Note: The first half of this article is entertainment; the second half is practical guidance. Feel free to skip straight to the latter if that’s what you’re after.
The more people you encounter in life, the deeper your understanding of human nature grows. And the more overseas Chinese you meet, the clearer your picture of that particular community becomes.
Take, for example, a question many people find puzzling: why do some overseas Chinese, upon returning to China, carry themselves with such arrogance and condescension? Middle-class immigrant Chinese especially.
The longer you walk through this world, the more clearly you’ll see that life’s path is filled with traps and crises at every turn. And you must never assume these crises will come from any single event. On the contrary — whether in your career or your accumulation of wealth — the most dangerous variable in everything you do is always people. The people around you. The people beside you.
The title Master Chi has chosen for today is a phrase he has pondered for a long time — one he wants to give to you as a gift. Its meaning, stripped bare, isn’t complicated: every setback and hardship in life carries its own value and purpose. And much of that pain — if you don’t take it now, the version that comes for you later won’t be a minor stumble. It will be a true catastrophe.
If I’m being honest with myself, I have never believed in the notion of universal equality. What I do believe is this: the moment a person is born, their trajectory is already written.
Some might call this the indifference of Heaven and Earth — yet in the end, we all come to understand that some are born to watch from the sidelines, and others are destined to play defining roles.
(Today’s article — Master Chi strongly urges you to watch the video at the end after reading the text.)
In the course of Master Chi’s destiny readings (命理), there is no shortage of extraordinary and unusual life patterns. Among the most striking are those I call “heaven-blessed golden destiny” (天赐金贵) — individuals who, by any ordinary measure, represent what people dream of as the ideal “life winner.”
Last month, for instance, a friend of considerable standing asked me to look at the road ahead for his child. Without getting into the specifics of this young man’s parents — suffice to say that from the moment he entered the workforce, the positions available to him were already beyond what ordinary people could ever reach. What the world calls “top-tier” — elite financial institutions, internet giants, property conglomerates — he looks at all of them with indifference. His career path runs straight through what I call “policy platforms.”
The thing that has made me happiest this past year? Hearing from more and more of you that after reading Master Chi’s articles, you’ve become increasingly… “cold.”
And yet — you feel genuinely happy about it. Because your worldview, across every dimension, has been elevated.
In truth, there’s a slight miscalibration in how you’re describing yourselves. What’s happened isn’t “coldness” — it’s clarity.
Understand this: as your worldview and your standing in life ascend, so does your vantage point. Take how you see the drama and politics of the professional world, for instance. You no longer react like a young hothead, swept away by someone saying “we’re brothers,” letting enthusiasm override judgment. Nor do you hear a speech about grueling work culture and come away bitter and resentful, cursing those at the top alongside whoever will listen.
When I was young, I believed the world should be level — otherwise it simply wasn’t fair. Later I came to understand that this logic was flawed. Not because I had grown cynical about reality, but because I had come to grasp the actual rules of the game.
Back then, before I had any real depth of experience, I assumed that relying on your parents’ foundation was something to be ashamed of. That was naïve.
Allow me to open today with a mildly embarrassing admission: I am not, in fact, close with the Nation’s Husband — known online as “Scallion.” Our acquaintance amounts to exactly two brief encounters, both of which trace back to the opening of Shanghai’s W Hotel. If memory serves, it was the summer of 2017, and I was accompanied by several financial heirs from the Southern circle. Through a mutual introduction, I exchanged pleasantries with Scallion — but we both know that kind of greeting leaves no impression on anyone. A man in his position probably nods at a hundred people every day.
This article discusses something that many people will never — in this lifetime — possess the awareness to cultivate: the Chi field (气场), personal aura.
The Chi field. Two characters. Invisible and colorless, yet present everywhere. It may be utterly worthless — or it may be priceless beyond measure. For some, possessing it is equivalent to holding an entry pass into higher echelons of society. No matter how unremarkable or undistinguished their past, they can use it to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with major players and powerful figures, addressing them as equals.
Looking back at the great figures of our temples of power and the titans of commerce, you’ll find without much difficulty that each of them had their own Bole — a noble benefactor (贵人, Gui Ren) who recognized their worth. These titans almost universally showed remarkable talent in their youth, yet it was precisely those who recognized them that gave them the power to part the clouds and see things as they truly are. It’s the same with all the world’s knowledge: any young person fortunate enough to receive the full transmission of wisdom from their elders is destined to walk a hundred steps ahead of the pack in their chosen field. From that foundation, they can then use the prime years of their life — with its abundant energy and instinct for the currents of the times — to break new ground and build something great. The achievement and legacy that follow are simply the natural result. An outside observer watching this process will almost always offer the same praise: this young person hasn’t merely improved — they’ve been reforged.