My village can't be like this

Chapter 712 Taking a Name

After placing guide road signs around Changqing Village, Zhang Jianwen seemed unsatisfied and did not dismiss the gathered villagers.

Instead, he bought a batch of high-quality stones from the quarry, intending to repair the roads near the village that had not yet been repaired.

Last time, although the village spent a huge amount of money to harden many agricultural roads, they were only some of the surrounding roads leading to fertile fields or villagers' orchards.

As for the rest, it is still a dirt road.

Whenever it rains, these roads become muddy.

If the villagers leave by themselves, it doesn’t matter. After all, it has been so many years and everyone is used to it.

But as the village becomes more connected with the outside world, more and more tourists are visiting.

As economic conditions have improved in the past two years, their hobbies have begun to shift from the city to the mountains outside. They no longer go to the brightly lit city parks and squares. Instead, they prefer to experience the fun of the wild, such as fishing, climbing, eating at farmhouses, appreciating some local traditional customs, etc.

Changqing Village is currently enjoying a favorable development trend. With its unique geographical environment and the deliberate development of the village in the past two years, it has transformed from a purely traditional agricultural village into the starting point of rural tourism.

Zhang Jianwen has always been an old village chief who has worked diligently for the village. After tasting the sweetness, he never wants to go back to his old days.

With the accumulation of the past two years and the support of the town, he decided to further improve the facilities in the village with the financial means. Although it cannot compare with the bustling city, he will try to give foreign tourists a good impression.

In this regard, Changqing Village undoubtedly has the conditions. The major renovation of dry toilets, livestock pens, and main road facilities in previous years has laid a solid foundation. Now it only needs to be extended outward without too much cost.

This is also the reason why Zhang Jianwen made up his mind so quickly. After all, you need money to support everything you do.

If it really requires too much money, he, who has lived a poor life enough, will definitely not make a decision immediately.

After all, even though Changqing Village has saved some money in the past two years and the town has also given some support, it will not be too much and cannot withstand unscrupulous squandering.

Early in the morning, Zhang An had just gotten up when a classic ringtone came from his cell phone.

After a quick glance, I saw that it was an unfamiliar landline number, but the area code was actually local.

The call was just connected and before Zhang An could ask who the other party was, Zhou Yang's voice came from the phone.

"Uncle Xiao An, the baby was born at dawn today. Please tell my dad so he won't worry."

Hearing this, Zhang An remembered that Zhou Yang had been in the hospital for a week. Even if there was an error in the due date, it was almost time.

"Congratulations. How are the child and Chen Wenwen doing?"

Zhang An first congratulated them, and then he became concerned about the condition of the newborn and mother.

In this situation, it is usually enough for everyone to just say congratulations. If the relationship is not too close, it is not convenient to ask these questions.

But the relationship between Zhang An and Zhou Yang's families is not worse than that between some direct relatives.

And according to seniority, Zhou Yang, the newborn child, should call Zhang An "uncle".

"The baby is a quiet girl. Wenwen didn't suffer much during the birth. She weighed nearly 15 pounds when she was born. The doctor said she was a very healthy baby. Wenwen was a little weak after the birth. I let her drink the treasure that you, Uncle An, gave her. Now she feels much better."

Zhou Yang, who had just become a father, told Zhang An about it excitedly.

Before this, he had specifically inquired about it and found out that giving birth is really a very dangerous thing for women, especially natural childbirth.

So from the moment Chen Wenwen was pushed into the delivery room last night, his heart was hanging in the air, and it only calmed down when she finally came out.

"Oh, by the way, the hospital said that when issuing a birth certificate, a name is required. Wenwen and I can't think of a good name, so we would like to trouble Uncle An to help name the child."

In fact, it is not that urgent to get a birth certificate now. You can wait until you are discharged from the hospital and then come back to get it, but you will have to make one more trip.

But Changqing Village is quite far from the city, and it is inconvenient to travel back and forth. Zhou Yang thought about getting it done in one go to avoid trouble later.

But neither he nor Chen Wenwen were good at naming, and they couldn't think of a good name after thinking for a long time.

