"Since you both want to change your names, think of good ones yourselves. Never mind the past twenty-odd years; your new names will be with you for decades to come."
Mother Chen was open-minded enough to let them choose their own new names.
"Once you've decided, have your dad talk to the production brigade chief and get a certificate. The public security bureau hasn't closed for the holiday yet, so you can change the names right on the household registration book."
Both sisters were a little excited.
"We really can change them!"
"Then I want to."
Chen Haichao asked curiously, "Since you both dislike your names, why didn't you bring up changing them yourselves?"
"Uh... I thought it would be too much trouble and hard to do. Besides, we've been called these names for so many years, it'd be strange to change them all of a sudden," Chen Pandi said hesitantly.
Chen Sidi glanced at Mother Chen, then let her gaze wander. "I was afraid I'd get scolded. I was afraid Mom would say I was making a fuss, and then all the neighbors would come watch the show and laugh at me."
"You little brat, why would I scold you for no reason?"
"See? You're scolding me right now."
"You've got some nerve."
Chen Haichao couldn't help laughing. "Well, now that Mom and Dad have both agreed to let you change your names, hurry up and think of good ones. Better yet, have Mom take your new names to the old fortune-teller in the village for a reading, just for peace of mind."
A good name influenced a person's whole life. Changing to good names might also change their fates from their previous lives and let them live happily and contentedly this time around.
He felt that none of the siblings' marriages had been happy in their previous lives. It might have had something to do with their family's feng shui, or perhaps their names!
He'd even been reborn, so naturally he couldn't believe only in science. He believed in the mystical arts too.
Speaking of which, why hadn't he been given a system? He hadn't been given a single shortcut!
How nice it would have been to have a supply exchange system or a purchasing system. He could sell whatever he hauled out of the sea straight to the system, or it could just give him cash rewards. Then he could lie flat!
"We have to get the fortune-teller to check them too? That's so much trouble. It's not like they're newborn babies."
"Their eight birth characters weren't read when they were born, so we can make up for it now. And have him read mine while he's at it."
Mother Chen glared at him. "You're the one making a fuss. What's this got to do with you?"
Father Chen backed him up. "Let's listen to Haichao. Have someone check whether the names are good or bad. We can't have them changing to worse names. It'll also let the villagers know our children have changed their names, so they can call them by their new ones from now on."
Mother Chen saw the hopeful looks on her two daughters' faces and how they were nodding eagerly at her, so she agreed.
"All right, then. You two think of names tonight and tell me tomorrow. I'll take your new names to the fortune-teller for a look."
The sisters were delighted, but they didn't forget their other two older sisters.
Chen Pandi said, "Mom, what about Eldest Sister and Second Sister? If we're changing ours, shouldn't they change theirs too? It can't be just us. Their names should be changed too."
"Mm, it'd be too much trouble to notify them. Tomorrow I'll just have the fortune-teller choose suitable good names for them. When they come back to visit on the second day of the new year, we'll tell them then. If your names aren't suitable, I'll have him name you two as well."
"Then why don't we just have him give us good new names?"
Chen Sidi nodded along. She had no objection.
"That works too."
And so the matter of changing their names was settled. The whole family was in agreement.
Low tide that night would be about forty-five minutes later than the night before, so after dinner Mother Chen told the three siblings to go turn the shrimp over at the threshing ground first.
After clearing the table, she still had to trade cloth coupons with her sisters-in-law. Once she was done, she and Father Chen would push the handcart straight to the shore.
As soon as the boy-girl twins heard they were going to the threshing ground, they stopped playing with their friends and ran after them, even racing ahead to lead the way.
Chen Pandi and Chen Sidi were especially excited. Arms linked and heads close together, they whispered to each other, probably discussing what new names to take.
The village threshing ground was right outside the production brigade office. There was a large open space there where everyone gathered for the brigade's various activities and announcements.
The production brigade's yard was next to it, making it convenient for the villagers to collect their tools when they reported for work each day.
During the busy farming season, the open space at the threshing ground was used to dry grain. Once dry, the grain could be put straight into storage in the warehouse in the brigade yard.
During the slack farming season, it was also used for drying fishing nets and ropes, as well as mending nets.
At the moment, the wide open space was covered with washed fishing nets and ropes. Their shrimp occupied only a small corner.
