Circumambulating the mountains or circling the lakes is a unique form of devotion intrinsic to life on this special plateau, a manifestation of nature worship where all things possess a spirit, directly stemming from the primitive religious concepts of the Tibetan people. The conventional practice divides into two types. The most common involves simply walking. The other, a more devout method, requires placing one's hands into wooden boards, raising them above the head, then bringing them to the chest before falling forward completely, forehead touching the ground—the kumbhaka prostration—using one's own body to measure the perimeter of the sacred mountain or holy lake inch by painful inch. Each circuit reduces sin and accumulates merit. Should one perish along the path of circumambulation, it is considered a great fortune.

The actions of the Iron Rod Lama did not resemble lake circumambulation; instead, they reminded me of the spirit mediums in Northeast China. Having done my time in Inner Mongolia, I had witnessed confrontations with spirit mediums and shamans there. Was he perhaps engaged in some sort of exorcism ritual? Yet, what evil spirits could possibly infest this sacred ground? With this thought, I quickened my pace and moved toward him.

The Iron Rod Lama recognized me as well, halting his strange movements and approaching to meet me. Over a decade had passed since our last meeting, and the Lama seemed unchanged, save that his robes were even more threadbare. I spoke to him of the condition of my two comrades, and the Lama sighed with emotion: "Those who have trespassed upon the tomb of demons have already been blessed by the Buddha merely to survive. I pray that in the time I have left, I may accumulate enough merit by the lakeside to intercede for them."

The Lama had never left Lake Lhamo La-tso over these years, spending his days chanting sutras and circling the lake. His sustenance came entirely from the alms given by pilgrims who came to worship at the shore. Indeed, those pilgrims who had traversed the long road of devotion also received alms along the way, and offering charity to a holy man was itself a means of accumulating merit.

I asked the Lama what he had been doing just moments before. The Iron Rod Lama recounted his experience: he had been performing a divination for the Medicine Buddha. Two poachers from the interior had been hunting nearby in Nago-gyeche, but they were novices. After waiting five days, they had seen no significant game. Finally, they spotted a small beast they had never seen before, immediately shot and killed it, and, while the meat was fresh, skinned and cooked it.

Immediately after eating, both poachers were rolling on the ground in agony. When local Tibetans found them, they were unconscious, foam white at their lips. There were no hospitals or monasteries here; in Tibetan temples, Medicine Lhamae were responsible for treating the common folk. Although the Iron Rod Lama served as a Dharma Protector, in his youth, he had also served as a Medicine Lhama, frequently treating the local inhabitants by the lake and the pilgrims for illnesses and misfortunes. Thus, the Tibetans had come to implore the Iron Rod Lama to save the men.

Upon hearing they were poachers, the Iron Rod Lama was initially hesitant to get involved. However, Buddhist compassion is vast; he could not refuse to save those facing death. He agreed, instructing the Tibetans to bring the two poachers to him. He then chanted the Kangyur Sutras, supplicating the Medicine Buddha for a method of cure.

As we spoke, six Tibetans arrived, carrying the two poachers on their backs. The Lama ordered them laid flat on the ground. The men’s faces were the color of yellowed paper, their breaths faint. White foam trickled from their mouths, and their abdomens were grotesquely swollen. In my view, these symptoms were not entirely unusual; one might react this way after consuming something unclean or suffering severe food poisoning—a highly dangerous situation demanding immediate emergency transport to a hospital. I wondered on what handfuls of Tibetan medicine the Iron Rod Lama would rely to save them.

The Lama studied the patients' symptoms and immediately frowned. He spoke to the local Tibetans: "One of them ate too much and is beyond saving. The other still has a chance. You must go to the sacred lake and find some white scales from decaying fish."

The Tibetans immediately split up, following the Lama’s instructions to search by the lake. One of the poachers, the one still alive, started producing purplish-red foam from his mouth and soon ceased breathing. The Lama quickly instructed me and Wangdue to assist in prying open the dead man's jaws and forcing two doses of Tibetan medicine, mixed with water, down the throat of the survivor. The man was delirious and could only manage to swallow half the dosage.

This Tibetan medicine possessed a miraculous life-saving efficacy. Upon ingesting it, the man immediately vomited violently, expelling a great quantity of black fluid. The poacher, snatched back from the brink of death, though still wracked by excruciating abdominal pain, regained consciousness. The Lama asked him precisely what he had eaten.

The poacher, weeping bitterly, confessed that he and his deceased companion had heard in the interior that they could make a great fortune hunting in Tibet and trading pelts, which had clouded their judgment. They had come hoping to strike it rich quickly, but neither had any hunting experience. The uninhabited regions held many animals, but they dared not venture in recklessly, so they lingered in the forest at the foot of the snow mountains, hoping to try their luck, even if they only managed to take a Tibetan brown bear.

They wandered the forest edge for five days without success, and their carried rations ran out first. They were preparing to pack up and return home when they saw a large black mountain cat, almost as large as a sheep, possessing an undeniably hideous appearance. The creature was so unafraid that at first, they mistook it for a leopard. Relying on their potent firearms, the two men fired several shots in quick succession, killing the black mountain cat instantly. Their stomachs were ravenous, and regardless of whether the meat was palatable, they hastily skinned it and boiled half of it over a fire. The muscle fibers were coarse; it seemed impossible to cook thoroughly, so they ate it mostly raw.

