謙 → 明夷

Commentary

Earth holds the mountain, but loaches and shrimp have left the sea, hiding in dried-up burrows. The lanes are narrow and cramped, offering no freedom. North and south stretch impossibly far apart, and thirst and hunger breed illness. The aquatic creatures out of water represent talent displaced from its proper element — gasping in arid alleys rather than swimming in the open sea. From Modesty to Darkening of the Light, fire sinks into the earth, brightness buried and obscured. The verse embodies Ming Yi's central tragedy: the brilliant are forced underground, confined to narrow spaces, cut off from their proper environment. Modesty's earth, instead of sheltering the mountain, here suffocates what it contains. The darkened light is the loach in the dried channel — alive, but barely.