Once upon a time, in a small and peaceful village, there lived a kind-hearted old man who enjoyed a simple life. One sunny afternoon, while gathering grass on a nearby mountain, he decided to take a break and enjoy his lunch. As he sat down and began eating a rice ball, it accidentally slipped from his hand and started tumbling down the steep hillside. He quickly jumped up and ran after it, but the rice ball rolled faster and faster until it disappeared into a large hole in the ground. Curious and a bit confused, the old man approached the hole and leaned in. To his surprise, he heard cheerful singing coming from deep inside.
Intrigued and unable to contain his curiosity, the old man carefully crawled into the hole to see where the sound was coming from. To his amazement, he found a family of mice dancing and happily munching on the rice ball he had just lost. The mice noticed him and quickly gathered around. “Is this rice ball yours?” they asked with guilty looks. “We’re sorry, it was just too delicious, and we ate it all!” The old man smiled warmly and told them not to worry. Moved by his kindness and forgiving nature, the mice decided to show their gratitude. They handed him a small bundle filled with gold coins and some freshly made rice cakes. The old man gratefully accepted their gift and returned home with a heart full of joy and a treasure he had never expected to find.
When the old man’s greedy neighbor heard about what had happened, he became jealous and immediately came up with a plan to get his own reward. The very next day, he climbed the same mountain, brought his own rice ball, and intentionally let it roll into the same hole. Eagerly, he crawled inside, expecting to be treated just like the kind old man. Sure enough, he heard the same cheerful singing of the mice. But as he entered and the mice saw him, something felt different. The mice sensed his selfish intentions and refused to offer him any gifts.
Angry that things were not going his way, the greedy man tried to scare the mice into giving him treasure. He began imitating the sound of a cat’s meow, thinking that fear would force the mice to hand over their riches. Terrified by the sound of what they thought was a real cat, the mice scattered and fled the hole, leaving the greedy man all alone in the darkness. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t find his way back out. In the end, the greedy man learned a bitter lesson: greed and dishonesty would only lead to misfortune and regret.