490,000 yuan to buy the title of “personal disciple”, and the AI rich class turned the last pension money of the silver-haired into tuition fees; When “Success Learning” puts on the cloak of AI, the scythe accurately harvests no longer dreams, but loneliness and anxiety.
From 1 yuan to 490,000 yuan, this knowledge payment in the name of “embracing AI” and “financial freedom” is quietly devouring the lifelong savings and final dignity of middle-aged and elderly people. Under the cold winter of the economy, why can the sickle of “success learning” always accurately harvest the most vulnerable silver-haired people?
“The era of AI has come, you don’t embrace AI, you don’t embrace change, you can only be killed by change, we must learn AI well and do our own business.”
Huang Lihua, 60 years old this year, swiped a video on the short video platform introducing how to make money with AI, and the lecturer was a man named Zhou Xqiang.
He said with emotion that 9 out of 10 people who watch his videos can make a lot of money with AI.
“In the next two minutes, as long as you understand it, you can change the future.” “My dream is to make 100 million families achieve financial freedom.” “Success is not brainwashing others, but brainwashing yourself.”
These words that Zhou X has been forced to talk about have become tried and tested bait, easily harvesting middle-aged and elderly people who are eager to find a new way out, from online classes of thousands of yuan to 490,000 personal disciple classes.
1. “In 2025, you will definitely be able to change your life”
Who is Zhou Xqiang? Huang Lihua searched on the Internet and found that he did not graduate from junior high school, he is the dean of the Finance and Business School of Beijing Shihua Management College and the founder of Shenzhen Huicheng Brand Marketing Planning Co., Ltd., he is not only a speaker, but also an entrepreneur, philanthropist, and best-selling author.
“As long as you have a mobile phone, no, as long as you can read, you can operate it. In 2025, you will definitely change your life and quietly rise from the circle around you. ”
Zhou Xqiang’s bewitchment in the video made Huang Lihua a little excited.
Huang Lihua is from Shandong, with a junior high school education, and her son has married. She herself has no pension, and her husband is about to lose his job. Seeing that she was going to be penniless, Huang Lihua was under a lot of pressure.
Huang Lihua, who wanted to make a fortune, then joined a group of students called “Zhou Xqiang AI Wealth Training Camp 28” through Zhou Xqiang’s official Douyin account. Soon, there was a “service teacher” in the group to guide the group members to add WeChat to apply for Mr. Zhou Xqiang’s online course of “AI Broadcaster Making Money with Goods”.
“Hello, classmates, you click on the picture recognition QR code, click on the lower right corner to use the full service, pay 1 yuan, bind the mobile phone number, you can systematically learn the teacher’s 4-day course, and you can also watch Teacher Zhou’s AI live class tonight.” After Huang Lihua added the WeChat of the service teacher, the other party sent her several voices and pictures with QR codes in a row, and asked her to scan the code and pay 1 yuan to enter the group to listen to the class.
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Entering the listening group, Huang Lihua found that in the group, there were 100 people like her, listening to lectures and checking in every day, full of passion. Some old students will also appear to show their changes after meeting “Teacher Zhou”.
This atmosphere infected Huang Lihua. However, she was soon told that the 1 yuan online course is just a point, and if you want to really master the skills of making money with AI, you need to buy a more advanced course.
Huang Lihua did not hesitate, and bought dozens of yuan of financial and business classes one after another. The new course has not yet been completed, and the service teacher took the initiative to tell Huang Lihua that she only needs 2,800 yuan to participate in the offline class held in Guangdong by Zhou Xqiang. “The original price of this course was 29,800 yuan, but now it only costs 2,800 yuan, and offline classes can allow you to meet more wise people and learn knowledge that cannot be learned in online classes.”
The registration fee of 2,800 yuan, plus the positioning fee of 500 yuan and the hotel accommodation fee, meal expenses, travel expenses, etc. of about 4,000 yuan, the total cost is nearly 10,000 yuan, Huang Lihua is a little hesitant.
The repeated persuasion of the service teacher finally dispelled her concerns, “A doctor from Tsinghua University will also come to this offline class.” There are also many business bosses and university professors who will come.
