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 on making the alien a roving researcher for a "wholly remarkable book" named "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". As the first radio episode's writing progressed, the "Guide" became the centre of his story, and he decided to focus the series on it, with the destruction of Earth being the only hold-over. Adams claimed that the title came from a 1971 incident while he was hitchhiking around Europe as a young man with a copy of the "Hitch-hiker's Guide to Europe" book: while lying drunk in a field near Innsbruck with a copy of the book and looking up at