When the sea breeze blew, there was a faint scent of fresh shrimp along with the stinky fishy smell. They weren't dry yet, so they were still called little shrimp. Once dried and shelled, they would be called dried shrimp.
By the time they reached the threshing ground, it was getting dark, but the twins were even more excited. They ran around yelling, though it was hard to tell what they were so excited about.
Chen Haichao paid them no mind and went to get a tool instead. "It's already dark, and we still have to go to the shore later. There are so many that we won't turn them over one by one. We can just borrow the production team's rake and turn them with that. The weather's cool and dry now anyway, so they'll dry quickly in the breeze overnight."
"That works."
Just as the three were busy at work, the twins, who had been running and jumping around, suddenly began making a commotion.
"Brother!"
"Sister! Come quick!"
"There's a little bird!"
"It's not a little bird, it's a big bird!"
"What is it?" Chen Haichao finished the bit he was working on and went over first.
"What a huge little bird!" Chen Xiaoliu squatted there, excitedly making a circle with both hands the size of a soccer ball.
He shone his flashlight over and saw a bird huddled in a tangled heap of fishing ropes, shivering in the beam. Its down hadn't fully grown in, its wings were short, and it was covered in mud. It chirped weakly and tried to flap its wings, but couldn't fly at all.
Chen Haichao was startled. "Is this a newly hatched cormorant?"
"Brother, can we take it home?"
"Brother, it looks so cold and pitiful."
"Go grab a handful of straw from the pile over there."
Though the two didn't know what for, they obediently pattered over to get the straw and came back carrying a big armful.
Cormorants were master fishers. He remembered an elementary school textbook passage about cormorants, and on the back of the fifth-series twenty-yuan note, besides the landscape of the Li River in Guilin, there was a small boat, an old man, and a seabird.
He'd heard that the seabird on it was a cormorant, though he couldn't tell.
But he recognized the one in front of him. He'd also heard that cormorants were as efficient at catching fish as electrofishing. They were powerful divers, able to stay underwater for seventy seconds and dive as deep as nineteen meters. If raised from chicks and trained, they were extremely efficient at catching fish.
Still, looking at this weak little thing, he couldn't see how it was anything like electrofishing.
He couldn't just carry it back by hand, so Chen Haichao crossed and layered the straw to hold it together, forming a simple bird's nest.
"Put it in here and carry it back. It can serve as a temporary nest for it too."
Chen Xiaoliu's eyes sparkled as she watched. "Wow, Brother, you're amazing!"
Chen Xiaoqi's face was full of admiration too. "Brother, how do you know how to do everything? That's amazing!"
"You can even make a bird's nest! You're the best brother ever!"
The two took turns praising him, overjoyed.
Chen Haichao was pleased by their flattery and grinned. "This is nothing! Your brother can do all kinds of things. Hurry up and put it in."
"I'll do it, I'll do it..."
"I'll do it..."
The two scrambled to try, but the moment their hands touched it, they both pulled back.
"You do it..."
"I don't dare. You do it..."
Black lines filled Chen Haichao's forehead. What a pair of scaredy-cats.
He set the nest on the ground, carefully picked up the cormorant chick, and placed it inside, then covered it with the extra straw.
"Wow! Let me carry it. Give me the nest..."
Chen Xiaoliu eagerly reached out, and Chen Xiaoqi was unwilling to be left behind.
"Give it to me, give it to me..."
"I'm the older sister. Give it to me!"
Chen Haichao picked it up and stood, holding it out of reach of both of them. Twins were so annoying! They had to fight over everything!
"I'm the older brother, so give it to me. From now on, this is my bird!"
The twins looked up at him, wanting to protest, but he took away their right to speak.
"Shut up. Your protests are overruled! Even though it's my bird, I'll let you two raise it. That's all right, isn't it? Otherwise, how would you two divide one bird? You can't split it in half, can you? So it's mine, but I'll let you raise it."
The two thought it over and looked at each other, feeling that what their brother said made sense.
Chen Haichao secretly breathed a sigh of relief. If he let the two fight over whose bird it was, they could probably go on shouting "Mine, mine" and fighting for two years. Tonight, they could keep arguing until bedtime.
Making it his nipped the problem in the bud!