“Is it possible for a smart person like a doctor from Tsinghua University to be deceived? If it doesn’t work, I will go see how Zhou Xqiang makes money, he is so rich, this is at least a fact. Huang Lihua comforted herself and persuaded her family.
Soon, Huang Lihua came to a mid-to-high-end resort hotel in Huizhou, Guangdong. Four days and four nights of food, accommodation and offline classes are all carried out in this hotel. During class, Huang Lihua and other students were asked to hand in their mobile phones and not to carry any electronic devices. “Everyone will have a bracelet tied on their hands, and if they tear it up, they can’t enter the venue.” Huang Lihua said that every 12 people at the scene were divided into groups and sat at a round table. Before Zhou Xqiang takes the stage to give a lecture, there will be staff members who will organize everyone to dance and sing together to liven up the atmosphere. In the past few days, in addition to Zhou Xqiang himself, there are also a number of “senior lecturers” in different fields who take turns to teach, and the themes are all around “financial intelligence”, “AI”, “marriage” and “entrepreneurship”.
At first, Huang Lihua was a little cautious, she carefully observed her surroundings. But soon, she let down her guard, because every word of Zhou Xqiang reached her heart, understanding her past pain, and knowing her worries about the future.
“Don’t think about the past, because the past can never go back, and don’t think about the future, because the future will never come. There is only one place in your life to go, and that is in the present. Zhou Xqiang was at the scene and has been emphasizing positive energy and the power of the heart. He vowed to tell the students that as long as they listen to his class today, they will have money, have a lover, and completely change their lives. “At the age of 17, I made a big wish that if financial quotient could make me move from a poor boy to financial freedom, I would spread financial quotient for life, so that more ordinary people like me could also achieve financial freedom. Now, I am financially free, and I also want to help everyone here achieve financial freedom! ”
“I think Teacher Zhou is a person with great love! He never slandered anyone, but simply hoped that everyone would be good”, after listening to the day’s class, Huang Lihua felt that she had come to the right place.
In the same group, there is a student who claims to be a female entrepreneur, and also communicates with Huang Lihua with tears, she once suffered from postpartum depression, and her relationship with her husband was particularly bad in the first two years, to the point of divorce and separation, and by learning from Teacher Zhou Xqiang, she gained a new life.
The “new life” referred to by female entrepreneurs is not only a good career development and a good marriage relationship, but also a complete change from the inside out. “My husband and my daughter both say that I have changed a lot, because I understand true love, love is practice, and I will continue to practice with Teacher Zhou.”
2. 490,000 people “bought” Zhou Xqiang’s WeChat
On the fourth day of class, Zhou Xqiang and various lecturers began to promote more courses, such as “The Way of Financial Intelligence”, “The Way of Speech”, and “The Way of Management”. Each course is 20,000 yuan, and you can learn the full set online. Huang Lihua’s students in the same group have paid one after another, and even two students have directly spent 490,000 yuan to become Zhou Xqiang’s “ultimate disciple” – you can always follow Zhou Xqiang to listen to lectures, and you can also add Zhou Xqiang’s WeChat to communicate with him at any time.
Huang Lihua, who was still hesitating, was directly pulled by her service teacher to a lecturer who was good at fortune-telling, and the lecturer said to her, “You have wealth in your life, and there are a lot of them, your family will depend on your wealth in the future, and your family will be nourished by your blessings.” ”
A few simple words made Huang Lihua pay 20,000 yuan to buy a course on financial intelligence. “My husband is out of work soon, my son’s job is unstable, and the future of this family really depends on me.” Huang Lihua firmly believes that compared with the hundreds of thousands of yuan paid by other students, the 20,000 yuan she spent is not much.
And Zhao Qiang, who was at the table next to Huang Lihua, directly swiped 490,000 yuan on the spot and entered Zhou Xqiang’s “personal discipleship class”.
Zhao Qiang, 58 years old this year, is a veteran student of Zhou Xqiang and has been taking classes for more than a year. At the beginning of 2024, he swiped a video of Zhou Xqiang explaining the content of “Poor Dad Rich Dad” on the Internet, and it has been out of control ever since. “He spoke very well and was easy to understand, and I suddenly realized the difference between the poor and the rich.”
