Amid the yellow and gray of the Gobi, a party of riders and horses slowly advanced.
The distant setting sun cast a peculiar red glow, tinged with the evening clouds and a desolate sorrow of utter loneliness.
Zhuge Xu rode a fine horse in the middle of the procession.
It had been a long time since they had set out from Luoyang, and they had only just reached Dunhuang Commandery.
This was Zhuge Xu's first time traveling so far.
Yet they had not even completed half the journey.
Their party was no small one. Counting the mounted guards protecting him, they numbered over two thousand.
What intrigued Zhuge Xu most were the Buddhist monks accompanying them.
There had been quite a few monks in Yong Province in the past, but their influence had been confined to the upper classes.
Some famous scholars were fond of Buddhism and liked to hold banquets, inviting monks to expound the scriptures for them.
Of course, there were simply too many deities for the common people to worship at present.
In the early Han, apart from the Five Emperors, there had been over four hundred local deities. By Emperor Cheng's time, there were already 683 officially maintained temples to the gods, not counting the deities worshipped among the people. By Wang Mang's time, the number of official deities had reached seventeen hundred, and under the Eastern Han, they had become innumerable.
Under the influence of Xuanxue during the Wei-Jin period, all manner of deities emerged in endless succession, and official sacrifices were held year-round.
But Buddhism and Daoism had chosen different paths.
Buddhism had chosen the upper-class route. Its followers actively approached famous scholars from the clans, lectured to them, and translated scriptures, then used the influence of these scholars and officials to expand their