At first, Jiang Si hadn’t planned on hosting a full moon banquet. For one thing, she was doing a double postpartum confinement.
With guests coming over, she simply couldn’t entertain them properly.
Secondly, during her confinement period, only she and the baby were able to get proper rest at home.
Everyone else hadn’t had a full night’s sleep in months.
If they held a full moon banquet, the whole family would be busy for several days again.
But this idea was quickly shot down by the family in unison.
There had been quite a few births in the residential compound over the past few months, and just this month alone, four or five families had held full moon banquets.
Since everyone else was doing it, if they didn’t, it would feel unfair to their two precious babies.
Besides, it was just a matter of preparing a few tables of food—how exhausting could it be?
If it got too much, they could pay for it and have the canteen’s head chef prepare a few signature dishes.
Their own family could just cook a little less—surely that would be acceptable.
With the conversation reaching this point, Jiang Si happily agreed.
However, there was no need to call in the head chef after all.
Because early the next morning, Teacher Hu, He Ping’s wife, and Aunt Xu’s mother came by to give their greetings.
They said they would come early on the day of the full moon banquet to help out.
These families had been close for a long time, so Jiang Si didn’t hesitate to accept their offer.
Luckily, the banquet didn’t have to be held on the exact day.
After discussing with Huo Tingzhou, they decided to postpone the banquet by one day.
The second day of the month happened to fall on a Sunday, so everyone could come without needing to take time off, and they could enjoy the meal more freely.
Once the date was set, the whole family began dividing up the tasks.
Early that morning, Huo Tingzhou took Third Uncle and Uncle Zhong to town to shop for supplies.
Mother Huo was busy too; she started boiling eggs before dawn.
She added red yeast rice to the water so that after boiling, the eggs could soak for a while and their shells would gradually turn red.
Red symbolized celebration, and eggs represented new life.
After the banquet, everyone would take some home to share in the joy.
There was no strict rule on how many to give—just an even number would do.
Since the family had twins—a boy and a girl—Mother Huo also prepared some candies in advance.
She had already packed them into festive bags yesterday to bring along as well.
After finishing these tasks, Mother Huo went to the vegetable garden to pick some produce.
Thanks to months of careful tending, the small courtyard had returned to its usual vibrant and lively state.
But today, the focus was on good food and drink, so Mother Huo only picked cucumbers and tomatoes.
These were the first harvest of the season, especially fresh, sweet, and juicy.
One would be served as a cold salad, the other candied.
The children would surely love them.
Once she finished picking, Mother Huo started washing the clothes the babies had changed out of.
She simply never stopped moving.
Jiang Si wanted to help, but Mother Huo was particularly insistent on this point.
She said twins drained a mother’s vitality and refused to let Jiang Si lift a finger.
So Jiang Si had barely come out to show her face before Mother Huo urged her back to bed for more rest.
During this time, all Jiang Si did was eat and sleep—how could she possibly fall asleep now?
“Mom, if I sleep any more, I’m going to feel dizzy.”
Mother Huo didn’t push her. She brought over a small stool.
“Then just sit here and rest for a bit. No more than half an hour.”
Jiang Si had no choice but to nod and agree, unable to argue with her mother-in-law.
As Mother Huo and her daughter-in-law chatted, Mother Huo suddenly remembered something.
“Oh, Sisi, I called your grandparents yesterday.”
“Your grandma asked if we could send them some photos of the kids.”
It was kind of her fault, really.
Every time they called home, three sentences out of every five were about their two adorable grandchildren.
That always made Grandpa Huo and Grandma Huo long for them.
From what old Huo said, Mother Huo had been talking nonstop these past couple of days about wanting to come to Qiongzhou Island.
If it weren’t so far away, they probably would have come over already.
But since the kids were still little, they had to ask the daughter-in-law’s opinion first.
Jiang Si thought it was no big deal—just taking some photos. What’s there to say no to?
It had to be done.
Seeing her daughter-in-law agree without hesitation, Mother Huo smiled and said, “Alright, once the full-month celebration is over, I’ll go to the state-run photo studio and see if they can come to our house to take pictures.”
“Mom, there’s no need to make it so complicated. We have a camera and some film at home. I’ll take the photos of the kids myself,” Jiang Si said.
Speaking of which, Jiang Si suddenly remembered something. “I think I still have a few rolls of color film somewhere. I’ll go look for them.”
Color film was quite scarce these days.
Jiang Si had bought a few rolls by chance during the New Year at the Friendship Store.
The reason she hadn’t used them yet was that even if she took pictures, there was nowhere on Qiongzhou Island that could develop color film. Not even one photo studio.
In Hu City, there was only one photo studio that could develop color film.
As for Capital City, Jiang Si wasn’t sure.
Fortunately, Mother Huo knew about this. “Yes, yes. Your cousin—he works at the National Daily—and when he and his wife got married, they took color photos.”
“I saw the pictures. They turned out really well, much better than hand-colored photos.”
Mother Huo loved photography, and Jiang Si knew that well.
“Mom, go change into that royal blue dress you wore last time. I’ll take some pictures of you too.”
Mother Huo hesitated, “Oh… I don’t think that’s appropriate.”
She was just going to take pictures of the kids. It would look odd if she barged in.
“Mom, what’s odd about it?” Jiang Si smiled.
“Film gets damp if it sits too long. If we don’t use it, it’ll go to waste.”
Before Mother Huo could say anything, Jiang Si added, “You can hold the kids, and I’ll take plenty of group photos. Your dad and the others will be so happy when they see them.”
With that said, how could Mother Huo refuse?
She immediately put down what she was doing. “Alright, I’ll go change.”
While Mother Huo was changing, Jiang Si picked out some clothes for the kids.
She chose bright, vivid colors and also grabbed some toys.
After finishing that, Jiang Si went into the kitchen to find some props to go with the photos.
Luckily, they were on Qiongzhou Island. If they were somewhere else, just gathering all these fruits would have been a hassle.
Finally, Jiang Si even went out to the yard to pull up two stalks of green onions.
She also picked a handful of tomatoes.
By the time Mother Huo came back, all the preparations for the first scene were ready.
Calling it a setup was a bit of an exaggeration—it was really quite simple.
Jiang Si simply picked out a plain-colored bedsheet, then gently lifted the two children from their cradle and laid them down on it.
Both children were sound asleep, so no matter how she arranged them, they wouldn’t wake up.
Next, she just needed to place the prepared fruits in the right spots.
Placing apples symbolized “peace and happiness.”
Bananas represented “heaven’s blessings.”
Green onions stood for “bright intelligence.”
Pears signified “natural grace.”
And of course, tomatoes meant “everything goes smoothly!”
The fruit with the richest meanings was the orange — like “achieving great success,” “full of good intentions,” “double the good fortune,” “growing strong and healthy,” and “a bright future ahead”…
In short, there were so many auspicious meanings that even a nine-grid pattern couldn’t contain them all.
Mother Huo considered herself quite experienced in taking photos, but she had never seen a method like this before.
It was truly fascinating!
While Mother Huo was still marveling, Jiang Si had already started snapping the next set of photos.
After some careful arranging, Mother Huo looked down and saw three large characters clearly formed on the bed.
“Suisui” was the first character.
“Zhaozhao” wore a red scarf arranged in a human-shaped pattern on her head, forming the character “ge.”
And the last character, “Yue,” was made up of all kinds of fruits.
Yes, the babies were one month old!
