Once upon a time there was a king who was famous for his wisdom. He knew nothing about the world, and it seemed that even the secrets could be heard in his ears. However, the king had a strange habit: after dinner every day, the table was cleaned up and everyone else had left, a loyal servant would bring him another dish. However, the dish was covered with a lid, and no one knew what was inside, and even the servant didn't know, because the king had to wait until he was left alone in the room before he could lift the lid to eat.

This situation lasted for a long time, and finally one day, the servant who served the bowl could no longer restrain his curiosity and brought the dish into his room. He carefully locked the door, opened the lid, and saw that the dish on the plate was a white snake. After seeing it, he couldn't help but want to taste it, so he cut a small piece with a knife and put it into his mouth. As soon as the snake meat touched his tongue, he heard some strange little voices outside the window whispering. He walked to the window and listened carefully, and it turned out that it was a group of sparrows chatting, talking to each other about what they saw and heard in the fields and forests. After eating the snake meat, he could now understand the animal language!

It was a coincidence that on this day, the queen's most beautiful ring disappeared. Because the attendant could go anywhere, the suspect of stealing the ring fell on him. The king called him and cursed him and threatened that if he could not tell who the thief was the next morning, he would be convicted of being a thief and executed. The attendant repeatedly declared that he was innocent, but it was useless, and the king would not change his mind.

The attendant was both worried and scared, so he walked into the yard to think about how to get rid of his bad luck. A few ducks sat quietly beside the stream in the yard, combing their feathers with their beaks while whispering. The attendant stood by and listened. They talked about where they had been to the morning and what good things they had found to eat.

One of the ducks complained: "I had something heavy in my stomach. I was rushing when I was eating, but I swallowed a ring under the queen's window into my stomach."

The servant immediately grabbed the duck's neck, took it to the kitchen, and said to the chef: "Give you a fat duck. Please slaughter it."

"Okay," said the chef, weighing the duck with his hands, "This guy is trying hard to eat himself fat, and has been waiting to go into the oven." The chef said and chopped off the duck's head. While digging the duck's internal organs, the queen's ring was inside.

The attendant easily proved his innocence. The king felt that he should not be wronged by him like that, so he wanted to make some compensation, so he allowed him to make a request, and agreed that as long as he spoke, he could give him the best position in the palace. However, the attendant refused all this and only asked him to give him a horse and some travel expenses, so that he could go out and see the outside world. The king agreed to his request, and he set out on the way.

One day, he came to a pond and saw three fish in the pond entangled with reeds, and his mouth was opened and he wanted to drink water. Although people often said that fish were mute, he heard them sighing for their tragic death. He was kind, got off the horse and put the three fish back into the water. The fish was very happy, poked their heads out of the water, and shouted at him: "We will remember you and will repay your life-saving grace."

He rode his horse and continued to walk forward. After a while, he felt as if he heard something in the sand under his feet. After listening for a while, he heard an ant king complaining: "Why don't those humans riding stupid animals stay away from us? How many of us have been killed by the heavy hooves of this stupid horse!" So he quickly took the horse to the path next to him. The ant king shouted to him: "We will remember you. Good intentions will naturally be rewarded!"

This path led him into a forest. He saw two old crows standing by the nest and throwing little crows out. "You lazy and useless things! Let me go out!" The old crows cursed, "We can never raise you anymore. You have grown up so old, you should support yourself." But the little crows lie on the ground one by one, flapping their wings and shouting: "We are so pitiful! No one can help us. We want us to support ourselves, but we can't even fly! Apart from lying here and starving to death, what other ways do we have?" The kind young man jumped off the horse's back, pulled out his sword and killed the horse, leaving it to the little crow as food. The little crows jumped over immediately, and shouted while eating, "We will remember you. Good intentions will naturally be rewarded!"

He can only walk on his legs now. After walking for a long time, he came to a big city. A group of people were chattering around the streets, and one of them rode on the horse and shouted loudly: "The princess chooses a husband, but the suitor must complete a difficult task. If he fails to complete it, he will have to sacrifice his life." Many people have tried it, but they just sacrificed their lives in vain. When we saw the princess, we were fascinated by her beauty. He forgot about the danger and went to the king to propose.

He was taken to the beach, and a ring was thrown into the sea in front of him. The king ordered him to fish the ring from the bottom of the sea, and said, "If you can't catch it, we will push you back into the sea until the waves swallow you up." Everyone felt sorry for the handsome young man, and they all left quietly, leaving him alone by the sea.

He stood by the sea, thinking about what to do. Suddenly, he saw three fish swimming towards him, and it was the three fish he had saved. The fish in the middle held a shell, swam to the shore and spit it at the foot of the young man. He picked up the shell and opened it and saw the golden ring inside. He excitedly took the ring to see the king, thinking that the king would definitely give him the promised reward.

However, when the proud princess learned that he was from a humble background, she looked down on him very much and asked him to complete the second task first. She walked to the garden, sprinkled ten bags of millet on the grass with her own hands, and said, "Before sunrise tomorrow, you must pick up all of these, and no one can be missing!"

The young man sat in the garden, thinking about how to complete the task. But he didn't think of anything and had to sit there sadly, waiting for the dawn to be taken to death. Unexpectedly, when the first ray of sunshine shone into the garden, he saw that the ten bags of millet were already lined up beside him, and there were not a single grain. It turned out that the ant king came here at night with thousands of ants. These little animals who were grateful to the grace picked up all the millet and put them in a bag.

After a while, the princess came to the garden in person and saw that the young man had completed the task assigned to him. She couldn't help but feel extremely surprised. But her arrogant heart had not been conquered yet, so she said: "Although he has completed two tasks, I still cannot marry him unless he can pick an apple from the tree of life."

The young man had no idea where the tree of life grew, but he still came out and was ready to search until he couldn't walk. However, he didn't have much hope. He searched all three kingdoms and came to a forest one day. He was lying under a tree and was about to go to bed when he suddenly heard a rustling sound on the branches, and a golden apple fell into his hand! At the same time, the three crows flew down and landed on his knees, saying, "We are the three crows you saved. After we grew up, we heard that you were looking for the golden apples, so we flew across the sea and reached the end of the world where the tree of life grew, and picked the apples for you."
Chapter completed!