Aphelion

Could be the author knew the broad outlines of where he wanted things to go -- i.e., their act of rebellion leads to a world with at least some of the color (literal and figurative) restored -- but didn't want to drag it out. (Could have been worse. Could have ended with "And they lived happily ever after" or "but it was all a dream".)

Seems to me the people of that future world might have thought of birth control . . . the society was obviously pretty clamped-down as it was, and the Chinese managed it just fine -- too good, as a matter of fact; the One-child-per-family rule is purportedly hurting China's economy (or something), and it hasn't even been in effect very long.

I guess the story proves that people -- some of them, at least -- just won't be happy living in the kind of conditions depicted.