In the first offline class, he bought three online classes at once, each for 9,999 yuan. In the second offline class, he bought another 19,800 yuan of “Leadership Genius Class” and 9,999 yuan of “Winning and Selling Jeet Kune Do”.
After understanding the prices of all the courses, he thought that instead of buying courses again and again, it would be better to directly enter Zhou Xqiang’s “personal disciple class”. The advantage of entering this disciple’s class is that no matter where Zhou Xqiang is lecturing, he can listen directly to it, and he can continue to teach secret training for one day the day after the course ends.
Despite this idea, the high cost of 490,000 yuan still made Zhao Qiang hesitate, he was just an ordinary retired employee of a company, and buying a personal disciple class was equivalent to spending all the “old capital” he had saved for decades. “490,000 yuan is the price of the fracture for the students who came to the scene. The disciple class that restores the original price costs 680,000 yuan, and it may rise to 980,000 yuan in the future. ”
The consultant on the side “reminded” Zhao Qiang that if he didn’t buy it, the price would increase. Under pressure, Zhao Qiang paid on the spot. After payment, he added Zhou Xqiang’s WeChat as he wished, which is an exclusive “benefit” for Zhou Xqiang’s disciples
However, Zhao Qiang’s daughter Zhao Ruirui does not think so. “For more than a year, my father got up at five o’clock in the morning every day and went to bed at twelve o’clock in the middle of the night, tossing like this just to listen to Zhou Xqiang’s classes, read the books recommended by Zhou Xqiang, watch the movies recommended by Zhou Xqiang, and eat the health products recommended by Zhou Xqiang.”
In the eyes of Zhao Qiang’s daughter, Zhao Qiang’s behavior is particularly weird, like being brainwashed by a pyramid scheme. He also took his relatives to attend offline classes together, and said that when he made money in the past two years, he would take everyone to make a lot of money. When Zhao Ruirui asked about the specific way to make money, Zhao Qiang only vaguely said that if he was given three years, he would definitely be able to get rich and prove himself.
After learning that Zhao Qiang spent 490,000 yuan to buy a disciple class, Zhao Ruirui decided to call the police and then asked Zhao Qiang to apply for a refund.
“My dad stopped me, refused to refund the money, and refused to follow me to the police station.” Zhao Ruirui told “Financial Story Club” that her father was in a hurry and said, “This money is spent, I just want to see how Zhou Xqiang makes money, I want to see if he can complete what he said and help 100 million families achieve the goal of financial freedom.” ”
But Zhao Ruirui decided not to be silent anymore, she posted on social platforms, saying that “Zhou Xqiang is a liar”, and listed various evidence that her father was brainwashed and cut leeks, hoping that more people would see it and take it as a warning.
3. The sudden wealth fever is harvesting silver anxiety
I began to realize that it was not only the families of the payers who were cut leeks, but also the buyers themselves.
Zhu Ting, 45 years old, works in Beijing, and is a nail artist, and at the beginning of 2025, her nail salon closed because she could not pay her salary. Zhu Ting plans to open her own nail salon.
During the preliminary preparations, she swiped a video of Zhou Xqiang talking about financial quotient on Xiaohongshu, “I think it makes sense.”
So, Zhu Ting contacted the service teacher of Zhou Xqiang’s company, “The service teacher told me that Zhou Xqiang has many powerful students, and these students are resources, and they can introduce these resources to me after buying a class for learning and exchange.” Zhu Ting said that she was in a hurry at the time, so she paid for the online class.
As a result, after entering the group and attending class, she found that “the content of the lecture has no value at all.” ”
“These online classes are about drawing pies. It is said to teach AI, but in fact, it is to introduce some software, and it costs money to learn it. Zhu Ting told “Financial Story Club” that each student has an exclusive service teacher, “To put it bluntly, it is sales.” After listening online, the next step is to fool you into going to the scene to listen, listen to it on the spot, and want to see Zhou Xqiang further, get Zhou Xqiang’s guidance, and spend money. ”
Zhu Ting said that she neither learned nor received resources. In anger, Zhu Ting asked the service teacher to refund the money, but the service teacher who had sent her links every day and asked her to sign up for courses suddenly disappeared and there was no news. And when she denounced the refund in the student group, she was quickly removed from the group chat.
