The Sea Lion and the Fish

There are hidden reefs, born in the blind sea, and none of the world's wonders can compare. Accounts tell of palaces within, so vast and magnificent they resemble a divine court. They are called the Strange Abode.

Inside stand eighty-one pillars adorned with pearls, and a hundred qing of tiled floors made of precious stones. Its successive lords have kept as many as a thousand people of the sea as slaves. Though many long to visit, it lies in a perilous and distant place beyond the reach of ordinary people.

In a village lived a fisherman whose young son was mentally disabled. He kept a stray dog and slept in an old boat, unable to return home. Yesterday, he dreamed that an immortal showed him the way, saying that a fish-person lived in a dwelling on the hidden reefs and wished to be his friend. The young man had been lonely since childhood. Delighted to hear this, he took his stray dog and sailed out to sea in the old boat...