Chapter 2: First Gold and a Wicked Neighbor

The clamor of the Lagos Nairobi secondhand market had not fully faded with the dusk. The monotonous roar of the diesel generators pierced layer upon layer of cheap tents and trembled in the sweltering air. A smell mixed with dust, old fabric, and cheap spices permeated the murky light, making every breath heavy.

Amina gripped the scissors tightly in her hand, the cold texture of the metal stabbing into her palm, and stared fixedly at the man before her. Mbala stood in the shadow of the murky lamplight, that hair-raising smile not yet gone from the corner of his mouth. He held up his phone, the focus frame in camera mode flickering with a red dot, locked dead onto the unfinished shirt in her hands.

This was not recording. This was hunting. Amina felt her heart pounding like a drum; she could almost hear the sound of her own blood rushing through her vessels, and she realized her position in this transaction was far more dangerous than she had imagined. That man had already seen through some cost behind X-ray reconstruction, and even intended to steal this ability at the price of destroying her.

The air around them seemed to freeze; even the hawking cries in the distance seemed muffled by an invisible hand. At the very instant Mbala's fingertip was about to press the shutter, a burst of hurried, chaotic footsteps came from deep within the market, like some enormous beast awakening, breaking the deadlocked standoff.

Amina held her breath. Her gaze pierced the fabric structure through the Spirit Eye, and the optimal tailoring structure diagram automatically formed in her mind, those lines interweaving in her vision like golden threads. She swiftly turned sideways, shielding the lens with her body, and hid the shirt beneath the mottled canvas behind her, moving so fast she left only an afterimage.

Mbala's lens wavered and failed to capture the key detail, but the gloom in his eyes did not dissipate. Instead, it condensed into deeper malice. He put away his phone and gave a cold laugh, not loud, yet enough to silence the noisy crowd around them instantly, everyone's gaze focusing on this corner full of tension.

Amina did not retreat. She straightened her spine and looked at him with a mild expression on the surface, while inside she was firm as rock. She understood that in this Lagos community, which relied on word of mouth and community bonds, once she fell into a passive position, what awaited her would be not only the theft of her creativity, but the collapse of her dignity.

Mbala approached slowly, his footsteps as light as a cat's, each step landing on Amina's psychological line of defense. He spoke in a low voice, his tone carrying the arrogant oppression of an old-school tailor family, trying to use traditional authority to suppress this young woman regarded as a heretic.

Mbala lowered his voice: "You dig through that pile of rags and think you can sew some haute couture? That is self-deception."

Amina replied calmly: "Fabric has no high or low. Tailoring decides success or failure. Your arrogance cannot save your rigid thinking."

Mbala scoffed: "Rules are rules. The texture of kente cloth is a mark left by our ancestors. Your crooked tricks will in the end be spat on by time."

Amina's gaze burned: "Time only rewards innovators. If you refuse even to look, do not blame the market for eliminating you."

The watching neighbors, who had been whispering among themselves, were now stirred to curiosity and doubt by these few lines. An older neighbor frowned, pointed at the pile of seemingly cheap scraps in Amina's hands, and said loudly: "Everyone, look. She makes clothes from recycled cloth and still calls herself a master?

"This is plainly witchcraft at work. Only something unclean could turn decay into magic." An uneasy commotion broke out in the crowd, fingers pointing one after another. They believed Amina's ability to transform garments defied common sense and demanded she prove her innocence on the spot. Fear spread through the crowd; some people even began to back away, wariness of an unknown power in their eyes.

Amina felt the pressure multiply, but she did not panic. She knew well that only technique could convince people and shatter prejudice. She took a deep breath, took that crumpled, seemingly ugly old coat out from under the canvas, and prepared to activate her X-ray reconstruction ability before everyone's eyes.

At that moment, Kwame, the son of a community elder, came over carrying a bag of fresh coffee beans. He was the head of the cooperative, in charge of supply chains and logistics, and the honest, loyal man was trying to exchange for an old coat Amina had altered.

An honest, sincere smile hung on Kwame's face. He patted the coffee beans in the bag and explained to the noisy crowd around them: "Brothers, these are premium beans just produced by our Kigali cooperative community. Amina designed uniforms for the cooperative. This is her reward, and it is also the result of everyone's joint effort."

Kwame's appearance eased the tense atmosphere. He placed the coffee beans before Amina, trust and support in his eyes. Amina accepted the coffee beans. The instant her fingertips touched the beans, her material sense ability rippled faintly. She predicted the dyeing reaction, and even more, she sensed the stable cash flow and social network represented behind this bag of beans.

It was a warm, solid energy, and it let her taut nerves relax slightly.

Amina spread the old coat flat on the cutting board, her hands roaming over the fabric, the Spirit Eye fully opening. The instant her gaze locked onto the fabric, a clear structure diagram surfaced in her mind, creases and misalignments automatically correcting themselves in her vision and returning to place as seamlessly as a jigsaw puzzle. The scissors in her hand were no longer cold metal, but had become an extension of her limbs.

