It was already evening when Monk Zhishan left Jiangcheng City. Seeing that the late hour meant he would not be noticed by mortals, he urged his magic treasure, the wooden fish, transforming it into a golden streak of light that vanished into the horizon.
With his formidable magical powers and the incredible speed granted by the magic treasure, he returned to Guangyuan Temple by nightfall.
During her reign, Empress Wu Zetian of the Tang Dynasty was a devout Buddhist who poured vast resources into building temples across the land, causing them to sprout up like bamboo shoots after a spring rain. Eager to second-guess the imperial will, local officials everywhere scrambled to fund the construction of temples to curry favor with the Empress. Guangyuan Temple was built during that very era by a Ministry of Personnel official named Mu Guangyuan to please Wu Zetian. Standing firm through a thousand years of wind and rain, it remained a renowned local center of Buddhism, perpetually teeming with tourists.
Chapter 367