Overload

The structure is bending.

The situation

The load exceeds what the current setup can carry. Ordinary measures won't hold it.

What it asks of you

Take the extraordinary step. Standing still under this weight is the real risk.

Where it leads

The six lines

1. initial Laying it down on white rushes first. Nothing goes wrong. 藉用白茅，无咎
2. second A dry poplar puts out shoots. An old man takes a young wife. Nothing here does not work. 枯楊生稊，老夫得其女妻，无不利
3. third The ridgepole bending. 棟橈，凶
4. fourth The ridgepole braced up. Anything else humiliates. 棟隆，吉。有它吝
5. fifth A dry poplar puts out flowers. An old woman takes a young husband. No blame and no praise either. 枯楊生華，老婦得其士夫，无咎无譽
6. top Wading in until the water closes over your head. It turns badly, and no one is to blame. 過涉滅頂，凶，无咎

The line texts are the oldest layer of the book. They are pictures, not instructions, and they are meant to be held against your own situation rather than decoded.

How this one is built

Written out as six lines, bottom to top, this pattern is 011110 — a solid line is 1, a broken line is 0. Every relationship above is arithmetic on those six digits, not interpretation: reverse the order and you get the other side, flip every digit and you get the opposite reading, take the middle four and you get what sits underneath. Anyone can check the result, which is what separates a structure from a fortune.

The sequence is built the same way. The sixty-four are arranged in thirty-two pairs, and it reads the same upside down, so it is paired with its exact opposite, Sustenance. This is one of only eight that read the same upside down. The rule holds for all thirty-two pairs without exception — twenty-eight joined by reversal, four by inversion.

In the received order it sits between Sustenance and Deep Water. The order is not alphabetical or random: the old commentary reads it as a chain, one situation giving rise to the next.