Dark Warrior

Of the eight deities, Dark Warrior is the one that governs the dark — not night, but whatever is being kept out of view: off the record, off the books, behind somebody's back. It has a taste for scheming, and its department runs from theft and flight to the trouble that gets made out of words, and on to the counterfeit thing passed off as what it is not. The working test is a simple one: if it is not being conducted in the open, it belongs here.

• Theft and concealment — things stolen, funds siphoned off, property taken quietly, and also the plain fact of being kept in the dark about something.
• Ambiguity — affairs, secret liaisons, the sort of involvement that cannot stand daylight.
• The counterfeit — anything rotten or spoiled, anything faked and passed off as what it is not.
• ⭐ It also has a reversed reading: when the surrounding combination is itself auspicious, Dark Warrior turns into quick wits, a deft hand with people both above and below, and things landing well inside and out.

⚠ Dark Warrior and Vermilion Bird (朱雀) hold the same one of the eight positions: on a Yin-cycle chart that position is called Dark Warrior, and on a Yang-cycle chart the same position is called Vermilion Bird. The tradition puts it as Vermilion Bird lying concealed beneath Dark Warrior — two faces of one seat. What they read, though, sits far apart: Dark Warrior leans towards the dark and the stolen, Vermilion Bird towards speech and paperwork, so they are not two spellings of one symbol. Only one of the two ever appears on any given chart.

Nature

Nothing shows on the face; feeling and real motive are both kept well back. Where the undercurrents run, and who has started thinking what — the person involved catches the scent of it early. Safety and concrete advantage come first, and behind an untroubled surface a calculation is always running.

Style

Less frontal, more oblique. Risk is not met head-on but worked around, and leverage, people and information are all borrowed with an easy hand. The messier a situation becomes, the further under the table the movement goes.

Strength

Formidable at gathering information and at telling the real from the fake, and just as strong at setting a position up and at taking one apart. A situation can be turned without anybody noticing it moved. Intelligence work, negotiation, strategy and roles behind the curtain suit the person involved best — the lower the posture, the heavier the force.

Impression

Hard to read, and the kind of presence that makes people keep one thought in reserve. Not much gets said, the energy is drawn inward, and even the smile gives nothing away. Careful at first meeting; the skill only becomes visible over time.

Pitfall

Too much calculation, and in the end there is nobody left to be at ease with. Feeling is held in and quietly burns through the person involved from the inside; boundaries blur once advantage is at stake, and out of balance the result is a tangle of disputes with no clear way out of it.

In feng shui Dark Warrior points at one thing: sha energy that cannot be seen. Wherever it lands — an object or a direction — that is where the invisible problem grows.

• Indoors: concealed corners, storerooms, toilets, back doors, drains, safes, and rooms kept for private conversations.
• Outdoors: casinos, derelict buildings, places where thieves gather, and the hidden currents of a waterway.
• Objects: strongboxes, lockers, drinks cabinets and containers of liquid of any kind, and also rubbish and the bins holding it.

⚠ Dark Warrior and White Tiger (白虎) make a pair: Dark Warrior is the sha energy that cannot be seen, White Tiger the kind that can.

Also considered as a secondary indicator for: Lost Items.