Chapter 326: Ancient City of Lhasa
The next morning, Liu Xunyi, Tang Cong and Ban Liang Jin said goodbye to Tianshui Inn, braved the biting wind and frost, and headed into the endless Tanggula Mountains.

They crossed mountains and streams, and encountered avalanches twice, lost their way several times, and almost froze to death in the wilderness.

The two men wandered in the vast snow-capped mountains for three days and three nights, gradually becoming exhausted and running out of food and water. When they were on the verge of death, they were fortunately rescued by a group of monks who were on a pilgrimage to Lhasa. They managed to escape.

Due to language barriers, Liu Xunyi and the other two pretended to be mute, mixed in with the team, and followed them out of the complex terrain of the Tanggula Mountains.

These monks were extremely pious. As soon as they walked out of the mountain pass and stepped onto the flat ground, they began to move forward slowly, bowing every three steps. They kowtowed very respectfully, prostrating themselves on the ground with their whole body, which was extremely time-consuming.

Liu Xunyi was worried that if he continued to move forward like this, he would not be able to reach Lhasa City on time, so he secretly discussed with Tang Cong and decided to go ahead.

When they left, the oldest monk in the team gave Liu Xunyi and the other monk a few bags of dry food and clear water from two lakes. Although they could not communicate, after a few days of contact, Liu Xunyi could vaguely tell from the attitudes of other monks that this man might be the leader of the team. Others called him "Duoji", which should be the old monk's name.

With gratitude in their hearts, they said goodbye in a hurry. After going through numerous hardships and dangers along the way, Liu Xunyi and Tang Cong finally arrived at the "long-awaited" Lhasa city at noon on the 27th day of the twelfth lunar month.

Although Lhasa was the former imperial capital of Tubo, it was still very simple and even crude compared with the towns in the Central Plains.

The buildings here are mostly made of earth and stone, which are extremely rough, even worse than those in Huodu and Bancheng. They have neither the grandeur of northern towns nor the exquisiteness of the water towns in the south of the Yangtze River.

Today, the Song Dynasty is plagued by internal and external troubles, and it is no longer a peaceful and prosperous country, but at least most of the people still have food and clothing and can barely make ends meet.

On the other hand, after the fall of the Tubo kingdom, the whole of Tibet was in turmoil, with internal strife, endless fighting and division among warlords, people's livelihood was in decline, and all industries were in ruins.

Even when walking in the former imperial city, you can still see emaciated people and starving people everywhere.

In the cold winter, with heavy snow falling, many poor Tibetan people huddled in groups of three or five among broken bricks and tiles, broken walls and ruins, with families hugging each other and shivering with cold.

An old man with a barely breathing mass, a baby crying for food, a man walking unsteadily, a woman in a state of panic... This scene is so sad that one cannot bear to look at it.

Walking through the streets and alleys, all the way to the west of the city, Liu Xunyi and Tang Cong almost saw what hell on earth is? They also saw what heaven on earth is.
In Lhasa, there are not only poor streets and alleys with leaks on all sides and in ruins, but also magnificent mansions with high walls. There are not only miserable people who are hungry and poorly clothed, but also wealthy people with big bellies and rosy faces.

This city has almost pushed the gap between the rich and the poor to the extreme. On the same street, the east side may be full of grief and devastation, while the west side may be full of singing and dancing and beautiful women.

On the streets, you can see poor little people in ragged clothes, begging for food with broken bowls, and you can also see big masters wearing cotton robes and woolen coats, carrying Tibetan knives and showing off their power everywhere.

It is strange to say that the gap between the rich and the poor in Lhasa City is so huge, but Liu Xunyi and Tang Cong have never seen any hungry people making trouble along the way.

Here, there is a clear distinction between superiors and subordinates, and everyone follows their own path. No matter whether they are rich or poor, they all seem to abide by the rules and never step out of line.

"In the past, I only heard that 'the rich live in luxury while the poor freeze to death on the streets', but today I have seen it with my own eyes." Tang Cong looked at the misery on the street and couldn't help but sigh.

The city of Lhasa was very small, and it took them less than half an hour's walk to successfully find the Bagua Pharmacy in the west of the city.

Like most of the "shops" in the city, the Bagua Pharmacy is also a dilapidated little earthen house.

The two wooden doors were in a state of disrepair. Even when they were closed, a huge crack as thick as an arm could still be seen in the middle. The iron corners of the doors were rusted. A mottled and faded wooden plaque hung on the lintel, on which two lines of text could be vaguely seen. One line of Tibetan characters, and one line of unclear Chinese characters, roughly in the shape of "丿用约甫".

When I stepped into the pharmacy, I saw the ground was bumpy and there were no bricks.

About seven feet in front of the door, there is an old accounting desk. Behind the desk is a broken medicine cabinet against the wall. Most of the drawers in the cabinet can no longer be completely closed, and some do not even have drawers. They are just a wooden board to barely store medicinal materials.

On the left was a tea table and two broken stools. On the right was a fierce-looking statue of a deity, with a bowl of water and a broken bowl filled with dirt and rice grains on the altar, serving as an incense burner.

The pharmacy is extremely simple, and this is all that is displayed inside.

When Liu Xunyi and Tang Cong pushed the door open, the pharmacy was empty, with no one in sight.

Before the two of them could become suspicious, a faint snoring sound was heard from behind the counter.

"Cough cough!"

Liu Xunyi didn't dare to speak rashly, but just coughed twice, as if to remind the person who was sleeping soundly behind the accounting counter.

After a while, a series of "gurgling" sounds came from the accounting counter, and the tone sounded quite impatient, as if someone was blaming Liu Xunyi for disturbing someone's sleep.

