I'm back.😂
Wudang Mountain（武当山） wrecked me. Way harder than I expected. Way more worth it than I expected. Last post I said I was going to "empty my mind." The mountain didn’t care about my plan at all.
Day 1: Five Dragon Palace and a Landslide
7 AM start. A local villager guided us to a place regular tourists can't reach — Five Dragon Palace（五龙宫）.
Five Dragon Palace is the true origin of Wudang Taoism. 1,400 years old, about 500 years older than the areas currently open to the public. No crowds. Just us. We sat in the palace courtyard, quietly, just... feeling it. No signal. No notifications. No deadlines. Just sitting. Haven't done that in a long time.
Then we pushed deeper into Five Dragon Gorge（五龙大侠谷） — still an unopened area. Green hills, clear water, birdsong echoing through the valley. Barely saw another soul.
Then something happened.
We were resting by a small pool, eating lunch, when suddenly behind us — the exact spot we'd walked through maybe 30 meters back — a massive crack. I thought it was a flash flood. Then huge rocks came pouring down. Landslide.
We got lucky. We'd passed through that section maybe 10 minutes before. Just barely missed it.
We packed up and moved fast. Made it to the open scenic area — South Cliff — without further incident.
Day 2: Around South Cliff（南岩）
Took it easy. Wandered around South Cliff for the day. Prince's Cave（太子洞）, Purple Cloud Palace（紫霄宫）, Dragon Incense（龙来香）. A relatively chill day. Saving energy for day three.
Honestly, after day one's hike, my legs were already destroyed.
Day 3: Golden Summit（金顶）
Last day. Time to hike to the highest point of Wudang — the Golden Summit.
My legs were screaming from day one. But I figured, I came all this way — taking a cable car up isn't my style. Let's walk.
Here's what travel brochures don't tell you about Wudang: the stairs never end. You climb a flight, think you've reached the top, turn the corner — another flight staring you down. It's like a while(true) loop with no break condition. Except your knees are the ones doing the debugging.
Step by step. About halfway up, it hit me — isn't this exactly what the last few months have been? You think it's over, turn the corner, another flight of stairs. Lose your job, turn the corner, update your resume. Finish that, edit the manuscript. Finish that, cover design, formatting, tax forms, payment setup, KDP upload, 72-hour review wait...
No break. Just one more step.
The higher we went, the thicker the fog. At one point, visibility was maybe 5 meters. Like something out of a fairy tale — you could hear voices but couldn't see anyone.
Finally reached the Golden Summit. Standing above the clouds. They were literally beneath my feet. I stood there, gasping, legs shaking, and for about thirty seconds my mind was completely blank.
Not the Zen kind of blank. The my-quads-are-on-fire-and-my-brain-can't-function kind of blank.
But blank is blank. I'll take it.
@francistrdev I said a prayer for the dev community up there, like I promised. Whether any gods are up there listening — absolutely. If you friends who commented on the last post get a sudden stroke of good luck, you know who to thank, lol 😂
About the Book
Now, business.
Right before writing this post, I submitted AI, Ego & Regret to Amazon KDP. It's currently under review.
The full 15-story collection — the one I mentioned last time, the one I was polishing between handover tasks at the old company — both the eBook and paperback have been uploaded. Waiting on Amazon's review, should be live within 72 hours. Once it's up, search "AI Ego and Regret" on Amazon to find it.
This is the predecessor to the 36 Stratagems series — my original series. Stories about AI systems failing in ways nobody expected, the egos that built them, and the regret that followed. But the book version is more than just a compilation:
- Revised and polished — every story re-edited, tightened, some substantially rewritten
- Proper formatting — code blocks that actually render correctly on an e-reader (you have no idea how long that took)
- Paperback available — yes, a real, physical, hold-it-in-your-hands book. Amazon prints on demand and ships. I don't touch inventory. This era is weird and wonderful.
What I Learned Publishing a Book
The technical details of self-publishing — EPUB formatting, PDF generation, KDP upload process, cross-border payment setup (Payoneer, LianLian Pay, W-8BEN tax forms...) — that's a saga in itself.
Long story short: Writing was the easy bit. It’s all the stuff around it that nearly killed me.
Formatting code blocks for an e-reader is its own circle of hell. Amazon KDP's cover template math will make you question your sanity. Setting up cross-border royalty payments as a Chinese author 😂 means navigating a maze of tax treaties and banking regulations that no tutorial fully covers.
I figured it all out. One step at a time. Same as the mountain.👏
What's Next
I'm rested. The mountain did its job. My head is clearer than it's been in months.
Here's the plan:
- The 36 Stratagems series continues. Still owe you 12 chapters. They're coming. The Wudang trip confirmed my approach — Taoism and military strategy belong together. The book version of the old series includes an extra Taoist stratagem summary.
- More dev.to content. Not just stories — I want to write about the actual technical work I do. AI testing, QA automation, the stuff that happens between the stories.
