Shouchun City.
The city bustled with people coming and going.
Though many soldiers in military robes patrolled in formation, their ranks were orderly, and not one laid a finger on anyone along their route.
The sight stirred Qiuyuzi despite the worries weighing on him.
"They say Sui united the realm, but the Sui Dynasty lasted barely twenty or thirty years. Many places hadn't even heard that the dynasty had changed before they fell back into chaos, with warlords carving up territory and waging war on one another. Few places are still this lively and orderly. Rarer still are soldiers who leave the people along their route untouched."
In the dynasties of old, soldiers and bandits had always been two sides of the same coin: obey, and they were soldiers; rebel, and they took to the hills as outlaws. Some even killed innocents and claimed credit for it. The chaos was plain to see.
As for the soldiers before him, even elite troops and mighty generals fresh from victory and well fed might not have been so orderly, let alone common soldiers.
"These soldiers still wear Sui uniforms, yet their spirit is connected to that temple in the city! Peach Blossom, what do you think of—"
His words broke off.
Qiuyuzi's face darkened at once. He quickened his pace and headed straight for the temple.
The Lord of Huai Temple!
The temple stood within Shouchun City. Judging by the color of its brick and stone, it had clearly been built in the last twenty or thirty years. It lacked much of the ancient simplicity of the old Buddhist temples and Daoist Temples in and around Chang'an, but in grandeur and scale, it gave none of them ground.
"Last time I came, the Lord of Huai Temple was still outside the city,