Keep source and conditions for every relation

Several labels do not add up to a reliable score

A Liuyao chart may contain combination, clash, tomb, and extinction labels at the same time. Assigning a positive point to combination and negative points to the others does not resolve the interpretation. The labels may describe different actors, different time references, or different kinds of relationship.

This article uses line-level rules from Zengshan Buyi. It does not merge every rule for combining hexagrams, clashing hexagrams, or three-branch formations into one universal checklist. The aim is narrower: preserve the inputs behind each relation, then identify the conditions needed to interpret it.

Tomb and extinction are traditional technical names here. They are not literal statements that a person will die or that a physical grave is involved. Start with the recorded chart and question rather than the emotional force of an English translation. Moving and changed lines explains the positional record used below.

The same combining pair can meet different movement conditions

Take a Rat (子) Water line and an Ox (丑) day branch. Rat and Ox combine. In exercise A the original line is still; in independent exercise B it is moving. The source's combination chapter distinguishes a still line meeting combination from a moving line meeting combination, discussing the former as being activated by combination and the latter as being bound by it.

The branch pair has not changed, but the original movement state has. A bare “Rat combines with Ox” label therefore does not preserve enough information. Nor does activation mean that the original casting value should be edited to manufacture a new moving line.

The chapter also distinguishes combinations involving moving lines from a line changing into a combining counterpart. The day-combination explanation cannot be silently applied to every changed pair. The relevant question matters as well: the chapter treats a combination as suitable for a favorable matter and unsuitable for an unfavorable one, so what is being asked changes what the combination means.

Neither exercise supplies a complete calendar record or question, so neither licenses a concrete travel or success prediction. What is established is the difference between still and moving inputs under a named rule.

A returning clash need not be returning control

In the source's Heng-to-Yu example, the original third line is Rooster (酉) Metal and its changed counterpart is Rabbit (卯) Wood. Rabbit and Rooster oppose each other, so a clash is present. But the changed Wood does not control the original Metal. In this example the source points out that the Rooster-to-Rabbit change clashes without controlling the Self line.

These tests use different evidence. Clash asks whether the branches form an opposing pair. Return control asks whether the changed phase controls the original phase at that position. One can be true while the other is false. Return generation and return control develops the directional test.

This lesson extracts the positional relation, not the historical case's claimed trading outcome. It also keeps month opposition, day opposition, and a changed counterpart's opposition separate. Calling them all “clashed away” would remove the information required to apply their different conditions.

Open the full-size diagram

BaZiFlow relation-layer diagram. The panels are separate partial exercises, not a complete chart or a point-scoring system.

Wood and Goat: identify the layer before calling it tomb

The source's growth, strength, tomb, and extinction chapter places Wood's tomb at Goat (未). It distinguishes a Wood line being considered on a Goat day from a moving Wood line actually changing into Goat Earth. The former is a day-level relationship; the latter is a changed-counterpart relationship.

Knowing that the day branch is Goat does not establish a moving line or create a Goat counterpart. Knowing that a Wood line changes to Goat does not establish the day branch. Both facts could appear in a full record, but each needs its own evidence.

This is not a claim that locating a tomb correspondence completes the assessment of its effect. Strength, support, and the object's role remain relevant. It is a way to prevent the interpretation from borrowing a missing fact from another layer.

Earth meeting Snake exposes a conditional rule

Zengshan Buyi uses a convention placing Earth alongside Water in this part of its phase-cycle table, with extinction at Snake (巳). The chapter also discusses disagreement over Earth's starting point. That makes the convention source-specific; it should not be presented as an uncontested table shared by every divination system or replaced with Bazi stem-polarity cycles.

More importantly, a note in the same chapter, signed “Juezi says” (覺子曰), qualifies how Earth meeting Snake is interpreted. Weak Earth without support is discussed under extinction, while strong or supported Earth can receive generation from Snake Fire. In the latter situation the explanation gives priority to generation rather than mechanically applying the extinction label.

If an exercise supplies only “Earth meets Snake,” it has not supplied the facts needed to choose between those conditions. The table correspondence can be noted, but strength and support must remain unresolved. Assuming strength would invent evidence; assuming weakness because strength was not mentioned would do the same.

Integrate relations by explaining their targets and conditions

A reviewable note can identify the selected object, original line, movement state, other actor, source layer, and supporting conditions before stating an interpretation. That sequence does not make the whole tradition a mechanical decision tree. It keeps the explanation attached to facts that another reader can inspect.

The four exercises resist different shortcuts: identical branch combinations do not erase movement differences; a clash does not necessarily include return control; day tomb does not create a changed line; and an extinction correspondence does not replace the source's strength qualifications.

If voidness or month break is also relevant, retain its own derivation, as explained in cycle void versus month break. Integration means accounting for these distinct relationships in the stated question, not compressing them into a generic favorable or unfavorable label. Missing context should remain visible rather than being filled with an impressive-sounding conclusion.