The next morning, just as Yun Tangyin finished stretching the bamboo frame of the red flag, Fu Yucheng came in carrying a small bamboo trinket: "Second brother made this, saying it's for our child."

It is a bamboo rattle drum with a small peony woven on its surface.

Just as Yun Tangyin was about to shake the baby, he stopped her: "Wait until the baby is born before shaking him. Shaking him now will startle him."

Yun Tangyin laughed as she put the rattle drum into the wooden box: "Just as petty as you."

She suddenly remembered something, "Oh right, I embroidered a gold border around the red flag, do you think it looks good?"

Fu Yucheng leaned closer to look; the five-pointed star on the red flag shone with golden light. He suddenly pulled her into his arms: "It's so beautiful."

The sunlight outside the window fell on their clasped hands, the silver bracelets and red ropes intertwined, like their days, tightly and sweetly entwined.

Yun Tangyin was embroidering tassels on a red flag when Fu Yucheng suddenly covered her eyes from behind: "Guess what I brought you?"

"Sweet bean sauce?" Yun Tangyin's nose twitched. "You said yesterday that the supply and marketing cooperative had received new goods."

He let go of her hand, and sure enough, he was holding up a ceramic jar and smiling: "I'll make you some fried soybean paste for lunch, to eat with the steamed buns you made."

He glanced at the red flag on the bamboo frame and suddenly said, "The points of this five-pointed star are embroidered so neatly, even more spirited than the military flag."

Yun Tangyin stuffed a steamed bun into his mouth: "You're so good at talking. By the way, Erzhuzi's mother just came by and said she wanted you to go and see the bamboo baskets her husband wove, saying they're always crooked."

Fu Yucheng walked out, chewing on a steamed bun: "Let my second brother go. He's a 'bamboo weaving master' now."