Part 1
Home is the origin of everything.
If someone in your eyes seems to face one setback after another, mired in endless troubles, yet somehow remains cheerful and full of vitality — just look into their home environment, and all your answers will reveal themselves.
Because their family is undoubtedly their greatest pillar of strength, providing a steady warmth that never wavers.
Equally, if someone in your eyes appears perfectly composed, with no apparent reason for sorrow, yet they remain depressed and in pain — just look into their home environment, and every mystery dissolves.
Because their family is undoubtedly a whirlpool they cannot escape, ceaselessly draining and consuming their vital energy.
This is precisely why, in the eyes of half-baked amateurs, destiny reading concerns only wealth fortune, career prospects, and romantic fate — while Master Chi goes further, deeply studying both the family of origin and the family one creates. Because a broken household is not some minor trial one can simply walk away from. It is a bottomless abyss capable of dragging down your happiness for a lifetime.
Part 2
Take the young man Lu Daosen, who stirred heated discussion across the internet not long ago. Even a brief glance at his farewell letter makes it clear: home had long ceased to be a place of warmth and support for him. His mother’s hysterical, controlling grip and his father’s near-total absence — as though already a widower — were the fundamental causes that led this young life to choose self-termination. If, in his final chapter, his family had offered him even a sliver of support and love, would he have left this world so resolutely, with not a shred of hesitation? He would not. It was precisely because even his last shelter had been filled with cold winds that he chose to end things as his final release.
Yet beyond the pitiable Lu Daosen, there are countless men and women in their prime — even middle age — still ensnared by the wreckage of their own broken families. This kind of tragedy is something I encounter far too often.
If someone were to ask me what a broken family atmosphere actually feels like, the most precise description I can offer is this: like an old bed, damp and chilling, buried beneath impossibly heavy blankets. You know it intimately, and perhaps even hold a certain attachment to it you cannot quite shake — yet it offers not a single moment of warmth or ease. And the cruelest irony of all: you have no choice but to crawl into it, night after endless night.
I recall a couple who came to me several years ago seeking guidance on the future of their marriage. Marriage, as you know, never comes without its complicated chapters. In situations like these, I typically offer a few words of counsel and then, drawing on both parties’ destiny charts, recommend adjustments for the benefit of the household and children. After all, a marriage is hard-won, and reconciliation is always more fitting than separation.
But the moment I glanced at their destiny charts, I knew they had come to the wrong person for comfort. Po Jun opposing Qi Sha — the Breaker Star against Seven Killings, two intensely forceful stars in the destiny reading system — with serious defects in both the Palace of Marriage and the Palace of Parents. By all reckoning, the ideal match for both of them should have been the gentler stars: Tian Tong, Tai Yin, or Tian Xiang — stars that complement rather than clash, that fill gaps rather than tear them wider.
What could be done? Someone had to speak the truth. And since they had come in sincerity, I could not brush them off with pleasantries. So I laid out the full picture for them, as gently but honestly as I could.
Not long after, I received two phone calls that stayed with me. The husband called first — to thank me for showing him a way out of his pain at the darkest moment of his life. Then the wife called, with the same gratitude, but she added one remark well worth savoring: “Master Chi, you know what? Since the divorce, I feel like even breathing has become easier.”
Part 3
Perhaps you are single right now, holding beautiful hopes for a future marriage. Or perhaps you already have a family, and are living through your own share of joy and heartbreak. Either way, Master Chi has no wish to see the home you worked so hard to build one day collapse in chaos and ruin.
So here are a few small observations on marriage and family. It won’t take long to read — consider it something you’re doing for yourself, your partner, and your children.
Every broken household I have ever seen shares one trait: neither spouse knows how to thaw the ice between them. Two adults in their thirties or forties, behaving like immature children sulking in silence — how emotionally underdeveloped do you have to be? They each fear that being the first to extend an olive branch will make them appear more invested in this hard-earned relationship than the other. So every small conflict, every minor quarrel, gets piled up piece by piece — until a glacier forms at the heart of the family. What a foolish way to live. Isn’t your life partner precisely the one person you should approach with your most sincere, most authentic self?
