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Once Oxhead Gu Changdong went upstairs, Shawn Young felt a lot more relaxed. He started wandering Temple Street by himself, soaking in the evening vibe. Dusk had fallen, and the city was slipping into night—the neon lights along Temple Street were dazzling, with all kinds of signs flashing in every color. The street was getting busier by the minute. Shops that had been closed during the day were opening up, and vendors hustled like busy ants, hauling their goods out to the stalls lining Temple Street.
Shawn strolled along, genuinely interested in the variety of stalls. They sold everything—men’s clothes, crafts, teapots, jade, antiques, even cheap electronics. The crowd was getting thicker. Temple Street was packed with food stalls selling local snacks: seafood, claypot rice, noodles, you name it. Prices were good, but the heat was brutal, so Shawn ducked into a dessert shop and ordered a bowl of mung bean soup to cool off. It was pretty damn tasty.
After finishing his mung bean soup and shaking off the heat, Shawn checked his phone. More than half an hour had passed, but it was still early. He figured Oxhead Gu Changdong was probably still busy 'plowing the fields' with Sister Pomegranate, so Shawn paid up and headed back out to explore more of Temple Street.
Soon, Shawn saw a temple up ahead. Curious, he walked over and read the sign: Tin Hau Temple—a famous spot in Hong Kong, right at the banyan tree in Yau Ma Tei. The temple split Temple Street in two. What grabbed Shawn’s attention was the quiet row of fortune-telling stalls lined up against the south wall. Each fortune-teller looked half-mystic, half-hustler, but people still sat down to ask about their futures. Plenty of young couples came asking about love and romance—it was pretty entertaining.
Shawn found it amusing, but he didn’t buy into the fortune-tellers’ act. He’d watched them for a while and realized most were just smooth talkers. With a bit of professional training and sharp people-reading skills, they could get customers nodding along, convinced they were spot-on, and happily handing over their cash.
This made Shawn chuckle. As a Taoist himself, he knew exactly where these fortune-tellers came from—they were all part of the Street Chancellor Guild, a secret group living off superstition and fortune-telling scams. The Guild called themselves 'Street Chancellors,' meaning 'Prime Ministers of the Streets.' They’d faded away in mainland China before liberation, but in Hong Kong, Macau, and Singapore, you could still find their people. Members weren’t real Taoist masters, but their fortune-telling was scarily accurate—thanks to their secret manuals. The 'Fa' was a must-read called the 'Glorious Chapter.' The 'Shu' was a collection of tricks: one book, 'Za Fei Chapter,' taught how to fake spiritual rituals; another, 'A Bao Chapter,' showed how to use gold and silver scams to swindle people.
Of course, Shawn figured these fortune-tellers were Street Chancellor Guild folks, but he didn’t call them out. After all, as a fellow Taoist, he was kind of in the same business—half a colleague, really. Watching the customers get sweet-talked into paying up, Shawn just shook his head with a wry smile, turned around, and got ready to leave.
"Hey there, young man—hold up, wait a second—" An old voice called out to him from the side.
Shawn turned to look and spotted a tiny, shabby fortune-telling stall tucked under a tree at the corner. A faded gray banner hung overhead, with traditional Chinese characters reading 'Heaven’s Secret Divination, Iron-Mouth Predictions.' Minding the stall was a scrawny old man, maybe seventy or eighty, dressed in a tattered yellow robe from who-knows-what era. He was clearly blind, with a scraggly white goatee and a weird hat perched on his sweaty forehead—an oddball if Shawn ever saw one.
"Excuse me, Master—are you talking to me?" Shawn Young asked, curious.
"Yes, yes, that's right! But I’m not a Taoist priest, I’m a monk. I’m calling you, young man! In this big wide world, I never thought I’d meet a real master from the ancient Taiqing sect here—what luck!" The old monk nodded, his goatee trembling with excitement. He reached up and took off his hat, revealing a shiny bald head. Shawn noticed two rows of burn scars on his scalp.
"Uh—Master, how do you know about the Taiqing Sect? And—can you actually see me?" Shawn blurted out, surprised. He realized the old monk spoke perfect Mandarin, totally different from the Cantonese fortune-tellers nearby, and even knew Shawn’s lineage. Now Shawn was really curious.
"Heh, I might be blind, but I can sense your extraordinary aura. You’re definitely a dragon among men! After all these years in the world, I never thought I’d meet such a talented young man today. Looks like the ancient Taiqing lineage isn’t lost after all!" the old monk said with a grin.
"Uh—may I ask your Dharma name, Master?" Shawn asked quickly.
The old monk smiled, then suddenly put on a serious face and said, "My Dharma name is Sleepy Monk."
"Sleepy Monk—uh—Master Sleepy Monk—what sect did you become a monk with?" Shawn’s jaw dropped. He was floored by the monk’s wild Dharma name!
"Heh—young man, I became a monk at Wutai Mountain, a famous temple in mainland China, when I was young. 'Sleepy Monk' was the Dharma name my master gave me. It wasn’t until I got to Hong Kong that I found out 'Sleepy Monk' means a guy having a wet dream," he said with a straight face. "So, I took my lay surname and started calling myself 'Zhou Iron-Mouth' here in the secular world. But Dharma names and stuff aren’t really important to a monk like me!" Sleepy Monk’s dead-serious expression just made him look even more eccentric.