The Silver River lute). The story is based on a 4,000-year-old Chinese folktale about the creation of Night and Day, a story of star-crossed lovers. "The Silver River" is the Chinese name for what is known in the West as the "Milky Way", the galaxy of the solar system. In Chinese tradition, the Silver River bathed heaven and earth in constant light and connected both realms, allowing earthly and celestial creatures to meet. The Jade Emperor, Lord of Heaven, dreams of a chaos that plunges heaven and earth into darkness. His nightmare comes true when the mortal Cowherd (also known as Buffalo Boy
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (novel) created Earth as an even greater computer to calculate the question to which 42 is the answer. Trillian's mice, actually part of the group of sentient and hyper-intelligent superbeings that had Earth created in the first place, reject the idea of building a second Earth to redo the process, and offer to buy Arthur's brain in the hope that it contains the question, leading to a fight when he declines. Zaphod saves Arthur when the brain is about to be removed, and the group decides to go to The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. "The Illustrated Hitchhiker's Guide