Under the astonished gazes of the onlookers, she used no complicated tools. She merely cut lightly along the coat's originally coarse seams and then sewed them back together. The originally crooked seams became perfectly tight, and the crumpled fabric instantly lay smooth and fitted under the light, as if granted a new life.

That old neighbor who had questioned witchcraft widened his eyes, even forgetting to put down the cane in his hand, and asked in a trembling voice: "This... how was this done? It was plainly a piece of waste cloth. How did it change its appearance?"

Amina raised her head, her gaze calm and firm: "This is not witchcraft. It is the reconstruction of structure. I saw the form the fabric wanted to become, and I helped it achieve it."

She went on to explain, the pride of a craftsman in her tone: "The essence of kente cloth lies in the harmony of its colors, and the essence of tailoring lies in conforming to the human body. I merely conformed to it, rather than twisting it."

Kwame marveled at the garment's transformation beside her. He slapped the table excitedly: "Wonderful! Amina, you not only saved our uniforms, you saved my face. I promise you, I will buy this coffee at a fair price and provide stable logistics support. This is the community's commitment to you."

His promise was like a warm current, dispersing the gloom around them. Some neighbors began tentatively asking about custom prices, and Amina gained her first batch of stable customers.

Using her material sense to predict the dyeing reaction, Mina adjusted the button positions on the spot and completely won over the watching crowd. She pointed at the originally jarring buttons on the coat and said: "Look here. The position of the buttons affected the direction of the sleeve line. After adjustment, the arm moves more freely."

Kwame nodded in praise: "That's right. Once it's worn, the line of the shoulder is much smoother. This technique is truly worth big money."

Mbala watched the whole process from the shadows, his gaze gloomy, recording the anomalies in Amina's ability. He murmured to himself in a low voice: "X-ray vision? Reconstruction? What price exactly has she paid?"

Amina ignored his spying and continued tidying the garments: "As long as the technique is made public, everyone can learn it. But innovation requires courage."

The doubters left in shame, some people began tentatively asking about custom prices, and Amina sorted her income in the workshop, planning the start of Light of Africa. She carefully put away the first sum of coffee money. This was the first pot of gold for the Light of Africa brand.

Kwame watched her focused expression, a warm current surging in his heart. He realized this young woman not only possessed ultimate aesthetics and craftsmanship, but also the potential to change the community's fate.

On a street in the distance, international buyer Tina stopped and gazed at the lamplight of the workshop, her gaze sharp. She keenly caught that unusual glimmer of light, foreshadowing that an opportunity for cooperation was about to arrive.

Amina stood before the window, watching Tina's departing back, the corner of her mouth lifting slightly. She knew the real predicament had only just begun, and that man was her greatest enemy this night, but she also knew that as long as she held scissors and her original aspiration in hand, she could sew her own path to the peak of haute couture.

Tina had not truly left. Her figure flashed and vanished in a dark alley at the street corner, reappearing like a phantom in the shadows outside Amina's workshop.

She did not push the door open and enter directly. Instead, she gently hung a seemingly ordinary kraft paper bag on the door handle. A faint sound of metal clinking came from inside the bag. It was not currency, but a silver button engraved with an unfamiliar emblem and a card covered in scrawled code.

Amina, alert at the sound, deftly twirled the scissors between her fingers, not lowering her guard. She walked to the window and peered out through the gap in the curtain, catching only a glimpse of that meaningful cold smile at the corner of Tina's mouth and those eyes that seemed able to see through all disguise.

Tina lowered her voice and sent her final words into the room through a loudspeaker: "That coat's pattern is indeed perfect, but its 'soul' is missing a piece. If you want the real Light of Africa to light up the world, take these coordinates and go meet my employer. Otherwise, your so-called innovation is nothing but the next bubble to be devoured."

Before her voice had faded, Tina's figure had completely melted into the night, leaving only that cold silver button on the door handle flickering with an eerie chill in the moonlight. Amina returned to the table and opened the paper bag with trembling hands.

That button was no decoration. A complex string of binary code was engraved on its back, and the coordinates on the card pointed to that legendary Old World Textile Tower deep within the city.

She thought of Mbala's gloomy gaze and suddenly realized that a greater conspiracy hid behind Tina's provocation, and that man's spying on Amina's ability was perhaps precisely to report to the high levels inside the tower, in an attempt to monopolize her era-surpassing pattern technology.

The air in the workshop froze instantly. Amina clutched the button tightly, her fingertips white from the force. She looked out at the pitch-black night sky beyond the window, and the warmth that had just risen in her heart was instantly replaced by chill. Before the first pot of gold had even warmed in her hands, the encirclement targeting Light of Africa had already cast its giant net.

She quickly hid the button in a close-fitting pocket, grabbed her needle-and-thread box, her gaze shifting from confusion to resolve. Since darkness had arrived, she would tear open the dawn with needle and thread. She took a deep breath, pushed open the door, and walked toward that path leading to the unknown and to danger, every step treading on the tightrope of fate, while the storm at its end was gathering force, ready to break.