At three-quarters past 3:00 PM, the Persian trading post was filled with the fragrance of saffron. Moli followed Zhang Yifan into the felt tent and saw Ali, the Hu merchant, sighing despondently over a faded coarse blanket. Huwa immediately squatted in the corner of the tent, using his carving knife to chisel a little figure holding a torch on the edge of the blanket, its abacus-bead eyes fixed on the dye!
"It's no use!" Ali's glazed bracelets chimed against the copper pot. "Though the Qiang Village wool is warm, the dyes cannot withstand being soaked in snowmelt—" Suddenly, he grabbed Zhang Yifan's abacus bead pouch. "Yifan, you must help me!"
Zhang Yifan raised an eyebrow, his abacus beads leaping across the faded blanket surface to form the character for "wash." "I calculated the snowmelt issue long ago—Moli, give the 'anti-freezing secret formula' to Brother Ali."
Chapter 108