In the creases of the Taihang Mountains, mulberry forests prostrate themselves into a sea of green. In the mist of late spring and early summer, silkworm farmers' fingertips brushed over mulberry leaves, their sleeves moistened with dew, and the leaves they picked were as shiny as jade. The silkworms here drink the gentle mountains and waters of southeastern Shanxi and feed on the mulberry trees nourished by the selenium-rich soil in this area. Their cocoons condense into round jade eggs, wrapped in the secrets of a thousand years of time.
The cocoons of the Taihang Mountains, wrapped in a moonlit shell, make a sound like a spring falling from an empty mountain when gently tapped with the fingertips. The silk reeling workers immerse the cocoons in clear spring water. The boiling water quivers like the strings of a zither, and the silk unfurls into the arc of the Milky Way pouring down. A single cocoon is spun over 1,200 meters long. The silk thread is as dense as clouds and mist, yet as tough as ancient vines, and in the sunlight, it emits a faint, pearles-like glow. This is the meridian of the earth, the celestial silk woven by the mountains and rivers in the southeast of Shanxi when they whisper to each other.