The Troubles of Being Born with Six Fingers and Having to Become a Taoist Priest

My name is Li Youbing. I was born with six fingers, and a fortune-teller said I had the “Heavenly Defect Fate,” doomed to bear one of the fates of widowhood, childlessness, loneliness, or disability. Later, an unreliable old Taoist took me in, and I learned that this lousy fate was actually perfect for practicing Maoshan arts. Other people pay money to study the Dao. My tuition is my life. My master said, “Disciple, our sect has only one copy of The Maoshan Incantations left. Just make do with it.” I was forced to become a Taoist priest. I caught scapegoat ghosts in the city’s urban villages, played the river god’s bride, discussed labor laws with the spirits of the Northeast, and got dragged into a debate by an old man in a psychiatric hospital about whether I was the Jade Emperor. My name is Li Youbing. I’m really not sick. I can just see things.