Xishan City, as soon as you hear the name, you know that this city must have something to do with the mountain, and this is exactly the case. The tall stone walls of the city surrounded an even more majestic hill, which at first glance sounded like the city of Hanse, but to the civilians of the city, the city also included a plain at the foot of the hill surrounded by wooden walls and a lower hill.

The Tai family's grange is outside the wooden wall, but it is not far away, and it is because of this that Zhang Yuan and Shen Ying decided to walk through the wooden wall together and go to this hill. At this time, the sky was getting dark, and the guards at the wooden wall gate had already begun to yawn, so the inspection of entering the gate was not very strict, but even so, Old Man Tai still did not allow Tai Meng to follow him out.

"It's so loose, and those who guard the door don't look like regular soldiers." After Zhang Yuan passed through the city gate, he looked back at the two lazy guards at the door.

Shen Cheng shrugged his shoulders and said, "Most of them are militiamen in the Wooden Wall City, and the equipment is estimated to be made up by themselves, just make a show." The real value of this city should be inside the stone walls, and it must not be so easy to pass through that gate. ”

Zhang Yuan looked at the mountain in his sight and nodded, they didn't plan to go there today. Zhang Yuan pointed to the street leading to the hill in front of him and said, "Let's walk along this road." ”

"Okay."

The two of them walked less than ten steps before Zhang Yuan saw something new, he pointed to a strange object in the yard of a house and asked, "Shen Cheng, what do you say is that?" ”

I saw that the object that Zhang Yuan pointed to looked like a large dustpan as a base, and a two-meter-high hanger was placed on it. But this will definitely not be as simple as inserting a hanger on the dustpan, Shen Cheng is a person from the Xingyue system, and he is also interested when he sees this thing, he touched his chin and thought for a while and said: "It should be their shelf for raising silk slaves, let's go over and take a look." ”

The two of them walked over with a curious face, looked through the courtyard wall of the house, and saw that the dustpan below was full of dense black insects, which were still crawling back and forth.

An old man soon walked out of the house in front of him, and it seemed that he had noticed Zhang Yuan and the others who were close to his courtyard. However, Zhang Yuan and Shen Cheng are on the rise, and they have no other intentions, so they are naturally not afraid of the master who came over. After the old man got closer, Zhang Yuan heard the other party say in a hoarse voice: "Is there something wrong with the two of you?" ”

Zhang Yuan let out an "oh", and quickly raised his head and replied: "It's nothing, I just haven't seen this thing, I want to take a closer look, if you mind, uncle, let's go." ”

"Don't mind, don't mind, you two just look at it. But you don't look like you're locals, are you? This old man is not bad, and he chatted directly with Zhang Yuan and the others.

Zhang Yuan and Shen Cheng glanced at each other, and then said with a smile: "Uncle is really right, we are not locals, we are here to play in Xishan City." Listen to what you mean, uncle, as long as this thing is from Xishan City, you will definitely know it? ”

"Haha, that's nature, the livelihood of every household in this wooden city depends on this silk frame and silk slave." The old man explained to the two with a smile.

"Eh, uncle, please tell me in detail, how is this wire frame used?" At this time, Shen Cheng was like a different person, a curious baby alive, and he was more active than Zhang Yuan in asking questions.

Zhang Yuan saw Shen Cheng like this, and laughed and teased: "This is really not like you, you are a star and moon system, will there be something you don't know?" ”

Shen Cheng was asked like this, and he didn't blush, but said as a matter of course: "I haven't known about this kind of thing, how can I know?" And our purpose is not to be ashamed of not knowing, but to be ashamed of discovering the unknown and not knowing. ”

"Don't fight anymore, I'll tell you how this wire frame is used. If you don't dislike it, come in and take a look. As he spoke, the old man opened the fence gate of the small courtyard and put Zhang Yuan and Shen Cheng inside.

"Then thank you, uncle."

After Zhang Yuan and Shen Cheng stood next to the silk frame, the old man also talked about the silk frame: "This silk frame is what we use to raise silk slaves. The silk slaves ate the leaves planted in the grange outside, and when they grew up, they would spin the silk, and when they wanted to spin the silk, they would climb on top of the silk rack, and we would put the silk cage on the shelf. They have to lay eggs after spitting out the silk, and the little insects hatch out and fall underneath, and then we can take the silk cage off and wash the silk. ”

"Wait a minute, uncle, what do you mean by this silk cage and silk washing?" Shen Cheng understood the first half, but when the old man said the back, a word appeared that he didn't understand, and he immediately asked.

"The silk cage, that's it, the one on top...... Well, wait a minute, I'll show you it. The old man tried to explain, but found that he couldn't explain it to the two of them, so he could only turn around and go to the house to get the real thing to show them. Not long after the old man went to the house, he came out with a ball wrapped in white silk: "You see, this is this thing, this is the silk cage." ”

Zhang Yuan saw the old man hand over the silk cage, and subconsciously reached out to pick it up, but when he looked at the layers of silk spit by insects on it, he took his hand back again. Shen Cheng didn't care so much, he directly took the silk cage in his hand and looked at it left and right, and after reading it, he asked: "Uncle, do you have a silk silk cage here, we want to see what it looks like." ”

"Yes, yes, I'll go in and get it."

