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.
The second encounter was also in Shanghai. I had just wrapped up some business when a friend called to invite me to a gathering at a large entertainment venue in Huangpu. The venue itself was open to the public; we were headed to a private banquet club on the upper floors — a place I still have a soft spot for, for no particular reason other than its excellent privacy.
That floor was not accessible via the main lobby elevators. You had to drive to a specific spot in the basement parking garage, where a doorman would guide you the rest of the way. The amusing thing about this arrangement was that it had a way of producing unexpected encounters. On one occasion, the elevator doors opened to reveal a certain actress — celebrated for playing pristine, noble court figures — locked in a rather passionate embrace with some gentleman. “Passionate” in the way you’d expect.
In any case, what mattered about the club was that it kept us away from cameras and prying eyes when receiving or meeting certain acquaintances. That was enough. As for what goes on inside the circle — everyone already knows the score, so there’s nothing to hide.
It was in this same place that I ran into Scallion for the second time. Again, just a polite nod.
Now, Master Chi isn’t spending ink on these anecdotes for their own sake. What I’m actually pointing to is a far more significant detail — one that cannot be ignored. Had you been with me that day, and had your eyes been sharp enough, you would have noticed that the Nation’s Husband’s jing-qi-shen — his vitality, his presence, his inner energy — was noticeably off.
We always say that a person’s words and bearing reflect their inner state. By the same token, when someone’s fundamental life force undergoes such a marked shift — for better or worse — it tells you, at minimum, that something has happened.
I’ll leave it at that on the subject of Scallion. I’ve said nothing, implied nothing — this is simply a small personal recollection. What followed, of course, was the prelude I shared with everyone in October regarding the infighting among the second generation. And true to form, the entertainment industry’s version of the internal affairs committee went quiet from that point forward, right up to the present day. There is no need to get into those details now.
What I do find genuinely interesting at this particular moment, however, is the contrast between Beijing’s openly prominent young heir — Scallion — and Shanghai’s openly prominent young heir — Qin Fen. The comparison is quite striking. Two figureheads representing the Northern and Southern circles respectively, much like the Fok family and the Li family of an earlier era.
One is determined to leverage power in pursuit of wealth. The other has seen through it all and uses wealth to supply power. That single difference immediately creates a vast strategic gap between their respective family decision-making.
There was a well-meaning fellow who, in a recent article, put forward the following points:
1 - The Li family are smart people. Purely from a business standpoint, their decades of operation have generated extraordinary returns. 2 - When the Li family saw no future in a certain direction, they chose to invest overseas, preserving what they had. A shrewd move. 3 - The Li family’s arrangement for their two sons was wise: one to steward the core business, one to take on risk. 4 - The Li family has become the largest player in the region today, far surpassing the once-glorious Fok family.
This analysis reveals that the writer has absolutely no understanding of how the real game is played. He is still, essentially, at the stage of believing whatever the media says.
And that, unfortunately, is the mental framework of 99.99% of people in this world. Because most people believe that if they can just unearth those rare details buried in obscure corners, they’ve found some exclusive truth that no one else possesses.
I’m sorry, but the reality is this: the Li family’s true weight was already surpassed by the Fok family by an entire order of magnitude — ten years ago.
So why bring up the Li and Fok families right after discussing Scallion? Simple: the Fok family’s success transcended the realm of “commerce” long ago.
Here’s where it gets subtle. Because the general public overwhelmingly believes that business is the best mechanism for accumulating wealth — and that building up a career step by step through your own efforts is the ideal model.
Not quite right.
Every businessperson you see today — regardless of field or scale — has never been, and never will be, part of the core operating system of the true largest players.
Take the Li family as an example. In commercial terms, they are genuinely extraordinary — their business acumen is beyond question. But consider this: what if, on top of your already formidable “commercial kung fu,” you could add a layer of impenetrable protection? An iron bell-jar of invincibility — beneath it, you stand alone, unchallenged, no longer chasing the world’s admiration or recognition. The way others are still competing for the title of top tycoon, while you’ve already become the sweeping monk — invisible to all, yet mightier than any.
This is precisely why the Li family’s second generation is still grinding away, snowballing their wealth — while the Fok family’s children no longer need to toil so hard.
If that’s still not clear, let me put it another way: imagine a great boss who doesn’t find it convenient to go out shopping in person. So he finds you — a respectable purchasing agent — to handle his procurements. He tells you specifically: we just need to acquire things; don’t get mixed up in any spectacle. And so you operate with quiet, careful discretion.
