Leung Chun-ying may have caught many by surprise when he won the top job in dramatic fashion last year, but soothsayer Edward Li Kui-ming saw it coming months before the poll.
In his recently published Tung Shing, or divination guide, for the Year of the Snake, Li is making another wild prediction: Chief Secretary Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor could step down in 2-1/2 years.
Li says in his 2013 guide that Lam will quit and leave for England between 2015 and 2016, as revealed by her "horse star". He adds that Lam and Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah are not destined to become the Chief Executive.
He also predicted that Leung will finish his term, as long as China's new leaders Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang remain in power. Yet the master is coy on who will become the city's next leader, reserving the tip for next year's guide book.
Leung, a purported closet communist who believes in dialectical materialism, and Lam, a Catholic, would surely reject such superstition. But time will tell.