After a while, the old man walked out of the house again, this time he was carrying a silk cage with washed silk in his hand, Zhang Yuan was not afraid, and took the silk cage into his hand and looked at it. This silk cage is a spherical basket made of wattle strips of some kind of plant, the size of the opening is about a fist, and the whole structure is a bit like a spherical table lamp lampshade.

Zhang Yuan pointed to the silk cage full of silk that Shen Cheng was holding, and then stretched out his hand to grasp it, and asked, "Then what do you do with the silk you washed off here, are you spinning it into thread and cloth yourself?" ”

"How can we weave these silks into cloth?" The old man replied with a smile, "It's all the people in Stone City who come out to collect it, and my silk is average, and I have to wait for a while before anyone comes to ask for it." I heard that their good silk is being asked for by others, and the price is much higher than mine. Alas, it's a pity that my silk slave can't spit out such good silk. ”

After Zhang Yuan and Shen Cheng returned the silk cage to the old man, they went out of the yard and continued to walk along the road to the mountain, along the way the two also saw a lot of silk frames, it seems that it is really as the old man said, almost every family here depends on raising silk slaves to make a living. In the yard on the side of the road, there are two or three wire frames, and the houses in the background also have the same number of layers as the wire frames; Some only stood alone with a silk shelf, and behind the silk shelf stood a simple hut.

"Where is this silk slave so easy to raise, if you are not taken care of by the silk slave accidentally, it will be a litter of death. What if you die? I can only find someone else to buy, everyone is a neighbor, and there are usually many silk slaves who will sell it. An old woman sitting next to the silk frame answered Zhang Yuan and Shen Ying's questions, perhaps this is why silk slaves have multiplied from generation to generation, while most people who raise silk slaves have only one silk frame.

The two of them looked at these silk farmers and silk frames all the way, and climbed the stairs to the top of the hill. Although this is a small mountain, it is not short, but when I looked at the mountain next to Shicheng, I suddenly felt the insignificance under my feet, and even the people on the mountain felt that they were just ants.

Shen Ying looked at the stars and lights in Shicheng, and suddenly asked, "Do you know why the silk slave is resigned to fate to spit silk in the silk cage?" ”

Zhang Yuan shook his head, he didn't know why, when he heard Shen Cheng ask this question, he suddenly felt inexplicably depressed, maybe because Shen Cheng's tone was a little low.

"Although the silk slave is clumsy and can only crawl around in palm-sized places, they always want to send their offspring to far away. Therefore, when they reach adulthood, they will try their best to climb the highest trees around, and they will find their mates halfway through and lay their eggs at the highest places. After laying eggs, the silk slave couple will keep spitting out the silk thread stored in the body until the accumulation of their life is exhausted, and the life of the silk slave has come to an end. As soon as the wind comes, the silk of the silk slaves will drag their offspring and travel with the wind to distant places. ”

Zhang Yuan listened to Shen Cheng talk about the life of the silk slave in a sentimental tone, and his heart was full of emotion, and Shen Cheng also continued: "However, the silk slave who was raised by the people, when the oil ran out, he could only watch everything he left behind being bound in the silk cage. Their own silk threads, I don't know whose wedding dress they have become, their own descendants, fall on the plate under the silk frame, their lives are also destined to become a thread on the line, a thread on the cloth. ”

"But aren't people like silk slaves? These silk slave breeders, their efforts, have all become the capital of Shicheng people's pleasure. They seem to struggle to raise fine silk slaves and harvest superior silk threads, but these are only efforts for others, and those better silks will become more expensive clothes. And while they are desperately trying to improve the quality of the silk thread, they themselves have become part of the exploitation that others have to pay a higher price for ......"

"You're wrong." Zhang Yuan, who had been silent, said, "Their efforts will eventually become the progress of our entire country and the entire ethnic group, instead of being regarded as part of the exploitation as you said." Better silk, better cloth, better clothes, are these things wrong? If you can't figure it out from the front, think about it from the back, if we go back in time and wear the clothes of the past, isn't it really bad? ”

When Zhang Yuan said this, he couldn't help but recall his previous world. Clothing, automobiles and frequently updated electronic products, those things are indeed becoming more and more expensive, and it is true that people's consumption is increasing. However, this trend is not a mistake, if you retreat from LCD TVs to CRT TVs, from touchscreen phones to button phones, it is really a big mistake to turn back history, and no one will be happy to see it.

As soon as he thought of this, Zhang Yuan said to Shen Cheng in a firmer tone: "Their efforts are regarded by you as exploitation, but someone has taken advantage of their efforts, not that there is something wrong with this effort itself. People are willing to pay more for better quality clothing, but they are also fulfilling their obligation to promote human progress. ”

"The obligation to advance human progress." Shen Cheng muttered to himself, Zhang Yuan's point of view at the moment was unheard of by him. Such thoughts were like a lightning bolt in his mind, shocking his mind and illuminating it.

Zhang Yuan nodded, and then said: "What we have to correct has never been the whole subject event of human progress, but those details that have been distorted by selfish desires, and it is precisely because it is the part of our strength that is wrong that we have the courage and ability to change them." The enemy we have chosen for ourselves should not be the entire Temple, the entire nobility, the entire military department, or even the entire Kicher. We just need to pick up the knife and fight their afflictions, and that's what I want to invite you to do with me. ”

Shen Cheng looked at Zhang Yuan in a daze, repeating the words he heard in his mouth, and after a long time, he lowered his head and said softly: "Taught, boss." ”