I have a deep aversion to shortcuts.
The reason is simple. From the time my father’s generation built their fortune, through every storm and reversal I’ve weathered in my own life, and having watched countless figures rise and fall across this world — my most profound conviction is this: real, lasting wealth is never built through cunning tricks or opportunistic schemes. It is built through the most literal meaning of returning to simplicity. The greatest path is always the plainest.
I feel this way because I have witnessed firsthand, and walked alongside, many of Jiangnan’s old-money families through their seasons of fortune and ruin. Some eventually squandered everything and lost their Chi (气). Others endure in quiet prosperity to this day.
There is too much depth here to unpack in one sitting — and frankly, you wouldn’t be ready for all of it anyway. So let’s talk plainly about “the dumbest, most straightforward way for ordinary people to accumulate wealth.” Note carefully: nothing in this article constitutes formal advice. This is purely Master Chi’s own hard-won perspective.
If you’re here looking for fast money, nothing written here applies to you. You may leave.
But if you can tolerate the passage of time — if you’re willing to steadily roll the snowball of wealth, year by year, until ten or fifteen years from now you hold a dignified, substantial net worth that frees you from the necessity of earning a paycheck — then what follows is worth burning into your memory:
1. Buying stocks is, at its core, buying a piece of a company. So unless you have absolutely direct, straight-to-the-inner-circle intelligence, never touch companies with market caps below the hundred-billion range. Focus instead on dominant leaders — those with market caps well above that threshold and consistently strong dividend records. These are the true long-hold choices. Once you’ve made that decision, stop the fancy footwork. Let time pass. What you’re after is not price appreciation — it’s the dividend return on market cap.
2. In the same way, buying property is buying a piece of a city. Never listen to amateurs who would have you absorbing dead weight in so-called “new development zones” with no subway access and no population growth. Choose instead areas with moderate, healthy population density, mature infrastructure, and consistently favorable rent-to-price ratios. Once you’ve bought, don’t fiddle with it. Let it quietly generate rental income and natural appreciation. That is real, solid wealth.
3. Do not let empty-pocketed fools mislead you, and do not let their thinking drag you into the swamp of lying flat and giving up. When it comes to wealth, the only people qualified to offer you meaningful guidance are those with a net worth north of eight figures — not those still surviving on a monthly salary. Never forget: wealth is always built by rolling the snowball slowly. Even in today’s environment, if your parents were wise enough to bite the bullet between 2000 and 2010 and complete their initial accumulation — a few small apartments and a moderate position in blue-chip stocks — your life today would be many times easier than it is now.
4. You’ve reached the age where you must decide your own destiny. So ask yourself honestly: which of the following do you want to be?
A. Sharp-tongued and always eloquent, with a clever opinion on everything — yet with absolutely nothing accumulated to show for it. The “high-cognition poor person.”
B. Steady, deliberate, and methodical — quietly rolling the wealth snowball without fanfare. The “pragmatic wealthy person.”
5. The defining trait of the high-cognition poor person is this: they appear to know a great deal and can offer seemingly sharp opinions on everything — yet cannot produce any convincing evidence of net worth. How can you trust such a person? Their financial standing is a direct, visible reflection of whether their thinking is right or wrong. A student who consistently finishes last in class has no business teaching you study methods.
6. False pride is extraordinarily destructive. Many people cannot tolerate being questioned — and some, even when they know they are wrong, refuse to change course. Do not become this person. Learn to take good counsel. Learn to review and correct your own thinking. Here is a line that cuts: if you were truly as smart and right as you believe, you should have achieved financial freedom long ago — at the very least, you wouldn’t be worrying about money for basic survival.
7. Wealth has always been a result. Chase it single-mindedly while neglecting the fundamentals, and you will never catch it. But when you begin to live a disciplined life — focused each day on honest career development, meaningful reading and physical conditioning, and wise long-term investing — wealth will gradually sense that you and it are a good match, and will slowly gather toward you.
8. Always make the right decisions. Don’t be stubborn. Don’t be arrogant. The moment you discover you’re wrong, correct it openly. The moment you discover a weakness, address it openly. Many people spend decades of hard effort yet remain stuck in place like fools — no accumulation, no growth, no development, no future. It’s not that they lack diligence. It’s that their minds are fixed — they never adjust, never evolve. They aren’t bad people. But I hope you don’t become one of them.
9. I have a profound aversion to romantic entanglements, neighborhood gossip, and the petty dramas of office cubicle life. In my view, these are all low-level problems. Human energy is precious. Spend it on these things and you will inevitably lack the energy for what truly matters — the big moves, the important decisions, the real work. Another deep conviction of mine: a single day spent wrestling with low-level problems drains you completely, yet yields almost nothing. But concentrate your energy on career positioning, wealth decisions, and capability development — and you will be astonished to find that three years later, all those trivial problems have dissolved on their own, while your life has grown steadily better.
10. I have always believed that earning hundreds of millions or billions — that truly does depend on one’s personal Chi fortune (气运). But to achieve modest financial freedom, to hold a dignified set of assets that lets you live comfortably — that is no great feat at all.
You simply need to keep doing the core, effective, essential things. Consistently. Without stopping.
Never abandon the upward-striving mindset. Keep reminding yourself that where you stand today is not where you belong — and you should be climbing out of it as quickly as possible. But in doing so, there is no need to display arrogance. Engage with the people around you with a calm, ordinary heart. Don’t seek their approval. Simply keep your head down and tend to your career, your investments, and your cultivation.
Career: Understand the full path of advancement from start to finish. Set your ego aside. Focus on providing value to those above you, building genuine professional competence, and saving as much of what you earn as possible.
Investment: Don’t waste your years on second-tier cities. Don’t chain yourself to mediocre stocks. Put your wealth into good cities and good stocks — even if the amounts are small, don’t give up. Accumulate steadily. Lay it down layer by layer.
Five years, ten years, fifteen years — the snowball will inevitably grow larger and larger. That is the beautiful ending that awaits you.