Chapter 516 Name
As soon as Manbao and his companions entered the village, a villager greeted Manbao, "Manbao, you're back. How's your small farm doing?"
Before Manbao could answer, a villager nearby took over the conversation, "Needless to say, it must be good. By the way, Manbao, we will also plant winter wheat next year. Will Mr. Bai and his family pick out wheat seeds by then?"
"You can't grow winter wheat if people don't buy the wheat seeds. Even if you can't sell them, it's still good to eat them. Manbao, I heard you bought a shop for your family? How much did it cost?"
"At least one hundred taels."
"Why would you need so much? The shops in this county town aren't very big. Seventy or eighty taels should be enough, right?"
When Manbao heard this, she immediately dragged Bai Shanbao and Bai Erlang away. When someone called out from behind, she immediately said, "Uncles, aunts, brothers, and nephews, let's go back and do our homework first, otherwise the teacher will spank us."
Villagers: ...
Manbao successfully escaped and breathed a sigh of relief when he ran to her door.
Bai Shanbao ran so fast that he was a little out of breath. He asked, "How come the whole village knows about your family's affairs after just one night?"
Manbao thought of how her father had gone out early in the morning with a handful of wedding candy and some wedding cakes.
Manbao sighed heavily and said to the two of them, "In the village, nothing is a secret."
Bai Shanbao frowned and snorted, "Then you'll have to stay home by yourself for the next two days, or come to my house to play. I don't want to go out with you."
He didn't like being watched anyway.
"If we don't want to go together, then we don't want to go together. It's so cold outside, I don't want to go out and play."
Having said that, Manbao was also a little unhappy, so the two of them snorted and turned around to go home.
Bai Erlang, who was standing by, was puzzled. "Why are you guys arguing again?"
"We didn't quarrel, stop slandering us." Manbao and Bai Shanbao said in unison, then looked at each other and were not so angry anymore.
Manbao waved his hand generously and said, "Okay, I'll find you to do homework tomorrow morning."
Bai Shanbao nodded in agreement, and Bai Erlang turned and left, "I have an appointment with Ertou to go digging for loaches by the river tomorrow."
"Zhou Liwei!" A voice suddenly sounded from behind Manbao, so loud that it scared everyone.
Everyone turned around and saw Ertou standing at the door with his hands on his waist. He was waiting for Bai Er and said, "Bai Er, I already said my name is Zhou Liwei, you have to call me Liwei."
"Well, my name is Bai Cheng. Why do you call me Bai Er Bai Er? Can I also call you Tuesday?"
Ertou tilted his head and thought for a moment before refusing, "No, many people in the county call me dad that. You can't call me that."
After he said that, Bai Erlang liked calling him that even more. He immediately ran backwards while shouting, "Tuesday, Tuesday, Tuesday. I'll call you Tuesday from now on."
Ertou was so angry that he rolled up his sleeves and chased after him.
Manbao ignored them, waved goodbye to Bai Shanbao, and ran home to settle the score with her father.
Old Zhou had just returned from the headman's house. He took out the house deeds and other things from his arms and put them in a box. He smoothed them out carefully and closed the box.
Manbao suddenly rushed in, giving him a fright.
"Dad, how come everyone knows about our family buying a shop?"
Old Zhou patted his chest and said, "Why can't you tell me such a good thing?"
He said, "I didn't do it on purpose. I was just carrying something to the village head and the resident head and someone saw me. Since they asked, I couldn't help but tell them."
It would be strange if Manbao believed him.
"Oh, Manbao, we have the shop, but we don't have a plaque yet. Your eldest brother said the original plaque said 'Silk and Cloth Shop', which is not suitable for our shop, so we have to choose a new name."
Old Zhou smiled and said, "I think you can choose the name. There's no need for a plaque. Just put up a flag. I've asked your fourth brother to buy the flag. You can write the store name on it yourself and hang it up."
Manbao's attention was diverted, and he asked, "What's a good name?"
"Oh, I'm not an educated person, how would I know what to call it?"
"But not all the people going to the restaurant are scholars. What if the names we think are nice don't sound good to you?"
Qian thought for a moment and said, "There's no need to call it something complicated. Just calling it Zhouji will do."
"Zhouji Restaurant?"
Old Zhou slapped his thigh and said happily, "Let's call it this. This is the most appropriate name for the restaurant run by our Zhou family."
Manbao rolled his eyes, turned around and ran to Zhou Silang to ask for the flag.
Zhou Silang unfolded the flag for her and pointed at the pattern on it. He said, "See? This is a sign specifically for food. You have to buy these flags from the grocery store next to the government office. You can't buy them anywhere else. It's really troublesome."
Manbao took out his best ink, ground it, and then dipped the thickest pen in the ink.
She rarely uses this pen, only occasionally using it when practicing calligraphy. The rest of the time she prefers to use a smaller pen.
Manbao calmed down and wrote down four words in one breath.
Zhou Silang pointed and read out: "Qian-Ji-Restaurant!"
Zhou Silang shook his head and continued, "What a common name! What a good name!"
Fang couldn't help but push him.
Manbao nodded in agreement, "The name is tacky, which means it suits the public's taste. The purpose of running a restaurant is to cater to everyone's tastes."
"Not bad, not bad."
Both the brother and sister were smiling and were very satisfied with the name.
When the flag was taken to the courtyard and handed to Zhou Erlang to prop up with a bamboo pole, Old Zhou was still smiling, but when the flag was unfurled, he felt something was wrong.
He looked up for a long time, feeling a little guilty and short of breath. He tried to hold it in for a long time, but finally couldn't help muttering, "Could it be that I have been reading the wrong characters all along? I mistook qian for zhou, and zhou for qian?"
Zhou Erlang tugged at the rope, and after making sure the flag was secure, he turned around and asked with a smile, "Dad, what did you say?"
Old Zhou coughed lightly and said, "Read the name you gave your sister to me."
Zhou Erlang didn't know many characters, but at least he knew the names of his family members and some commonly used characters, although he couldn't write most of them.
But he still confidently pointed at the four words and said, "Qian's Restaurant!"
Old Zhou's eyes widened, and he slapped his thigh and said, "I told you, how could I have made a mistake? It's been so many years, and occasionally when the government office wanted to collect taxes, I always signed my own name. This, this, this is the word for money."
Zhou Erlang said blankly, "It's the word 'Qian'. I didn't say it was the word 'Zhou'."
"You know what? It should have been called Zhou. Where's Manbao? This little girl is doing bad things behind my back again. Go find her for me."
The next chapter will be updated around 10pm. I went out today and missed my draft box so much.
(End of this chapter)
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