Seventeen years before Emergence Day, Ji owned a tannery workshop in Narakir, and hired several farmers to work in the workshop after a drought hit the area. While tossing a pail of piss out into a wooden butt, he was approached by his friend Bai Tak, who was looking for work after his farm began failing. Ji told him he didn't have any work for him to do, but suggested that he try the local monastery.