- Job hunting. Yeah, still a thing. Sent resumes out before the trip, barely any responses. But you know what? I'm not anxious anymore. What comes will come. Wudang taught me — just keep climbing.
One Last Thing
Thank you to everyone who commented on the last post — @leob @unitbuilds @technogamerz @ndcodes @nyaomaru @rondo @hemapriya_kanagala @merbayerp @shubhradev and everyone else. Genuinely. That comment section was the warmest send-off I could've asked for.
Forget each other in the rivers and lakes — but I think we can do both. Walk our own paths, and still meet at the summit.
The mountain is climbed. The book is under review. The mind is empty.
Time to fill it up again. ⛰️
If you'd like to support the book, you can find it on Amazon once it's live. If you enjoy it, a review on Amazon or a comment here means more than you know.
P.S. English isn't my first language. I use AI to polish the writing, but every story, every emotion, every word of intent is mine. Thanks for reading.
Top comments (18)
Five Dragon Palace looks cool! 🐉🐉🐉🐉🐉
I think everything follows the same rule. We need to go step by step. There are no shortcuts.
Anyway, I'm glad to hear that you're back! Let's keep climbing, just like in life. 😸
Exactly. Life is a step-by-step climb. No matter what, even if you take a break, you just get back on it. Keep going! 💪
Welcome back! Looks like the transition turned into quite an eventful week. 🙂
And congrats on getting the book to the review stage. After having it in the background for so long, it must feel good to finally have it moving forward.
Glad you're back safely. Looking forward to seeing what comes next, both with the book and the 36 Stratagems series!
Thanks! Honestly never thought I'd actually write a book, lol. 🤣Last 12 stratagems outline is done. Gonna be job hunting and writing together, so one step at a time.👊
Everyone here went to the landslide and the summit, so let me go to the courtyard instead.
You gave it about four lines. Five Dragon Palace, no signal, no notifications, sitting quietly, and "haven't done that in a long time." Then the rest of the post is stairs.
Your own metaphor argues with you a bit. You describe the last few months as a
while(true)with no break condition, which is a good line and true to how it feels. The courtyard was the break, though. It just failed to look like one, because nothing got completed there and there was no next flight to point at.Congratulations on reaching review. And good luck with the hunt running alongside the writing, which is its own staircase with the landing hidden around every corner.
Thanks 🙏 Wulong Palace is really something special. That openness, the quiet, the weight of history — especially sitting cross-legged on that courtyard square, it's just impossible to put into words. You gotta be there to feel it. And yeah, that courtyard was definitely the break. I didn't fully get it until you said that. As for writing the 36 Stratagems along with the book, no rush, taking it slow🤣
Great to know that you've conquered Wudang Mountain! And it's a relief that you didn't get harmed by the landslide.. It sounds really close.
About your book, good luck on the ongoing review. Publication sounds a way harder than I expect 😂 but it will pay off. Let's just move step by step, like the mountain taught you.
Haha, thanks for your concern. Guess the mountain gods were watching over me. Publishing really is quite a hassle🤣, but no matter what, I've finally figured out a path forward🎉. Let's take it one step at a time.👊
Glad you made it back in one piece 😄 That landslide part was way too close for comfort — ten minutes earlier and this would have been a very different post.
Also, the while(true) staircase with your knees doing the debugging is painfully accurate 😂
But honestly, the part I liked most is the timing of all this. You left the old company, climbed Wudang, nearly got taken out by a mountain, came back, and submitted a 15-story book to KDP.
That is a pretty aggressive definition of “taking some time to reset.” 😂
Congrats on getting AI, Ego & Regret through the whole publishing pipeline. Writing the book is one thing, but surviving formatting, cover math, tax forms, payment setup, and KDP review sounds like the actual boss fight.
Hope the review goes smoothly and the book goes live without another surprise waiting around the corner.
And welcome back — apparently the mountain didn’t empty your mind for very long. 😄⛰️
Haha yeah, it was really close. First time I saw a landslide with my own eyes. Before that only on TV news. When nature shows its power, you really feel how small humans are. I was actually more worried the nearby slopes might start moving too, and there was still light rain, so I got out of there fast. 🤣
Actually the old book was already in prep since I started writing the 36 Stratagems series, just never had the time to properly sort it out. The handover period at my last company gave me just enough time. I spent the whole morning fighting with the publishing process until right before that post went live. So annoying. But at least now the path is clear. Next time when I put up the 36 Stratagems series, it should be much smoother.
I'll try to climb more mountains in the future, clear my head now and then. ⛰️🤣
Yay!!!! The Stratagems Boss is back, and in one piece. 🎉
That last line answers mine, and I'm taking it. Walk our own paths and still meet at the summit. Deal, my friend.
A week ago you handed back a laptop. Now there's a physical object with your name on the cover, ready for Amazon to print and ship anywhere in the world. Sit with that for a second, because it's enormous. I'm buying it the day it goes live, paperback rather than ebook, and it's going on my shelf where I can see it.
