The Lake of Gems lay on the other side of Mount Sumi, and was a beautiful sheet of water, flashing all the colours of the rainbow.
Pei-Hang could not take his eyes off it. He forgot all about the pestle and mortar as he watched the waves rippling along the shore, and leaving behind them diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and pearls in thousands.
Every pebble on the margin of the lake was a precious stone, and Pei-Hang wanted to go down and fill his pockets with them.
He stood there while the Geni who had been his guide explained to the others why he had come, and told them about the wonderful red and white seeds he carried about with him.
"We must let him have the pestle and mortar," he said, "or he won't give us our rivers back again." The eight Genii nodded their eight heads, and spoke all at once, with a noise which was like the rumble of thunder among the hills. "Let him take it, if he can carry it," they said.
And they laughed until the snow-peaks shook beneath them; for the mortar made of jade was six feet high and four feet wide and the pestle was so heavy no mortal could lift it.
Pei-Hang, when he had finished staring at the Lake of Gems, walked round it, and wondered how he was to carry it down the mountain and across the plains to Chang-ngan.
Then he sat down on the ground to think the matter over, and the Genii, even his own good-natured Geni, laughed at him again.
"Come!" they said. "If you like to fill the mortar with precious stones, you may do it. Any man who can carry it empty can carry it full."
"Because no one can carry it at all," concluded the good-natured Geni, softly to himself.