# "Su Yao's Dazzling Counterattack Chapter 102"
The Harmattan winds carried the scent of charred wood and indigo over Lagos' bustling markets, where Yoruba women in *iro* and *buba* (traditional wraps) called out to customers from stalls piled high with adire fabrics. Su Yao's car navigated the crowded streets, passing tailors stitching garments in open-air workshops and children chasing goats through clouds of red dust, until it turned into a quiet lane lined with mango trees. At the end stood a compound with mud walls painted in geometric patterns, where a group of dyers sat on low stools, their hands stained deep blue as they tied raffia knots on white cotton.
Their leader, 58-year-old Adunni, looked up from her work, a smile breaking across her face. She wore an adire blouse patterned with *eleko* (calabash) motifs, and her silver earrings jangled as she stood. "You've come for the *adire alabere*," she said in Yoruba, her voice rich as the drums from a nearby festival. In her lap lay a length of fabric tied into intricate knots, soon to be dyed in indigo vats bubbling over clay fires. "Each knot is a secret—when the dye hits, it tells a story."
Adire, Yoruba resist-dyeing, is a craft over 500 years old, born from the need to record history in a pre-literate society. The techniques—*oniko* (tie-dye), *eleko* (starch-resist), and *oyele* (wax-resist)—produce patterns that chronicle everything from royal coronations to market days. The indigo, imported from Mali along ancient trade routes, is fermented with palm wine and ash, a process that takes seven days and requires daily stirring by elder women singing *oriki* (praise poems) to the dye spirit. "The indigo must 'breathe' to turn deep blue," Adunni's daughter, 26-year-old Temitope, explained, showing a fabric where white spirals (symbolizing life's journey) emerged from a blue background. "If you rush it, the color fades—like a story told too quickly."
Su Yao's team had traveled to Lagos after the Paris exhibition, drawn to adire's potential to blend with their seaweed-metal threads. They brought samples of the fiber woven into cotton, hoping to create a fabric that retained adire's signature blue while adding durability. But when Lin displayed a machine-tied sample with printed motifs, Adunni's husband, 63-year-old Olu, a *babalawo* (diviner) with a staff carved from iroko wood, clicked his tongue. "Your machine ties knots without meaning," he said, lifting the fabric. "Our knots are tied while thinking of *Olorun* (God)—that's why they last. This has no thought, no spirit."
Tensions deepened when a fire swept through the market, destroying three indigo vats and burning stored cotton. The cause was a faulty generator, but rumors spread quickly: "The foreign thread angered the dye spirit," women whispered as they sifted through ashes. With the *Osun-Osogbo* festival approaching, when new adire is worn to honor the river goddess Osun, the community faced a crisis. "We need 50 fabrics for the priests," Adunni said, her voice tight as she stared at the charred remains of her vats. "Without them, the festival can't go on."
That night, Su Yao sat with Adunni in her kitchen, where a pot of *efo riro* (spinach stew) simmered over a fire. The walls were hung with adire fabrics depicting Olu's divination ceremonies, and a small shrine held a clay figurine of Osun, draped in blue cloth. "I know you think we're trying to change your craft," Su Yao said, tearing off a piece of *agidi* (pounded yam). "But we're here to help it survive. The fire took your vats, not your knowledge."
Adunni smiled, passing her a bowl of stew. "My grandmother used to say that when a dye vat burns, you build a better one," she said. "But your thread—maybe it's a sign. Young people buy cheap imported cloth now. They don't know how to tie *oniko* knots. We need to show them adire can be new and old at the same time."
Over the next two weeks, the team worked alongside the dyers. They helped rebuild the vats with fireproof bricks, their hands blistered from mixing clay and sand, and traveled to Oyo with Olu to collect fresh indigo leaves, learning to chant the *oriki* as they packed them into baskets. "*Oya, spirit of the dye, come to us*," they sang, their voices mixing with the Yoruba words until the rhythm felt natural.
Lin experimented with soaking the seaweed-metal threads in the fermented indigo mixture before weaving, allowing the dye to bond with the fiber. "It needs to 'know' the indigo spirit," she said, showing Adunni a swatch where the metal threads had turned a deep, rich blue. Adunni ran her fingers over it, then nodded: "Osun would wear this."
Fiona collaborated with Temitope to design a new pattern: *orun* (heaven) motifs—white stars tied in traditional knots—merging into ocean waves woven with the treated metal threads. "It honors your sky and our sea," Fiona explained, and Olu smiled, tracing the pattern with a finger. "The stars guide sailors, just as Osun guides us," he said. "This cloth understands both paths."
On the morning of the festival, the dyers gathered to unveil their collaborative adire. The fabric, stretched between two mango trees, showed white stars transitioning into blue waves shot through with metal threads that caught the sunlight like fish scales. Adunni draped a length over Su Yao's shoulders, then pressed a small square into her hand—a star and a wave, stitched together. "Now you're part of our story," she said.
As the team's car pulled away, they could hear the drums starting, and through the window, they saw Temitope teaching a group of teenagers to tie *oniko* knots, the seaweed-metal thread spooled beside her. Su Yao thought of the indigo vats, bubbling with new life, and the way the metal threads had learned to hold the dye—how foreign things, when treated with respect, could become part of something ancient.
Her phone buzzed with a message from Paris: the Senegalese student had arrived, her grandmother's *pagne* designs now part of the exhibition. Su Yao smiled, typing back: "We've added new knots in Lagos—your turn to weave something beautiful."
Somewhere in the distance, the *oriki* songs mingled with the sound of waves, a harmony that felt as old as time and as new as tomorrow.