Not anxious anymore about job hunting. That's the real gift of the mountain, more than the empty mind or the clear head. Resumes out, barely any responses, still not anxious. Plenty of people can't reach that after three months off, let alone one week and a landslide.
And those pictures. The fog, the clouds under your feet, the courtyard with nobody in it. Thank you for taking us up there with you.
So glad you went, and so glad you came home safe. Welcome back. ⛰️👊
Haha thanks everyone for the good vibes 🙏 and the mountain god looking out ⛰️. Got a little too close to that landslide action 😱 but hey it ended up fine . Seriously though, having a book with my name on it that can actually get printed and shipped worldwide ... feels like a dream 🤯. Like, I actually wrote a book??? The 25 Stratagems is sitting in my drafts now , gonna read it through a couple more times to catch any bugs then hit publish 🚀, lol 😂
Ngl, sounds like you had a blast on your trip, I think I'm probably long overdue on my own journey like that. I read something yesterday, just a random recommend on Chrome, a quote from Socrates: “He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.” and now this... It's like a re-awakening, I've been asleep for so long, like you said, a while(true) with no break... Working my day-job, 110 different side-projects, family life, moving, just one more step... 1 more flight of stairs... Today was a public holiday in Namibia, so I took the chance to just sit and be quiet for once. A proper shutdown, instead of just clicking restart and continuing, I rested thoroughly and I came to the conclusion, Life is great, but I make it terrible. Work is fine, but I overdo it and wear myself out. Everything has it's place and it's time and something Alan Watts said in one of his lectures just stuck with me, a zen koan about a monk who went to a master and asked 'how do I reach enlightenment', to which the master responded 'mop the floor', so the pupil mopped the floor, asked 'now what', the master responds 'it's late, go sleep', so the pupil goes to bed and tries to master the art of sleeping. Next morning, pupil asks 'I'm hungry, what next?', the master said 'make rice porridge and eat', so the pupil tries to make the best rice porridge he ever made and eats it, seeking enlightenment in every bite. This continues for days... weeks... months... Then the pupil asks 'master, I have been following your instructions daily, doing my best and yet, I feel no closer to enlightenment, infact, I feel more burdened in thought than ever, because I'm not enlightened yet, no matter how hard I meditate on my daily tasks'. To which the master replied 'if you're hungry, what do you do', "I make rice porridge and I eat", 'if the floor is dirty?', "I mop the floor", 'if it's late and you're tired?', "I sleep" and at that moment, the pupil understood and achieved enlightenment. We try so hard to do our best, 'put our minds to it' as we were told to do from a young age, yet all that does, is wear us out. The doing of the task is simple, the mental strain we put ourselves through while doing it, that's on us and completely unrelated to the doing of the task. I realized, I need to stop, calm down and take life like a flight of stairs, 1 step at a time. Like your 5m visibility, stop focusing on the mountain, stop counting steps, stop straining over how long it's taking, just 1 foot infront of the other, step by step, until you reach the summit.
Thank you for writing this piece, it was the final piece of the puzzle for me and I feel an inner calm now that I havent felt in a long time, it's always been more and more and more steps, it felt like each task that piles on was a whole different flight of stairs and I'm expected to climb them all separately at the same time, yet life's like a string, it winds around, it tangles, but it doesnt split, you cant do 10 things at once, you can just do 1, it looks like you have 50 tasks, but you actually just have 1 in any moment, 1 step... Just 1 more step. You could have chose to take the cable car up, yet you chose to embrace the experience and climb, exactly as you were meant to. A tourist sees it as sight seeing, vs you know better, you went there for a purpose and the stairs were likely more enlightening than standing at the summit, because it gave you time to think and pain to distract your mind, so at the summit you could have an actually clear mind and drown out your busy mind for a moment, so you could appreciate the journey, not just the destination. Like Socrates' quote, you were content is the stairs, the summit and the stairs again on the way down.
Hope the legs recover soon😂
110 side projects?? Dude I admire you 😂 I'm already dead from just writing AI novels while slacking off at work. You're really multi-threading lol. But yeah you're right, stop overthinking. Don't look too far ahead, just focus on the step right in front of you. Stay grounded. The views along the way were incredible, almost kept my phone recording the whole time. But then I was like, why do we all feel the need to film everything? We're already there. Using our own eyes is the best. Photos and videos just don't compare. So I didn't take many, no regrets though, it's all in my head and soul now. Legs are pretty much fine now btw. Job hunting + writing novels has been my daily life lately lol 😂
YES you did it - but the landslide was scary! And publishing that book on Amazon also sounded like "climbing a mountain" :-)
Haha yeah that was scary af. Like 30m away and I just passed there minutes before. Still get chills thinking about it.😱 But hey survive that and good luck's gotta come right? Haha. And tbh Amazon publishing was way harder for me as a Chinese author. Took hours to figure out. But now I got it down so next time no sweat. Haha😆
Yeah I also remember something (years ago) which made me think later on "wow, I got lucky to come away unhurt and in 1 piece!" - gotta be grateful for that kind of luck ...
We're all lucky guys, cheers!🍻