Preface: The most terrifying thing in a person’s life may well be the word “suppression.” Unlike childhood trauma, repression tends to produce a pathological hunger in adulthood — an endless, insatiable craving for what remains just out of reach.
Today, let’s talk about the “drama” we haven’t touched on in quite a while.
Main Article:
It’s been a long time since I wrote about entertainment circle gossip. Since it’s the weekend, I figured I’d share some thoughts on that one big-mouthed fellow’s recent drug trafficking arrest.
Fair warning though: this guy’s rank is probably the lowest of all the characters Master Chi has ever written about — practically dripping with street-level vulgarity. So why does this young man have Master Chi revisiting gossip topics we’d long set aside?
Know this: while his character is deeply questionable, the entertainers he ran with weren’t exactly paragons of virtue either.
It’s also rather amusing — last year, a certain Mr. Shanjia, equally notorious for his sharp tongue, went and kicked the wrong dog. Now he’s quietly lying low, taking his medicine. And today, this Big Mouth, having taken the wrong kind of medicine himself, couldn’t stop spraying it all over everyone. Truly entertaining.
More importantly: now that he’s been arrested on drug charges, he’ll inevitably try to bargain his way to leniency. So tell me — someone who’s been strutting around hurling wild accusations every day reaches this crossroads and is not going to spill every dirty secret he knows? Just wait. The entertainment world is in for another earthquake this year.
To tell this story properly, we need to rewind the clock thirty years to a restaurant in Shanghai. A rather interesting establishment, as it happens.
The owner was a young woman, barely in her thirties. For reasons no one could quite explain, she had worked her way into close relations with a small circle of Shanghai’s most prominent figures. Even more curious — though the restaurant was modest in size, its décor was uncommonly refined for that era, when material wealth had yet to take flight.
Almost everyone assumed this woman had serious backing. But those in the know understood that what she relied on was simply her “lover.” Why “lover”? Because they were never formally married — she had no title, no official status. Yet she’d leaned on a man, regardless of whether he acknowledged the relationship. Or the child.
When you live in the jianghu, conflict is inevitable. One day, a young woman famous for singing “My Home Is on the Loess Plateau” happened to dine at the restaurant with a few men. During the meal, a four-year-old child ran around causing a ruckus, disrupting the guests’ conversation — including that singing girl seated with the men. A conflict broke out between the customer and the owner.
Both parties were women, and a child was involved. Neither the young owner nor the singer backed down. According to those present, both were far from docile — the owner snapped at the singer, “You think singing a couple of songs makes you somebody?” The singer fired back: “Looks like playing the mistress has really grown on you!”
Thirty years later, that four-year-old child had grown into the infamous Big Mouth. According to him, the other party had targeted them because his father, constrained by his professional obligations, kept a low public profile — and so they’d preyed on “a widow and orphan.”
That’s a bit of an overstatement — half right, half wrong. His father actually operated within the same system as the singer; they weren’t close, but they knew each other’s weight.
What the other party saw was simply those four words: “widow and orphan.”
More precisely, what they saw was this: you have no formal status, yet you drape yourself in someone else’s tiger skin, thinking that giving the child his father’s surname lets you borrow that man’s power.
Of course, thirty years have passed. We won’t dig too deep into who was right or wrong back then. But one thing is certain: that child, in that very argument, likely experienced for the first time just how “awkward and precarious” his origins and position truly were.
As he grew older, he felt more and more how terrifying the “inferiority” carved into his very bones was.
There’s no escaping it — the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate birth means you might outrank ordinary people, but you are forever destined to be trampled underfoot by the elder brothers of the legitimate household.
At this point, some of you may still not know who this child is. That’s fine — take that passage above as a story. Enjoy it for what it is, since stories and reality always differ in small ways. On that point, our famous Shanghai Big Mouth would have the most authority to speak.
Speaking of the Big Mouth — he’s a rather fascinating character: arguably the person whose “wealthy second-generation” image collapsed the fastest.
Back when social media was still in its infancy, quite a few young people were dazzled by the supercar club he founded. They saw him driving luxury cars, frequenting lavish nightclubs, projecting an extravagant persona — and assumed he must be the son of Shanghai’s wealthiest man.
But those young people made two enormous mistakes.
First: Shanghai’s supercar club scene is a world that fools flock to but truly elite families avoid entirely. Unlike the Beijing club scene built by someone like Kele, Shanghai has never operated on those terms. Why? Beijing’s power is built on jianghu standing, which then generates real clout. Shanghai’s power is built on actual capability, which then generates standing. Can you really expect a group of men well into their thirties who still spend their days joyriding to have any serious substance? Wang Sicong and Qin Fen are exceptions, of course.
