范蠡

While thinking about the story of Wu Zixu, an almost identical tragedy almost happened in the opposite campus of this drama.

I mean Fan Li (范蠡) of the state of Yue (越).

The story should be familiar to most of us. To put it simply, Fan was the principal advisor of King Goujian (勾踐). After Yue was defeated by King Fuchai (夫差) of Wu (吳), Fan encouraged  Goujian and led a drastic reform of Yue, which, after some ten years of preparation, was able to defeat Fuchai.

The story diverged here: Fan Li resigned from his ministerial post after the victory. He didn't even continue with a political career, but, rather, changed his name to Tao Zhu (陶朱公), and turned himself into a businessman...

...probably the most successful one in our history as well.

As what we learnt from Chow Yun-Fat (周潤發): The perspective is much wider once you slightly step back (退一步海闊天空).