鹏程万里
péng chéng wàn lǐ · HSK 7
one's future prospects are brilliant
🦅🌅 鹏(roc) + 程(journey) + 万(ten thousand) + 里(miles) = a roc's 10,000-mile flight
万 — top 一 + 𠃌 (hook) over 丿
Originally a pictograph of a scorpion, used in oracle bone script. It was borrowed phonetically to mean 'ten thousand' and the original scorpion sense was lost. The traditional form 萬 shows the scorpion more clearly; 万 is a simplified variant long used as a common shorthand.
里 — 田 (field) + 土 (earth)
Originally a pictograph combining 田 (field) and 土 (earth), depicting cultivated land where people lived. It came to mean 'village' or 'hometown,' and by extension a unit of distance (about 500 meters). The 'inside' meaning is borrowed; that sense was traditionally written 裏 or 裡.