Liu Xunyi and Tang Cong were both confused about Tibetan and did not understand it at all. After hesitating for a moment, Liu Xunyi walked forward slowly, tapped the account desk lightly with his hand, and coughed twice again.

With a burst of complaining muttering, a man slowly turned over from the counter, rubbing his sleepy eyes, and looked at Liu Xunyi with an unhappy face. He was about thirty years old, more than seven feet tall, and although he was dressed in rags and had unkempt hair and a dirty face, it was hard to hide his handsome features and a very healthy body.

Judging from his appearance, he doesn't seem to be a Tibetan, but more like a Han Chinese.

Facing Liu Xunyi and Tang Cong who were staring at each other, the man mumbled a lot of things, but Liu Xunyi didn't react at all. He just frowned slightly, as if hesitating about something.

“Ahem…” Seeing this, Tang Cong tugged at Liu Xunyi’s sleeve and whispered, “Master, just ask. If he can understand, he is the person we are looking for. If he can’t understand, then he naturally doesn’t know what you are talking about.”

Liu Xunyi nodded as if he understood something, looked the man up and down again, and said thoughtfully: "May I ask your Excellency..."

"Are you Han Chinese?"

Before Liu Xunyi could finish his words, the man's expression suddenly changed and he quickly asked back in Chinese.

Hearing this, Liu and Tang were stunned, and then nodded at the same time.

"Excuse me, are you the owner of the Bajiao Pharmacy, Boren?"

"It's down."

Boren nodded impatiently. At this moment, the displeasure on his face had completely disappeared, replaced by a deep joy, and he said, "I wonder who you two are..."

"I'm Liu Xunyi, and this is Tang Cong." Liu Xunyi introduced, "He's Master Ding San from the Tianshan Jade Dragon Palace, and they asked us to come visit you."

"Yes." Boren said excitedly with ecstasy on his face, "Five years ago, when Master Ding San left, he told us that he would send people to Luoshui City again one day."

Tang Cong asked puzzledly: "Why are you so happy?"

"Master Ding San has instructed that once I have waited for the person I am waiting for and helped him accomplish his great task, I can leave Tubo and return to the Central Plains." Boren explained, "I have been waiting here for five years and have been homesick for a long time. Today, I finally have you here. How can I not be happy?"

"Five years? You are a Han Chinese, and you are willing to wait in a foreign land for five years?" Liu Xunyi asked in surprise, "If we didn't come, wouldn't you have to wait another five or ten years?"

"Master Ding has been so kind to me and has promised me a large sum of money. How can I betray him?" Boren said seriously, "What's more, if I leave without permission and Master Ding knows about this, my fate will be..."

"Master Ding San is really good at controlling people, using both kindness and force." Liu Xunyi understood, "But now that we are here, your hard times should be over."

"That's right!" Boren couldn't help but nod his head, "If Master Ding hadn't bought this medicine shop, I would have been frozen to death or starved to death like those starving people outside."

"You've been alone for five years?"

"Before, there was a master in the pharmacy. He was a know-it-all in Luoshui City." Boren said with a smile, "Unfortunately, he was unlucky last winter and caught a cold. Not long after, he died. Since then, I am the only one left in the pharmacy."

After that, Boren's dark and bright eyes rolled around and he asked tentatively, "Mr. Ding San asked you to come here, but for... 'Buddha Lotus Seed'?"

Hearing this, Liu Xunyi was startled and said bluntly, "That's right. We are new here and don't know much about the rules of Luoshui City. I hope you can teach us more."

"You're welcome!" Boren waved his hand and smiled, "If I don't help you accomplish this, I won't be able to return to the Central Plains safely. Now, the three of us are on the same boat, so we should advance and retreat together and be loyal to each other. If you don't abandon me, you two can call me by my name to avoid being so polite."

"That's great." Liu Xunyi refused disrespectfully and said, "My dear brother, on the way here, we heard that every year on the first day of the first lunar month, the Potala Palace will hold a pilgrimage ceremony. At that time, believers from all over Tibet can enter the palace and pay homage to the living Buddha. I just don't know... Is this true or false?"

"It's true." Boren nodded.

Liu Xunyi and Tang Cong looked at each other, both with a touch of joy on their faces. But before they could speak again, Boren changed the subject and said with a wry smile: "It is true that the pilgrimage is held on the first day of the first lunar month every year, and it is also true that the Potala Palace welcomes guests from all directions, but not everyone can enter the palace."

"What do you mean?" Liu Xunyi asked in surprise, "What do you mean by 'not everyone can enter the palace'? To be honest, we followed a pilgrim group on the way here. The monks didn't find anything wrong with us and took the initiative to invite us to join..."

"Ordinary people, even if they come to Lhasa, can only worship and kowtow outside the Potala Palace." Boren interrupted, "The place where those monks stay is not the Potala Palace, but the Jokhang Temple."

"This..." Liu Xunyi was completely confused and said blankly, "Is the 'Buddha Lotus Seed' we are looking for in the Potala Palace or the Jokhang Temple?"

"In the final analysis, the Potala Palace is the imperial palace, while the Jokhang Temple is the temple." Boren explained, "In other words, those who can enter the Potala Palace on the first day of the first lunar month are all nobles or great lamas from the Tibetan tribes, that is, the enlightened monks from our Central Plains. Ordinary monks and believers are not qualified to enter the palace, and can only go to the Jokhang Temple to worship Buddha. The Jokhang Temple is easy to enter, but the Potala Palace is heavily guarded. On the first day of the first lunar month, the palace is filled with the most powerful figures from the Tibetan tribes. It is almost impossible for you to sneak through. As for the 'Buddha Lotus Seed' you are looking for, it is hidden in the secret room of the Potala Palace, which is... a forbidden place within a forbidden place."

……

(End of this chapter)