“Most of the people in that group are middle-aged and elderly people, they seem to be possessed, they feel that Zhou Xqiang is a god, as long as they follow Zhou Xqiang, they can be free of wealth.” Zhu Ting said.
Zhou Xqiang, who graduated from junior high school, and the operating company behind him not only have insight into the psychology of middle-aged and elderly people, but also are good at using the traffic economy to break the circle and divert traffic in mainstream short video platforms and communities such as Xiaohongshu, and then divert traffic to private domains such as WeChat groups and offline classes for accurate songs.
As of July 2025, Zhou Xqiang’s main Douyin account has accumulated 6.651 million followers, and the Kuaishou main account has 3.335 million followers. On the Douyin platform, Zhou Xqiang’s multiple blue V certified accounts have fans ranging from 100,000 to 3.9 million. Its WeChat video account also maintains a high frequency of updates three times a day. On Xiaohongshu, topics related to “Zhou Xqiang” have as many as 130 million views.
The matrix laid out by Zhou Xqiang takes financial education as the core, integrates life philosophy, entrepreneurial guidance and other content, and disseminates it through short videos, live broadcasts and other forms. These audiences harvested from major short video platforms will eventually be diverted to the “Huibo Academy” online course APP created by Zhou Xqiang. Through the “Huibo Academy”, Zhou Xqiang conducted exclusive live broadcasts and lectures, and his students also bought and listened to lectures through this platform. As long as students purchase a course of 2,800 yuan, they can get the opportunity to participate in “offline classes” for free. From free classes, offline classes of 1 yuan, 2,800 yuan to disciple classes of 490,000 yuan, step by step, very “fast, accurate and ruthless”.
In the cold winter of economic downturn, the hot current called “success studies” is quietly sweeping through the Internet among middle-aged and elderly groups. The growth of this group has allowed merchants selling “success studies” to smell huge business opportunities. According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, at the end of 2024, our country’s population aged 60 and above will reach 310 million, accounting for 22.0% of the country’s population; Among them, 220 million people aged 65 and above, accounting for 15.6% of the country’s population.
In November 2024, Beijing Think Tank conducted a survey on the elderly and young groups (referring to people under the age of 60), and released the “2024 Online Addiction Prevention Survey Report for the Elderly Group”, which shows that although nearly 90% of the elderly who participated in the survey lived with their spouses/partners, more than 43% of the elderly spent more than 4 hours a day online.
In the past two years, the growth of the number of seniors and the increase in their online time have made “online education for the elderly” a hot track. According to a report released by the “China Silver Economy and Industry Investment Summit” in March 2025, the financing amount of the online education track for the elderly surged by 220% year-on-year.
At the same time, the online course market named “financial education” and “counterattack to create wealth” has also shown explosive growth, and the tentacles of these courses are extending from young people to the elderly. “AI to create wealth” and “learning AI for the elderly” have become new labels for success courses.
Many middle-aged and elderly people lack effective screening ability. The well-packaged course advertisements, the carefully edited “success” cases of students, and the barrage of “thank you teacher for changing my life” scrolling and swiping in the live broadcast room together constitute a dizzying “information cocoon”. These extremely confusing contents make it difficult for middle-aged and elderly people who lack media literacy to distinguish between authenticity and falsehood.
According to the report of the China Consumers Association for the first quarter of 2025, the number of complaints against online middle-aged and elderly courses increased by 45% year-on-year, mainly focusing on false publicity and difficulty in refunding. On the Black Cat complaint platform, enter the keyword “AI class”, and there are 4,851 results, many of which involve elderly students, and the complaints cover exaggerated publicity, inducing consumption, deviating from the effect and commitment, and difficulty in refunding. Moreover, on the platform, more than one consumer complained about “Chenggongxue” related courses, including “false publicity, difficulty in refunding, harvesting the elderly”, etc.
When the anxiety of pension, the sense of responsibility to share worries for children, and the loss of value after the fading of social roles, collide violently with the carefully woven “AI myth of getting rich” and “financial quotient goldsmith”, and then take advantage of the leverage of the flow economy to amplify the harvest radius, the middle-aged and elderly people have become the most vulnerable prey in this hunt.
(The cases in this article are all real interviews, and some characters are pseudonyms to protect privacy.) ）
