On the side of Zhu Family Ba Village, a group of five boys ran quickly along a small path.
The oldest among them was the one at the very front, about ten years old, with the others around seven or eight.
At the end of the path, a dry streambed appeared before their eyes.
None of them bothered to move stones to look for crabs; instead, they quickly ran upstream.
Like monkeys, they swiftly leaped over the stones at the bottom of the streambed, with none of them tripping or falling, indicating they were frequent visitors here.
After about half an incense stick of time, they arrived at a water pit.
It was half a zhang in size, and about a zhang behind it was a one-chi wide rock crevice, which was the source of this stream.
However, at this time, no mountain water flowed out of the crevice.
The five boys quickly stripped off their clothes and pants, jumping directly into the water pit.
In just a few breaths, the once clear water pit was muddied by the children.
Fortunately, it was a sand pit; if it had been a rock pit, the children might have been injured when they jumped in.
After playing in the water pit for a cup of tea, the leading boy, naked, came to the rock crevice; they wanted to explore inside.
Because there was a larger, deeper water pit inside, and the water was extremely cold, it was another one of their secret bases.
Led by him, he slowly squeezed into the rock crevice, turning his head sideways, followed by the other four children, one after another.
The further in they went, the wider the rock crevice became, until after advancing more than ten zhang, the five arrived at a water pit about a zhang wide.
The water pit was directly opposite the crevice, and three chi above it, there was an arm-width crevice from which water droplets were dripping.
The five boys carefully walked into the water pit and then lay flat against the pit wall.
They comfortably closed their eyes, taking a cold bath.
After half a cup of tea, the leading older boy felt a chill and urged the other four children to leave quickly.
He, himself, went behind the water pit, stepping on the smooth stones.
His left hand grabbed a protruding stone, and his right hand reached into the dripping rock crevice.
Last time, he had found a smooth stone inside; this time, he wondered if he could find anything good.
His arm stretched forward until the rock crevice caught his shoulder, then the boy stopped, and his right-hand fingers moved back and forth inside, hoping to touch something.
Finding nothing, the boy pushed his arm in a little further, and the stones outside the crevice had already pressed red marks onto his shoulder.
Suddenly, his fingertip seemed to touch something round.
At this, the boy's spirits lifted; he ignored the pain from his shoulder and pushed his arm in a little more.
His middle fingertip began to feel the round object, like a small pearl.
So, his middle finger applied pressure, slowly pushing the pearl out bit by bit.
After pushing it half an inch, his middle finger hooked, prying the pearl outwards.
So engrossed was he that he didn't even feel the skin on his shoulder being scratched open by the rock, showing blood.
When his right hand grasped the pearl and he was about to withdraw.
The spot where his foot was placed was very slippery due to the dripping water.
Additionally, his left hand had been gripping the stone for too long, and his arm felt a bit weak.
Consequently, the boy fell backward into the water pit.
His right hand tightly clutched the pearl, and as his arm was quickly pulled out of the rock crevice, it was scratched, leaving a shallow mark.
Several spots immediately showed beads of blood.
However, the boy didn't feel the pain, because his back hit the water pit, momentarily stunning him.
His right arm, along with his shoulder, immediately sank into the water, washing away the blood beads from his body.
In less than two breaths, the boy thrashed and stood up from the water pit, quickly checking the pearl in his right hand by the light filtering through the outer rock crevice.
Thumb-sized, snow-white.
pearl.
A word popped into the boy's mind, because he had heard adults say that pearls were white and very expensive.
Now, the boy had no intention of showing off this pearl to his companions.
This is a common human trait: when something is valuable to a certain extent, people tend to keep it for themselves.
It was then that he noticed a burning sensation in his right arm.
Following the light, he discovered several places where the skin had been scraped.
So he directly put his arm into the water pit to wash it.
Then he followed the rock crevice to walk outside.
Of course, his palm was definitely clutching the pearl.
Outside, his other companions had already dressed and were waiting for him.
He, however, first extended his left index finger, got some saliva in his mouth, and then smeared it on the bleeding spots of his right arm.
These mud-covered children all knew this method of stopping bleeding, and it was quite effective.
After smearing it, he began to put on his pants; he only put on his shirt once his arm had completely stopped bleeding.
And his right palm remained clenched, not letting the pearl be exposed to the other children.
"Brother Gouwa, didn't you find anything in that crevice this time?" one child asked.
"No, next time I'll find a stick to poke around," the older boy lied.
Once their hair was mostly dry, the group returned to Zhu Family Ba Village.
Zhu Gouwa's home was at the west end of the village, near the Dao leading to the town.
His father was Zhu Kaishan, and his mother was Zhu Liu Shi.
He had two older brothers, one seventeen and one fourteen, and a four-year-old younger sister.
The family lived a very hard life.
A three-room wooden and thatched house, with a small shed built against the wall on the left side, which was the kitchen.
He went directly to the right corner of the wall, and after checking that no one was around, he took out the snow-white pearl from his pocket to examine it.
One word described it: white, with no other color whatsoever.
After looking at it for a while and not understanding its significance.
He put it back in his pocket, planning to find a small cloth bag for it and hide it under the straw pillow where he slept.
He didn't plan to tell his family about such a good thing.
As soon as he told them, his father and mother would definitely take it from him, treating it as their own.
Because this white pearl looked like it could be worth a lot of money.
Plus, with his eldest brother's recent marriage, the Zhu family was very short on money, and it might even be directly sold by his father to be part of his eldest brother's betrothal gifts and money for building a new house.
At that time, he would get nothing.
So Zhu Gouwa was unwilling to contribute this pearl.
He carefully slipped into the left bedroom, found a four-inch long strip of grey cloth from his mother's round bamboo basket for mending clothes.
Then he wrapped the pearl, went to the right bedroom, to the small bed where the three brothers slept, went to the innermost part, moved his straw pillow, then pushed aside the straw underneath.
He made a small pit, put the cloth strip in, then smoothed the straw, and finally put the pillow back.
Coming outside, he took off his clothes and began to smear saliva on the wound on his right arm again, which could help the wound heal.
If his father and mother saw this wound.
Questions would certainly come, but so would a beating with bamboo shoots.
So Zhu Gouwa was very conscious, striving to eliminate the hidden danger before anyone discovered it.
After applying the saliva, Zhu Gouwa, carrying a small back basket, went into the bamboo forest to collect dry bamboo shoots and bamboo leaves.
By evening, Zhu Kaishan and the others returned from the slope.
Zhu Gouwa had also finished his chore of gathering firewood.
