w.a.n.g Dahu was too excited to sleep that night. Early the next day, he couldn’t wait and ran to Li Qingran’s house.
Carefully closed the door and windows, he took out the rock shaped like a crescent moon and put it on the floor, his right hand held a small hammer and started to pound gently. He tapped extremely cautiously. Every few hits he would stop slightly, as if he had the contradictory feeling of wanting to break it but scared of crus.h.i.+ng it. He tapped about a dozen times! They heard the sound of “kacha, kacha”, some small cracks and fine powder appeared on the stone. You could vaguely see a different white color on the inside, as if the thick outer layer of rock wrapped around something else.
w.a.n.g Dahu saw it and his eyes shone even brighter, his hand became even more careful. Li Qingran stood beside him, watching with the same dedication.
“It’s out!” Ten minutes later, w.a.n.g Dahu excitedly held something in the palm of his hand, happily hollering.
Li Qingran leaned his head in, only seeing that what was in w.a.n.g Dahu’s hand wasn’t a normal rock but something exquisitely beautiful.
“Brother Dahu, what is this?”
w.a.n.g Dahu laughed mysteriously, “You wouldn’t know! This is called a stone dragon, the ancient royal family used it as offerings. It’s worth a lot of money. Our future depends on this!” That object had the body of a full moon, a dragon head was carved at the front and a slender tail coiled around the bottom. It was a timeless white, unlike any other kind of jade. Although it was unknown what this was made out of, it was easy to tell at a glance that this was a valuable treasure.
w.a.n.g Dahu rubbed his chubby hands and roughly groped the stone dragon, in his eyes, there was only￥_￥.
“Brother Dahu, how did you know that there was this kind of thing in the rock?” Li Qingran was obviously “calmer” than w.a.n.g Dahu, because he didn’t know the worth of this treasure. w.a.n.g Dahu heard this and chuckled. Naturally, there was a reason he knew about the treasure in the rock. This matter had to do with his “previous life”. At that time, there was a grand hotel opening in the district. The hotel bought a bonsai that had the words “Eternal riches, full garden, wealth from eight directions” carved onto the basin from “Jadeware”, and the person in charge of delivery was w.a.n.g Dahu’s father. No one expected that a year later, when the hotel owner’s seven year old son was playing with the bonsai, somehow the stone ornaments fell one by one to the ground. That fall broke open the crescent shaped rock, revealing the treasure inside. An expert firmly believed that it was a dragon patterned stone from the Shang Dynasty over three thousand years ago. Finally, they heard that the hotel owner closed his business and sold the stone for approximately ten million yuan. This matter was a huge sensation in Nanhua County, everyone knew about it. Dahu’s mother, Zhang Fang, talked about it for a long time. It would be great if w.a.n.g Guangzong knew that there was a treasure ahead of time and stole one of the rocks while no one was paying attention.
At that time, w.a.n.g Dahu was still very young, but his mother kept bringing up that subject, so it was ingrained in his mind.
After being reborn, how could he let the opportunity that he saw in the future slip by?
“Ran Ran.” Suddenly, w.a.n.g Dahu’s face grew serious. He said, “You can’t tell anyone about this thing, or else both of us will get into big trouble, understand?”
Li Qingran was surprised for a moment, then nodded firmly and whispered, “I will not tell a soul!”
Although the treasure was good, but considering w.a.n.g Dahu’s age, it was inconvenient to sell immediately. They could only leave it for later, and carefully hide it away for now. w.a.n.g Dahu’s excitement also completely subsided. After all, to him, in this world, no treasure could compare to Li Qingran. Whether it was wealth or power, it was only used to secure a peaceful life for the two of them in the future! How could w.a.n.g Dahu do something like forsaking the roots for the branches?
After this incident, their lives returned to normal.
Compared to the lazy w.a.n.g Dahu, Li Qingran was an incredibly self-disciplined and hardworking child. No! It should be said that he was too hardworking. Every morning, at five o’clock, he would wake up punctually and go to the fields or the side of the road to cut two bundles of gra.s.s still drenched in dew, bring it home, cut it up, and mix it with bran to make feed for the chickens and ducks in the courtyard. After that, he would begin to sweep and clean the house, sometimes rubbing everything down from the inside to the outside until it was spotless before he was willing to rest. He even started a small garden in the back yard, splitting it into four or five plots. He planted some cabbages, potatoes, eggplants and other things. Every day he carefully tended to them with all his heart. After finis.h.i.+ng these tasks, he still wasn’t satisfied. He accepted work from some unknown auntie in the village. They gave him a pattern and he sewed a sweater, one dollar for each. Every day, he sewed until one or two in the morning before finally resting.
w.a.n.g Dahu watched the other boy endure a life of suffering and was both angry and distressed.
He coaxed and scolded, but each time Li Qingran tightly bit his lips and looked at him stubbornly. w.a.n.g Dahu was defeated.
Since he couldn’t stop the other boy from harming himself, w.a.n.g Dahu could only try his best to share his burden.
