Finding the essence of things is crucial.
Whether you truly internalize this determines whether you’ll sink to the bottom for life — or whether you’ll keep climbing and rewrite your destiny.
Think about it — why do high-education families produce top students at such a high rate? It’s genuinely not that these children have superior genes or a higher destiny framework than ordinary kids from birth.
It’s purely that the parents help their children find the essence of test-taking early on.
I previously wrote about how Shanghai’s former richest man made his fortune — and it sparked enormous curiosity among many of you. You wanted to understand how that group of people managed to accumulate their first pot of gold during those wild, lawless years. They started out just like everyone else — penniless and powerless. So how did they break through the class ceiling and rise to wealth?
True to Master Chi’s long-standing habit, I don’t just want you to understand those old stories. I want you to extract real knowledge from them. So I’ve structured this article into several chapters, each building on the last:
On a rare quiet occasion, a question surfaced unbidden in my mind: if you — my reader — were somehow a close friend or family member in my life, what would I want to say to you? What would I want to give you?
That question held me for a long time. Many things drifted through my mind — worldviews, perspectives on wealth, strategies for navigating life, sharp and penetrating insights. But when I thought it through carefully, none of them felt quite right.
I’ve been wanting to say something lately — something to quiet the restless hearts of people caught in this era of relentless competition and burnout (what the Chinese call neijuan — the exhausting spiral of diminishing returns). So let me share a small insight from the angle I know best: life pattern (格局).
There are three things you must always keep clearly separated: your own affairs, other people’s affairs, and heaven’s affairs.
A mature approach to choosing a partner isn’t about picking the best option available — it’s about completely avoiding those destined to drag you down for life.
Men must stay away from women who thrive on psychologically emasculating you, because these women will utterly destroy your drive and your mindset for the rest of your life.
Women must stay away from lapdog men. Countless lives of tears and regret have proven it: these men have nothing to offer except flattery.
“If you can cultivate an aura of wealth and nobility, you carry with you the finest Feng Shui for gathering fortune and attracting luck.” — Master Chi
It happens to be a day off, so I’m setting aside the heavier topics and talking about something interesting and genuinely valuable: “how to cultivate good face reading (面相).” Don’t underestimate it — having good 面相 can give you enormous natural advantages in career, business, and marriage.
There are many mistakes and bad habits in life that must never be indulged. Gambling, prostitution, and drugs go without saying — these are ferocious poisons that destroy you the moment you touch them. Of course, things like divorce, accumulating debt, and constantly changing careers are also best avoided whenever possible.
But beyond these obvious pitfalls whose consequences are plain to see, the real poison that ruins your life for good is the kind etched deep into your bones — the kind whose harm you yourself cannot perceive at all. Let’s call these inner poisons what they are: bad habits.
Let me first lay bare the hidden truth behind the great casino: remember, every single dollar you earn here has an owner behind it. Sometimes you manage to pocket a little money — and that’s simply because the person on the other side of that trade is just as naive as you are, another foolish sheep who wandered in hoping to get lucky. The only reason you took their money is that they were slower, dumber, and more sluggish than you. Nothing more.
Introduction: There exists in this world a towering structure that reaches the heavens. Each floor requires you to produce the right key to unlock it. The first floor demands diligence. The second demands tenacity. The third demands intelligence. Every floor requires a different key — and each key works only for its designated lock. Yet the tragedy is this: countless people, having unlocked the first floor through diligence, are foolish enough to believe that diligence is the master key. They remain forever trapped on that first floor, straining desperately to climb higher. They convince themselves that the reason they can’t reach the second floor is that those above have sealed the door shut. So they seethe with resentment, railing against an unjust world — never realizing that the door above requires only a light, clever touch to open. Today, Master Chi wants to talk to you about the true nature and secrets of this Tower of Destiny.
Preface: “Class stratification” has become a buzzword in recent years — especially beloved by mediocre people drawing monthly salaries, who can’t wait to pin these four characters to their lips as if they’ve finally found an excuse for their failure. If you’ve achieved even modest success, you’ll immediately recognize this for the nonsense it is. Summer insects live too briefly to comprehend winter ice; small-minded people see too little to speak of the world. Today, let’s talk about poverty’s original sin — that unexamined word: “inertia.”