Sanni stuffed the handkerchief right into Yang Ruxin’s hands.
"Don’t spread the word about this," Yang Ruxin couldn’t help but caution, "If someone finds out, who knows, they might take the risk. If something happens then, it’ll be troublesome..."
"I know," Sanni nodded, "But, sister, there have been rumors before about treasures in the Xiaocang Mountain, could they be real? It’s just like the story I told you before, about the Divine Dragon’s dowry to that woman..."
Yang Ruxin laughed: "If it really were the dowry from the Cangming Divine Dragon to that woman, she would be guarding it day and night. How could these treasures have fallen out then?"
"True!" Sanni smacked her lips but quickly frowned, "But there’s always a chance for oversight, maybe this is a result of her negligence."
"You could be right, but, we’ve lived here for so many years and never seen any treasure. Even if some people believed the legends and entered the mountain, they never came out..."
Sanni’s face turned slightly pale.
"Moreover, even if there were treasures, they might tempt people, but you need the capability to retrieve them. If you risk your life for it, do you think..."
"Sister, I was just saying. I didn’t mean anything else," Sanni suddenly looked up very earnestly at Yang Ruxin, "Everyone treats these as pretty stones, after all, there are many pretty stones in the river. Previously, only Little Shuanzi mentioned it to me, no, Dabao also knows. Dabao even warned Little Shuanzi not to blab about it, otherwise others might steal it..." She stopped talking and smacked her lips, "I didn’t expect that kid to be quite clever. He had already realized these items were valuable..."
Yang Ruxin laughed. She didn’t think Zhou Xiao was being thorough, but rather that he must recognize these items, which is why he cautioned them. She had to admit, that boy had high emotional and intellectual intelligence, not a bad match for her sister.
"Alright, I’ll stop talking now. You deal with it as you see fit. I’m off to change clothes, I feel a bit stinky..." With that, Sanni stopped her fretting, looked down disdainfully at her pants whose color was no longer discernible, made a funny face at Yang Ruxin, and ran out.
Yang Ruxin smiled and shook her head, then she looked down at the stones in her hand. In fact, to test if they were crystals, one didn’t need to go to the store; simply tossing them into the space would suffice, as it had a testing function. The result was as expected—indeed, they were top-quality crystals.
Crystals had been documented a long time ago and were also used as ornaments early on. They weren’t known by the same name in ancient times; they were probably called ’yu ying’ or ’shui yu shui jing,’ but in this era, they were called ’shui yu.’
Regarding the three ’shui yu’ Sanni found, they were not large, about the size of a peanut, and oval-shaped. Supposedly, they were for inlaying in rings or hats. Each was worth around a hundred taels. At present, these ornaments were very fashionable in the circle of unmarried noblewomen in Beijing because crystal symbolized a woman’s softness like water, purity like jade, making those sheltered girls fond of obtaining one or two such pieces of jewelry. Of course, there were also the wealthiest households who would use crystals for things like a cooling mat or bead curtains.
Yang Ruxin couldn’t help but think about the local geography. The section of the river behind Xiaobudong Village was where the Xiaocang River flowed out from the mountains and became calmer, then it wound between the two villages before flowing around Dapu East Village for a large half-circle, and finally re-entered Xiaocang Mountain. After traversing Xiaocang Mountain, it merged with the Cangjiang on the outside, and then flowed into the sea.