World and Response are the two anchor positions: self and other side.

The lines between them can represent the people, messages, brokers, obstacles, and intermediaries standing in the middle.

The name sounds spatial, but the useful reading is social. These are not usually “the road between two points.” They are the people, channels, agents, and obstructions that carry the matter between sides.

World Self side

The querent, home position, or initiating side.

Interval lines People in the gap

Brokers, messengers, mediators, rivals, servants, agents, or blockers.

Response Other side

The counterpart, recipient, outside party, or question-facing side.

What interval lines can do

Messenger Information carrier

The line describes how communication moves between sides.

Broker Negotiation channel

The line mediates a deal, marriage, application, or request.

Blocker Person in the way

The line interferes, delays, withholds, or redirects the matter.

Rival Competing actor

The line can show a third party with its own interest.

Witness Context holder

The line shows a surrounding person or condition without driving the outcome.

Trigger Moving intermediary

If an interval line moves, it can activate the social channel between the sides.

How to read them

Do not read every interval line automatically.

Read them when the question involves a gap between sides: messages, negotiation, proxy readings, marriage talks, legal mediation, applications, travel arrangements, introductions, or people carrying information.

The slot is trigger-based. If the interval lines are static, non-void, and untouched by the relevant mechanics, leave them quiet. They become important when they move, go void together, combine with World, clash or control World, carry a money-loss role, or otherwise enter the active target map.

Irrelevant Private target question

If the question is simply about the target's condition, interval lines may be background.

Relevant Relationship or mediation question

If the question depends on crossing from World to Response, interval lines can be central.

For two-party questions, use this practical order:

  1. If both interval lines are quiet and available, do not manufacture an intermediary story.
  2. If an interval line moves and harms World, read an active third-party obstruction.
  3. If a moving interval line carries a money-loss role, check whether the intermediary is costing the querent.
  4. If it generates or combines with World, read a helpful intermediary.
  5. If both interval lines are void, decide from target strength whether the path is direct or isolated.

If rules stack, relation to World sets the direction. A moving money-loss-role interval line that also combines with or generates World may be helpful in direction while still costing money or bringing peer-mediated expense. Do not let the role label override the actual relation.

Act 9 will handle domain names such as matchmaker, mediator, broker, lawyer, companion, or guarantor. Here the rule is only: read the person in the middle when the line is active enough to matter.

Source basis: Zengshan Buyi interval-line rules for moving, money-loss-role, helpful combination/generation, and paired void. The travel-south case shows why a money-loss-role intermediary can still be helpful when it combines with World.

Common traps

Trap 1 Ignoring the middle.

Some readings fail because the target is fine but the intermediary blocks delivery.

Trap 2 Overreading the middle.

Not every interval line is a secret actor. Relevance still matters.

Trap 3 Forgetting movement.

A moving interval line can show the intermediary actively changing the matter.

Trap 4 Reading the gap as geography.

The interval is usually social: people and channels between sides, not just distance or road.

What this module establishes

Act 6 closes by widening moving-line behavior into social behavior.

Lines do not only describe forces. They can describe people between the querent and the other side.

-> Act 7: Judgment