Manbao and the others had just entered the village when a villager greeted Manbao, "Manbao, you’re back! How’s your little farm going?"
Before Manbao could respond, another villager took over the conversation, "Do we even need to ask? It must be doing well. Right, Manbao, our family is also planning to plant winter wheat next year. Will Old Master Bai and his folks still be picking out wheat seeds then?"
"If they don’t buy your wheat seeds, does it mean you can’t plant winter wheat? Even if you can’t sell it, growing it for your own consumption isn’t bad either. Manbao, I heard you bought a shop for your family? How much did you spend?"
"It must have been at least a hundred taels."
"Why would it take that much? The shops in the county town can’t be that big; perhaps seventy or eighty taels would be enough to buy one?"
Upon hearing this, Manbao immediately dragged Bai Shanbao and Bai Erlang away. As someone shouted from behind, she quickly replied, "Uncles, aunts, cousins, and nephews, we have to go back and do our homework now. Otherwise, the teacher will spank us with a ruler."
Manbao successfully slipped away, finally catching her breath when she reached the door of her home.
Bai Shanbao, who had run too hastily and was out of breath, asked, "How come in just one night, everyone in the village knows about your family’s business?"
Manbao thought of her father handing out handfuls of wedding candies that morning and even carrying some wedding pastries.
Manbao let out a heavy sigh and said to the two, "In this village, there’s hardly anything that stays secret."
Bai Shanbao frowned and huffed, "Then for the next few days, you can only stay at home by yourself, or come over to my place to play. I don’t feel like going out with you anymore."
After all, he didn’t like being the center of attention.
"Fine by me, it’s so cold outside anyway, I don’t want to go out and play."
That’s what she said, but Manbao also felt a little unhappy, so they both snorted and turned around to head back home.
Bai Erlang, who was beside them, was confused, "How did you go from talking to arguing again?"
"We’re not arguing; stop slandering us," Manbao and Bai Shanbao said in unison, and after looking at each other, they were no longer as upset.
Manbao waved generously, "Alright then, I’ll come find you to do homework early tomorrow morning."
Bai Shanbao nodded in agreement, while Bai Erlang simply turned and walked away, "I’ve already made plans with Second Son to go and dig for mud eels by the river tomorrow."
"Zhou Liwei!" a voice suddenly arose from behind Manbao, loud enough to startle everyone.
Everyone turned around to see Second Son striking a pose at the doorway. He waited for Bai Er to say, "Bai Er, I’ve told you before, my name is Zhou Liwei, and you should call me Liwei."
"Then I’m Bai Cheng, why do you keep calling me Bai Er? Can I also call you Zhou Er then?"
Second Son tilted his head to think, then refused, "No, you can’t call me that. Lots of people in the county town call my dad that; you can’t call me by the same name."
With that, Bai Erlang had even more fun calling him by that name, and as he backed away, he started to run, calling out, "Zhou Er, Zhou Er, Zhou Er, I’m going to call you Zhou Er from now on."
Second Son was so angry that he rolled up his sleeves and chased after him.
Manbao didn’t bother with them; she waved goodbye to Bai Shanbao and ran back home to settle accounts with her father.
Old Zhou had just returned from the Land Officer’s home, carefully taking out the deed to the house and other things, placing them in a box, and smoothing them over before closing the box.
Manbao burst in, startling him.
"Dad, why have you spread the word about our family buying a shop so that everyone knows about it?"
Old Zhou patted his chest and said, "Why shouldn’t I talk about such good news?"
He continued, "I didn’t do it on purpose. People saw me carrying stuff when I went to see the village head and the Land Officer, and they asked about it. I couldn’t just not tell them."
Manbao didn’t believe him for a minute.
"Oh, Manbao, now that we’ve got the shop, we still need a sign. Your eldest brother said the original sign, which read ’Satin and Cloth Shop,’ is not suitable for us, so we need to come up with a new name," Old Zhou said with a contented smile.
"I think you should be the one to decide on the name. There’s no need for a formal signboard; just a flag will do. Your Silang has already bought one for us. When it comes, you can personally write the name of the shop on it and hang it up," he added.
Manbao’s attention was diverted, and she asked, "What should we name it?"
"Hey now, I’m not a scholar; how would I know what name is good?"
"But not all the customers who come to eat are scholars. What if they don’t like the name we think sounds good?"
Ms. Qian thought for a while and said, "It doesn’t need to be too complicated; simply calling it ’Zhou’s’ is fine."
Old Zhou slapped his thigh with delight and said, "That’s the perfect name, our Zhou family’s own restaurant. It doesn’t get more fitting than that."
Manbao’s eyes twirled as she ran off to find Zhou Silang for the flag.
Zhou Silang unfolded the flag for her, pointing to the pattern on it and saying, "Do you see? This is a special mark for food. We even had to buy this flag from the variety store next to the yamen; you can’t find it anywhere else. It really was a hassle."
Manbao took out her best ink, ground it, and then dipped the thickest brush into it.
She rarely used this particular brush, only occasionally when practicing calligraphy; most other times, she preferred one size smaller.
Manbao steadied her heart and with a fluid motion wrote down four characters.
Zhou Silang read them out loud as he pointed, "Qian’s Restaurant!"
Zhou Silang shook his head in amazement, "What a common name, a good name!"
Ms. Fang couldn’t help but give him a shove.
Manbao, however, vehemently nodded in agreement, "Common names mean that they cater to the public’s taste, and that’s exactly what a restaurant should aim for."
The siblings were both beaming with satisfaction, utterly pleased with the name.
When Zhou ErLang took the flag to the courtyard to hoist it with a bamboo pole, Old Zhou was still smiling—but as soon as the flag unfurled, he felt there was something amiss.
Staring up at it for a long time, feeling a mix of doubt and shortness of breath, Old Zhou couldn’t hold himself back and muttered, "Could it be that I have been recognizing the characters wrong all these years? Mixing up ’Qian’ with ’Zhou,’ ’Zhou’ with ’Qian’?"
Zhou ErLang tugged at the rope, making sure the flag was secure, then turned and asked with a smile, "Dad, what did you say?"
Old Zhou cleared his throat and said, "I said, read the name your sister chose for me to hear."
Zhou ErLang, who recognized only a few characters, could nonetheless identify the names of his family members and common characters, though he couldn’t write most of them.
But he confidently pointed to the four characters and said, "Qian’s Restaurant!"
Old Zhou’s eyes bulged, and he slapped his thigh, "I knew it! How could I be wrong? I’ve been signing my own name on taxes for the yamen all these years; this, this, this is indeed the character ’Qian.’"
Zhou ErLang looked confused, "Yes, it’s ’Qian,’ I never said it was ’Zhou.’"
"What do you know? It was supposed to be ’Zhou.’ Where is Manbao? That little girl is up to no good behind my back again. Hurry and find her for me."