At three-quarters past the Mao hour, the sound of the looms in Dreamweaving House was three parts softer than usual. Pei Hongxiu dismissed the weavers and carved a new pattern on the jacquard board by herself—intertwined lotus branches concealing the trajectory of abacus beads, with the tiny characters "Yifan" carved into the stamen. Huwa's carving knife suddenly dropped from the rafters: "Is Boss Pei carving a token of love? Huwa will help you carve the abacus beads into heart shapes!"
"You little rascal, looking for death!" Pei Hongxiu's ivory comb nearly poked Huwa's bottom, yet when she saw the bead-and-lotus pattern on the jacquard board, the tips of her ears turned slightly red. Zhang Yifan's abacus beads suddenly sounded from behind her: "Is Boss Pei's 'abacus lotus' pattern meant to trap my beads forever in the net you weave?"
She turned to see him leaning against the dye vat, the Gilded Abacus Beads bouncing into a lotus shape at his fingertips, matching her pattern down to the smallest detail. Huwa immediately chiseled a "mischievous ghost face" onto the jacquard board, the bead-eyes gazing at Pei Hongxiu's flustered expression: "Brother Fan had already calculated that Boss Pei would modify the intertwined lotus!"
Chapter 116