Meanwhile, your neighbor is a nouveau riche type who spends his days buying middling goods — he can’t actually afford the truly astronomical items. But to project importance, he loves having people report on how much wealth and influence he commands. The reality? Any single item you’ve procured on behalf of your boss would bury him instantly.
And you personally? You’re even further beyond comparison. Beneath a great boss are mid-level bosses — and plenty of other people who also can’t conveniently go shopping for themselves will come to you for help. So tell me: between the one staking his own life and fortune, and the one backed by unlimited capital and a vast support structure — who comes out ahead?
Do you think the Li family wouldn’t want that kind of achievement and standing? There’s simply no path. No matter how large a merchant grows, he remains a merchant — he can never ascend into the halls of true power.
So although these two great families once came from the same roots, one adopted the British playbook while the other stayed loyal to the Chinese way. You tell me — which one would ultimately receive the deeper trust?
True mastery lies beyond the obvious domain. For merchants, the pinnacle is calculation and prediction — that is your framework, your ceiling. No matter how high you reach, you cannot break through it.
Is the Li family impressive? Absolutely. But without breaking that framework, there is no ascending to the next tier.
The only way is to lay down the merchant identity entirely and start building a different kind of skill from scratch. Bridge, for instance, would be a fine place to begin.
Now, bring the conversation back to our young Wang and young Qin — they really do embody that timeless saying: “Make your fortune in silence.”
How you get rich, how capable you are — nobody cares. But never forget: there is one unbreakable rule in this world.
When you keep a low profile, no one knows where your money comes from. When you go high-profile, you won’t know how you ended up finished.
And yet, looking at their recent moves, every step has been a serious violation of that principle. Even now, I still think young Wang is a decent person — not someone of poor character. The same goes for the Wang family patriarch: “bad person” would be far too strong a term for either of them.
The problem is simply this: when ascent comes too easily, a person inevitably overestimates himself — or misjudges his own true weight. What follows is an unchecked charge forward, full of bold moves, right up until the avalanche becomes unstoppable.
Truth be told, that entire generation of family heads still carries, to varying degrees, a certain attachment to “having backing” — believing that as long as someone can speak for them in the boardroom, everything will work out, everything can be navigated. What they fail to see is that in today’s era of zero-sum competition over finite resources, whoever is most compliant and well-behaved is the one who gets trusted and deployed.
At this point, Master Chi must add one more remark — one whose full meaning cannot be stated openly in public and must be pondered privately:
Entrepreneurship is taking a group of people to go looking for water to drink.
Business is a few people directly dividing up the water source.
This is also why I’ve never been able to understand how they decided to have the child invest in startups. Of course, they have their own judgment, and it’s not for outsiders to offer lessons. But it proves at least one thing: young Wang could not do what old Wang did — he could not move in the same circles as those who truly divide up the water sources. On this count, the Qin family’s son is considerably more astute.
Think about it — have you ever seen a child from a truly great family come out to start a company?
Don’t even bring up Hong Kong and Macau in this context. Do you think those families wouldn’t want to join the feast? Entrepreneurship is something for those who have nothing — because the startup world is fundamentally a platform for people who are confused, uninformed, and therefore forced to seek a way out. Can people succeed there? Yes, many do — but it’s built on a foundation of countless failures.
Those who’ve never had water must go out and find it.
Those who know the landscape — who can navigate the terrain even apart from their parents’ systems — already know instinctively where the water sources are. That’s why they thrive effortlessly.
This also answers, from another angle, why Beijing and Shanghai don’t seem to have the most vibrant startup cultures — yet they are home to the highest concentration of invisible, colossal wealth.
Take someone entirely outside these circles: talk to them about building wealth, and their imagination reaches no further than two things — real estate speculation and the stock market.
But no matter how brilliantly you trade real estate or stocks, none of it registers in the eyes of the truly wealthy. Why? Because no matter how hard you work, how skilled you become, you’re still operating within those four constraining lines of a framework — you can never reach a scale of hundreds of billions.
Remember this:
What doesn’t make money — ordinary people see it everywhere. It might make money by your definition, sure.
What truly makes money — ordinary people can’t understand it. It genuinely does make money, but most people fear it like a tiger.
What makes the most money — ordinary people can’t even see it. It holds heaven’s treasury, yet you can never touch it at all.
It being the New Year period, we cannot speak too openly on deeper matters — too risky on one hand, and unnecessary on the other. It’s the same with most things in this world: ordinary people are only meant to receive outdated, secondhand information. They’re satisfied just being entertained — even if they wait with bated breath, they’ll only learn about something after the story has made the rounds a hundred times over.
But we are different. In the world of capital, the timeliness of inside knowledge is its most valuable attribute — often worth more than the information itself.