What the Metal 4 · Lian Zhen type is like
Cutting metal takes fire, and a flame concentrated enough will slice through steel plate. A Metal 4 Lian Zhen is that cutting flame, good at taking hard things apart and putting them back together differently.
Lian Zhen meets the Metal 4 Bureau
Fire melts Metal, so here the star works on the bureau: Lian Zhen, a Fire star, facing the Metal of Metal 4, tends to go straight at hard problems, and rules, structures and stuck processes all make them want to open things up and look inside. In this bureau Lian Zhen with Po Jun outnumbers every other pairing, close to 20%, mostly in You, while Lian Zhen with Qi Sha is the least common. The Shen, You and Xu branches together hold over 40%. Average (Ping) is the most frequent brightness at about 36%, with Profit (Li) about 30%, and Temple (Miao) in Yin or Shen and Fallen (Xian) in Si or Hai each under 20%.
Work and money
For Lian Zhen with Po Jun in Mao or You, a rhyme in the Complete Book says “Lian Zhen in Mao or You: surely a clerk in a government office,” and the rhyme for women's charts adds “Po Jun and Lian Zhen in Mao or You make a fine, skilled person whose craft is sure to be remarkable.” Read together, the modern sense is fine-grained expertise: handling the tedious but important work inside an institution, or making a living from a craft. Fire melting Metal gives them the ability to take things apart, and engineering, repair, forensics, precision work and institutional reform all suit them. With money they will spend on tools and technique, not on appearances.
Love and getting along
In love they are direct and intense: when they like you it shows, and when they do not, they cannot hide it. People with Fire melting Metal are used to remodelling what is around them and may feel the urge to tell a partner “you could be even better.” If the partner feels remodelled, things get tense; turn that energy on taking apart problems out in the world together, and the two grow closer.
When things get stuck
A cutting flame that is too concentrated slices through what should have stayed: so set on removing what is unreasonable that useful parts go too. The other snag is taking apart a lot and reassembling little, leaving a trail of half-finished jobs. Before taking anything apart, decide what goes back in its place.
The rhythm of the 10-year periods
A Metal 4 Lian Zhen's first 10-year period starts on the Life Palace and covers ages 4 to 13 (counted the traditional way); after that the periods move on at 14, 24 and 34. The time around each change is often when this type most wants to tear it all down and start again: a new period brings new people and new rules, and suddenly much more looks wrong. Watch for three months first, work out what is truly unreasonable and what is merely unfamiliar, and only then decide what to cut.
For the full picture of this persona, see Lian Zhen · The Judge.
Where it comes from in Purple Star Astrology
In this type Lian Zhen leads the Life Palace. The Life Palace is the one of twelve that says who you are, and its main star sets your base color; when two main stars share it, the first one counts.
The bureau is the Metal 4 Bureau. The Five Elements Bureau comes from the Nayin of your Life Palace stem and branch; it places the Zi Wei star on the chart and sets the age your first 10-year period starts, which is 4 for this bureau. No bureau is better than another; Xingge reads it as a flavour of the same persona.
Across 4,385 charts of this type:
- Life Palace branch
- You 13.6%, Shen 13.6%, Xu 13.5%, Wei 10.2%, Wu 10.2%, Hai 10.1%
- Star brightness
- Ping (Average) 35.7%, Li (Profit) 30.4%, Miao (Temple) 17%, Xian (Fallen) 16.9%
- Life Palace stars
- Lian Zhen + Po Jun 18.7%, Lian Zhen alone 17%, Lian Zhen + Tian Xiang 16.9%, Lian Zhen + Tan Lang 16.9%, Lian Zhen + Tian Fu 16.9%, Lian Zhen + Qi Sha 13.6%
- Elements
- Lian Zhen is Fire; the Metal 4 Bureau is Metal
What is the Five Elements Bureau ›Find my bureau ›Lian Zhen ›
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Lian Zhen in the other bureaus
Other personas in the Metal 4 Bureau
Famous people of the Lian Zhen persona
FAQ
What does “Lian Zhen in Mao or You: surely a clerk in a government office” mean?
It comes from a rhyme in the Complete Book, the clerks being the staff who handled the work of an official office. Lian Zhen in Mao or You is always Lian Zhen with Po Jun at Average (Ping), and the old writers saw such people as suited to working inside the offices; Volume Three ties this reading to malefic stars joining in, so it also depends on whether any are present. Today it reads as someone good at handling detail within a system and making things actually work. Another line, from the rhyme for women's charts, “Po Jun and Lian Zhen in Mao or You make a fine, skilled person whose craft is sure to be remarkable,” points toward craft and expertise. Close to 20% of Metal 4 Lian Zhen have this pairing, and both readings are worth considering.
Does a Metal 4 Lian Zhen get along with a Wu Qu person?
Both are doers, so working together is efficient: Wu Qu handles resources and execution, Lian Zhen takes problems apart and sets the rules. The friction is control, since both want the final say. Divide up the territory and let each decide within their own area, and the partnership runs smoothly.
How common is the Metal 4 · Lian Zhen type?
Out of 262,980 charts cast for every day and every two-hour period from 1950–2009, 4,385 have Lian Zhen leading the Life Palace and the Metal 4 Bureau: about 1.7%, roughly 1 in 60 people. Every day and hour is counted equally, so this is not the actual birth distribution of a population.
Why can two people born on the same day be different types?
Where your Life Palace falls depends on your birth month and birth hour, and your Five Elements Bureau comes from the stem and branch of that palace. So on the same day, one two-hour period later moves the Life Palace by one, and the main star and bureau can both change. The twelve hours of a single day usually produce several different types.
What is the Five Elements Bureau?
The Five Elements Bureau is the Nayin element of your Life Palace stem and branch: Water 2, Wood 3, Metal 4, Earth 5 or Fire 6. The number places the Zi Wei star on the chart and is also the age your first 10-year period begins (2 for Water, 6 for Fire). A bigger number is not better or worse; Xingge reads the element as a flavour of the same persona.
How is this different from MBTI?
MBTI comes from a questionnaire about how you see yourself. An Xingge type comes from your birth date and time, with nothing to answer, and the same birth details always give the same type. They work well side by side: MBTI describes your current habits, the chart describes your underlying nature and the rhythm of your life.
Which type do I get if my Life Palace has two main stars?
When two main stars share the Life Palace, the one listed first (in the order of the Zi Wei and Tian Fu star groups) sets the persona, the same as on your chart page. A Life Palace with no main star is the Empty Palace: the Traveler.
A type looks only at the Life Palace and the bureau: the roughest outline of a chart. People of the same type differ in the Body Palace, the surrounding palaces and the transformations.