• Child splits mother’s gold necklace into small pieces
• He distributes them to classmates at school

An eight-year-old boy in China sparked widespread online discussion after cutting his mother’s gold necklace into small pieces and giving them to his classmates as “friendship gifts.”

A local newspaper reported that the incident was only discovered a month later, when the boy’s sister and mother were informed that one of his classmates said they had received a piece of gold from him.

When asked, the mother, named Sun, heard the boy admit that the pieces came from her necklace.

After an extensive review of surveillance footage, it was revealed that the boy opened his mother’s drawer and took a gold necklace her husband had bought as a wedding keepsake, attempted to cut it with pliers, burned it with a lighter, and eventually bit it to break it into small pieces.

The boy said he did not remember how many classmates received the gold pieces or where he left the remainder.

The parents were only able to recover a small portion of the necklace, weighing about 8 grams, with an estimated value of roughly 1,200 yuan per gram (about $170).

The mother said she felt both shock and anger at the same time. The father did not punish his son physically after the confession, which a lawyer from Hubei province said was in line with China’s Minor Protection Law, noting that children at age eight have limited civil capacity and can only be held accountable under parental supervision and consent.

The story went viral online, with one user sarcastically commenting: “They need to raise him properly, or he’ll sell the house in the future.”