"Su Yao's Dazzling Counterattack Chapter 63"
The morning mist clung to the mountain valleys of northern Albania, where stone villages perched on cliffs like eagle nests and shepherds called to their flocks across grassy slopes. Su Yao's jeep navigated hairpin turns along roads edged with wild thyme, passing women in embroidered aprons carrying copper jugs from mountain springs, until it reached a cluster of stone houses with red-tiled roofs. In a courtyard lined with drying herbs, a group of weavers sat on low stools, their fingers flying with needles as they stitched colorful patterns onto thick woolen fabric. Their leader, a woman with silver braids and a xhubleta (traditional embroidered skirt) cinched at the waist named Shpresa, looked up as they approached, holding a finished garment adorned with sun motifs and geometric designs in crimson, gold, and black. "You've come for the xhubleta," she said, her Gheg Albanian dialect rough and melodic like the wind through pines, gesturing to piles of embroidered textiles laid out on wooden tables.
The Gheg people of the Albanian highlands have crafted xhubleta for over 800 years, a craft intertwined with their tribal identity and oral traditions. The xhubleta—a cone-shaped skirt worn by women—serves as a symbol of marital status, family lineage, and community: unmarried girls wear skirts with bright yellow patterns, married women add crimson, and widows stitch black borders. Woven from wool shorn from local sheep that graze on mountain herbs, each xhubleta features symbols passed down through generations: suns represent fertility, eagles denote freedom, and interlocking squares signify family unity. Dyes are made from plants and minerals gathered in the Accursed Mountains: madder root for red, walnut husks for brown, and iron oxide for black, with recipes guarded by village elders. The 刺绣 (embroidery) process includes prayers to ancestral spirits, who are believed to guide the needle, and women sing besa (oath songs) while working to ensure the stitches hold fast. Su Yao's team had traveled here to merge this warrior craft with their seaweed-metal blend, hoping to create a textile that honored Gheg traditions while adding durability to the wool fibers. But from the first conversation, it was clear that their understanding of "tribal honor" and "innovation" was as different as the craggy mountains and the Adriatic Sea's calm waters.
Shpresa's granddaughter, Era, a 26-year-old who ran a cultural center while studying Albanian folklore, held up a xhubleta with a pattern of double-headed eagles and starbursts. "This is for the Dita e Verës (Summer Day) festival," she said, tracing the motifs that celebrate the rebirth of light. "My grandmother stitched it during the kreshnik (warrior) moon when courage runs strongest—too many eagles, and it brings arrogance; too few, and the skirt loses its protection. You don't just make xhubleta—you weave a family's honor into wool."
Su Yao's team had brought computerized embroidery machines and synthetic wool blends, intending to mass-produce simplified xhubleta patterns using their seaweed-metal blend for a "Balkan heritage" fashion line. When Lin displayed a prototype with machine-stitched eagle motifs, the women stopped working, their needles clattering to the stone floor. Shpresa's brother, Genti, a 68-year-old shepherd with a scar across his cheek from a bear encounter, stood and slammed his fist on the table. "You think machines can capture the nder (honor) of our ancestors?" he said, his voice booming like thunder in the valley. "Xhubleta carries the blood of our warriors and the tears of our mothers. Your metal has no blood, no tears—it's a rock, not a legacy."
Cultural friction deepened over materials and rituals. Gheg weavers shear sheep during the Bajram (feast) days, offering the first fleece to the village baba (spiritual leader) to bless the wool. The fibers are washed in glacial streams, where women leave coins as offerings to the water spirits, and carded using wooden tools carved from oak. Dyes are prepared in copper cauldrons over bonfires of juniper wood, with each batch stirred by the oldest woman in the family to "infuse it with wisdom." The seaweed-metal blend, despite its organic origins, was viewed as an outsider. "Your thread comes from salt seas that erode our cliffs," Shpresa said, dropping the sample into a bowl of spring water. "It will never protect our daughters from harm."
A practical crisis emerged when the metal threads reacted with the madder root dye, turning it a murky purple and causing the wool fibers to fray. "It angers the ancestors," Era said, holding up a ruined swatch where the eagle's wings had unraveled. "Our xhubleta grows stronger with each generation, like a family's reputation. This will disintegrate like broken promises, shaming our name."
Then disaster struck: heavy rains triggered landslides in the mountains, burying the madder root and walnut husk patches used for dyeing and flooding the village's wool storage hut. The weavers' wooden embroidery hoops—some carved with warrior symbols—were swept away, and their supply of rare yellow dye (made from mountain saffron) was destroyed. With the wedding season approaching, when new xhubleta are traditionally worn, the community faced a crisis of identity. Genti, performing a ritual to calm the mountain spirits by sacrificing a lamb and reciting ancient oaths, blamed the team for disturbing the natural balance. "You brought something foreign to our land," he chanted, as smoke from the sacrifice fire curled toward the clouds. "Now the earth is angry, and it takes back our heritage."
That night, Su Yao sat with Shpresa in her stone house, where a wood stove simmered with fërgesë (cheese stew), filling the air with the scent of smoke and garlic. The walls were hung with xhubleta skirts and faded photographs of partisans from WWII, and a small shrine held a silver cross and a vial of mountain soil. "I'm sorry," Su Yao said, sipping rakia (fruit brandy) from a tiny glass. "We came here thinking we could honor your craft, but we've only shown we don't understand its soul."
