These past couple of days, something happened that’s genuinely worth talking about.
The story itself is simple: Zhou Hongyi, the boss of 360, wanted to auction off his Maybach and replace it with a high-quality domestically-produced electric vehicle. During the auction, a used car dealer going by the name “Chairman Zhu” placed a sky-high bid of 9.9 million yuan — then couldn’t actually pay for it.
And that wasn’t the end of the farce. Chairman Zhu also arranged a dinner gathering, deliberately inviting Zhou Hongyi and a crowd of people dripping with “street boss” energy to dine together.
Student Question: After reading your articles, I realize that as someone in the tech field, I tend to be a wallflower in social situations. How do I develop my own social tree? How do I find and connect with the “hidden small wealthy people in the city” or the “hidden local money in smaller towns”?
Master Chi’s Response: What you’re describing comes down to a fundamental question of sequence. The four steps are: Step One — do things; Step Two — establish your name; Step Three — enter circles; Step Four — build your network.
These past couple of days, I’ve had many brothers and sisters leaving messages in my comments section, hoping I’d speak to this topic. Most of us are feeling some version of “off” right now — and I feel it too.
I thought it over, and I want to casually work through a few points, moving from the small to the big. Let’s see where the conversation goes. How much meaning you draw from it — well, that depends on your own insight.
Question: Hello, I’ve recently been looking into travel projects on Xiaohongshu and wanted to ask — is this something beginners can realistically do right now? How does it actually work?
Response: The Xiaohongshu travel project works like this: physical travel agencies use Xiaohongshu to generate leads, you funnel interested customers to WeChat, then hand them off to a travel agency to close the deal. Of course, if you have solid travel experience yourself, you can handle the sales directly and earn higher commissions.
Student Question:
Hello Master Chi. I spent many years at a major tech company and have a strong academic background. Like many people my age, I’m navigating the personal reinvention that tends to hit around 35. I joined the community last year, and it gave me much clearer confidence and a real sense of direction. I’ve decided I want to build a high-ticket personal coaching practice — helping other personal trainers sharpen their coaching services and monetize their skills more effectively.
Brothers and sisters — may this new beginning bring great fortune.
I wonder if you felt it too: the moment the eighth day of the Lunar New Year arrived in the Year of Jiachen (the Wood Dragon year), something quietly stirred inside you — an urge that whispered, “This year, I need to really give it everything.”
If you felt that, your intuition is sharp. You’re the kind of person with genuine natural gifts.
Knowledge-based content creators have it the worst. Not only do people readily criticize you, your traffic is low, and monetization is nearly impossible.
Knowledge itself runs against human nature — and against commerce.
Spend the same time and energy on entertainment or product promotions, and you’ll find it several times easier than sharing knowledge.
A pure knowledge blogger — unless you’re out there harvesting naive followers — earning 20,000 yuan a month is already impressive.
Count on your fingers — Spring Festival is truly just over ten days away.
And I believe this year’s Spring Festival will be something different. Because even though my articles haven’t been updating quite as frequently these past couple of days, I’m still receiving messages from brothers and sisters in the comments.
In those messages, anxiety, suppression, irritability, discouragement, and self-doubt are written between every line.
Of course, all things in this world operate through Yin and Yang in balance.
Live-streaming commerce hosts appear to be driving consumption — but in reality, they haven’t created any new market. They’ve simply seized existing market share.
That same market share used to sustain countless brick-and-mortar shops and their employees, supporting stable livelihoods for many people. The winner-takes-all Matthew Effect of top-tier streaming hosts has instead triggered mass unemployment.
Merchants find themselves losing money just to stay in the game — but they have no choice but to play along. Consumers find shopping more cumbersome than ever, forced to sit through livestreams or pay more elsewhere. Workers find fewer local jobs available — positions that could have offered stability in a smaller hometown city have evaporated, leaving people no option but to uproot their lives and migrate for work.
Student Question: Hello Master, what are the things that truly broaden one’s horizons? Work, travel, reading — or stepping outside the circle you’re comfortable in?
Master Chi’s Response: My answer is this: learn to become a producer.
Most people in this world are timid as producers, but relentless as consumers.
Reading fifty thousand words a day — effortless, pure pleasure. Writing two thousand words a day — stumbling at every step. Spending a hundred thousand a month — light as breathing. Earning a hundred thousand a month — nearly impossible.