On that mountain, countless yellow temples and multistory buildings appeared and vanished in the mist. The bottom of the sinkhole was damp, while the desert beyond it was hot. Moisture rose from the depths and became a veil of mist among the peaks. Seen now, the mountain seemed suspended above the sinkhole, like a Buddhist paradise.
Beyond the countless temples on the mountain, her attention turned to the bottom of the sinkhole. Below the great mountain's slopes lay tier upon tier of terraces, too many to count. Crops rarely seen in Chang'an or Xiling grew there. Dark-skinned farmers worked the fields in dense crowds; she could see no fewer than fifty or sixty thousand of them.
Only a few centuries had passed, yet Xuankong had changed beyond recognition.
She remembered visiting centuries ago. Xuankong had been nothing like this, merely an ordinary complex of halls.
No. Perhaps her cultivation had been too weak then, and she had not seen the whole place. Or perhaps what she had seen had never been Xuankong at all, but a false version within an illusion.
No one would feel good about being deceived like that. She was no exception.
At the bottom of the sinkhole were rivers and farmhouses. Women wearily reeled silk and wove cloth. Children too young to work stared at the enormous mountain, reciting Buddhist scriptures with vacant eyes.
At a glance, more than a hundred thousand people seemed to live below. They had neither the confidence of Chang'an City's people nor the easy outlook of those in the West-Hill Divine Kingdom. They knew only work. Rather than people, they looked like ants that never tired.
Red Dust's gaze settled on the temples and multistory buildings. More than a thousand monks lived in fine clothes and ate well, caring only to