Shpresa smiled, passing Su Yao a piece of ballokume (honey cookie). "The landslides are not your fault," she said. "The mountains give and take—that is their way. My grandmother used to say that even mud-stained wool can be cleaned, like a dishonored name can be redeemed. But your thread—maybe it's a chance to show that xhubleta can adapt, without losing our tribal heart. The young people leave for Tirana. We need to show them their roots are worth wearing."
Su Yao nodded, hope flickering like the stove's flame. "What if we start over? We'll help dig out the dye plants, rebuild the wool hut on higher ground, and salvage the soaked fibers. We'll learn to embroider xhubleta by hand, using your besa songs. We won't copy your sacred patterns. Instead, we'll create new ones together—designs that merge your eagles with our ocean waves, honoring both your mountains and the sea. And we'll let Genti bless the metal thread with a blood oath, so it carries our shared honor."
Era, who had been listening from the doorway, stepped inside, her embroidered apron rustling. "You'd really learn to stitch the double-headed eagle? It takes 40 hours to complete one wing—your eyes will blur, your fingers will bleed."
"However long it takes," Su Yao said. "And we'll learn the besa oaths you recite while working. Respect means keeping your promises."
Over the next three months, the team immersed themselves in Gheg life. They helped build stone retaining walls to prevent future landslides, their muscles aching from lifting boulders, and trekked with Genti to collect new dye plants from higher slopes, learning to navigate the mountains using stars. They sat on stools in the courtyard, stitching until their fingers were raw, as the women sang besa songs about loyalty and courage. "Each stitch must be tight enough to hold a secret," Shpresa said, showing Su Yao how to knot the thread. "Too loose, and the pattern betrays you; too tight, and the wool breaks. Like a besa—you must stand firm, but not rigid."
They learned to dye fibers in copper cauldrons over juniper fires, their clothes stained red and brown as Era taught them to add mountain ash to the madder root dye to "make the color last like a blood oath." "You have to harvest madder at dawn when the dew is thick," she said, digging up the roots with a bone-handled knife. "It holds the mountain's strength—rush it, and you get only weakness." They practiced the përparim (forward) stitch that creates the xhubleta's bold lines, their progress slow but steady as Shpresa's 85-year-old mother, Drita, who remembered the Italian occupation, corrected their work with a sharp tongue. "The eagle's talons must have seven claws," she said, referencing the seven Albanian tribes. "Each one is a promise to defend our land."
To solve the reaction between the metal threads and madder dye, Lin experimented with coating the metal in a solution of beeswax and mountain resin, a mixture Gheg shepherds use to waterproof leather. The wax sealed the metal, preventing discoloration, while the resin added a subtle scent that Genti declared "smells like honor." "It's like giving the thread a Gheg soul," she said, showing Shpresa a swatch where the red now glowed against the metal's shimmer.
Fiona, inspired by the way Albania's rivers flow to the Adriatic, designed a new pattern called "Eagle of the Two Seas," merging double-headed eagles with wave motifs in seaweed-metal thread. The eagles' wings gradually transform into waves, symbolizing the connection between the highlands and the coast. "It honors your warriors and our sailors," she said, and Genti nodded, pressing his palm to the fabric in a traditional greeting. "A true besa spans mountains and seas," he said. "This cloth keeps that promise."
As the sun broke through the mist and the embroidery hoops clacked again, the community held a Dita e Verës celebration, with bonfires, folk dances, and a feast of roasted lamb. They unveiled their first collaborative piece: a xhubleta with the "Eagle of the Two Seas" pattern, its wool fibers strengthened by seaweed-metal thread that caught the light like sunlight on water, and traditional starburst borders that glowed against the crimson fabric.
Shpresa helped Su Yao tie the xhubleta around her waist, securing it with a silver belt etched with tribal symbols. "This cloth has two honors," she said, as the villagers chanted ancient oaths. "One from our Albanian mountains, one from your sea. But both keep their besa."
As the team's jeep descended the mountain, Era ran alongside, waving a small package. Su Yao rolled down the window, and she tossed it in: a scrap of wool dyed crimson, stitched with a tiny eagle and wave in seaweed-metal, wrapped in oak leaves. "To remember us by," read a note in Albanian and English. "Remember that mountains and sea both keep their promises—like your thread and our wool."
Su Yao clutched the package as the Albanian highlands faded into the distance, their peaks wreathed in golden light. She thought of the hours spent stitching by firelight, the besa songs sung in unison, the way the metal thread had finally learned to dance with the wool. The Gheg had taught her that tradition isn't about stubbornness—it's about keeping faith with the past while making new promises for the future.
Her phone buzzed with a message from the Persian team: photos of Laleh holding their collaborative qalamkar at a poetry night. Su Yao smiled, typing back: "We've added a new eagle—Albanian mountains and your sea, woven as one."
Somewhere in the distance, a shepherd's flute played a haunting melody that echoed across the valleys, a reminder of the oaths that bind all people to their land. Su Yao knew their journey was far from over. There were still countless tribes to honor, countless promises to weave into the tapestry of their work. And as long as they approached each new place with humility—keeping their besa, honoring their hosts—the tapestry would only grow more honorable, a testament to the beauty of keeping one's word.