OFFICE OF THE RECORDS — PATTERN FILE
PATTERN 14-64
SEALEDGREAT POSSESSION resolving to BEFORE COMPLETION. The subject holds great value but cannot convert possession into completion. Filed under: unused capacity, interrupted approach, deferred settlement.
INDEX ENTRY — ON FILE BEFORE EVERY INCIDENT BELOW
楩生荊山，命載輸班；袍衣剝脫，夏熱冬寒；立餓枯槁，眾人莫憐。
The great timber of Mount Jing, hauled at the builder's command: stripped of its bark-robe, scorched in summer, frozen in winter, starving where it stands — and the crowd does not pity it.
published fragment: Jiaoshi Yilin, c. 40 BC — the entry predates all surviving copies
LOGGED OCCURRENCES
- 5TH C. BCthe Jingshan timber
the Jingshan timber — the noblest wood of Chu, unrecognized in the market that used it. Filed under the pattern's earlier run.
- EARLY 3RD C. BCThe Market Diviner
Subject Qu Yuan, thrice-dismissed minister of Chu, presented at a market divination stall and asked which he should be: blunt and endangered, or supple and safe. Diviner Zhan Yin laid the stalks DOWN and bowed with open hands: the instrument has no measure for this question. Filed as ENTRY 025/64.
- 1927THE CITY TAKEN TWICE
The armies entered Shanghai bearing the promise of reunification. The workers had already risen within it. Before possession could become settlement, the allies turned upon one another. The city was secured. The country was not. Filed under: GREAT POSSESSION DIVIDED BEFORE COMPLETION.
- 1978THE CONTRACT HIDDEN IN THE ROOF BEAM
Eighteen households of Xiaogang village signed a secret contract dividing the collective's land into family plots, marked it with eighteen fingerprints and seals, and hid it in a roof beam. A clause pledged the signatories to raise each other's children should the authors be executed. The next harvest exceeded any the village had gathered under the collective. The county investigated; the province studied; the practice became the nation's policy. The document that rewrote an economy spent its first years as a hidden seal. Filed under: GREAT POSSESSION ENTERING BEFORE COMPLETION.
Cited by card ENTRY 025/64 · The Market Diviner — The Records, Deck 1.
STILL RUNNING