Ling Xing: three groups share one start

Where Ling Xing starts: three of the four groups say Dog

Ling Xing (铃星) uses the same verse as Huo Xing, each star taking one character from it. Read at the Rat hour, the four Huo Xing starts are Ox, Tiger, Rabbit and Rooster, and the four Ling Xing starts are Rabbit, Dog, Dog and Dog.

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Stack sketch: each layer is one year group with its Rat-hour start for Huo Xing and for Ling Xing and the gap between them, checked on the site engine for all twelve year branches.

The four layers are the four year groups, each giving its Rat-hour start for Huo Xing and for Ling Xing: Ox to Rabbit for Tiger, Horse and Dog years, Tiger to Dog for Monkey, Rat and Dragon years, Rabbit to Dog for Snake, Rooster and Ox years, and Rooster to Dog for Pig, Rabbit and Goat years. Three of the layers end at the Dog; only the Tiger-Horse-Dog group starts Ling Xing at the Rabbit. The second line of each layer is the gap between the two, taken up in section 3.

Ling Xing nearly follows the hour alone

With the same start and the same counting, nine of the twelve year branches put Ling Xing in exactly the same place, the exceptions being the Tiger, Horse and Dog branches. The site engine was run on all twelve year branches and found no exception:

The second row applies to the Rat, Ox, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Monkey, Rooster, Pig and Goat years: the Rat hour is always at the Dog, the Ox hour always at the Pig, and so on, one palace per hour. Two people whose year branches differ but who are both outside the Tiger-Horse-Dog group have Ling Xing in the same palace if they were born in the same hour. The grades of Ling Xing are identical to those of Huo Xing: the ranking section of juan 3 records the same three groups for Ling Xing as for Huo Xing, with only the star name changed.

How far Huo and Ling sit apart depends on the group

Both stars move one palace on with each double-hour, so within one year group the gap never changes. The four groups differ:

Zero is not among the four numbers: whichever year group and hour, Huo Xing and Ling Xing never land in the same palace. In Monkey, Rat and Dragon years they are four steps apart, which is exactly the trine relation; what a trine means is explained in what the three sides and four directions are.

A Huo-Ling flank of Life can only be built in Tiger, Horse and Dog years

Juan 3 has an entry titled "Huo and Ling flank Life" with just one positional example:

Suppose Life is placed at the Tiger or the Monkey, Huo Xing standing at the Ox and Ling Xing standing at the Rabbit.

Compare it with the gaps above: Huo at the Ox and Ling at the Rabbit are the Rat-hour starts of a Tiger, Horse or Dog year, one palace apart with the Tiger between them. Having Life land exactly on the flanked palace takes very specific conditions. We ran the whole of 1986, a Bing Yin year, through the site engine (twelve months by twelve hours, 144 charts). Only 12 of them have Huo Xing and Ling Xing flanking Life, all in odd lunar months, and each such month gives exactly two hours six double-hours apart:

The book's example says "Life at the Tiger or the Monkey", and both can be matched: the Tiger is the chart of month 1 at the Rat hour and the Monkey the chart of month 1 at the Horse hour. The clause that follows, "Huo Xing at the Ox and Ling Xing at the Rabbit", fits only the first of them.

How the book names this pair

Huo Xing and Ling Xing go together, yet the book does not use one word for both:

For the Body Ruler the book welds the two into one name: its Body Ruler verse in juan 2 gives a star it calls "Huo Ling" to those born in Rat or Horse years, and the site engine takes the Huo Xing half. When "Huo Ling" turns up in a text, check first whether it means both stars together or only one.

For the position and grades of Huo Xing see Huo Xing; for how Qing Yang and Tuo Luo hold a palace between them, see Qing Yang. The three relations of flank, opposite and converging palaces are set apart in opposite, flanking and converging palaces.