Everyone envies the second generation, even outstanding people do. What exactly are they envying?

You’re envious of the certainty that second-generation heirs possess.

In the Cao Wei group, is it easier to get ahead as one of the Xiahou family—like Xiahou Yuan or Xiahou Dun—or as a former enemy general like Zhang He or Gao Lan? The former: as long as you deliver results, you’ll be rewarded. That certainty is incredibly hard to come by.

Flip the perspective and look at it from the angle of Zhang He and Gao Lan, those Hebei defectors. They’re the ones who have to do all the dirty work, leading every charge as human shields, almost wiping out their own troops in the process. Why? Because they’re not the inner circle. Because they’re not trusted.

Watching their troops get decimated one after another, Gao Lan must’ve been desperate. He was. And that’s the brutal reality for most non-second-generation high performers. You can’t see a way out. You have zero control over the future. All you can do is endure—and during that process, it’s entirely up to heaven. You do your part; the rest is left to fate.