Why do you click with this friend, and why do you keep clashing?

Some friends you can call after ten years and pick up mid-sentence. Others you take one trip with, and by the time you're home something has cooled. Best friends, close mates, the friend you grew up with: Zi Wei Dou Shu reads them all from the same starting point. First each person's own Friends Palace, then which of your palaces the other person's Life Palace lands in, and last where each birth-year Hua Lu and Hua Ji fly.

The short version:

• Formula: best friend compatibility = both Friends Palaces + where each Life Palace lands + how birth-year Hua Lu and Hua Ji fly.
• Which palaces: you both read your own Friends Palace.
• The single biggest signal: the palace your friend's Life Palace lands in is the role they play in your life, whether that feels like a sibling, an elder, or the person who gets you out of the house.
• Money: if one person's Hua Ji lands in the other's Wealth Palace, lending and splitting costs is the first thing this pair should agree on.
• Weight: where each Life Palace lands and how the transformations fly lead the reading. The stars in the Friends Palace set the tone.

Which palaces, and why

In the order of the twelve palaces given in Volume Two of the Zi Wei Dou Shu Quan Shu ("The Complete Book of Zi Wei Dou Shu"), the eighth is named for household servants. The classics used it for the people under you; today it is the Friends Palace, covering friends and peers. One teacher draws a useful line here. The Friends Palace is for people you stay in touch with, go out with and actually talk to. Someone you only say hello to when you run into them belongs to the Travel Palace.

The palace opposite the Friends Palace is the Siblings Palace, and the two are read together. The same teacher puts a friend you treat as family, the kind you'd call a sister or a brother, in the Siblings Palace, and keeps the friends you have dinner and go out with in the Friends Palace. The form reads the Friends Palace. For your very closest few, look at your own Siblings Palace as well.

Reading the two charts together

Life Palaces: the role your friend plays

Place your friend's Life Palace branch on your chart and see which palace it falls in. The landing always comes in pairs, so the twelve palaces only make seven combinations (they land in your first palace, you land in their second):

• Life and Life: like another version of you. You rub off on each other easily.
• Siblings and Parents: you see them as a peer, while they place you as an elder or teacher and care a lot about your opinion.
• Spouse and Fortune: one stirs how the other feels about closeness, the other stirs moods.
• Children and Property: one wants to look after the other, and the other feels at home with them.
• Wealth and Career: money and work are tied together. Chipping in or working on something together shows how well you mesh.
• Health and Friends: one feels very close, the other files this friend in the wider circle. You aren't running at the same temperature.
• Travel and Travel: your Life Palaces face each other across the chart, and each of you pulls the other out into the world.

Hua Lu and Hua Ji: what you bring, what you carry

The four stars transformed by your friend's birth-year stem each land somewhere in your chart. That is the flying star reading. Where their Hua Lu lands is where they make things easier for you. Where their Hua Ji lands is what you'll worry about most on their account. In reverse, the palace your Hua Ji lands in on their chart is what they find hardest to let go of about you.

An example: Tian Liang and Qi Sha

Take a friend with Qi Sha in the Life Palace, and you with Tian Liang in yours. Here is what our engine gives:

• Friends Palaces: your reading advises setting the rules before you team up with anyone, and theirs advises keeping the important roles for people they trust. Both point the same way: friendship is friendship, and the important things get spelled out.
• Life Palaces: they land in your Travel Palace, and you land in theirs.
• Hua Lu: their Ju Men Hua Lu lands in your Spouse Palace, so they tend to make love easier for you. Your Tian Tong Hua Lu lands in their Friends Palace, so you tend to make friendships easier for them.
• Hua Ji: their Wen Chang Hua Ji lands in your Wealth Palace, so money is what you'll worry about most with them. Your Lian Zhen Hua Ji lands in their Fortune Palace, so you're the one most likely to unsettle their peace of mind.

Put together: this is a friendship that comes alive when you go somewhere. Trips, exhibitions, any new scene is a good reason to call them. When your love life knots up, a few words from them often untangle it, and the people you introduce them to tend to make their social life easier. Money is the thing to settle up front. Split the trip costs and anything one of you covered on the same day. What happens to you easily stirs their mood, so when something's up, tell them instead of leaving them to guess. The tip from the form result: they're direct and proud, so disagree in private.

Where friends usually get stuck

The closer you are, the more you clash

Friends who land in your Life, Health or Fortune Palace sit close, and one remark can swing your mood. Fights tend to snag on "you should know how I feel." Say the thing you care about out loud instead of waiting for them to guess, and leave the follow-up talk for the next day.

Lending money and shared costs

When one person's Hua Ji lands in the other's Wealth Palace, money is the spot this pair keeps coming back to. One teacher's view is that people with their own birth-year Hua Ji in the Friends Palace tend to carry their biggest unfinished business through friends, and with money between friends they usually end up giving more. Before you lend, pick an amount you could lose without it touching the friendship. For shared costs, use a split-the-bill app so nobody has to ask.

Boundaries: share everything, or keep a little back

In a Siblings and Parents pair, one acts as a peer and one as an elder, which leads to "I was only giving advice, why do you feel managed?" Ask first whether they want your opinion this time or just someone to listen.

When a friendship fades

A compatibility reading can't tell you which year a friendship will cool. One of you starts a family, the other moves city, and you talk less. That's ordinary. Friends who land in each other's Travel or Friends Palace build the bond by going places and spending time together, so fewer meetups means it thins. Plan one thing you both enjoy. It does more than a "how are you" message.

If you work together, see coworker compatibility. If the friendship has turned into something more, see couple compatibility. To see which stars sit in your own Friends and Siblings Palaces, cast your chart.