Hong Kong and Taiwan texts compared
| Line | Hong Kong | Taiwan |
|---|
| 2 | 把定心腸勿起歹 | 把定身心莫聽邪 |
|---|
| 3 | 直待有人輕着力 | 直待有人輕著力 |
|---|
| 4 | 枯枝老樹再生花 | 滿園枯木再開花 |
|---|
Two lines differ in wording and a third differs only in an orthographic variant (着 against 著, the same word). Line two is the one that changes the instruction: the Hong Kong text says 勿起歹, let no ill intent rise in you, while the Taiwan text says 莫聽邪, do not listen to what is crooked. Hong Kong asks you to watch your own bitterness; Taiwan asks you to watch what you are being told. The reading above follows the Hong Kong text. Line four also widens in the Taiwan version, from one withered branch on an old tree (枯枝老樹再生花) to a whole garden of withered trees flowering again (滿園枯木再開花).
Compare the line on your own slip before applying a reading. Lot numbers match across the two traditions; individual characters do not always.
Fishing on the Wei River
Jiang Ziya fished on the Wei River with a straight hook and no bait, waiting, by the usual telling, until he was eighty, when King Wen found him and made him his adviser. The story is the canonical Chinese image of a long wait that was not wasted, and it is why this lot holds you in place without discouraging you.
The second line is the part that is easy to skip. It does not only say wait; it says wait without letting resentment set in. In the Jiang Ziya story the waiting is active and unspoiled, which is what makes the eventual meeting usable.
Traditional palace assignment: Xu palace (宮位), one of the twelve branch positions the old lot books use to file each verse.
Reading lot 46
Lot 46 is graded a Middle Lot and it reads like one. The first line asks you to stay in an arrangement you are tired of. The fourth offers the withered branch flowering, which is renewal in a form that is explicitly late.
The useful distinction is between the two kinds of staying. The verse describes staying while remaining fit to move, which is the Wei River posture: the hook is in the water. It does not describe enduring something that is harming you. A holding lot is not an instruction to accept a situation that is unsafe or that you have already decided is over, and if that is what you are asking about, the answer belongs to you rather than to the slip.
The third line, "someone lends a light hand", is worth reading literally. The change in this verse is small and external. If you are waiting for a decisive event, you are waiting for the wrong size of thing.
A verse can give you a frame for thinking about a situation. It cannot report what another person has decided, and it cannot confirm that a particular event will happen.
