Chapter 1 Stone
Cluck! Cuck!
In the deep winter, everything is silent, but the sound of stepping on the snow is particularly loud at this moment.
Walking on the white snow was a teenager in tattered clothes. He was about eleven or twelve years old, and his face was a little pale and seemed to be sick, but his walking figure was dexterous, not like a sick person at all.
After a few steps, the teenager tightened his obviously large rags, rubbed his hands, and looked back at the small mountain village more than two miles away from him.
Although most parts of the world are plagued by wars and vassals, this small mountain village not far from Yancheng is very peaceful because of its remote location.
Looking at the smoke rising in the small mountain village, the teenager licked his dry lips and said to himself, "That place is so secret that no one should have been there!"
He tightened his tight clothes again, and the teenager turned his head and walked forward.
Maybe he is worried about something. The teenager is moving much faster than before.
After walking for more than two miles, the teenager looked at the white snow in front of him that had not been trampled on, breathed a sigh of relief and said secretly, "Since no one has passed here, it means that no one has been to that place after the snow fell."
Walking forward less than fifty feet on the snow that no one had walked, the teenager came to a frozen river.
The river was covered with gravel covered with thin ice on the surface, but the seemingly sick teenager walked quickly along the river without falling down once.
After walking nearly 200 feet upstream along the river, the teenager came to a short earth bridge.
Although the earth bridge was built when there was a lot of rain in summer and autumn, it looks good now because few people walk.
Although he had come to the place where he was going to come, the teenager still took two steps, walked into the freeze-dried river and came to the earth bridge.
After picking up a slender stone in the river, the teenager took the stone and knocked on the ice under the bridge hole.
The teenager knocked very lightly. When there was a click, the ice cracked. The teenager put down the stone and carefully broke off the broken ice with a pair of thin hands and threw it behind him.
After cleaning up the broken ice, the teenager then began to knock on the second layer of ice.
This stream is not big, and there are only a few layers of ice produced after the stream is freeze-dried.
After cleaning up several layers of ice that were not thick, the teenager's face couldn't help showing disappointment.
Although there was a look of disappointment on his face, the teenager did not give up.
After the cat jumped to the place he had cleaned up, the teenager began to clean up the ice in other places under the bridge hole.
The teenager's movements were not slow, but because he carefully threw the cleaned ice out of the bridge hole, he did not clean up the ice quickly.
It took nearly half an hour for the teenager to clean up the position of the right pier.
After throwing away the ice cubes stained with mud and sand, the three crucian carp that were frozen to death or dried to death appeared in the eyes of the teenager.
The three crucian carp are two big and one small, and the largest one is half a foot long.
With an excited smile on his face, the teenager grabbed the three crucian carp in his hand at a very fast speed, as if he slowed down and the three crucian carp would disappear.
After grabbing the three crucian carp, the teenager looked around like a thief, and then took out a small cloth bag made of rags from his arms and put the three crucian carp.
After loading the three crucian carp, the teenager didn't care how cold the three crucian carp that had been dead for a long time, carefully put the small cloth bag in his arms.
After collecting the small cloth bag, the teenager then cleaned up the ice at the edge of the bridge pier.
Perhaps because the temperature at the edge of the pier is slightly higher than that of the other parts of the bridge hole. After the teenager got five crucian carp and seven small black carp at the right pier, he got two small crucian carp and three slightly larger black silver carp and eight small black carp slightly longer than the teenager's fingers at the pier on the left pier.
Before he came to this bridge cave, the teenager did not have much illusion, but after a lot of harvest, he was a little greedy.
"If I can get a few more, my sister won't have to eat grass roots with me during the Spring Festival."
The teenager has no expectations for the Spring Festival, but he wants his sister to eat a little better during the Spring Festival.
After searching under the bridge hole for a while, the teenager sighed and was ready to leave here.
Just as the teenager's figure was about to get out of the bridge hole, a stone that looked like a small gourd appeared in his eyes.
This small gourd-like stone is only the size of a thumb. If it hadn't been frozen in the ice, the teenager wouldn't have noticed it at all.
"This stone really looks like a little gourd!"
The teenager bent down, picked up a stone casually, tapped a few times on the stone like a small gourd, and picked up the gourd-like stone with a little broken ice.
From a distance, this gourd-like stone is white, but if you look closely, you can see that there are a lot of brown and black stripes on the stone.
If it weren't for its special shape, teenagers could find many similar stones nearby.
Gently brushed off the broken ice on the stone. The teenager clenched the stone in the palm of his hand, drilled out of the bridge hole, and returned along the way.
Cluck! Cuck!
With the lonely sound of stepping on the snow, the teenager returned to the small mountain village along the way.
At this time, the sky was already a little gray. As the teenager walked on the edge of the mountain village, he could only hear a few dog barking, but he could hear anyone's movement.
Along the road on the edge of the small mountain village, the teenager came to a dilapidated temple.
