How to Read a Qi Men Dun Jia Chart: Gates, Stars, Gods, and Stress

Start with one written question. Find the Duty Chief and Duty Envoy, locate the symbols you have chosen for the people or subject involved, then read those palaces and their markers. The worked chart below gives you all nine palaces to check as you go.

This guide follows the hour-chart rotating method with intercalation and centre lodging used on kaucim.ai. Other schools may assign symbols or handle the centre differently. If the terms are new, start with what Qi Men Dun Jia is.

Write the question before reading

For this teaching exercise, use “What should I clarify about the role before this job interview?” It names one event and leaves room for something you can check. This is an editorial practice question. There is no customer story or known interview outcome behind it.

For more question exercises and a comparison with BaZi and the I Ching, see the Qi Men introduction. To compare the inputs and uses of other systems, read the guide to Chinese divination methods.

Qi Men uses nine palaces. An I Ching consultation is read from a hexagram and changing lines. Choose the method before comparing individual symbols.

Worked chart for 15 July 2026

The fixed example uses 15 July 2026 at 9 am Hong Kong time, UTC+8, in the Si two-hour period. The stored chart uses the Asia/Shanghai time-zone identifier, which has the same UTC+8 offset as Hong Kong on this date. Its symbols below come from the site's precomputed chart data. No birth date is used.

The board uses south at the top. This position map helps you find the numbered palaces in the full table.

“None” means that the field has no symbol or marker. The centre has earth stem Wu (戊), with no independent sky stem, gate, or god. Under this site's lodging rule, Wu travels with the Ailment star to palace 6, beside Xin (辛). Centre lodging in Kun is a calculation rule, so the lodged stem can finish somewhere other than the southwest.

Find the Chief and the Envoy separately

The Chief star here is Counsel in palace 2. The Envoy is Block Gate in palace 6. They follow different movement rules and can occupy different palaces. The eight gods also include a symbol called Duty Chief. Keep that god separate from the star named as Chief for the hour.

A common introductory reading associates the Chief with authority and the Envoy with how the matter proceeds. Palace 2 has void and Ji jixing markers in the calculated data. For the interview exercise, an editorial interpretation is to confirm who approves the role and whether its terms have been settled. The chart does not establish that an employer has broken a promise.

Locate the useful symbols

A useful symbol, or yong shen, represents the person or subject you are asking about. In this exercise, we use the day stem for the questioner and Open Gate for the workplace. The day stem Geng (庚) is a sky stem in palace 9. Open Gate is in palace 4. Both palaces carry a pressed-gate marker.

Read those two palaces alongside the Envoy in palace 6. Palace 6 contains Block Gate, Ailment, and Nine Earth, with Xin and Wu as sky stems. It has none of the three listed stress markers. An empty marker column gives no guarantee about the interview.

The practical reading we suggest is to clarify the job's scope and who makes the decision. One question to take to the interview is “What should this role deliver in its first month, and who signs that off?” The employer's answer gives you information to check. This exercise makes no claim about whether you will get the job.

Read the markers in context

Jixing is a specified stem-and-palace clash. Kong, or void, marks palaces associated with the empty branches of the hour's ten-pair cycle. Menpo, or gate pressed, means that the gate's element controls its palace's element. The site labels these calculated relationships on the board.

Begin with markers in the palaces relevant to your question. A marker elsewhere may add little to this particular reading. A fuller traditional reading may also consider seasonal strength and relationships between palaces; this exercise concentrates on finding and checking the relevant symbols.

What the chart validation checked

These are historical test results recorded by kaucim.ai on 10 July 2026. The test sampled every 29th chart from a set of 6,588 charts spanning July 2026 to December 2027, giving 228 two-hour periods. The comparison used the independent kinqimen program in intercalation mode.

These checks use different subsets. Their denominators should not be added. The original record places the chart-number disagreements around solar-term alignment boundaries and attributes the centre differences to lodging before movement versus movement before lodging. This site uses lodging before movement. The results leave those disagreements visible and do not establish predictive accuracy.

The kinqimen package documentation lists split-and-supplement and intercalation modes. The Hong Kong Observatory calendar tables provide a calendar reference, with no validation of divination readings. This example and the historical test summary were reviewed on 5 September 2026.

Try the reading order on the current hour

Cast a free Qi Men chart, write down the question and time, and locate the Chief, Envoy, and useful symbols before reading the commentary. The tool casts the current Hong Kong two-hour period. It has no historical date selector; the fixed chart above is a teaching example. You can also return to the question exercises before casting.