Renewal

Building the new order.

The situation

After the old thing ends, this is construction. It works through the right people in the right positions.

What it asks of you

Set the structure and put good people in it. Hold the position steadily.

Where it leads

The six lines

1. initial The cauldron tipped on its legs — good for getting the stale matter out. Nothing goes wrong. 鼎顛趾，利出否。得妾以其子，无咎
2. second The cauldron has food in it. My rival is ill and cannot get to me. 鼎有實，我仇有疾，不我能即，吉
3. third The handles of the cauldron are altered and it cannot be carried; the pheasant fat goes uneaten. Then the rain comes and the regret drains away. 鼎耳革，其行塞，雉膏不食。方雨虧悔，終吉
4. fourth The cauldron's leg breaks and the duke's meal is spilled all over him. 鼎折足，覆公餗，其形渥，凶
5. fifth Yellow handles on the cauldron, a metal ring to lift it by. 鼎黃耳金鉉，利貞
6. top A jade ring to lift it by. Nothing here does not work. 鼎玉鉉，大吉，无不利

The line texts are the oldest layer of the book. They are pictures, not instructions, and they are meant to be held against your own situation rather than decoded.

How this one is built

Written out as six lines, bottom to top, this pattern is 101110 — a solid line is 1, a broken line is 0. Every relationship above is arithmetic on those six digits, not interpretation: reverse the order and you get the other side, flip every digit and you get the opposite reading, take the middle four and you get what sits underneath. Anyone can check the result, which is what separates a structure from a fortune.

The sequence is built the same way. The sixty-four are arranged in thirty-two pairs, and turned upside down it becomes Overhaul. The rule holds for all thirty-two pairs without exception — twenty-eight joined by reversal, four by inversion.

In the received order it sits between Overhaul and Shock. The order is not alphabetical or random: the old commentary reads it as a chain, one situation giving rise to the next.