She's skilled in medicine, martial arts, and even understands animal language—the abandoned dau

Despite their laughter, the villagers learned very diligently. In just one day, they mastered the entire process from selecting cocoons to reeling silk, and successfully turned all the cocoons they had stockpiled into silk.

Now they no longer had to worry about the cocoons they collected being wasted.

Before we knew it, it was the end of April, and the wild silkworm cocoons in the mountains were ready for their first harvest of the year. These past few days, the villagers have put aside all their household chores and gone up the mountain to pick the cocoons.

Perhaps because the village sent villagers to watch over them this year, and they also distributed food to them manually, the number of silkworm cocoons produced this time is more than three times that of the last time.

The entire village of Xiaoyao mobilized and spent three whole days harvesting all the silkworm cocoons.

Even Li Mufeng, who had never been to the mountains before, joined everyone and experienced the joy of harvesting silkworm cocoons.

After the silkworm cocoons were harvested, the villagers, led by Jiang Qi and his wife, began processing them. In less than three days, all the cocoons were transformed into silk.

Once the silkworm silk is produced, the next thing to consider is, of course, the sales channels.

Knowing that Shen Man and her mother had some connection with the Zhu family steward, the village head entrusted them with the task of selling silkworms.

So, Lanxiang took Shen Man to Qiufeng Town again to find Steward Liu.

"It's been a few months, and Xiao Dong has grown quite a bit taller!" Manager Liu said with a smile as soon as he saw Shen Man.

"Manager Liu looks much more energetic than he did a few months ago!"

Manager Liu was clearly pleased by Shen Man's words and laughed heartily.

"You've come to see me today because the honey has been shipped?"

"Not yet. We came here to ask if your shop buys silk." Lanxiang explained her purpose.

Upon hearing this, Manager Liu's eyes flashed with surprise, then he laughed and said, "You found a silk reeling master so quickly? I wondered what it was about, turns out you want to sell silk. How much do you have?"

Shen Man was overjoyed, not expecting things to go so smoothly.

She quickly replied, "Thank you, Manager Liu. We have many at home, but we only brought a small number of samples today. Please take a look at the quality first."

Lanxiang opened the bundle on her back, revealing the yellowish-brown silk inside. Manager Liu gently touched it, feeling the softness of the silk, and his smile gradually froze on his face.

"This silk... what methods do you use to reel it?" Manager Liu's tone became somewhat serious.

Shen Man's heart tightened. Could there be something wrong with the silk?

She asked cautiously, "Manager Liu, is there a problem?"

Manager Liu frowned and pointed at the silk, saying, "The quality of this silk is too poor. It's black in color and not soft or smooth enough. Our firm will not buy silk like this."

Shen Man and Lan Xiang exchanged a glance, both of them somewhat dumbfounded.

They never expected that the silk they had painstakingly reeled would be rejected by Manager Liu.

Lanxiang said anxiously, "Manager Liu, we used the silk reeling method taught by the silk reeling master we invited from the capital to reel this batch of silk."

Manager Liu shook his head and said, "Your method may be flawed. White silk is currently in high demand in the market; nobody wants this yellowish-brown silk anymore."

Lanxiang's spirits plummeted upon hearing Manager Liu's words. She had thought she would be able to sell the silk smoothly, but instead, she encountered such a setback.

But she didn't want to give up so easily, so she pleaded, "Manager Liu, we can sell it to you at a lower price. Please help us out, okay?"

Manager Liu sighed, "It's not that I don't want to help you, it's just that we simply can't sell this kind of silk. In business, everyone wants to make money; no one would knowingly do a losing proposition, right?"

"Mother, since Steward Liu won't accept it, let's think of another way!"

Lanxiang nodded, understanding Manager Liu's predicament. "Thank you, Manager Liu. Let's go look for other buyers." With that, she led Shen Man away from the trading company.

After leaving the Zhu Family Trading Company, Shen Man and Lan Xiang discussed what to do next.

"How about we go ask at other silk shops in town?" Lanxiang suggested.

Shen Man thought this was a good idea, so they carried silkworms and went from house to house asking questions.

However, the responses were almost always the same—they did not accept yellowish-brown silk.

Helpless, the mother and daughter had no choice but to take the unsold silk and head home.

When the two returned to the village, the village head and Jiang Qi and others were waiting for them at the village entrance.

"You two are finally back! Did you sell all that silk?"

Upon seeing them return, everyone quickly went to greet them and asked.

Shen Man shook her head with a bitter expression. "They think our silk is too dark in color and too stiff, so they won't buy it from us."

The village head's expression also turned serious.

Upon hearing this, the villagers immediately became anxious.

"What can we do if we can't sell them? Wouldn't all our hard work these past few days have been for nothing?"

At this moment, Jiang Qi sighed and said, "I was worried that this silk wouldn't sell. I've worked in the silk workshop for many years, but there's one skill I haven't mastered: how to bleach silk threads. If we can find a way to bleach them white, there's still hope of selling them."

"bleach?"

Shen Man carefully recalled the bleaching methods people used in her previous life.

A moment later, she actually remembered a few.

The first method involves soaking silk in water infused with plant ash, repeating this process for seven days and nights to achieve both refining and bleaching.

The second method involves using asparagus. Asparagus is a traditional Chinese medicine, and besides using it to bleach clothes, it is also said to whiten skin and turn gray hair black.

Another method involves using potassium hydroxide. Ancient people would mix powdered seashells (after burning them) with wood ash in water, allowing a chemical reaction to produce potassium hydroxide. It was commonly used as a bleaching agent in the ancient textile industry.

Shen Man had also read in a book that the ancient Romans used urine to bleach clothes in the earliest times. However, she had no intention of trying this method.

Of these three methods, wood ash is the easiest to obtain; simply collect the ash from burning straw and put it in water.

“I remember someone used to use wood ash to bleach fabric. But it required seven days of sun and night drying, which was quite troublesome,” Shen Man said to everyone.

Jiang Qi nodded. "We can give it a try; it's better than having no way at all. Let's test it with a small amount of silk first. If it works well, then we can use it in larger quantities."

So everyone got together and started experimenting according to Shen Man's instructions.

A few days later, they opened the water tank where the silk had been soaking and found that the silk had indeed turned much whiter.

"Great! Now there's hope!" the villagers cheered excitedly.