After purchasing gifts for Lin Jiaxin and his spouse, as well as for Lin Yongyan, the three sisters each selected a piece of jewelry for themselves.
Lin Yuan had already finished and taken home the New Year’s clothes she designed for the three of them to wear. Thinking of the three outfits that were identical in style but varied in size, Lin Wei’s eyes lit up, and she exclaimed, "Big sister, how about we all wear the same jewelry?"
Xiao Linshuang was still a bit unclear about why she said that. After hearing her explanation, her eyes also shone brightly, and she clapped her hands and jumped up and down. "Yes, yes, let’s buy the same jewelry! When we go out on New Year’s, nobody in the village will recognize us if we all dress the same, haha, it’ll be so fun!"
As if wearing the same clothes would keep people from recognizing them, Xiao Linshuang’s brain must have been addled by her medical studies. Lin Yuan deliberately joined in the fun, saying, "Then we’ll also do our hair the same way, and not just the villagers, even our parents won’t recognize us."
Xiao Linshuang’s clapping hands suddenly paused, her face filled with worry. "Oh no, what shall we do about this?"
Lin Wei and Lin Yuan looked at each other and nearly choked with laughter; their little sister really was a bit silly.
Lin Yuan picked out a hairpin, a pair of delicate butterflies with hollowed-out wings that from a distance genuinely resembled butterflies foraging among the flowers.
Lin Wei selected a bracelet. As all three were still children, wearing gold, although prestigious, would also look quite mature, just like Jin Lingling, who wore gold from head to toe and completely masked her youthful aura. Therefore, Lin Wei chose a pair of exquisitely crafted silver bracelets, which were embellished with a gold ’Fu’ charm at the clasp for a touch of opulence. They were very cute and pretty.
Xiao Linshuang chose a neck collar, and concerned she might pick one as big as her head, Lin Yuan quickly gave her a heads-up. She certainly didn’t want to parade around like a nouveau riche with an oversized gold pancake.
In ancient times, children of all ages wore gold neck collars on New Year’s and birthdays until they came of age; some families even insisted on wearing them continuously from childhood. However, their family didn’t have the means to do this in the past, and they had never bought them for the children before. Now that they had silver, of course, it was time to make up for it.
Clasping her newly selected neck collar with a grin that hid her eyes, Xiao Linshuang said gleefully, "Big sis, we have gold neck collars to wear now. When I get back, I’m going to show it off to Xiao Shitou; I have a gold neck collar too!"
Lin Yuan couldn’t help but smile bitterly; in the past during New Year’s, they could only watch enviously as other children flaunted their gold neck collars. To say they weren’t envious would be a lie, particularly when it came to the children of Lin Jiazhong and Lin Jiaxiao; it wasn’t just the three Lin Yongcheng siblings, but even Lin Yongxi and Lin Yonghe had them.
It couldn’t be helped; after all, their mother had only given birth to girls. Initially, Lady Yang had given Lin Yuan one, but after Lin Jiaxin moved out with his wife and daughter, Lady Yang had taken the gold neck collar back.
When it came to it, Lady Yang really was hateful.
However, it was all in the past now, and they no longer had anything to do with Lady Yang. Lin Yuan’s heart lightened, and she took a deep breath and reached into her purse to pay with silver.
The Shop Assistant had already wrapped up their jewelry, but when it came to paying, he couldn’t hide his surprise. At first, he slightly scorned the three girls when they entered, but he hadn’t expected that each of these young girls was wealthy. Even the youngest one had clamored to take out ten taels of silver from her own purse.
Indeed, appearances can be deceiving!
It was getting late after buying the jewelry, and considering they still had to dine at Fuman Building that evening, the trio decided not to dally and directly got on the carriage headed for Mo Sanniang’s cloth shop.
Looking down the whole of West Street, many businesses that were far from home had already closed up to prepare for the New Year. However, Lin Yuan’s Rice Flower Fragrance had closed the earliest. Of course, there were also people living in the town who continued to do business, like Mo Sanniang, and her business was booming as the year-end approached.
Before even entering the shop, Lin Yuan could feel the bustle of Mo Sanniang’s store. It was already too late to buy fabrics for making clothes, so many people were instead rushing to buy ready-made garments for the New Year.
Lin Yuan was almost scared out of her wits the moment she walked in.
Was that truly Meng Liangdong smiling and amiably helping an elderly madam try on a jujube-red cotton-padded jacket? No way, could such a reticent man really be cheerfully attending to customers and having them try on clothes?