Chapter 243 -240: Setting a Trap for Grandma
A few days later, today is Ye Shiqi’s second birthday. As soon as she got up, she received blessings from her elder sisters.
At breakfast, she also had red eggs.
Birthday celebrations for girls in farmer families were not grand affairs; simple red eggs and longevity noodles were still eaten, provided that the family members remembered her birthday.
Mrs. Li would give her daughter a red envelope in the morning and go to the ancestors to offer incense, pastries, and fruits.
Hongji, as a father, had also prepared a red envelope, which he planned to give to his daughter after breakfast, before he went to work.
Ye Shiqi was wearing a pink dress today, specially dressed by the maid; the dress had a sheer outer layer and a cotton lining. It’s a simple style that was comfortable and sweat-absorbing during the summer.
The shoes she wore were not stitched at home, but bought from a store – embroidered cotton shoes. None of the people in their farmer family could make such exquisite embroidered shoes; after all, each trade has its own specialization, and naturally, these shoes were made by an embroidery workshop.
There weren’t many elaborate decorations on her little face; her jet-black hair was simply tied up with an embroidered ribbon. Her hair was incredibly black and had grown quite long, reaching her waist when not tied up.
She often wound her long hair into a small bun, securing it with a hairband and hairpins – simple and not too hot.
It’s not that Ye Shiqi didn’t have any hair decorations; she just didn’t want to weigh herself down with them, so she hid all the items she received in her space.
The things she received were not just from her parents. There were also gifts customized for her by Tang Shunyan over the past two years, which seemed rather valuable and weren’t suitable to be worn by her as a young child.
There were a couple of reasons for this. One was to avoid showing off, and the other was that if her grandparents or relatives saw such fine items, they would surely covet them.
At the Ye family’s breakfast table, the one special thing about Ye Shiqi’s meal compared to the others was that she had a bowl of noodles with an egg on top.
It’s not that their family couldn’t afford noodles or eggs, but today’s egg noodles were specially made for Ye Shiqi.
Ye Shiqi was also accustomed to a cup of sheep’s milk every day, just like her sisters. This cup of sheep’s milk came from the estate every morning and was heated to remove the gamey taste.
Previously, her parents had specially raised a few sheep so that their daughters could have sheep’s milk to drink.
Hongji’s father took a few puffs from his bamboo pipe, then silently ate his buns and porridge at the breakfast table.
There were several breakfast options on the Ye family’s table to choose from, all prepared by the workers who knew the preferences of the family heads. After the family heads had eaten their fill, the leftovers would be the workers’ breakfast.
“You really make such a fuss over a girl’s birthday with longevity noodles and boiled eggs. Don’t you know that girls should be raised modestly?”
Mrs. Lai, like every meal or breakfast time, would always make some comments that people didn’t like to hear.
Hongji looked up at his mother and touched his eyebrows, pressing the center of his forehead with one hand, feeling a bit of irritation. Every time his mother made a comment, if he retorted, it would provoke her to accuse him of being unfilial.
Yet he didn’t want his mother to speak ill, making his wife and daughters think he was too ineffective. If he didn’t react at all, his mother would take it even further.
“Mother is right, girls should be raised modestly, so I didn’t go out of my way to celebrate my daughter’s birthday as a wealthy family would. Mom, you’re going to give Wuwa a red envelope, right?”
After saying that, Hongji chuckled and said to Ye Shiqi, “Aren’t you going to thank your grandmother? Your grandmother hasn’t given you any red envelopes yet!”
Someone started to laugh, and then everyone lowered their heads to eat their breakfast to keep Mrs. Lai from noticing.
“Father is right. Granddaughter thanks grandmother for the grand red envelope.”
Ye Shiqi,’s face beamed with a smile as she put down her bowl and held out her hands expectantly for her grandmother to distribute the red envelope.
Mrs. Lai’s nagging had become a habit. It was unclear whether she disliked the daughters born to her son or had some issue with the girls. She always found something not to her liking and would harp on it at the dinner table or whenever they met.
Her son and daughter-in-law prepared a bowl of egg noodles for their daughter, which was nothing out of the ordinary for a normal family, and logically she should not have commented on it.
One reason Mrs. Lai couldn’t hold back her words was her son’s attention to his daughters, especially the youngest one. This made her, as the mother, feel jealous.
This jealousy prevented her from manifesting the image of a kind grandmother, always nitpicking about everything they did. In the end, it was all just jealousy.