The poacher sobbed, claiming that although he and his brother had momentarily succumbed to avarice by intending to poach for profit, they had killed nothing besides this mountain cat. He begged the Lama-physician to show great compassion and save their lives, promising they would reform immediately. He recounted the events in broken sentences, his stomach pain suddenly returning with a vengeance, causing him to writhe in agony.

I recalled a Tibetan legend I had heard in the Kunlun Mountains: that massive black mountain cat was not a cat at all, but a sha spirit manifested from a recently deceased person—and certainly not fit for consumption. I asked the Lama what should be done; did this man still have a chance of survival?

The Lama replied: "They likely ate a Himalayan marmot; that animal is edible. But they ate it too soon. Tibetans never consume an animal killed the same day, because its spirit has not fully departed the flesh. Once consumed, it complicates matters. I once served the Buddha and learned some secret remedies; whether they will work depends on their own fate."

The Tibetans who had gone to seek the decaying fish scales returned shortly, having gathered nearly a handful in total. The Iron Rod Lama arranged the fish scales around the sick man, then took a piece of Quercus spicata charcoal used for repelling rodents, burned it to ash, mixed it with the rotting, foul-smelling fish scales, and fed it to the surviving poacher.

Following this sequence of bizarre actions, the poacher began to vomit again, this time more violently, expelling everything in his stomach until only clear water came up. Only then did the Lama give him Tibetan medicine to stop the vomiting.

The Lama observed the filth he had expelled and declared that the man's life was saved, but he would never be able to eat meat again; if he did, the vomiting would become incessant. I leaned closer to look. In the large pile of vomit, I saw something wriggling. Upon closer inspection, they were clumps of hairless, small rats.

The poacher knelt, profusely thanking the Lama for saving his life. He asked if the Lama would allow his deceased companion to be buried by the lake. The Lama firmly refused. Tibetans believe that only sinners are interred in the earth; if buried in the ground, the soul can never achieve liberation. Exposed to the sun during the day, the spirit within the earth would feel as if it were being boiled in a hot pot; under the moonlight at night, it would feel as if trapped in an ice cave, shivering uncontrollably. If it rained, it would feel as if pierced by ten thousand arrows; when the wind blew, it would feel as if flayed by a thousand steel knives—a suffering beyond description. He instructed them to take the body to one of the eighteen jhator platforms on the nearby mountain so that the soul might be set free.

The poacher was reluctant, as this practice vastly differed from customs in the interior. The Lama explained that in Tibet, all methods of handling the dead—apart from earth burial—are common. However, due to a lack of fuel for cremation, bodies are generally carried to the jhator platform on a mountaintop stone mound, where they are chopped up and offered to birds and beasts (a practice somewhat similar to that of the Zoroastrians in Bombay, Persia). If the deceased died from a contagious and dangerous disease, earth burial is also customary.

Generally, Tibetans oppose earth burial because they believe it disturbs the spirit, and the corpse might even become a jiangshi (a revenant). If he insisted on burying the body here, the local people would feel uneasy.

The poacher was finally persuaded by the Lama's reasoning—when in Rome, do as the Romans do. With the help of several Tibetans, he lifted his companion’s corpse and prepared to head to the jhator platform on the summit. I noticed his duffel bag was slightly longer than average; it surely contained weapons and ammunition. We had not yet been issued weapons for our expedition into Tibet, and this was an opportunity not to be missed. I stopped him, intending to negotiate a purchase.

The poacher informed me that the two rifles were purchased from poachers in Qinghai. Once he dealt with his companion's body, he planned to return home, live an honest life, and had no use for the guns. Since I was a friend of the Iron Rod Lama, he offered the guns as a small token of gratitude for saving his life.

I looked at the two guns in the bag; they were pump-action shotguns, Remington, an older model, the 870 type, 12-gauge, police-issue version—a product of the 1950s. However, they were well-maintained. It was no wonder even a creature as quick as a marmot had fallen to their barrels. There were also over seventy rounds of ammunition, stored in two single-shoulder bandoliers. Such a shotgun has astonishing power within fifteen meters, but it seemed ill-suited for hunting; for distant targets, one needed an assault rifle or a weapon with greater range. The shotgun would serve well for self-defense in close combat. In the end, I insisted on giving him money, but I kept the guns, the ammunition, and the luggage bag.

Only after these extraneous parties dispersed did I explain my true purpose to the Lama: I wished to find the ancient tomb of the Evil God of the Demon Kingdom and requested that Lama A-ke help our expedition team select a bard and guide familiar with the histories of the Demon Kingdom and the Inner Ridge Nation.

The Iron Rod Lama said that excavating an ancient mound is an act that incurs great sin, like slaughtering oxen. But digging up the tomb of the Demon Kingdom was different; those tombs sealed in demons, posing a major threat to the populace. Historically, many high-level monks had wished to eliminate these demons and protect the Dharma by completely eradicating the Demon Kingdom's ancient tombs, thus averting the danger of the evil god returning to the human realm. But they lacked any leads. Since you are willing to go, this is a deed of immeasurable merit. Bards who understand the ancient lore of the Tibetan lands are divinely gifted; they do not recognize patrilineal or master-to-disciple inheritance. They are individuals who, after suffering a severe illness, suddenly become capable of reciting poems millions of words long. Before I became a monk, I, too, was one of those divinely gifted, though it has been almost thirty years since I recited anything. The verses concerning the World-Subduing Precious Orb Lion King, and the verses about the Reincarnated Jade Eye Orb... ah... I am nearly forgetting them.