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Chapter 2 · Enemy-Dealing Stratagems

無中生有

Wú zhōng shēng yǒu

Create Something from Nothing

General Bao acting out Create Something from Nothing
General Bao demonstrates 無中生有 — Create Something from Nothing.
無中生有 without · within · give-birth · exist

Conjure a threat, an asset, or a fact that isn't there — long enough for it to be treated as if it were.

今 Today

You post the one glamorous night out, framed to look like your whole life runs that way. The attention rolls in — and soon you are actually being invited to the kind of things the photos only implied.

反 When it backfires

Something-from-nothing has a shelf life. If the real thing never materialises, the day someone turns up expecting the life in the photos, nothing is exactly what they find.