On Failing Out of Forming and Forming Out of Failing (Yin Cheng De Bai, Yin Bai De Cheng)

When a Good Structure Turns and a Bad One Recovers

Shen's subject here is reversal. A structure that has formed can be turned by one further element — wealth feeding the killings, or wealth checking the seal that the killings need — and so failing comes out of forming. A structure that has failed can also recover: water that cannot leap over an intervening stem ends up draining the body to good effect, and a food god that combines away the officer leaves the killings unconfused. He warns that the reader must neither lose his head at the strangeness nor become rigid before it.