"How about this? We each pick one character and put them together to make the child's name?" I said with a smile.
"Sure!" Zhao Qian agreed without hesitation, overjoyed.
I smiled. "I'll choose Ling. You can choose the remaining character."
"What? Tian-ge, isn't that still making me choose it myself? Everyone knows boys are all of the Ling generation..." Zhao Qian couldn't help acting coy.
I laughed heartily. "I've already bestowed a name on our first child. You can name the second one. We can't have me naming them all."
"No. You choose it, Tian-ge. Otherwise, if the child grows up and learns that you weren't the one who named him, he'll surely think his father doesn't love him." Zhao Qian began pleading softly again.
I thought, No wonder she can become one of the Three Palaces. She truly leaves no loose ends.
"Mm, all right. How about Xia Lingchen?"
"Good. Lingchen sounds nice. 'Unparalleled Lingchen'—it sounds just like the name of a novel's protagonist." Zhao Qian smiled dreamily.
I laughed despite myself. It was true that many protagonists were named Lingchen, which was why I had chosen it almost without thinking.
A name with high recognition was always the best.
An obscure, unknown name could easily cause a child to sink into mediocrity.
After letting me name the child, Zhao Qian no longer pestered me. After all, she had to set aside part of her time for her sisters.
By the time Zhao Qian and I went out, everyone who had received the news was already waiting before the hall.
The time remaining, of course, wasn't reserved for having children. It was a grand gathering to squander a millennium's worth of things to talk about.
Aside from expressing how much they had missed one another over the years, everyone