I don't know whether this small temple used to worship the mountain god or the rain god. Now this broken temple is just the residence where he and his sister depend on each other.
Before the teenager walked to the gate of the temple, a thin figure rushed out of the temple.
"Brother!"
With a cheerful and childish cry, the thin figure came to the teenager.
This thin figure is a little girl about seven or eight years old, with an unhealthy wax yellow on her face, but her eyebrows are beautiful.
After stretching out a pair of small hands from the long sleeves that seemed to mop the floor, the little girl grabbed the teenager's skirt and shouted happily, "Brother!"
The teenager reached out and patted the little girl's head and whispered, "It's so cold outside. What dare you come out? Come back with me!"
With that, the teenager put his hand down from the little girl's head, took the little girl's hand, and walked towards the broken temple.
There are no statues in the broken temple, only two beds, one large and one small, a table without one leg, two chairs without backrests, and a broken black pot hanging.
There is a faint fire under the black pot and some dry firewood on the side.
After closing the complete temple door, the teenager pulled the little girl to the black pot.
After loosening the little girl's right hand, the teenager waved his left hand in front of the little girl, let go of his clenched hand, and showed the gourd-like stone in front of the little girl.
In the dim light, the small stone in the teenager's hand is like a small white gourd.
The little girl took the warm little stone that had been held by the teenager from the teenager's hand, held it in her hand with a happy face and observed it carefully for a while. She looked up at the young voice and asked, "Brother, is this for Little Nicole?"
The teenager took out the small cloth bag containing fish from his arms and whispered, "If I don't give it to you, who else can my brother give it to? Do you like it?"
"I like it! Thank you, brother!"
Even if this small stone is shaped like a small gourd, this stone is still an ordinary stone.
However, in Little Nicole's eyes, this stone is more precious than anything else.
When the teenager removed a few bricks under the big bed and put the small cloth bag containing the fish in it, Little Nicole took off a piece of water-shaped white jade threaded by silver thin thread from her neck.
Untie the knot of the silver thin thread, Little Nicole took off the water-shaped white jade, and then carefully tied up the gourd-shaped stone.
After tying the small stone, Little Nicole reconnected the thread and hung it around her neck.
After doing all this, Little Nier ran to the teenager who was making a fire with dry firewood and said ostentatiously, "Brother, look!"
The teenager looked up and saw that little girl was shaking the gourd-like stone with a thin silver thread.
Seeing that Little Nicole was happy, the teenager smiled, and then suddenly remembered the water-shaped jade originally tied by silver thin thread.
Although the teenager didn't understand many things, he knew that the drop-shaped stone was a precious jade, and he also guessed that the drop-shaped jade was very important to Little Nicole.
Seeing that the jade on the silver line was missing, the teenager quickly asked, "Little Nicole, where's your jade?"
Seeing that the teenager did not praise herself but asked about the jade, she said unhappily, "I put it on the table."
The teenager put down the dry firewood in his hand, walked to the table, picked up the water drop-shaped jade emitting soft white light, turned around and said to the little girl behind him, "Little girl, didn't I tell you that this jade is very important? Why did you untie it casually?"
Little Nicole replied with an unhappy face, "I want a rope to tie the little gourd my brother gave me. Of course, I have to untie it."
Hearing this, the teenager shook his head gently, untied the black string tied to his wrist, passed through the small hole in the jade, knotted the two ropes, and then hung them on Xiao Nier's neck.
Little Nier dodged slightly and let the teenager hang the jade around his neck.
Although she did not resist the action of the teenager hanging the jade around her neck, after the teenager hung the jade around her neck, Xiao Nier kept twisting her neck and looked very uncomfortable.
Seeing that Little Nicole pouted and gently shook her little head, the teenager smiled and then went to the tattered black pot to make a fire.
Although he got some fish, because there was dry vegetable soup in the black pot that they had not eaten in the morning, the teenager just heated the dried vegetable soup in the black pot for dinner.
Of course, you can't eat dry vegetable soup alone, but the dinner of the teenager and Xiao Nier is just the dried vegetable soup.
After drinking the dry vegetable soup, the teenager coaxed Xiao Nier to fall asleep, but the teenager couldn't sleep.
The teenager's mind is simple, and he won't have too much sadness. He can't sleep just because he is too hungry.
Although he was too hungry to stand it, the teenager did not dare to turn over his body for fear of waking up the little girl in his arms.
At the third update, the teenager may be too sleepy and a little sleepy in a daze.
At this moment, the little girl in the teenager's arms suddenly shouted, "Brother Stone! Brother Stone!"
The little girl's name is Little Nicole, and the teenager's name is Stone. Perhaps, Little Nicole likes the little stone given to him by the teenager so much because the teenager's name is Stone.
Little Nicole shouted twice and fell asleep, but the sleepiness that had just appeared in the stone disappeared.
Fee that Xiao Nier trembled twice. The stone hugged Xiao Nier's arms slightly, and he couldn't help recalling the scene when he saw Xiao Nier for the first time.