蒙 → 剝

Commentary

A spring beneath the mountain flows into a landscape of slow collapse. Those who once held rank and rode power's momentum find no sudden end — yet all become servants and grooms, mingling with the common multitude. The descent is gradual, not catastrophic: no execution, no exile, just the quiet erosion of status until the formerly great stand indistinguishable from those they once commanded. From Youthful Folly to Splitting Apart, the resonance is exact. The mountain rests upon the earth but its base is being stripped away line by line. Aristocrats do not fall in one blow; they are slowly ground down to commoner's rank, their authority peeling away like bark from a tree.