Tān Láng

The name means greedy wolf, and the position is simply two palaces forward of 天府. Every chart has one, and it forms a fixed triangle with 七殺 and 破軍, four palaces apart from each. The table gives 丑, 辰, 未 and 戌 as temple and has 巳 and 亥 fallen, with the other six palaces between.

The book cannot settle its element in one sentence: 卷一 says water and elsewhere its energy is wood and its body water, and 卷二 gives wood in one place and water and wood in another. Its transformed energy is 桃花, peach blossom, the old word for romantic and social attraction. The temperament in 卷二 is restless and calculating, quick to act and poor at staying still. The first answer in 卷一 is long and severe, and much of that severity is moral comment from its own period.

Three companions are possible: 紫微 at 卯 and 酉, 武曲 at 丑 and 未, 廉貞 at 巳 and 亥. The text has one striking exception to its disapproval: it says that meeting 火星 or 鈴星 in a strong position brings rank and wealth. Its transformations are 化祿 from 戊, 化權 from 己 and 化忌 from 癸. Modern popular writing tends to read the star as appetite and sociability, a softer idiom than the book's.