The long-awaited National Day holiday is almost here — eight whole days off this time, if you can believe it. Which means there’s far too much to handle and arrange before the break, and naturally the time I have for writing has shrunk. But even in the rush, I still plan to share two longer pieces before Friday — something for you all to look forward to.
As for tonight’s piece, it’s just casual fun mixed with a bit of experience. Read it for the enjoyment. Whatever you take from it — that’s up to your own destiny.
1. Even today, raw ability alone won’t get you very far. You must learn to leverage your network — wisely and legitimately — if you want to truly rise.
2. Why do so many people grind for years and still can’t match what a single noble benefactor (Gui Ren) offers with one word of guidance? Because opportunity and wealth have a clustering effect — they ultimately pool in the hands of a select few seasoned veterans. That’s the core truth.
3. Why is a drinking banquet more important than a tea gathering? Because a drinking banquet is fundamentally a loyalty test. Fifteen cups of wine down the throat says just one thing: “I can drink like this for you — so Brother, any other hardship you throw at me, I can handle it too.”
4. Most people never realize this: everything you studied in college, no matter how deep or specialized, is still just “basic skill.” Only when you layer social engineering on top does it actually work — and become the foundation for climbing higher.
5. What is social engineering? I can’t explain it in a line or two. It’s a blend of relationship coordination, network operation, reading the room, helping people in their moment of need, gauging the right timing, making swift decisive cuts, and turning performance into genuine commitment. I consider myself only an undergraduate in this discipline. What’s even more interesting: the true masters of it appear — on the surface — utterly simple and sincere.
6. Don’t dismiss any of this as cultural baggage. Only when you’ve truly reached a certain level will it dawn on you: those uniquely Chinese practices — the art of hinting without stating outright, social engineering, the tea gathering, the drinking banquet, the dinner table — are all sophisticated cultural forms that evolved out of Confucian tradition.
7. And this particular culture — you’ll only grasp its true value after you’ve traveled widely. It’s genuinely unique, because it gives you more room to maneuver: to advance, to retreat, to pivot mid-step.
8. Let me draw an interesting parallel:
Japan’s cultural core is the chrysanthemum and the sword — endurance and ruthlessness combined. America’s core is the Bible and the revolver — faith and dominance combined. Ours is the carp and the ascending dragon — effort and pride combined.
Sit with that last one and you’ll understand it. It describes roughly 80% of the mainstream population. Truly exceptional individuals, of course, operate at an entirely different level.
9. And yet, precisely because our culture has always centered on the carp leaping the dragon gate — followed by the ascending dragon commanding respect and awe — there emerged a counterbalancing wisdom: keep a low profile, never flaunt your wealth. Yin and Yang giving rise to each other, each fulfilling the other.
10. We have a very special hidden path that most people don’t understand: our upward channel has always existed, and it flows more smoothly than people think. The problem is that most are too impatient — they want to skip two, three, even four steps at once. That kind of leap always ends in a hard fall.
11. I say this to tell you: the key to truly walking our upward path doesn’t lie in whether you can seize sudden wealth in one explosive moment — that’s meaningless. It lies in whether you can settle your heart, walk each step well, understand the principles and know the right measure, then understand deeper principles and subtler measures, advancing steadily.
12. To be honest with myself: if this world has ten tiers of human existence (十阶众生), I can personally reach no higher than the seventh. Beyond that is beyond my current ability and insight — it requires vast stretches of time to contemplate and absorb, unless you have access to a truly top-tier noble benefactor, or a family tradition of learning as deep as the sea.
13. These past years, more and more people claim to have seen through Confucianism — thinking themselves clear-eyed about the world. But the inner meaning of Confucianism approaches that of Buddhism, and 99.9999% of those who claim to have “seen through” it have only understood its surface. Because seeing through something is not what makes a master. Learning it, adapting to it — living it — that is true wisdom.
14. Gain and loss, honor and disgrace, success and failure, right and wrong — behind all of it is just one word: self.
15. I have one more thing to say, and I wonder if you’ll understand it: “To see the peak is to see the abyss. Only peace, joy, health, and freedom from disaster — that is true wisdom.”
16. Don’t just accept your fate. Learn to know it. Then learn to govern it.
17. Master Chi raises a glass to you. Raise one back to Master Chi.