无妄 → 隨
Hexagram 25: Innocence → Hexagram 17: Following
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 1 changing line (line 6).
Line 6
上九 无妄。行有眚。无攸利。
Nine at the top means: Innocent action brings misfortune. Nothing furthers.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
破亡之國，天所不福。難以止息。
A ruined and fallen kingdom; heaven grants it no blessing. Its troubles cannot be stilled.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
A state that has been destroyed and ruined — heaven itself refuses to bless it. The calamity is beyond remedy. This terse verse, among the shortest in the Yilin, carries the weight of finality. From Innocence to Following, the transformation exposes a bitter paradox: Sui means to follow, to adapt and move with the current, yet here there is nothing left to follow. When a nation has been broken so thoroughly that heaven withdraws its favor, even the most flexible response cannot restore what is gone. The verse reads as a warning against the illusion that mere adaptability can save what has been fundamentally lost. Some fates, once set, admit no following.
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