A long, long time ago, a young girl lived alone with her mother in a small village. Unfortunately, the mother had been suffering from an illness for a long time and she lay sick in bed most of the time. As she couldn’t work outside, the daughter had to support her sick mother and herself, which was far from easy for the little girl. But the tenderhearted girl never complained and took good care of her mother. To cure her mother’s illness, she visited all the famous doctors and gave all sorts of medicine to her mother, but nothing seemed to work. The illness lingered on and on, and the mother became weaker and weaker. The girl found it very difficult to support and look after her mother, but she believed her mother would get well some day. She was determined to endure any difficulties until that day.

One day, the mother told her daughter about a dream she had the previous night. “Honey, I had a very strange dream last night. The mountain god appeared and told me that I could recover from my illness if I eat a carp.” Hearing this, the daughter perked up. She thought she should catch the fish right away. But the mother said, “Even if that is true, how and where can we get a carp in the dead of winter? Rivers and streams are all frozen now. It was a silly dream. Just forget about it.”

The next day, the girl went outside to find a carp. For some reason, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she would be able to get the fish somehow. While she was wandering in the mountains and valleys covered with snow, she bumped into a small dog. She thought it was strange for a dog to live deep in the mountains but she was glad to see the animal anyway after roaming over the mountains alone. She stroked the dog’s head and said, “What a cute dog! What are you doing here? Don’t you have a home?” The dog began to move, looking back at her, as though telling her to follow. So, the girl walked behind the dog.

In a short time, they arrived at a wide pond, which was frozen solid. The girl started to hack away at the ice to make a hole. Just as if the dog was waiting for this to happen, it jumped into the hole. In a moment, the dog came out of the water. To the girl’s surprise, the dog was holding a big carp in its mouth. She shouted for joy, “Good boy! You caught a carp. Thank you, dog.”

She put the carp in a basket and came down the mountain to return home, with the dog following her. When she reached her home, the dog suddenly disappeared like a puff of smoke. Stunned, the girl looked around and found an old man instead. The old man spoke in a soft voice, “Little girl, don’t be surprised. I’m a mountain god. I was impressed by your great devotion to your mother and I’m giving you the carp as a gift. Let your mother eat this carp. It will make her get better” With these words, the mountain god vanished like mist.

Only then did the girl realize that the mountain god had been with her in the form of a dog all the while. She thanked the mountain god from the bottom of her heart. She lost no time in boiling the carp to make a broth. After the mother ate the carp broth, she was miraculously healed of her illness and became healthy again. It is needless to say that the girl’s heart was filled with joy and happiness. Indeed, she had taken great care of her ailing mother in the face of many difficulties, and a good deed never goes unrewarded.