In a residential complex called Taihua Dragon Court in Buxi Town, Taixi County, two pregnant women sat beneath a pomegranate tree, basking in the sun. Both had oval faces and almond-shaped eyes, looking somewhat alike at first glance. Others assumed they were sisters, but in fact they were merely upstairs and downstairs neighbors. The one with the smaller belly was named Ye Xiaomei, a Yue opera performer who had married into the area from far away at the end of last year. She still couldn’t speak the local dialect, and her Mandarin carried traces of her hometown’s soft Wu accent: “Sister Wang, you’re due next month. Has Brother Chen picked out a name for your baby yet?”
Wang Liting’s belly was already round as a ball. Now she could only sit comfortably by spreading her legs apart: “Not yet. He’s flipped through eight months’ worth of dictionaries and still hasn’t found a decent name. I told him, if he still hasn’t decided by the time I give birth, our child will just be called Chen Wangba.”
Ye Xiaomei smiled with pursed lips. After marrying here, she had been performing at a theater in the neighboring city. Not long after, she became pregnant. To protect the pregnancy, her performance schedule was drastically reduced, and she spent more time at home than before. With her and the sister upstairs becoming pregnant one after the other, the two naturally grew close.
She pointed at her own belly and said gently: “My husband has already chosen one—Cheng Le. Isn’t it a bit common?”
Wang Liting picked up the thread: “Common? What’s common about it? As parents, don’t we just hope our children will grow up safe and sound, happy and joyful? If you ask me, calling mine Chen An would be pretty good too. Put our two kids’ names together, and you get ‘peaceful and joyful’!”
After Wang Liting finished speaking, she became more and more pleased with her spontaneous inspiration. In her excitement, she suddenly stood up and said eagerly: “Yes, yes, yes, it’ll be Chen An then. I’ll call Old Chen right now.”
At that moment, Chen Tao was still an ordinary clerk at the Taixi County Tax Bureau. He was following the bureau director to the provincial capital to study the principles of tax reform. When Wang Liting called, she only heard the mechanical voice prompt indicating his phone was off.
Wang Liting sheepishly put away her phone and was preparing to slowly lower herself back into the reclining chair when she suddenly felt a contraction in her belly, as if something was continuously pressing downward.
Sweat broke out on her forehead. She called out frantically to Ye Xiaomei, who was heading into the house: “Xiaomei, I—I think I’m going into labor.”
Ye Xiaomei was also a pregnant woman with limited mobility, but her due date was still eighty or ninety days away, so she could still manage to run a bit. She hurriedly rushed back to the courtyard in a few quick steps and stammered: “But—but isn’t it supposed to be another month, Sister Wang? I’ll call Brother Chen.”
Wang Limei grimaced and said: “His phone is off. Don’t call him—even if he comes back now, it’ll be too late. Can you take me there?”
Because Ye Xiaomei worked across districts, her husband Cheng Dong had purchased an economical domestic car. The residential complex’s pathways were narrow and cars couldn’t enter, but fortunately, in those days not every household owned a car, so there was plenty of parking space outside the complex gates. Ye Xiaomei hurriedly called on neighbors to help carry the pale-faced Wang Limei to the car, then floored the accelerator and raced to the County People’s Hospital.
That evening, Wang Limei successfully gave birth to a baby boy, named Chen An. Thanks to that unborn baby, he didn’t end up being called Chen Wangba.