Small Gains

Minor accumulation, not yet enough.

The situation

Progress is real but too small to change the situation. Conditions aren't ripe for a large move.

What it asks of you

Take the small wins, keep the powder dry. Don't spend a big move on a small opening.

Where it leads

The six lines

1. initial Back to your own road. Where would the fault be in that? 復自道，何其咎，吉
2. second Pulled back along with the others. Good. 牽復，吉
3. third The spokes come out of the wagon wheels. Husband and wife look away from each other. 輿說輻，夫妻反目
4. fourth Sincerity here: the bleeding stops, the fear leaves. 有孚，血去惕出，无咎
5. fifth Sincerity binding like clasped hands. Rich, and rich with the neighbours. 有孚攣如，富以其鄰
6. top The rain has come and stopped; goodness has accumulated and is being carried. The moon is nearly full — go further now and it turns. 既雨既處，尚德載。婦貞厲，月幾望，君子征凶

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 110111 — 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 Careful Steps. 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 Alignment and Careful Steps. The order is not alphabetical or random: the old commentary reads it as a chain, one situation giving rise to the next.