But meantime he came up to Hua and asked in low voice, "Hua, it is said that a prisoner has been executed today." He is the child in a family surnamed Xia.

Many Chinese netizens are familiar with the comic version of Tong Dao Uncle: a handful of hair on the head, eyebrows and nose squeezed together, a mouth brutally coated with a circle of residue.

That version—a tall man with white hair and a small white beard on his chin, a dark blue coat and a tall hat with stars on it —was a self-portrait of Flagg.