Second: The title “Shanghai’s wealthiest man” operates like a curse — almost everyone who has tried to wear that crown, publicly or behind closed doors, has ultimately been destroyed by it. The terms “Northeast’s Number One” and “the four great powers of the capital” carry similar lethal energy.
So now you understand just how foolish and naive it is to rush to claim the title of “son of Shanghai’s wealthiest man.”
What’s even more laughable is this: even if you genuinely are that man’s son, don’t forget — you have only one father, but he has far more than one son. Far more. A child who has to wait until the third day of the Lunar New Year just to receive his red envelope should keep a humble head and a grateful heart.
So the Big Mouth’s desperate effort to build a Shanghai supercar club was simply about establishing his place in the world. What young man doesn’t want to prove his own existence? “Look! All the wealthy second-gen car guys in Shanghai run in my circles!”
It’s really quite sad. Because that statement tells you exactly who isn’t in his world — anyone dealing in private jets, yachts, real assets, capital, group listings, and the vast empires left by their fathers.
Similarly, his relentless stirring of trouble in the entertainment world was equally a search for that sense of existence from the bottom. “Look! He even dares to trash-talk So-and-So! Impressive!”
Only he forgot one thing: trash-talking celebrities is one thing, but certain powerful figures simply aren’t yours to provoke. Because once some words leave your mouth, the man in question may not even bother with you — but there are always those listening who are just waiting for the chance to prove their loyalty by handling you themselves.
(Remember our friend surnamed Shanjia? Once beloved by so many, now completely silent. If you have a personal grudge, settle it yourself — but never attack a dog without first checking who its master is.)
Then there’s how he treated his ex-wife — Miss Huang — reportedly striking her while she was pregnant.
Know this: to truly understand a man’s character, don’t look at the grand moments. Look at the small ones. A man who can raise his hand against his pregnant wife — what is he not capable of?
So young people really must learn “tact” and “grace.” Otherwise, just like the previous generation’s arrogance that got slapped down hard by someone with more powerful backing — they end up with nothing to show for it.
And so here we are. He’s been exposed, arrested for drugs, most likely heading far away for a long, long time. Not an injustice — he got exactly what he earned.
That said, Master Chi still finds it genuinely a shame. Because the reason this Big Mouth ended up on the path of drug trafficking is, when you learn it, truly startling.
The truth is: this boy took this illegal path precisely because he had no real sources of wealth. And the root cause of that traces directly back to his parents. His father neither left him a proper business, nor set aside respectable assets for his mother. Meanwhile, his mother — herself a woman from the jianghu — understood perfectly well that her child had the face of misfortune, destined to come to nothing.
Remember when he first launched his so-called Shanghai supercar club? Those in the know were all aware: he had deceived his mother, sold off a family property, and used those proceeds to fund his first sports car and initial expenses.
When his mother eventually realized this group of young men spent their days in nothing but reckless, hollow play — and especially when she watched the legitimate children begin to rise and distinguish themselves — she lost all hope entirely. From that point on, she never again left him any financial breathing room.
What does “no breathing room” look like in practice? On any given night out at a nightclub, he couldn’t even cover his own tab. He survived by drifting between VIP tables, mooching off others — what people call “booth-hopping.”
At this point, Master Chi would like to say a few words about life pattern (格局) and the fallen wealthy second-generation as a group.
Having spent time among many elite families, Master Chi has met no shortage of children born to mistresses and secondary wives. What’s unfortunate is that illegitimate sons almost universally lack “great destiny framework” — on one hand because their mothers occupy a lowly position; on the other, because their fathers will never go all out to support them.
So inevitably, under the suffocating pressure of the legitimate brothers, they are forced down a path of “weakness.”
This is also precisely why almost all mistresses and secondary wives don’t concern themselves with formality before the child is born — but afterward, spare no effort to claim a higher position. A woman alone can afford not to think of herself; money handles everything. But the moment a child enters the picture, everything changes entirely.
For a child born out of wedlock: no share in the family fortune, no path to inherit the business — and more pitifully still, the child cannot go around saying “My father is so-and-so” in public.
One more telling detail: on the few occasions Master Chi encountered the Big Mouth’s legitimate elder brother, the brother said with undisguised contempt: “He only dares to step foot in our father’s estate when we legitimate children aren’t around.”
This elder brother, incidentally, is also a car enthusiast — only after buying his cars, he almost never drives them. Pure collection. An entirely different level from those supercar club fellows.
Everyone in the know understands: that club was a circle for those who had been written off by their fathers. After all, no matter how fine a sports car, it’s still just a four-wheeled commuter vehicle. How does that possibly compare to owning half of Shanghai’s entire construction industry?