During the great drought the peasant and his daughter took to climbing on to the heights, looking for food and anything else they could sell in the market. One day when her father was ill, the girl went alone and found a beautiful clear lake high among the hills. As she rested overlooking the lake she thought how sad it was that so much water should be locked up there when it could water all the fields of her village and save her father from these climbs into the hills that were proving too much for him. She made a song of these thoughts and a wild goose that was passing by landed and told her that there was indeed a golden key that could release the waters to flow down into her valley; but that it belonged to the Dragon King of the South who guarded it closely among his treasures. But, the goose continued, if she could befriend the third daughter of the king, she might get help that way, and that the princess loved nothing better than beautiful singing.

Now the peasant girl had no idea where the Dragon King’s daughter might be found, but she journeyed south, asking along the way and singing all the while, until one day a strange young woman appeared who could not hear enough of her songs. They became friends and it turned out that the stranger was indeed the Dragon King’s daughter who had secretly slipped away from her father’s palace to learn new songs. The peasant girl told her story and the princess agreed to help her. Together they went to the Dragon King’s palace under the sea. They stood outside the treasury and sang together until the guardian came to listen. Then the peasant girl slipped into the treasury and hunted among the pearls and opals and other precious things until, in a wooded box which she knocked over by accident, she at last found the golden key.

Together they returned to the lake and unlocked the waters to flow down to the valley. Where they threatened to flood, the princess raised fences of straw, which it is said can still be seen today although they have turned to stone, and the drought was lifted. The Dragon King of the South was furious when he learned what had happened, and banned his daughter from ever returning home. But she stayed with her new friend near Horse Ear Mountain where they became famous singers, and their deed is still celebrated today by the local women with a festival of song in the third week of the seventh month.