Chinese idiom · 成语
绝处逢生
Meaning
To find life in a dead end; hope in despair.
Character by character
Origin and story
Literary usageThe phrase appears in a verse in volume 18 of Feng Menglong's Yushi mingyan, the story Yang Balao's Strange Encounter Abroad. The verse pairs finding life amid death with receiving rescue when every way out seems closed. Its balanced wording captures the reversal on which an adventure tale can turn.
This is an attested literary use, not evidence that the phrase was invented for that story. Jue chu is a desperate predicament with no apparent exit; feng sheng is unexpectedly encountering a chance to live. Beyond literal rescue, the expression now describes an enterprise or plan finding a lifeline just when failure appeared unavoidable.
Sources and further reading
In everyday life
就在书店准备关门时，一笔新的订单让它绝处逢生。
Just as the bookshop was preparing to close, a new order gave it an unexpected lifeline.
Emphasizes a rescue or turnaround from a seemingly hopeless situation.