既濟 → 歸妹

Commentary

Water sits above fire, but a ghost of poverty guards the gate, daily smashing one's pots and basins. Jars are broken, bottles shattered — the household is empty and without offspring. The verse personifies destitution as a malicious spirit stationed at the threshold, systematically destroying every vessel that might hold sustenance or hope. From After Completion to the Marrying Maiden, fire-and-water order yields to thunder above the lake — a union that the tradition views with ambivalence, as the younger sister given in marriage follows rather than leads. The completed household has been hollowed out by misfortune, and the Marrying Maiden's subordinate position mirrors this: one enters a new arrangement from a position of depletion, with nothing left to bring to the union.