So, when he was on the phone, he thought of this matter and wanted to ask Zhang An to help solve it, since they were not outsiders after all.

"This is inappropriate, isn't it? Shouldn't your father and grandfather come to get it?"

Zhang An was stunned for a moment and did not agree directly.

"No, no, no, forget about my dad. What kind of name can he give? We asked the village chief to help us choose the names of the three siblings. As for my grandfather, forget about it. He is a man who favors boys over girls. Not only does he not want to say it, but I don't want to ask him either. Anyway, Uncle An, please help. After all, you are the child's uncle."

When Zhou Yang heard Zhang An talking about his father and grandfather, he immediately shook his head without thinking.

There was nothing wrong with his father Zhou Shuanglin, but it was impossible to expect him to give himself a good name. At most, he would have given him a name like Dahua or Erhua. Otherwise, the three brothers and sisters would not have asked Zhang Jianwen to help them choose names.

Not to mention his grandparents, who have an extremely serious patriarchal mentality, which can be seen from the three siblings. The two elders don't like their younger sister Yanhong.

So Zhou Yang never thought of asking his grandfather, so as to avoid having his wife suffer from those two men.

"Okay then. I'll look through the books later. Your doctor said how long you need to rest before you can be discharged. Do you have enough supplies? If not, I'll send some more over."

Seeing that Zhou Yang had said so much, Zhang An no longer refused.

"Wenwen is now in good health. He wants to be discharged and go home immediately. He has stayed in this hospital for too long. But the doctor said he needs to stay for at least three days to avoid getting sick after recuperating. After three days, I'll have to trouble my uncle to pick us up. You don't have to send us the stuff. We still have some left from last time."

Although Zhou Yang said it was troublesome, he was not polite at all.

"When you are going to be discharged from the hospital, just call me a few hours in advance. And remember to call the Chen family to let them know, so that they won't have any complaints later."

After Zhang An finished talking to Zhou Yang, he was afraid that he was too excited and forgot, so he reminded him again.

"I know. I'll call you right away."

Zhou Yang responded and then hung up the phone.

Zhang An went downstairs and found his wife was already having breakfast.

"Who is it? Calling so early in the morning and talking for so long."

Su Ying saw that Zhang An had been answering the phone since she got up and had not come down until now, so she started to ask.

"It was Zhou Yang who called and said that the baby was born early this morning and asked us to help inform their family."

Zhang An picked up the bowl and scooped out a bowl of noodles while speaking.

"Oh, this is good news. Is it a boy or a girl? How is Chen Wenwen's health?"

When Su Ying heard that it was Zhou Yang calling to tell her the good news, she immediately felt happy for them. After all, Chen Wenwen was her best friend.

"It's a girl. Zhou Yang said that she didn't make any noise when she was born, and didn't cause Chen Wenwen any suffering." As he said that, Zhang An looked at little Siqi who was scooping noodles into his mouth in a serious manner.

"You are much more obedient than our little Siqi. You suffered a lot in the past."

"What can we do? Children are the creditors of their parents. This is what we owed them in our previous lives."

Su Ying looked at her son, shook her head and said that she was now a qualified mother.

"Dad, am I not being good?"

As soon as the adults talked about themselves, the little guy heard it immediately, raised his little head and asked.

"Good boy, you are very good, eat quickly."

The little guy's words immediately made the whole family laugh.

After breakfast, Su Ying went to school. Wang Fang handed her grandson to Zhang An and went to Zhou Yang's house.

Whenever she met someone on the road, she would stop and talk to them.

But it was not like the usual family talk, but he was telling everyone about Zhou Yang's wife giving birth to a child.

This is an unwritten custom in the village. When someone's family has good news, everyone will help publicize it in the village to let everyone know, so as to avoid the phenomenon of good news not being known to others.

For example, things like hosting a banquet rely on word of mouth.

However, it's not just good things that get publicized, there are also bad things. Some gossipy people, when they hear something bad happening in other people's homes, will also gossip about it.

So in rural areas, no matter whether it is good or bad, it will spread quickly.

Of course, Wang Fang is not a gossipy person and generally won’t talk about what’s happening in other people’s families. She just will help to express her support when she sees someone having a happy event.

