The Sweeping Monk: A Hero's Shadow in the Dust

At four in the morning on Qingnan Road, the swish of a broom across the pavement startles night herons from the pagoda trees. Lin Mo bends down to pick up a cigarette pack. The tobacco beneath his fingers suddenly catches fire without a breeze, and the ashes swirl into a tiny vortex in his palm. At the bus stop, a girl in a floral dress hugs her sketchbook, her pencil trembling. She clearly sees the sanitation worker in orange-yellow coveralls give a gentle flick of his broom handle, stopping a beer bottle hurled by a drunk at the mouth of the alley in midair.

From then on, Su Wanxing’s sketchbook holds the mysterious figure who always appears at daybreak. This humble sweeper can split a rainstorm with his broom and crush a pickpocket’s switchblade in hands like iron pincers. Yet when she faints from low blood sugar, he pulls a fruit candy wrapped in rough paper from his pocket. As a string of robberies casts its shadow over the whole city, she realizes that the courier who escorts elderly people living alone home each night, the night-market vendor who can spot counterfeit bills at a glance, and even the mute shoemaker at the entrance to her residential complex all look at Lin Mo with the same reverence.

“They all call me Master.” On a night of torrential rain, Lin Mo holds his broom over her, creating a tiny patch untouched by the rain. The vortex in his palm draws the mud from the hem of her dress. “But I’d rather be your umbrella.”