At the Hall of the Green Bamboos, Xue Baochai was holding her birthday feast today.
Actually, Baochai's birthday was on the twenty-first day of the first lunar month, so it had already passed. But the fifteenth day, the Lantern Festival, had been the day the Imperial Consort returned home to visit her family. For several days afterward, everyone at the Jia Residence had been busy and exhausted. On top of that, the Jia girls had needed to move into the Grand View Garden, and one thing had led to another until the celebration was delayed.
It was only today, once everything had settled down, that they finally had the time to remember and make up for it.
Originally, Aunt Xue had said they should invite guests and celebrate in grand style, but Baochai had talked her out of it.
Baochai felt that the Imperial Consort's homecoming had been so recent that everyone in the family was still worn out. It wouldn't be appropriate to throw another lavish celebration; a small gathering with the girls of the family would be enough. There was no need to make a big production of it.
So in the end, they set out several tables in the courtyard of their Hall of the Green Bamboos. It wasn't a grand banquet, but everything was elegant and thoughtfully arranged. Some of the fine delicacies had even been obtained through the Xue Family's connections as imperial merchants, and they were almost as good as the food served during the Imperial Consort's homecoming.
In short!
They set out several round tables of different sizes in the courtyard and main hall of the Hall of the Green Bamboos. At the large table in the main hall sat Grandmother Jia, Aunt Xue, Lady Wang, Li Wan, Wang Xifeng, and the others.