village and smelled this scent. Another time, it was when I took my older brother to our dye shop for a competition. I also smelled this scent in the surrounding area.”
After Zhou Quan finished speaking, his mood and complexion were not good. He thought of a possibility: was the flood in the village caused by Gu Zhe?
Li Mai had obviously thought of that too. She looked at Zhou Quan in shock. "Impossible. I saw that his soul was pale yellow. He shouldn't be carrying any blood on his hands. Several people died in our village last year."
Zhou Quan nodded, "Yeah, maybe I'm overthinking it. Xiaomai, I think we can't keep guessing like this. When he comes next time, let's talk to him. I think we should find out how many things related to us we don't know."
“Yes, otherwise, without our knowledge, we don’t know how many more innocent people will lose their lives because of us!” Li Mai nodded in agreement.
What she fears most now is that those mutated beasts have appeared in this world and have killed so many people, all because of the two of them.
Li Mai felt it was time for her and Zhou Quan to know the whole truth.
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