Found some good news today: The threshold for becoming a “Traffic Master” (monetization) on WeChat Official Accounts has been lowered.

As long as your follower count is 100 or more, you can now activate most advertising slots. This includes “Comment Section Ads,” “Bottom Ads,” “In-Article Ads,” “In-Article Keyword Ads,” “Post-Video Ads,” and “Commission-based Product Promotions.”

This marks my second year of surviving independently. If I were to summarize it in one sentence: A glimmer of light has emerged through the mist, though the path ahead remains hazy.

2025 was a year of diverse experiments, yet I have not quite found a direction that generates a self-sustaining positive feedback loop. However, my investment portfolio—a field I hadn’t focused on for a long time—yielded significant returns. My total asset growth rate for the year was 7.6%, with a portfolio return of 7.8%. It’s fair to say that passive income provided the “glimmer of light” this year, giving me the financial breathing room to explore new directions while my living expenses were covered.

I went to the Hema NB (Super Value) store near my home today. Business was booming; I even had to queue to check out.

In my neighborhood, I have access to Hema, Dingdong Maicai, and Yonghui. Previously, I always ordered Hema Super Value items via the “Taobao Instant Shopping” (Taobao Shangou) interface because of the coupons. However, the delivery was incredibly slow, usually taking over an hour (likely due to a shortage of delivery riders in my area). In contrast, Dingdong Maicai delivers much faster (typically 30 to 60 minutes), but I found that Dingdong’s prices on the Taobao interface are surprisingly higher than on their own app.

Hema NB (Super Value) gives me the impression of a fresh food supermarket that has been stripped of live seafood. It feels like a watered-down version of the classic Hema, cutting out the signature live seafood and in-store cooking services. It seems to be a continuation of the “Hema NB Pickup” model (now that the self-pickup business has been taken offline). It is cheap and offers high cost-performance, though the quality of some items is just average. In terms of quality, I’d rank them: Hema Fresh (Xiansheng) > Dingdong > Hema NB.

Recently, I watched the Silicon Valley 101 interview with Tian Yuandong, former Research Director of FAIR at Meta. This interview provided me with a frontline research expert’s perspective on the current development of AI and Large Language Models (LLMs). It was professional, authentic, and without agenda or bias, from which I benefited greatly.

After watching, I summarized several insights:

• Fewer people will engage in fundamental research, while more will focus on applications.
• The LLM path may not be universally correct, and the scaling law will eventually reach its limits.
• Balancing technology and business, bridging the gap between academia and engineering.
• Choosing work that is both enjoyable and has future market value is crucial.

When human beings’ seven emotions and six desires are satisfied, they can fall into the brink of nihilism. Those who have experienced life’s hardships, great ups and downs (experiencing life’s peak and trough, then returning to the starting point), will also fall into nihilism. Nihilism – a boundary incomprehensible to three-dimensional human beings. After experiencing nihilism, one often achieves self-consistency, lives with clarity, or as the saying goes, “knows the will of Heaven.”

This year, I once again opted for a “no-job” mode, but to my delight, my personal assets actually saw a net increase.

So, where did this income come from? It wasn’t from my strong technical field. The two new projects I attempted this year both fell short of expectations and didn’t bring the anticipated breakthroughs. What truly made a difference was the investment logic of “money making money.”

This was somewhat unexpected, especially given the overall sluggish economy. Yet, the stock market, like fish swimming upstream, displayed unusual activity and enthusiasm. The market trend was consistently positive, as if “riding the tide.” And I, as someone not directly involved in creating social value, also benefited from it.

My roommate was also laid off, and I’m preparing to move. I’m looking forward to my new home (a still-unknown place, I don’t know where my next little nest will be).

I look forward to my passive income covering my living expenses, and I look forward to the daily returns from my investment funds (whether they rise or fall).