On the twenty-ninth of the lunar year, the sky had cleared up. Qi Taiguo had come back from his night shift and slept for a few hours. When he woke up again, he found his little home decked out all in red.
Cheng Su was busy at the dining table. Qi Taiguo walked over and saw that there were red couplets on the table, along with a bowl of flour paste that had been cooked. Cheng Su was using her fingers to apply the paste on the back of the couplets.
"Why didn’t you call me to help paste them?" Qi Taiguo yawned, moving to help.
"Weren’t you supposed to sleep? If not, go wash your face. There is still some food left warm in the pot. We should be leaving soon, right?" Cheng Su pushed his hand away.
Qi Taiguo complied quickly, washing his face and eating the meal Cheng Su had left for him, a serving of large meat dumplings.
After he had washed the dishes, he saw Cheng Su tiptoeing to paste a red paper on the door of their bedroom. Qi Taiguo walked over: "Let me do it!"
He took over the red paper from her hands, pasted it perfectly straight and saw, oh dear, the four big characters written in regular script that meant "loving and harmonious."
Qi Taiguo chuckled: "Did you write these yourself?"
"Yeah, since it’s just for our own room, what’s there to be afraid of?" Cheng Su shrugged.
Qi Taiguo pulled her in and pecked her on the cheek, praising her with a smile: "Not bad!"
Cheng Su looked quite pleased with herself and then stuck out her left cheek: "This side too."
Qi Taiguo laughed and planted another kiss on her delicate cheek.
"Hurry up and finish pasting the rest. Then let’s pack up. It gets dark late; we’ll have to walk in the dark if we don’t leave soon!" Cheng Su pushed him away.
"At your command!"
One took responsibility for pasting the couplets while the other ensured they were straight. In no time at all, they had finished pasting the festive couplets.
Cheng Su went into the room to pack their luggage while Qi Taiguo tidied up the outside and gathered all the trash together.
After he had finished his part, he followed her into the room, picking up Cheng Su’s luggage and took a peek, then he couldn’t help but start to chuckle mischievously.
"What are you sneakily laughing at?" Cheng Su came over from the wardrobe, rolling up her thermal underwear.

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