Hongji's father's words provided Hongji with a little comfort, as he knew there was someone who understood his grievances.
Since their father had spoken, Ye Shuzhen and Ye Shuzhi dared not speak and buried their heads in eating.
Mrs. Lai had spent so much money today, how could she spend time eating? She ate quickly, even snatching up the last of the crust from the pot.
Hongji felt that having eaten dry rice today, he finally had some energy. When he returned to his room, he saw his eldest daughter had already fed his youngest daughter, and the other daughters were licking their bowls with their tongues.
Hongji sighed inwardly, the children usually didn't have enough to eat. It was rare for them to have meat, and they even licked their bowls clean.
Hongji let the children eat their fill and then go to sleep.
Daya quietly took her and her sister's bowls outside, knowing that the bowls on the kitchen table definitely hadn't been washed.
When Daya arrived in the kitchen, no one had cleaned up the dishes, and no one was there. She silently gathered the dishes, wiped the table, and washed the dishes.
Daya didn't take a nap when she returned to her room. Her mother had gone out to work as a housekeeper. Without her mother to help sew and mend, and with the light too dim at night, she could only use the time during the midday nap to mend the torn clothes.
Daya's skills, of course, were learned from Mrs. Li. Mending clothes, embroidering handkerchiefs, and making shoes, she managed well, but making clothes was somewhat difficult for her.
Er Ya was learning alongside her. Lu Hong was a craft that every girl had to learn, except for Siya and Qing. The three sisters held needles and thread in their hands, creating small handkerchiefs and attempting to embroider simple flowers on them.
Some silk thread had been brought back by their mother the last time she came home.
Siwa glanced a few times at her elder sisters doing needlework, watching until she fell asleep.
Ye Shiqi, just over three months old, also didn't have much to sleep. Faced with the incomprehensible needlework, she felt dizzy watching it and eventually fell asleep.
Er Ya and Sanya were not as skilled as Daya. They merely held the needle and thread and practiced on scraps of fabric, resulting in crooked and twisted embroidery.
Daya kept giving directions from the side. With her mother absent, she had become the instructor, teaching her sisters every detail of life.
The dinner was still prepared by Mrs. Lai, including dishes cooked with pork cracklings. This time, Mrs. Lai was a bit more shrewd, giving her son one piece of meat, her elderly husband two pieces of meat, and dividing one piece of meat each among the three of them. The children could only watch.
Daya and her four sisters, having dry rice and a bit of vegetable with their meat, were happy. They also took their youngest sister's bowl back to the room.
Ye Shiqi, only three months old, should normally have only two or three teeth, or about six teeth, while some might not get their teeth until eight or nine months old.
Yet, she already had eight teeth, all of them front teeth, and could only use her front teeth to eat the dry rice.
Having dry rice to eat was still better than just having water.
Knowing that the rice for the dry rice was bought by Mrs. Lai from the town, the stingy grandmother spent a lot of money on things.
Ye Shiqi noted internally that the money used to buy things was earned by their mother's hard work, so it should afford them enough food and warm clothes.
After dinner, Ye Shuying took a fire branch and came again to her mother's house in the courtyard.
Daya was washing dishes in the kitchen, and Er Ya was also there helping to cook pig rice.
Sanya was accompanying Qing and Wuya in the room.
Hongji and his father took advantage of the dim light of the oil lamp to finish the last bit of work.
Mrs. Lai, having eaten her fill, returned to her room to eat melon seeds.
Ye Shuzhi and Ye Shuzhen also went into the room to join their mother in eating melon seeds, which Mrs. Lai had found in the goods she bought from the town, thinking they were a gift from a prospective son-in-law. The mother was so joyful that she didn't even think about the children at home.
"Dad, elder brother, mom, Er Ya, Third Sister."
Ye Shuying stood in the courtyard, watching her family members. Seeing that her mother and sisters didn't invite her to eat melon seeds, she felt annoyed.
"Shuying is here!" Hongji said indifferently, realizing that his sister must have come because she needed help.
"Dad, Brother, tomorrow our family is harvesting the rice, you must come help!" Ye Shuying had no hopes for her mother and sisters; she only hoped her beloved father and brother would soften their hearts.
"No, tomorrow we are also harvesting rice at our place, we have to finish our own chores, and besides, your sister's dowry isn't ready yet, our family is also very busy."
Hongji's father had long distinguished his own interests at home from those of his daughter.
"Shuying, you see, we are working through the night, we are really busy. Why don't you come help us, and once we're done, we can help at your place? It's feasible to help each other out like this."
In the past, when this sister said she needed help, especially asking him and his wife to assist, they would help out without even having a meal, knowing how stingy their in-laws were.
Ever since Mrs. Li had gone to work as a housekeeper, Hongji had started doing some of the work his wife used to do, finding it very tiring and realizing how hard he had been on her.
Hongji felt a slight guilt, caring a bit more for his wife than before, which made him backtalk whenever his parents and sister talked down to her.
"Dad, Brother, how can you be so heartless? Mom, you're not even speaking up for me, you don't even come to help with the kids anymore, didn't you always love my son the most?"
Ye Shuying, unable to persuade her father and brother, and seeing her mother and sisters continue eating melon seeds and staying silent while watching her, felt such hatred.
"Shuying, you know how many responsibilities we have at home. Your sister-in-law has gone to work as a wet nurse, and with her absence, there's so much more to do at home. As the saying goes, 'A married daughter is like water splashed out of the house,' think about it yourself!"
Before, most of the chores were done by her son-in-law and her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Li. Mrs. Lai and her daughters hardly did anything at home. But in these two months since Mrs. Li had left to work as a housekeeper, she and her daughters had much more to do at home.
The harvest concerned the food supply of the household; everyone had their own interests to look after and prioritized their own work, even if it meant rejecting their own daughter.
"Wuwu, are you even my family anymore?" Ye Shuying wept in the courtyard.
"Shuying, didn't your brother just say? Our families can help each other out. This is your parental home after all. We'll go help with your work, but your family doesn't help us, that's unreasonable. How can you still cry shamelessly?"
Hongji's father had accumulated a lot of resentment toward his son-in-law over the years from the incidents that had piled up.
In other homes, the son-in-law usually helps his father-in-law, but Ye Shuying's husband constantly needed her family's help and never reciprocated.
"Dad, my husband said he has to work on a building site, and only has these two days for farm work. If you don't help, our work won't finish, and since he can't finish his own chores, how can he come to help?"
Ye Shuying found excuses, although her husband actually wanted her family to finish the work first so he could rest at home during the extra time, which had always been the case for years, and she also felt sorry for her husband working so hard on construction sites.
"Can't you see? Aren't your father and brother busy? He has an elder sister who works overtime in the town, right? Let his elder sister come to help. We can't be the only ones helping; we've done too much as relatives already," Mrs. Lai finally voiced her buried thoughts.