遯 → 剝

Commentary

Heaven above the mountain crumbles into mountain over earth — Splitting Apart, where what was built is stripped away layer by layer. Snails spawn offspring with deep-set eyes, dark and ugly, resembling their mother. Though they may draw close to one another, no one else will accept them. The verse's imagery is blunt: the offspring inherit only their parent's worst features, and the wider world rejects them. From Retreat to Splitting Apart, the mountain's withdrawal accelerates into erosion. What retreats too far from the world produces only diminished copies of itself — each generation less adapted, less attractive, less viable. The mountain attached to the earth slowly peels away; the retreating lineage, closed off from outside influence, deteriorates through inbreeding of form and spirit alike.