The Wealth Line (Qi Cai)
See a strong Wealth line in your reading and it's tempting to assume the money's as good as yours. That assumption is exactly where this line gets misread the most.
← Back to the Liuyao overviewA strong Wealth line describes the money — not your relationship to it
The Wealth line (Qi Cai) is the subject line of any wealth reading — whatever you're asking about, this is the first line you look for.
But its strength or weakness only describes the money itself — how big it is, how solid. It says nothing about whether that money has any tie to you. However strong Wealth gets, if it has no relationship to you, you still don't get it.
When wealth comes to me, it comes easily; when I go chasing wealth, it is always hard.
This is the line that decides gain or no gain
That line is the foundation of every wealth reading: wealth arriving on its own is easy; you chasing after wealth is hard. In practice — whether you gain isn't about how strong Wealth is, it's about whether Wealth has a relationship with the self line, and what kind.
The self line is the cup, Wealth is the water. However much water there is, if the cup isn't positioned to catch it, none of it lands.
Relationship first, strength second
'Not broken means money' is a backdrop, not a verdict
One baseline rule: as long as Wealth isn't month-broken, voided, or entombed, the basic picture is money exists — the stronger, the more of it.
But that's just the backdrop, not the final call. Relationship decides whether you get it; strength only decides how much. Keep the two questions separate — don't blend them.
From 'my wallet' to 'the tape'
In a market hexagram, Wealth stops managing your personal wallet and becomes price itself, plus capital flow.
The simpler part: unlike Parent or Officer, it isn't two-sided. Wealth points one direction — strong means capital flow is strong and the trend leans up. No guessing which side it's on.
And you don't need to work out its relationship to the self line the way a personal wealth reading does — for a market read, strength alone is enough.
| Wealth line's state | Market meaning |
|---|---|
| Riding the month, or fed by it | Capital flow is strong, trend leans up |
| Matching the day pillar | Tends to mark the week's high — a timing cue for taking profit |
| Voided (xun kong) | The rally is a false move, don't chase; the day it fills or gets struck may be a buy window |
| Month-broken or day-broken | Capital flow is damaged, trend leans weak (not a stop signal — just proceed carefully) |
| Turning into a weaker line (退神) | The rally is running out of legs |
| Riding the White Tiger | Volume turned up — a violent rally (the Tiger only adds intensity; Wealth's own direction is already up) |
| Riding the Azure Dragon | An ordinary, trend-following rise — not the violent kind |
Wealth only points one way. Use its strength to judge how strong the move is, not which direction it's headed.
What it means when both Wealth and Offspring are hidden
Someone asked whether trading futures before the Start of Spring (Li Chun) would pay off. In the reading, Wealth never surfaced — it sat hidden beneath another line. Offspring, the very source that feeds Wealth, was hidden too.
Running it through the relationship test: Wealth wasn't even visible enough to have a relationship with the self line one way or the other. And Offspring, the line that would promise future income, wasn't there to hold onto either.
This wasn't a strength problem. The relationship itself never got a chance to exist — both the money and its source were missing. The answer was: this isn't going to pay off.
Whether Wealth is strong is that line's own business. Whether it has anything to do with you is yours — the reading just lays the two questions side by side; what you do with them is still your call.
A note: a hexagram is a mirror that helps you see where you stand — not a verdict, and never a buy or sell signal. Everything here is framed as "how to read it" and "what to watch for"; none of it is investment advice. Markets carry their own risk, and the decision, with its consequences, stays yours.