During the holidays, the group chat for guesthouses in Tibet was in an uproar.
A wealthy newcomer from Shanghai, Mr. Wang, had posted a photo of a bloodied brown animal hide.
"The wild dogs here are so fat. I shot one on a whim, and its hide is pretty shiny. It'll make a perfect scarf for my wife."
A crowd of sycophants piled on, praising his bravado.
Only the guesthouse's guide, an old Tibetan man named Sangjie, sent a voice message to the group, his voice trembling:
"Boss, that wasn't a wild dog you shot. It was a cub of a Tibetan brown bear! The people in the mountains call it a 'mountain ghost.' It's incredibly vengeful! You'd better run!"
The rich man replied scornfully, "That old man is superstitious. It's just an animal. What can it do?"
I had just put down my phone when, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a pair of enormous muddy paw prints on the balcony's floor-to-ceiling window. I had no idea when they had appeared.
