Why would you be chosen for something that’s easy to succeed at?
Zeng Guofan besieged Nanjing for over two years. Everyone, including his top disciple Li Hongzhang, knew: who was this opportunity reserved for?
It was reserved for the teacher’s younger brother, Zeng Guoquan. Who would be reckless enough to pluck this peach? Who dares snatch it? They don’t want to stay in the game anymore?
This is what it means: opportunities that can actually succeed aren’t meant for you to take.
Then what kind of opportunities are you fit for?
As Pang Yunqing said: suicide missions with zero chance of survival. The kind everyone else has already passed on, evaluated, and decided have no path to victory.
Fine. For these opportunities, you can strive. Because that’s all you’re qualified to compete for. Understand?
Zero survival odds—if you push through, you level up. If you fail, you die.
And please understand clearly: even though this kind of opportunity is absolute garbage, the problem is, not everyone gets to scramble for it either.
If you want to gamble on a suicide mission, you first have to become Pang Yunqing.
If you want to make a name for yourself in one battle, you need to bet—take on what others can’t do. And you actually have to succeed at it before you can rise to fame.
Only after that do you get to pay your respects to the power brokers, see which faction might take you in. Then comes earning trust, grinding through seniority.
What about the much larger group who never reaches this stage?
They’re Shen Gongbao. To his hometown, his parents, neighbors, and village, he was a genius boy unseen for generations.
But the question is: does he actually have a chance? He can’t even get his hands on a suicide-mission opportunity like Pang Yunqing.
We live in a pushpin-shaped income structure. You think reaching the tip of the pin from the broad disk is success? No, that’s just the beginning of your struggle. The day you reach the pinhead, you’ll find it stretches endlessly upward into the sky.
If you don’t give everything you have, you won’t even qualify for Shen Gongbao’s fate of being used as a glove. Even if you do give everything, you still may not earn the right to independently apply for projects like Pang Yunqing. Once you finally become Pang Yunqing, only then do you start gambling with your life—taking on opportunities others reject, evaluate, and deem hopeless. Only then does it come down to you. And when you finally make your legendary debut and step onto the stage, what comes next? Flowers and applause? No—it’s round after round of endless elimination tournaments, ceaseless political infighting.
Recommended viewing: Movie *The Promise*, Movie *Ne Zha* (demon child version)
Shen Gongbao’s biggest mistake was his naivety, his student mindset. He always said, “I’m no worse than Taiyi Zhenren.” What does that reveal? It shows he’s so naive he actually thinks “not being worse than Taiyi Zhenren” is enough. He still thinks society is school.
Does that mean rewards come easily? No.
From the day you graduate, they stop coming altogether.
At any time, if you want to secure rewards, it’s not because you’re “no worse than Taiyi Zhenren.” It’s because you’ve forced them into a corner where they HAVE. TO. GIVE. TO. YOU.