My Taoist Priest Is a Bit of a Jerk

I was sent to a mountain temple at the age of six, not because I, Lu Shiyi, was especially gifted, but purely because I was too much of a troublemaker! I spent six years cultivating at the temple, but didn’t learn much of anything. What I did master was swindling and cheating... I mean, thinking on my feet. When I was twelve, I couldn’t take that bland, joyless life any longer, so I made a clean break and ran down the mountain to return to the mortal world. I set up a fortune-telling stall in a small Jiangnan town. You should have seen my look. I’d designed it carefully to make me seem inscrutable! Every day, I sat in front of my stall and held up two fingers, beckoning passersby over. “Come on, fellow cultivator. Your glabella looks dark. You’re bound to suffer a bloody misfortune today... Hey, don’t hit me! I meant you’ve got dog poop stuck to your shoe!” Life was carefree and pleasant. Then I ran my mouth and told a hulking man’s fortune, predicting romantic luck. Then a half-blind old Taoist from Qingyun Mountain insisted I was an enlightened master. Then I smashed a brick into the scheme of the Netherworld Sect’s demonic cultivators... That was when I realized things had gotten serious! I, Lu Shiyi, had somehow become a hot commodity in the eyes of the righteous mystical sects, and the “Tang Monk’s flesh” coveted by the Netherworld Sect’s demonic cultivators! Even more absurdly, though all I wanted was to run away, a bunch of old men cried and begged until they pushed me onto the throne as the leader of the mystical sects! I looked down at the sea of elite disciples from various sects, all shouting “Master” at me, and had only one thought: Whoever wants this lousy job can have it. I’m going back to town to tell fortunes! And so the most unreliable sect leader in history climbed over the wall and ran away on his third day in office, leaving behind a scrawled note: “The world is vast. I want to travel and tell fortunes.”