# "Su Yao's Dazzling Counterattack Chapter 101"
The first light of dawn gilded the sails of fishing boats in Victoria Harbor, Seychelles, as Su Yao stood on the deck of a research vessel, watching the Takamaka tree from the hundredth chapter shrink into the distance. In her hands, she held a small wooden box containing a fragment of the *Tapestry of One Hundred Threads*—a square where Sami reindeer wool, Fijian masi bark, and Korean seaweed fiber intertwined, stitched together with their signature seaweed-metal thread. Beside her, Lin adjusted a microscope, examining a new batch of fibers infused with extracts from Seychelles' endemic coco de mer palm. "The tapestry's holding strong," she said, glancing up at the sunrise. "No degradation in the metal blend—even after the cyclone."
Three months after the tapestry's unveiling, their next chapter had begun: taking the collaboration beyond handwoven textiles, into a global exhibition that would not only display their work but teach the philosophy behind it. Their first stop was Paris, where a historic textile museum had offered them a gallery to showcase "Threads of the World: Tradition in Motion." The crates below deck held pieces from every community—Jeju's seaweed席 with metal-infused waves, Fiji's masi cloth with warrior-tide patterns, Madagascar's lamba woven with ancestor-wave motifs—each accompanied by videos of the weavers at work, singing their songs, explaining their rituals.
The Paris gallery, with its marble floors and gilded frames, felt worlds away from the Berber tents and Ifugao terraces they'd left behind. But as the team hung the exhibits, something remarkable happened: the contrast between old-world grandeur and earthy craftsmanship created a dialogue. A 17th-century French tapestry depicting mythological sea creatures hung beside their collaborative Seychellois-Cretan piece, where labyrinths merged into coral reefs, and visitors paused to trace the connection. "It's like seeing history breathe," murmured a curator, running her fingers over a Kikuyu kikoi whose stripes transitioned into ocean waves via seaweed-metal threads.
On opening day, a crowd gathered for the ribbon-cutting—diplomats, designers, students, and a group of textile artisans Su Yao had flown in from six countries, including Zohra from Tunisia, Wanjiru from Kenya, and Tsiry from Madagascar. Maelis, the Seychellois weaver, had insisted on bringing her frayed patchwork textile, now framed beside the *Tapestry of One Hundred Threads* fragment. "This is the before," she told reporters, tapping her patchwork. "This is the after."
But the celebration faced an unexpected challenge. A young textile student from Senegal stood up during the Q&A, her voice trembling with passion. "You talk about collaboration, but aren't you just taking our traditions and selling them in Paris?" she asked, gesturing to a Berber kilim priced in the exhibition catalog. "When my grandmother weaves, she does it for her family, not for museums. How is this not exploitation?"
The room fell silent. Su Yao stepped forward, her hand resting on the Kikuyu kikoi. "That's exactly why we brought the weavers here," she said, nodding to Wanjiru, who stood. The Kikuyu elder smiled, her beaded headband glinting. "In our village, we have a saying: 'A story told only in one hut dies with the storyteller.'" She touched the kikoi. "This cloth was woven by my hands, with my songs. Su Yao's team paid me fairly—more than I'd get selling it at the market—and now my grandchildren can go to school. That's not exploitation. That's respect."
Zohra stood next, her indigo haik sweeping the floor. "The desert teaches us to share water," she said. "Why not share stories? Our kilim patterns were dying—young people didn't want to learn. Now, because of this project, Amina here" —she gestured to her granddaughter— "is teaching a class of twenty girls. They weave our old patterns, but they add new ones too—camels walking to the moon. That's how traditions live."
After the Q&A, the Senegalese student approached Su Yao, her posture softening. "My grandmother is a weaver too," she said. "She makes *pagnes* (wax prints) with symbols from our tribe. I worry no one will buy them when she's gone." Su Yao smiled, handing her a card. "Then bring her to our next workshop," she said. "We're starting a program to connect artisans directly to designers—no middlemen. Your grandmother's symbols deserve to be seen."
That evening, in the gallery's courtyard, the weavers gathered for an impromptu celebration. Tsiry taught everyone a Malagasy weaving song, while Zohra's son played a flute made from a palm branch. Wanjiru demonstrated Kikuyu dance steps, and Maelis passed around a pot of *ladob* (Seychellois fruit stew). As the moon rose, they began a new project: a small textile, stitched on the spot, incorporating threads from each of their cultures and a new batch of seaweed-metal fiber infused with Parisian lavender. "For the student," Su Yao said, as they wove together.
The next morning, the student returned to find the textile on display with a note: "Tradition is not a cage—it's a loom. What will you weave next?" Beside it was a scholarship application for the "Weavers' Bridge" program, funded by proceeds from the exhibition, which would send her to learn from her grandmother full-time.
As the team prepared to leave Paris for their next stop—Lagos, where they'd collaborate with Yoruba adire dyers—Su Yao checked her phone. There were messages from communities they hadn't visited yet: a group of Inuit seamstresses in Greenland, a collective of Quechua weavers in Peru, even a nun in a Lebanese convent who wove silk vestments. "We want to add our threads," read one.
Lin laughed, packing the exhibition catalogs. "Looks like 100 chapters was just the beginning."
Su Yao nodded, staring at the fragment of the hundred-thread tapestry. In the light, the metal threads caught the sun, each reflecting a different color—red from Kikuyu dye, blue from Berber indigo, gold from Cretan saffron. "Every thread has a story," she said. "And every story deserves to be woven into something bigger."
Somewhere in the distance, a street musician played a melody that echoed the *ngoma* songs of Kenya and the *joik* of the Sami, a harmony no one had planned but everyone recognized. It was the sound of threads finding each other—across oceans, across time, across the boundaries we thought were unbreakable. And as Su Yao boarded the plane to Lagos, she knew: the most beautiful patterns are never fully planned. They're stitched, one thread at a time, by hands that choose to work together.