Surface skills

If I ever truly grasped life’s meaning,
Walking the Great Dao, my biggest fear would be reckless actions.
The true path is smooth and straight,
Yet people insist on dangerous shortcuts!

Look at those in power:
Governments building vanity projects (palaces polished),
While fields turn to wasteland (barren lands),
And granaries stand empty (starving storerooms).
They strut in silk robes (fancy threads),
Flaunting gold-plated swords (designer weapons),
Gorging on gourmet feasts (food comas),
Hoarding mountains of wealth (dragon-sized stashes)—
Aren’t they just gangsters cosplaying as elites? ("thugs in suits")
You've lost the plot, folks!

(These lines roast corrupt rulers: imagine executives draining company funds for yachts while employees go unpaid. Daoism demands leaders act with humility—flashy power is just papier-mâché tyranny.)

Modernizing Key Critiques
- 朝廷形象工程 → "vanity projects" (e.g., useless infrastructure for political showboating)
- 镶金佩剑 → "gold-plated swords" (symbolizing wasteful luxury, like $10k watches)
- 屯金山银山 → "dragon-sized stashes" (Western dragon-hoarding imagery for greed)

Controlled Internet Slang
- 走偏了啊老铁 → "You’ve lost the plot, folks!"
- "Lost the plot" (British slang) + "folks" =责备感+轻度诙谐，避免过度meme化

Contextualizing Analogies
- 董事长掏空资产 → "executives draining company funds for yachts"
- Connects ancient corruption to modern corporate greed (比"CEO"更具体)

Rhythmic Punch
- 三字句结构 → "barren lands / starving storerooms"
- 英语头韵（strutting, flaunting, gorging）强化批判节奏