@gengdaJ: The past three months have been like a dream—this has absolutely been the boldest, most vivid stroke in my life so far!…

The past three months have been like a dream—this has absolutely been the boldest, most vivid stroke in my life so far! From deciding at the end of June to come alone to intern at a law firm in Shanghai, to officially arriving in Shanghai on July 10, and then to today (September 26) leaving Shanghai, I've been through so much, so let me share my story with everyone. First, let's talk about the gains: Monthly income grew at least fivefold, switched to an iPhone 18 Pro Max, did my first enterprise-level AI sharing session, met big-shot leaders and seniors from all sorts of industries, met up in person with over 50 friends from X— Wen Zong, Hang Ge, Xiao Wan Jie, Wei Wei Zi, Yiwei… so many friends, too many to count. But this trip to Shanghai, at the start, I came with a do-or-die resolve, betting every last penny I had, all invested in a top-notch living setup (nearly 10,000 for a month), just a five-minute commute from the office. To make that investment worthwhile, I forced my routine into this: Up at 6:30 a.m. Breakfast done by 7 Gym for an hour Work starts at 9 Work while messing around with AI Off at 6 p.m. Keep building my AI self-media gig Repeat that cycle, day after day. Just like these past two years of college. As my mindset, content, and income leveled up, my life started to feel different, bit by bit. I gained the guts to try more fresh, exciting stuff: 1. Flew to Zhengzhou for an internal enterprise AI sharing session, got the founder's stamp of approval—we're still in touch long-term. 2. Hit up a so-called "high-end restaurant" and celebrated my 20th birthday, with the Oriental Pearl Tower right across the way. 3. Splurged on a hotel by the Bund, a resort villa, the priciest hot springs, the most expensive meals. 4. Randomly interviewed strangers in a luxury hotel, though it flopped because of their sensitive jobs. Not bragging—I just want to say that if I want to step into bigger worlds and do cooler things, I have to build that sense of "deserving it"—there's no place in the world I can't go, everything's a resource, everything can be leveraged. I need to see more, meet more people, to enrich my life and soul. Life's just one shot—don't limit yourself, have fun first and figure it out later! Plus, all this is raw material for my future creations. If one day I hit financial freedom and write a novel, these'll all end up as stories in it. Finally, right before I left, I treated my mentor to a meal. He asked why a 2006-born kid like me could live this kind of life at this age—what qualities does it take? I grinned and said: "Courage, execution, curiosity, persistence, self-discipline, optimism, and a knack for solitude." Fake it till you make it