蒙 → 需
Hexagram 4: Youthful Folly → Hexagram 5: Waiting
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 1, 3, 5, 6).
Line 1
初六 發蒙。利用刑人。用說桎梏。以往吝。
Six at the beginning means: To make a fool develop It furthers one to apply discipline. The fetters should be removed. To go on in this way bring humiliation.
Line 3
六三 勿用取女。見金夫。不有躬。无攸利。
Six in the third place means: Take not a maiden who, when she sees a man of bronze, Loses possession of herself. Nothing furthers.
Line 5
六五 童蒙。吉。
Six in the fifth place means: Childlike folly brings good fortune.
Line 6
上九 擊蒙。不利為寇。利禦寇。
Nine at the top means: In punishing folly It does not further one To commit transgressions. The only thing that furthers Is to prevent transgressions.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
范公鴟夷，善賈飾資。東之營丘，易字子皮。把珠載金，多得利歸。
Lord Fan hides in a leather sack; a shrewd merchant who adorns his capital. Going east to Yingqiu, he takes the name Zipi. Grasping pearls, laden with gold; he returns with great profit.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
A spring beneath the mountain flows into waiting abundance. Fan Li, the strategist who helped King Goujian of Yue destroy Wu, disguised himself as 'Chiyi Zipi' — literally 'Owl-Hide Master' — and sailed to Qi, where he traded at Yingqiu under this alias. Carrying pearls and laden with gold, he returned with handsome profit. The verse celebrates the supreme merchant who knew when to withdraw from politics and reinvent himself. From Youthful Folly to Waiting, the transformation mirrors Fan Li's patient calculation: clouds gather above heaven, and the wise person feasts while watching for the right moment. Naivety ripens into commercial shrewdness when one learns to wait for opportunity rather than chase it.
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