geng-wu day pillar

庚 metal stands over 午, a branch of fire, and fire is the element that controls metal. The stage at 午 is Bath, second of the twelve, which 三命通會 also calls 败. That word has a rough ring, defeat, yet the book uses it for the delicate period just after birth, when a new thing is soft and readily harmed.

Two stems are listed inside 午. 丁 is Direct Officer, the fire controlling 庚 at opposite polarity, and 己 is Direct Resource, the earth that feeds metal. 三命通會 pictures this branch differently, with 丙 for seven days, 丁 for twenty-three and no earth at all, so anyone reading by its table loses the feeding stem.

路旁土, Earth by the Roadside, is the 納音 of both this pair and 辛未. 三命通會 卷一 adds one word, 路旁干土, dry earth beside the road, and what it likes seems to follow from the dryness: 喜水及春, water and spring. The entry also carries 官贵, literally official honor, a label the chapter does not define.