To judge whether something lasts, the home palace alone misleads with surface state; finding its qi-number shows how long the fire burns and whether it collapses at the first wave.
What This Question Is Really Asking
Asking whether a job, relationship or business lasts and has staying power means reading not only its palace but also the position nine steps away, its qi-number.
The Underlying Logic
The palaces have fixed rotation: from any palace, the ninth is its Career position, the qi-number; Life's is Career, Career's is Wealth, and so on.
The home palace shows current state and performance; the qi-number shows structure, foundation and staying power—steady stars with Lu/Quan/Ke mean endurance and anti-cycle strength, while Emptiness/Harvest/malefics/Ji mean a thin base that cannot bear消耗.
For career, a strong Life or Career only shows present ability; if Career's qi-number (Wealth) is stressed, the work is busy but unprofitable, expanding fast on cash flow that cannot hold—unsustainable.
It applies to any palace: marriage longevity reads Spouse's ninth (Wealth, the shared material base), whether money is kept reads Wealth's qi-number—the method is constant: home for now, qi-number for lifespan.
A Step-by-Step Way to Read It
- Lock the palace whose staying power you are judging as home
- Count nine palaces along the sequence from it to find the qi-number
- Read the home stars to set the matter's present state and strength
- Read the qi-number stars and transformations to set foundation, structure and endurance
- Compare: strong home with steady qi-number lasts; strong home with hollow qi-number shines but fades
- Layer the decade: when the qi-number is activated or stressed in a phase, staying power is being tested
Three Common Mistakes
Mistake 1: Declaring longevity from the home palace alone, fooled by a temporary high
Mistake 2: Not knowing how to count the qi-number and staying trapped inside each palace
Mistake 3: Confusing the qi-number with the triple-direction; it is a ninth-position staying-power view, not a trine
Back to Your Own Chart
The qi-number gives a lifespan lens: even the brightest present must pass the staying-power test. Count to the ninth for what matters to you, and you see earlier whether it is a marathon or a sprint.
Reading Order
- Cast the natal chart first and locate the palaces and major stars tied to the qi-number position for a palace's staying power before judging anything
- Open the triple-direction of those palaces and count the auspicious, malefic and assistant stars separately
- Check where the natal Four Transformations land to set the chart's baseline tone
- Read the decade-limit transformations to see whether the the qi-number position for a palace's staying power line is activated in this stage
- Then read the annual transformations and the year's palace to pin down this year's trigger and timing
- Layer natal, decade and year before concluding, then decide how to act rather than labeling good or bad