Pick a good day

Why some days never appear — the clash and harmony of your day branch

Every scanned day starts at 60. A day carrying your favorable element adds 14; a day in harmony with your day branch adds 10; a day carrying that purpose's star adds 12; a day carrying your unfavorable element loses 12. A day that clashes with your day branch is not scored at all — it is dropped before scoring, so the days in the clash column below never reach your list.

You are not being given a verdict on one day. This screen scans the next 45 days starting from today, scores every one of them, and shows the 5 that scored highest. Two kinds of day never reach that ranking: a day that clashes with your day branch is dropped before any score is given at all, and a day that earns none of the bonuses is dropped too, so the list holds only days with at least one reason to be on it. When two days end on the same score the earlier date comes first, which makes the order you see best first and, inside a tie, soonest first. Ask again on the same day with the same birth date and the same purpose and you get the same days in the same order; nothing here is drawn at random.

The number beside each day is a sum, not a percentage and not a chance of success. Every day starts at 60, and 96 is the highest a day can reach, which needs your favorable element, harmony with your day branch and the purpose star all arriving together. The penalty for your unfavorable element has no line of its own, so a day can sit lower than its printed reasons explain: the reasons say what a day gained, never what it lost.

Each purpose reads a different star: opening or signing reads the wealth star, an exam reads the resource star, a move reads the settling Earth energy, travel reads the travel-horse branch (驛馬), and a wedding reads the spouse star.

The spouse star is gendered in classical practice — wealth for a man, officer for a woman. When we do not know your sex we accept either one instead of guessing; nobody is quietly treated as a man.

This screen asks you nothing new; it reads what you already saved. Your birth date builds the whole chart, and it is the only part that is required. Your birth time, if you gave one, sets the hour pillar and can change which element counts as favorable for you, so the same person can get a different list with a birth time than without one. Your sex is read for one purpose only, a wedding, because the classical spouse star differs there; for every other purpose it changes nothing at all. Today's date comes from your own device's calendar, so the scan starts on your today rather than on the server's.

Nothing else changes which days come out. Your birth date, your birth time, your sex, the purpose you picked and today's date are what the choosing is made of. Your saved birthplace is read for one thing only: when you have also given a birth time, it corrects that time to true solar time. The language you are reading goes in as well, but only to pick the words of the reasons: every language gets the same dates and the same scores. It does not consult an almanac of auspicious days, the phase of the moon, or the holidays where you live, and in a wedding it does not read the other person, only your chart. It does not choose an hour inside a day either: every day on this list is a whole day.