Source and Course (Yuan Liu)

Follow the water, not the bucket

Instead of asking which element is strongest, ask where the chart's qi comes from and where it goes: what raises it, what receives it, where it stops. The source is the element that feeds the day master; the destination is what the whole structure is finally able to produce. Reading a chart this way turns a static inventory into a route — and tells you which luck periods will open the channel and which will block it.