# "Su Yao's Dazzling Counterattack Chapter 104"
The mist clung to the stone walls of a remote village in the Scottish Highlands, where crofts with thatched roofs huddled around a loch. Su Yao's car skidded up a gravel track, passing women in tweed skirts herding sheep and elders smoking pipes outside a stone pub, until it reached a whitewashed cottage with a sign reading "Clan MacLeod Weavers." In the garden, a group of weavers sat on wooden benches, their fingers working粗麻线 (coarse hemp) into thick tartan fabrics.
Their leader, 60-year-old Flora MacLeod, looked up from her loom, her red hair tied back with a tartan ribbon. She held up a finished *plaid*—a length of fabric in the MacLeod colors: black, yellow, and red, its pattern of crisscrossing stripes as precise as a clan map. "This is our *sloinneadh* (genealogy)," she said in Gaelic, her voice like wind through heather. "Every thread knows which clan it belongs to."
Scottish tartan weaving dates back to the 16th century, when each clan adopted distinctive patterns to identify its members on the battlefield. The *sett* (pattern) is a code: the number of stripes represents clan branches, their width denotes status, and colors honor local landmarks—MacLeod's yellow for the gorse on Skye, red for the island's granite. "We harvest wool from *Blackface sheep*," Flora's granddaughter, 25-year-old Eilidh, explained, showing a tartan with a hidden "*love knot*" pattern woven into the stripes. "The fleece is washed in loch water, which makes it water-resistant—my grandfather says the loch spirits bless it. We never change the sett without the clan chief's permission—it would be like rewriting our history."
Su Yao's team arrived after the Andes project, drawn to tartan's blend of tradition and durability. They brought seaweed-metal threads woven into wool, hoping to create a fabric that retained the tartan's bold patterns while withstanding Scotland's harsh weather. But when Lin displayed a machine-woven sample with a simplified sett, Flora's brother, 65-year-old Angus—a retired gamekeeper with a clan sword above his fireplace—grimaced. "Your machine weaves without *càirdeas* (kinship)," he said, slapping the fabric. "Our looms sing the *seannachaidh* (old stories) as we work. This thing is silent—no more a tartan than a plastic bag is a kilt."
Tensions rose when a storm flooded the river, washing away the hemp fields and damaging the weavers' wooden looms, some carved from oak trees over a century old. "The loch spirits reject your metal," Angus muttered as men hauled waterlogged looms from the cottage. With the *Burns Supper* approaching—when clans gather to honor the poet, wearing new tartans—the community faced disaster. "We need 20 plaids for the chief's party," Flora said, staring at the ruined hemp. "Without them, we shame the clan."
That night, Su Yao sat with Flora by the cottage fire, where a pot of *cullen skink* (smoked fish soup) bubbled. The walls were hung with tartans dating back to 1800, and a glass case held Flora's great-grandfather's battle plaid, its edges frayed from sword fights. "I know tartan isn't just fabric," Su Yao said, sipping tea from a chipped mug. "It's memory. We want to help preserve it—not replace it."
Flora smiled, passing her a scone with clotted cream. "My granny used to say that even a torn tartan can be mended, if you use the right thread," she said. "But your metal—maybe it's a sign. Young people wear jeans now, not kilts. We need to show them the sett still matters."
Over the next two weeks, the team worked with the weavers. They helped drain the hemp fields and replant seeds, their boots sinking into mud, and traveled to the Isle of Skye with Angus to collect bog oak for new looms, learning to chant the clan blessing as they loaded the wood. "*Naomh Moire, guidich ar clann* (Saint Mary, help our clan)," they sang, their voices mixing with the Gaelic words until the rhythm felt natural.
Lin experimented with coating the seaweed-metal threads in *beeswax* and *peat tar*—a mixture Scottish shepherds use to waterproof boots. "It needs to 'breathe' like wool," she said, showing Flora a swatch where the metal threads had blended into the tartan, their shimmer barely visible but adding strength. Flora ran her fingers over it, then nodded: "The chief would wear this."
Fiona collaborated with Eilidh to design a new pattern: the MacLeod sett merging into wave patterns woven with the treated metal threads, honoring the clan's island roots. "It ties your land to the sea," Fiona said, and Angus traced the pattern with a calloused finger. "The MacLeods have always sailed these waters," he said. "This tartan remembers that."
On the night of the Burns Supper, the weavers gathered in the village hall, where the collaborative tartan hung behind the chief's chair. The MacLeod stripes flowed into waves of blue wool, the metal threads catching the candlelight like sunlight on the loch. Flora draped a length over Su Yao's shoulders, then pressed a small square into her hand—a tartan stripe and a wave, stitched together. "Now you're *càirdeas* (kin)," she said.
As the team's car drove away, they could hear bagpipes playing, and through the window, they saw Eilidh teaching teenagers to weave the MacLeod sett, the seaweed-metal thread spooled beside her. Su Yao thought of the hemp fields, sprouting new green shoots, and the way the metal threads had learned to blend into the tartan—how innovation, when rooted in respect, can become part of tradition.
Her phone buzzed with a message from the Andes: Luz had sold their collaborative poncho to a museum, funding a weaving school. Su Yao smiled, typing back: "We've added new stripes in Scotland—your turn to weave something lasting."
Somewhere in the distance, the bagpipes played a melody that merged with the sound of waves, a harmony as old as the Highlands and as new as the tide.