Geng

Geng is the season when growth stops — the plant withering and going back into the ground — and it is the exact opposite number of Yi (乙). Two images hold it: the axe blade, and the barrier across the road you meant to take. The temperament that goes with them is hard, sharp and short on patience. It expects to be given way to, and it gives way to nobody.

• Blocked and stalled: obstruction, delay, a matter that stops halfway, a thing that will not move no matter how it is pushed.
• Head-on: fighting, injury, disaster, bloodshed, a harsh atmosphere — and the specific person who has set themselves against you.
• Turned the other way round: on the matters that call for hardness this stem is an asset. Litigation, a challenge made openly, a penalty being enforced — these go better with Geng present, not worse.
• A barrier looks different from in front and from underneath. Geng seen from the heaven plate gives the blockage as it stands and whether the barrier is close to shifting; seen from the earth plate it gives where the obstruction came from and what it is bolted to.

A hard stem is not a verdict of failure — it tells you which kind of move works. Meeting Geng with more force is the one approach that reliably fails; what works is timing and a soft edge, waiting for the moment the barrier is not braced and going around it rather than through.

Nature

Clarity and truth are the point, and the line between right and wrong is drawn sharply. Grey areas are uncomfortable, and a problem is dealt with face-on rather than managed around. The surface reads cool; what is actually running underneath is a strong feeling about fairness.

Style

Decisive, with no drag in it. The person involved is good at cutting away what is not working and what is merely extra, forms the judgement first and executes second, and has little appetite for the scenic route. The messier the situation gets, the clearer their head becomes.

Strength

Judgement and execution. When something has to be chosen and something else dropped, the person involved can do it at the moment it needs doing, and can put a rule or a boundary up fast enough to matter. Decision-making, management, legal work and anything discipline-shaped suit — the more clearly the position is stated, the more useful the edge becomes.

Impression

Rational, plain-spoken, unmistakable about where they stand — the one everybody accepts will say the true thing. There is distance in the sharpness, and no attempt to please, and yet people end up convinced. A little intimidating on first meeting; the reliability only shows after a while.

Pitfall

Directness cuts people who did not need cutting. The softer feelings do not get said out loud, and reason gets used to press feeling down. Somebody else being fragile is hard to meet, and held that way long enough, the person involved ends up standing on their own.

In the built environment, Geng is metal and stone at large scale: the roof ridge, metal gates, heavy appliances, and the main road running past outside.

• Objects: blades and weapons, axes and machinery, ironwork and metal goods, cars and motorcycles — and stone, stonework, stone guardian figures and bone.
• Buildings and places: roads and the checkpoints on them, tollgates, steelworks, mines and heavy plant.
• Outdoors: trunk roads, large structures and pylons, high city walls, and mills and metalworking yards.

Outdoors, Geng is usually the big half of Metal — the trunk road, the heavy metal object, the tall wall. Small, fine, precise metal belongs to Xin (辛). Same element, and the sizes are kept well apart.