Star of the hidden · Water

Ju Men (the Great Gate)

Sharp-tongued, clear-headed

You can talk, and you'll say it — any situation you can hold with your speech alone favours you. You're acutely sensitive to holes in an argument: others are still nodding while you've already seen where the problem is. The trouble is how it comes out: the right point delivered in the wrong tone is received only as an insult. You're also suspicious, prone to reading people badly — and that suspicion often brings about the very thing it predicted.

In the Self palace: where you move easily

• You speak well: clearly, and to the point.
• You see problems others miss; you're usually the one who calls a halt before the accident.
• You have the patience to take one specialism all the way down.

In the Self palace: what it tends to cost

• You're right, but the delivery means all they remember is being slighted.
• You're suspicious, and you've reached a verdict before there's evidence.
• Most of your friction isn't about positions; it's about wording.

In another palace

In another palace, that's where words most easily cause trouble — and where it's most worth running the sentence past yourself first.