Do you know? In this world, purely soft and kind people rarely rise to the top.
A purely good person is like a herbivore with no claws or fangs to protect itself. No matter how hard it grazes and grows, it remains fundamentally defenseless.
And so your fate is sealed: one day, the very people you trust most — family, confidants, close friends, business partners — will drain you dry in ways you never imagined.
Fortresses are often breached from within. And wealth is often bled out from the inside.
I don’t want you to spend your whole life as this kind of defenseless herbivore. That’s why I wrote today’s piece — call it “The Art of Hardening Yourself in This World.”
Don’t be alarmed by the title. My articles are like inactivated vaccines: yes, the core ingredient is technically a virus — but once neutralized, it loses its destructive power and instead dramatically strengthens your immunity.
Read this slowly. I hope you come away with a mature understanding of these truths:
1. In this world, 99% of people cannot be relied upon. Never place your hopes in others — not even those bound to you by the closest blood ties.
Experience has proven it: the knife that cuts you deepest is almost always wielded by the person you trusted most.
You can still love them and care for them. But never expose your most vulnerable throat to anyone. This is a lesson written in tears and blood.
2. Never let a moment of emotional warmth cause you to pour your entire heart out all at once.
In that moment you might feel a genuine connection — real feelings flowing between you. But the moment that person has a bad day or a shift in mood, everything you confided becomes ammunition they can use to cripple you.
Always leave yourself a 40% margin when you speak. Don’t take positions too definitively or draw battle lines too absolutely — this is how you keep a way out.
Learn to say things that sound good but commit to nothing. Master the art of polished, pleasant-sounding words that mean little. This is genuine worldly wisdom.
3. Don’t assume that the more you give, the more others will value you. That’s the thinking of a servant.
The most despised people in this world are the ones who give endlessly without condition. Flatter them a little and they’ll deliver real, tangible sacrifice. Over time, they get treated as dirt.
The way to be truly valued is to always offer just a small taste of sweetness — then stop. Wait until you feel like it, then give a little more.
Think of feeding a pack of dogs: feed them until they’re full every day, and the moment you’re even slightly short on a meal, they’ll snarl at you. But feed them only 60% full each day, and not only will they be completely deferential to you — add even a small extra meal and they’ll overflow with gratitude.
4. There is no such thing as “accidentally offending you” in this world. Every first offense is fundamentally a test of your tolerance — followed by pushing for more.
So: the first time someone wrongs you, that’s on them. The second time, that’s on your weakness. The third time — you’ve earned it.
5. It’s a bitter irony, but the most reliable bonds in this world are the ones held together by sufficient mutual interest.
Never believe in “heart for heart, genuine feeling for genuine feeling” — because what it really means is: the moment you fail to cater to someone’s feelings or honor their debts of gratitude, that bond capsizes instantly.
By contrast, relationships built on solid mutual interest tend to last far longer.
Ordinary people say something foolish like: “Never do business with friends, or you’ll lose both the business and the friend.” This is a failure to understand human nature.
In truth, the friends who are genuinely reliable are exactly the best ones to do business with — because you can talk money clearly and openly, down to the last detail, without awkwardness.
As for friends who fall apart the moment business enters the picture — they were only drinking buddies to begin with.
6. If you genuinely can’t sort all of this out, then follow Master Chi’s clearest framework: with family, talk only about companionship; with friends, talk only about enjoyment; with colleagues, talk only about work. Keep each circle clearly separate, never blurred.
A life lived this way is actually the lightest and most free.
7. Never assume you’re well-liked. Every love and every hatred in this world has a fundamental reason behind it.
Every hatred in this world: because you have something they can’t get.
Every love in this world: because you have something they want.
So if someone suddenly becomes exceptionally warm and flattering toward you, that’s precisely the moment to sound the alarm and prepare your defenses on every front.
8. When someone calls you selfish, it’s because they didn’t get to take advantage of you. When someone says you have a bad temper, it’s because you didn’t submit. When someone calls you cold, it’s because their moral manipulation failed. When someone says you’re too sensitive, it’s because you saw through them. When someone says your ambitions are small, it’s because you didn’t swallow the empty promises they dangled in front of you.
9. The most foolish person in the world is the one who spends every day calling themselves a “good person” or a “great soul” — and when others walk all over them, they smile and refuse to fight back, brainwashing themselves with lines like “the highest good is like water.”
You are not a Bodhisattva. You were never meant to save the world from its suffering — and frankly, you don’t have the power to do so anyway.
So: the first time someone wrongs you, warn them clearly. The second time, push back directly. Even if you don’t win, make sure they pay a price. Only then will you cut off any further predatory ambitions they might harbor.
Remember this: in this world, if you don’t have thunder in your hands, don’t wear the face of a merciful saint.
In closing: Over the years, Master Chi has lost count of how many readers came to me for a destiny framework (格局) reading, only to have been undone by this one fatal flaw — being far too kind and good-natured.
Take one female reader who runs a medical aesthetics business. Her business instincts are honed to a razor’s edge — she brings in seven figures in net income every year. But after years of hard fighting, she still hadn’t managed to build the solid financial foundation she needed.
So she made the firm decision to come to me for a reading.
The moment I looked at her destiny framework, I knew the problem lay in her six relations (六亲, the family bonds in one’s destiny) — every member of her household, including her husband, had been indulged to the point where they’d become “parasites who took everything for granted.”
Count it up: six or seven family members, all feeding off her at once. How could that ever lead anywhere good?
This is the fundamental reason I wrote today’s article. I’m not trying to turn you into a bad person. I want you to develop genuine, clear-eyed awareness.
I want you to wake up. I want you to grow strong. I want you, from this day forward, to conquer your world.