At last he found a woman, a very, very old woman, who told him that when she was a tiny girl she remembered her grandmother saying how, when she was a tiny girl, a poor young man had been spirited away by the Genii of the mountains, on the day of the Feast of Lanterns, leaving his wife and little children with only a few handfuls of rice in the house.
"Moreover, if you wait while the procession passes, you will see two children dressed to represent Han Chung and Ho-Seen-Ko, and their mother, carrying the empty rice bowl, between them; for this is done every year to remind people to take care of the widow and fatherless," she said.
So Wang Chih waited in the street; and in a little while the procession came to an end; and the last three figures in it were a boy and girl, dressed like his own two children, walking on either side of a young woman carrying a rice bowl. But she was not like his wife in anything but her dress, and the children were not at all like Han Chung and Ho-Seen-Ko; and poor Wang Chih's heart was very heavy as he walked away out of the town.
He slept out on the mountain, and early in the morning found his way back to the cave where the two old men were playing chess.
At first they said they could do nothing for him, and told him to go away and not disturb them; but Wang Chih would not go, and they soon found the only way to get rid of him was to give him some really good advice.
"You must go to the White Hare of the Moon, and ask him for a bottle of the elixir of life. If you drink that you will live for ever," said one of them.
"But I don't want to live for ever," objected Wang Chih; "I wish to go back and live in the days when my wife and children were here."
"Ah, well! For that you must mix the elixir of life with some water out of the Sky-Dragon's mouth."
"And where is the Sky-Dragon to be found?" inquired Wang Chih.
"In the sky, of course. You really ask very stupid questions. He lives in a cloud-cave. And when he comes out of it he breathes fire, and sometimes water. If he is breathing fire, you will be burnt up, but if it is only water, you will easily be able to catch some in a bottle. What else do you want?"