In May, early summer had arrived. The weather was growing warm, but the summer heat had yet to set in. A night of pattering rain washed away the accumulated heat of many days. Verdant leaves gleamed like green jade, and flowers of every color and form bloomed one after another.
Hanshan Temple outside Gusu had been built by special decree of the reigning emperor, Xiao Yan, to honor the monk Hanshan's achievements on the Grasslands. Everyone in Liang State knew the emperor favored the propagation of Buddhist teachings. Amid Liang State's misty rain, hundreds of temples stood among beautiful mountains.
Luo Youzhi had never stopped Xiao Yan from doing this.
So long as Xiao Yan did not entrust affairs of state to ghosts and gods, or grant these monks special social standing and privileges, religion was beneath Luo Youzhi's notice. He had merely introduced the "Daliang Buddhist Code" without fanfare, raising the requirements for becoming a monk and treating monkhood as nothing more than a common subject's occupation.
Twenty years after Daliang's founding, and two years after the death of Luo Youzhi, Duke of Gusu Commandery, who had been known as half of Jiangdong, disturbances were beginning to stir again in Liang State.
Following Luo Youzhi's principle that "temples, Daoist temples, and places devoted to deities should stand in the mountains," Hanshan Temple had also been built on a mountain.
The stone steps were slightly slippery after the rain. Sunlight filtered through dense foliage in scattered patches, and figures passed through the shifting, mottled light. Few people traveled the mountain path, and it was very quiet. Most passersby were scholars in broad robes with wide sleeves, women, and children who had come to worship the Buddha and seek the Way.
One party traveled along the path. The men all wore