This post is pinned and updated continuously. Think of it as a live reality show — except the budget is ¥700 (~$100) and everything is real. Come back anytime for the latest episode.
A Declaration Before We Begin
My child is in high school right now. Graduation is roughly five years away.
I have five years to figure this out — or fail trying — before they step into the world and have to figure things out themselves.
So I want to leave them something more useful than advice. I want to leave them a record. A real one. With the numbers, the mistakes, the dead ends, and the occasional small win.
I also built a 5-year voting experiment: which Chinese university majors will be most valuable in 4 years? China has 757 official university majors — I translated every one of them into English and let readers vote. If you have kids at that stage, or just an opinion about where the job market is heading, your vote counts. I’ll compare the results to reality in 2028.
This blog will keep updating for at least five years. Even with zero readers. Even with zero revenue. Even if Google never ranks a single page.
If you are reading this, you are watching a parent try to show a teenager what building something from nothing actually looks like — not the highlight reel, the whole messy process.
That is the only mission here.
Why This Exists
Four days ago, I did not have a blog.
I did not know how to register a domain. I did not know what web hosting was. I had never written a single word in English for a public audience.
I am an ordinary Chinese person. My English is functional, not fluent. My tech skills are basic. I have no followers, no network, no marketing budget.
I did all of this with AI guiding almost every step. I asked questions like a complete beginner — because I am one.
What I’m Up Against
Let me be honest about the odds.
AI is replacing jobs. The reason I’m building something independent is that I don’t know what my industry looks like in five years. Neither do you. Neither does anyone.
English is not my first language. I write every article with AI helping close the gap. Some readers will notice. I’m doing it anyway.
I’ve failed at this before. Two previous websites. Six years. Roughly zero dollars. My mom still asks me why I keep trying.
Google might never rank a single page. Most blogs never get meaningful search traffic. The majority of websites quietly die. I know this.
I’m restarting in my 40s. Not a 22-year-old with 50 years of compounding ahead. A middle-aged parent with a real job, limited hours, and a child watching.
These are the real conditions. I’m not pretending otherwise.
I’m doing it anyway — because the alternative is to let five years pass without trying.
📺 What You Are Watching
This is a slow-burn public experiment with one simple rule: nothing is hidden.
Every traffic number, every failure, every sale (or zero sales) gets posted here. You are watching a real website try to survive — Google, Amazon, and the open internet as judges.
If you want to help, the best things you can do are:
- 👀 Come back — more readers = more reason to keep going
- 📤 Share this post — one share could change the whole story
- 🛒 Use any tool below and buy a book on Amazon — even $0.99 counts as a qualified sale toward our 180-day target
No pressure. Truly. But if you are rooting for this experiment, now you know how to help.
📅 Live Timeline — Every Episode Logged Here
| Date | Episode | Key Metric |
|---|---|---|
| Jun 16, 2026 | 🟢 Day 1 — Site goes live. Domain registered, hosting connected, WordPress installed. | Pages: 1 | Traffic: 0 |
| Jun 17, 2026 | ✍️ Day 2 — First articles published. First AI tools built and embedded. | Pages: ~5 | Traffic: 0 |
| Jun 18, 2026 | 🔍 Day 3 — Applied to Google Search Console. Sitemap submitted. | GSC: pending |
| Jun 19, 2026 | 📊 Day 4 — Google Search Console approved. First impression recorded. | GSC impressions: 1 | Clicks: 0 | Avg. position: 9 |
| Jun 20, 2026 | 🛒 Day 5 — Amazon Associates approved. Book links added to 10 tools. PageSpeed 98/100. SEO 100/100. This post published and pinned. | Affiliate links: 10 | Sales: 0 | Menu item added |
| Jun 21, 2026 | 📊 Day 6 — Google Analytics added to all 29 static tool pages. Open Graph tags added so tools show rich preview cards when shared on social media. World Cup AI experiment post entering its “results window” — predictions reveal June 24. | Tools with GA4: 29 | Tools with OG: 29 |
| Jun 21, 2026 | 🚨 Day 6 (continued) — Installed Sassy Social Share plugin. Homepage layout collapsed entirely. Called in AI to diagnose and fix. Root cause: Hostinger theme doesn’t load wp-block-library.css. Fix: all layout CSS rewritten as inline styles. AI created backup files, a Python update script, and a full maintenance guide. Homepage now AI-managed. WordPress theme updates paused indefinitely. Full story → | Articles: 33 | Free Tools: 20 | Floating share bar: hidden | Comment section: redesigned | Tools nav added |
| Jun 21, 2026 | 🎓 Day 6 (continued) — Launched the Gaokao Major Selection Tool: all 757 official Chinese university majors translated into English, each with its own detail page (~1,000 words of AI career analysis, star ratings, FAQ schema). Built a PHP backend so votes persist server-side with IP rate limiting — one real shared leaderboard instead of per-browser localStorage. Added 13 ranking & category pages (Best Majors 2025, AI Picks, AI-Resistant, Engineering, Medicine, etc.). Total pages live: 771. Submitted full sitemap to Google + Bing/IndexNow. Full story → | Pages: 771 | Votes: 120 | Backend: PHP |
| Next update coming… | Follow along to see what happens next. | — |
📊 Current Site Stats
| Metric | Now | Goal |
|---|---|---|
| Days online | 6 | 1,825 (5 years) |
| Google impressions | 1 | Growing |
| Total clicks | 0 | First click TBD |
| Google-indexed pages | 771 submitted — 24 confirmed indexed so far | 50+ |
| PageSpeed score (mobile) | 98 / 100 | ✅ |
| SEO score | 100 / 100 | ✅ |
| Amazon sales (180-day window) | 0 / 3 needed | Deadline: Dec 17, 2026 |
| Total revenue earned | $0.00 | Anything > $0 |
| Years committed to this | 5 | Until my child graduates |
🛠️ The 10 Tools With Amazon Book Links
Each simulator below ends with a real book recommendation. If you play through and click to Amazon, any purchase helps keep this experiment alive.
- Warren Buffett Life Simulator → The Snowball
- Steve Jobs Life Simulator → Steve Jobs by Isaacson
- Elon Musk Life Simulator → Elon Musk by Isaacson
- Oprah Winfrey Life Simulator → What I Know For Sure
- Marie Curie Life Simulator → Radioactive
- Nelson Mandela Life Simulator → Long Walk to Freedom
- Walt Disney Life Simulator → Walt Disney biography
- Soichiro Honda Life Simulator → Honda biography
- J.K. Rowling Life Simulator → Harry Potter #1
Last updated: June 21, 2026 — Day 6 (evening update)
This post is pinned. It will keep updating for 5 years.
— An ordinary Chinese person, trying.
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