Zhang An was at home, letting his son play with Chouchou in the yard while he took out a pile of books and started looking through them.

In fact, he is also bad at naming, as can be seen from the animals in his home.

But there is no other way. I have to do my best to be loyal to the people who trust me.

A girl's name should be gentle and pleasant, so he looked up the Book of Songs, the Analects of Confucius, and even the Three Hundred Tang Poems.

But after searching for a long time, I still couldn't come up with a satisfactory one.

"Hey, there is."

Suddenly, a sentence came to his mind.

Holding jade in hand, speaking good words and doing good deeds.

In fact, these are two completely unrelated sentences and come from different classics.

The first half of the sentence comes from The Complete Works of Zhu Xi, and the second half is from The Nine Chapters of Chu Ci, but people today put them together.

But this has nothing to do with Zhang An. He just needs to refer to it because these two sentences are really suitable for naming.

"I wonder what you are planning to do, the Analects and the Book of Songs."

Just as Zhang An was about to put the books away, Chen Ze came over, looked at his mess, and asked curiously.

"Zhou Yang's child is born, and he asked me to give the child a name. I'm looking for it in a book."

Seeing Chen Ze coming, Zhang An was no longer in a hurry to put away the books.

"Why do they ask you to come and get it? Isn't this something that the elders in their family should do?"

Chen Ze sat down and poured himself a cup of herbal tea.

"What's the big deal? The kid still has to call me uncle. Why can't I do this?"

Zhang An also felt a little thirsty at this moment, so after Chen Ze finished pouring the drink, he also poured himself a glass.

"I'm afraid your generation is so high. You're so young and already have grandchildren. It's really exaggerated."

Chen Ze couldn't help but shook his head when he heard that. He had lived in the village for such a long time. Not only the newborn child of Zhou Yang's family, but even some children in the village who were already old enough to cook or in elementary school called Zhang An "uncle" in front of him.

Although their family is a well-established one with quite a few clan members, this kind of thing has never happened before.

"What's the big deal? This kind of thing is very common in rural areas. By the way, I saw that some materials have been delivered in the past two days. Have you started the renovation?"

Zhang An did not continue the topic and asked instead.

Their house is right at the entrance of the village. Every day, everyone entering and leaving the village has to pass under his nose. In the past two days, so many trucks have brought in decoration materials that it is difficult for him not to see it.

"Yes, the renovation has already started. I plan to finish it all in the next two months, and then I can take a break, just in time to catch the National Day crowds."

Chen Ze nodded and told Zhang An about his plan. He started planning this hotel last year and started construction at the end of last year. By this year's National Day, it would have taken almost a year, which is not slow, but not fast either.

"I came to you to ask if you can still get the trees in your yard. If you can, please help me get some. I'm going to do some landscaping."

There is plenty of time now, so when doing the renovation, Chen Ze took the greening around the hotel into consideration.

He originally wanted to buy a batch of landscape trees from the provincial capital specifically for hotel greening, but he gave up the idea as soon as it came to his mind.

Because the roadsides in Changqing Village had already been greened, the trees planted were the Davidia involucrata trees in Zhang An's yard.

He had witnessed the flowering season some time ago, and before, when there were only a few trees in Zhang An's yard, he didn't think there was anything eye-catching about them.

But now the whole village has planted it, and when they all bloom together, it is indeed a rare sight.

It’s a pity that the flowering period cannot be maintained for too long, but it is beautiful as long as it is beautiful, and the shape of the tree is quite good.

So he gave up the idea of ​​buying landscape trees from outside and decided to ask Zhang An to get him a batch so that they would be roughly consistent with the village.

"It can be done, but it may take a little while, maybe two or three months. I'm afraid we have to wait until autumn to plant."

Zhang An did not refuse, but he took a little longer, otherwise if he took it out as soon as Chen Ze opened his mouth, everyone would think there was something fishy.

"That's fine. It's autumn now so we can plant trees right away and guarantee their survival rate. Now is not the season for planting trees."

Chen Ze did not think that the time was too late, but rather that it was just right, and immediately told Zhang An a rough number.

(End of this chapter)