A little over half a day's walk southeast of Suining Prefecture lay a stretch of rolling low mountains.
Vast fields had been cultivated at their feet. The rice seedlings were turning from green to yellow, and this was the busiest time before the autumn harvest.
Common folk crouched in twos and threes along the field ridges, their trouser legs rolled to their knees and mud caking half their legs as they bent over, scratching a living from the soil.
It looked like a peaceful enough place.
But a closer look at the fields would always reveal a few gleaming bald heads bobbing among the rice ears.
Those bald men wore short gray cloth jackets and straw sandals, the muscles in their arms bulging against their cuffs. With their hands clasped behind their backs, they paced along the ridges, their gazes casually sweeping the surrounding fields.
It seemed these monks were patrolling and supervising.
The monks in the fields were all warrior monks, with even the weakest above the qi-blood third level.
That made it obvious who owned this land.
Beyond the vast fields, halfway up a low mountain, an immense complex of glittering golden buildings spread out.
From a distance, it looked as though someone had splashed a basin of gold paint across the mountainside.
Every temple roof was covered in gold-painted tiles. The afternoon sunlight struck them with a glare so dazzling it was hard to keep one's eyes open.
The central main hall rose more than two stories above the side halls, its eaves sweeping upward at the corners. A row of bronze auspicious beasts crouched along its roof ridge, with a three-foot-tall Buddha seated on a lotus pedestal at the very center, gilded from head to toe.
The Golden Sun Temple.
One of Suining Prefecture's Three Great