Fortunately, they now ate three meals a day at w.a.n.g Dahu’s grandparent’s house. He also forced Li Qingran to eat an egg and to drink a gla.s.s of milk every day. Therefore, compared to before, Li Qingran was no longer as thin. In fact, he had slightly grown some meat. This was the only point that could comfort w.a.n.g Dahu.
“Grandma, these are some of the vegetables I’ve grown.” Li Qingran pa.s.sed over the basket of vegetables in his hand, “You and grandpa try it!”
“This child! Every time he comes he has to bring something!” Dahu’s grandma smiled and rubbed his head, “Grandma doesn’t lack these. It wasn’t easy for you to grow these, keep these and eat them yourself!”
“Right, right.” w.a.n.g Dahu pouted nearby, he muttered accusingly, “After all, we’re all one big family, you’re acting like an outsider!”
Li Qingran pursed his lips, but he didn’t take back the basket that was handed to him.
The old woman sighed, she accepted the basket and praised the quality of the vegetables. Li Qingran listened to her and a hint of a smile appeared on his small face.
After eating, w.a.n.g Dahu walked the other boy home.
Grandpa saw them and suddenly informed them that Hei Bei was pregnant, it would give birth in a few days. At that time, he would let Li Qingran choose one, in the future it could help guard his house. w.a.n.g Dahu listened and vigorously agreed. Their family’s Hei Bei had a bad temper, aside from its master, it would bite anyone it saw. Its child would probably be the same. Dogs grew quickly, after a few months it would be big and strong. With it to guard the yard, w.a.n.g Dahu could rest a.s.sured.
Sure enough, a few days later, a litter of puppies was born.
There was a total of four, w.a.n.g Dahu finally decided on a little black puppy that looked the most spirited. He hid it in his arms and ran to Li Qingran’s house.
Seeing the puppy, Li Qingran’s eyes instantly lit up. He petted all over it, obviously pleased.
The two people started coming up with names for the puppy. w.a.n.g Dahu’s suggestion of “Alexander” was shot down by Li Qingran using the reason that it was too weird!
“Why don’t we call it Fortune?” This was a cla.s.sic enough name.
He didn’t expect that as soon as he finished speaking, Li Qingran would throw him a look that seemed to say “you’re always thinking about money!”
“Then you think of something!”
“Alright, let’s call it Little Black!”
w.a.n.g Dahu: “… That really is the best name for a dog!”
Although Little Black was small, its character was just as w.a.n.g Dahu predicted, very overbearing. In the first few days after it was born, it was still weak, but soon it became lively. It liked following behind Li Qingran the most. At night, when Li Qingran was sewing sweaters, it would curl up next to his feet. Incidentally, the person Little Black hated the most was w.a.n.g Dahu. Every time it saw him, it either bared its fangs or its hair stood on end as it barked, often making him angry.
Time flowed on by, following these kinds of leisurely mundane events.
Very quickly, the autumn of September came. The only elementary school in Xing Ye village was about to start.
The two children were led by w.a.n.g Shoumin through the admission procedures. Compared to w.a.n.g Dahu, who was bored to death, Li Qingran was very excited. Even the eyes that were usually listless were now emitting a few eager sparks. This year, twenty four children were enrolled in the school. The oldest was ten years old, the youngest were around Li Qingran’s age, about seven.
w.a.n.g Dahu noticed that there were a few familiar faces. It was Sun Dazhuang group, the ones that formerly bullied Li Qingran and were beaten black and blue by him. Seeing w.a.n.g Dahu standing nearby, glaring at them with folded arms, the children slowly shrank back and drilled into the crowd of people.
The first day, they didn’t go to cla.s.s. The children met the cla.s.s teacher. It was a female teacher surnamed Zhao, who was more than thirty years old and wore a pair of gla.s.ses that made her look serious. Bla bla bla, she went over the rules and the school motto, then a.s.signed seats based on height. When lining up, w.a.n.g Dahu cleverly hunched over, successfully being placed next to Li Qingran. At noon, the school let them out. The two people held the distributed schedules under their books and went directly home.
At this time, w.a.n.g Dahu and Li Qingran proudly became primary school students, starting a new life of learning.
One month later, when w.a.n.g Dahu had finally adapted to the daily life of learning horizontal strokes, vertical strokes, light strokes and hard strokes[1], the phonetics of a, o, e, i, u, v, and 1+1=2, 2+1=3, w.a.n.g Dahu’s mother, Zhang Fang, finally gave birth to her second child.
Not surprisingly, it was a boy. w.a.n.g Dahu’s father personally namedー w.a.n.g Xiaohu.
The two old people heard that they had another grandson, they grinned so hard that their eyebrows flew up, and wanted to see him immediately. Naturally, w.a.n.g Dahu had to go with them, so he asked for a week off from school. Three people happily rushed into town.
Translator’s Notes:
What the heck was up with the giant exposition paragraphs in this chapter?! *wheezes* I’m going to give more attention to White Lotus for a while. I’ll try to update ROLYA once a week.
[1]Chinese Calligraphy Stroke Order:
Horizontal Stroke: 横（一）
Vertical Stroke: 竖（丨）
Light Stroke: 撇（丿）
Hard Stroke: 捺（㇏）
Point Stroke: 点（丶）