The prosperous households I have seen are the opposite — husband and wife as close as the most loyal of friends. Even when they occasionally disagree, they speak to each other in gentle tones, sharing their thoughts openly and searching for common ground.
Every broken household I have ever seen suffers from another failing: spouses almost never offer each other affirmation or explicit expressions of love. They convince themselves this is simply how long-married couples are — but what they fail to see is that they are providing each other with absolutely no emotional nourishment whatsoever. Regardless of gender, the vast majority of affairs are not ultimately about physical desire. At their root, they are about receiving recognition and admiration from outside — that feeling of being seen and valued for the husband, that feeling of being cherished and adored for the wife. Why can they not understand: the more of something a person cannot find at home, the more susceptible they become to finding it elsewhere?
The prosperous households I have seen are the opposite — husband and wife are generous in passing warmth and affection to each other. Naturally, the atmosphere in such a home remains springtime all year round, full of harmony and love. What reason would there ever be for betrayal?
Every broken household I have ever seen is plagued by a third pattern: each spouse is convinced the other is the source of all problems, while their own part amounts to nothing more than a few harmless little mistakes — and they cannot tolerate even the slightest criticism or challenge. The more toxic the household environment, the more relentlessly each spouse hurls accusations at the other: from petty daily habits to fundamental values and worldviews. But do they ever stop to wonder — how is it that they, of all people, were so uniquely lucky as to end up with someone so impossibly difficult?
I have rarely seen a marriage break down due to one party’s fault alone. In almost every case, both sides have been tearing the structure down together, attacking each other blow by blow. The prosperous households I have seen are the opposite — in every one, the husband is someone who reflects on himself, and the wife is someone unafraid to acknowledge her own mistakes. No wonder the children raised in such homes run rings around children from broken families when it comes to character and conduct.
Every broken household I have ever seen operates on a fourth pattern: treating marriage as a transaction for extracting benefit. The husband hopes the wife’s family will shoulder more of the financial burden so he can shave two decades off his own struggle. The wife hopes the husband will carry all the pressure so she can settle into permanent comfort, once and for all. Marriage does require careful consideration — but that is very different from calculated maneuvering. Even the most foolish person alive cannot be taken advantage of three times in a row without noticing — and yet these people think the partner sleeping beside them every night won’t catch on?
Absurdly, people who scheme like this tend to attract each other. What follows is a marriage of mutual predation — both parties slowly depleting the other in a quiet, corrosive drain.
The prosperous households I have seen are the opposite — both partners not only take the family as their irreplaceable responsibility, but actively find joy in treating each other well. They offer heart for heart, and over time, their understanding and companionship only grow deeper and more tender.
If you want to judge whether a family has the potential to rise toward prominence, here is a simple test: count how many fine pieces of clothing the husband is wearing that his wife chose for him, and how many quality accessories the wife is wearing that her husband insisted on adding. This tells you everything, without fail, every single time.
Part 4
I deliberately kept today’s article concise — selecting only a handful of the most essential observations for your consideration. Though brief, they capture the heart of the matter.
After all, home is not a place governed by logic. It is a place governed by love and care. Sometimes, too many words work against you.
Just as when we wish to test whether someone’s heart is genuine — we don’t need to listen to their sweet words and elaborate promises. We simply watch whether their actions are real and substantive.
Love is not words. It is action. And action never lies.
Take, for example, the wives who bring their husbands’ BaZi (Four Pillars of Destiny) to consult Master Chi about their husband’s future prospects and fortunes. Or the fiancés who come before marriage with their beloved’s birth data to ask whether their destinies are compatible.
If there were no love — would they care?
What I find quietly ironic is this: sometimes I encounter people who proclaim loudly how deeply they love their partner — and yet cannot tell me their partner’s birth year, let alone the exact date. To say nothing of the hour.
In contrast, there are those who treat their partner’s destiny chart as something more precious than their own. During my readings with them, I often have to pause so they can write things down carefully. The scene is both endearing and deeply moving.
And these bonds — I have almost never seen them end in separation. The great majority go on to grow old together, sharing a lifetime of happiness. These are the unions destined to leave hardship behind — rare and precious connections that, without exception, only grow more blessed with time.