壬子 ren zi

壬 above, 子 below

The stem and the branch carry the same element (Water), which is the most single-minded pairing in the cycle. Nothing here pulls in two directions.

Where 壬子 sits in the five elements

Wood, Fire, Earth and Metal do not appear anywhere in this pillar.

Water leads at 100.0% — a single element filling the whole pillar, the purest configuration in the cycle.

What is buried inside 子

子 hides a single stem, 癸 (Water) — the same element as the stem.

壬 meeting 子: the 帝旺 stage

The twelve stages (十二長生): yang stems run forward, yin stems backward.

壬 meets 子 at the 帝旺 stage — peak.

子 against 午, with 丑

Opposite across the cycle (六沖), and paired with (六合):

Clashes with

午 (Horse) — 庚午

Combines with

丑 (Ox) — 乙丑

Nayin: 桑柘木

Nayin (納音) groups the cycle in pairs, each with an image. This one shares its image with 癸丑: 桑柘木, “wood of the mulberry.”

How 壬子 is conventionally read

壬 is a moving body of water: river, current, the sea in motion. 子 is the middle of the night, where the cycle restarts.

A water-element day master on a water footing — one of eight characters, which colours a chart and does not fix the person.

When the next 壬子 days fall

The sixty-cycle repeats every sixty days, so this pillar returns roughly every two months. The next one is 4 December 2026 (Friday). Each is calculated at midday Beijing time; a birth in the hour before midnight can still belong to the previous 壬子 day, because the day rolls at 23:00 true solar time.

Showing up to eight of the 6 occurrences in the next twelve months, from 2026-10-31.

壬 on six different footings

Six pillars carry this stem. It is the same day master every time, so everything that differs below is caused by the branch underneath it:

Here the footing is Water — the same element as the stem. The other five branches this stem sits on are 申 (Metal), 午 (Fire), 辰 (Earth), 寅 (Wood), 戌 (Earth).