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Liuzhuang Xiangfa · Liuzhuang's Methods of Physiognomy
Secret Oral Formulas
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Physiognomy is said to respond, yet subtle mastery is hard. This secret scroll is now discussed and printed to convey its marvels. The rest of the opening is damaged: it mentions transmission, a secondary mother, injustice and error, exchanging truth, weighing depth and lightness, and flexible purple/change/heart wording, before inference follows circumstances naturally and the art approaches transformation.
- Raised brows, locked bones and divided luan-bird tails are linked with much harm to children; the closing slackness word is incomplete.
- Large eyes exposing radiance are linked with death through punishment.
- Knots on the nose are linked with household ruin and death away from home.
- A fat person with a red face is assigned a fierce heart and disposition.
- A thin person with yellow hair is assigned greed, treachery and murderous conduct.
- A head without a neck is assigned death before thirty.
- Round neck, small head, slanted neck and pared head are joined with lifelong lack of accomplishment; a neck not round is further linked with death in youth.
- Yellow pupils in either sex mean impatience; further exposure means criminal punishment.
- A man's large eyes are linked with frequent disputes involving women.
- The man's looking-closely wording is linked with obtaining women's wealth.
- Deep head-hair growth is linked with much illicit desire, in women as well as men.
- A throat knot in either sex is linked with bad dreams.
- Light brows and a broad mouth mean repeated fright involving water.
- A dark mole among the ears means repeated water fright, but is not rejected in the natal position.
- A brow mole brings disputes involving women and water peril.
- Curly hair in either sex is linked with punishment and sexual desire.
- Yellow hair is assigned a low social station.
- Mounded neck flesh, high mounded flesh at the rear neck hairline, and deep eyes with a yellow beard are three configurations linked with involvement in a fatal case.
- Flowering brow tips mean an obstructed course.
- Flowering beard tails mean much obstruction and difficulty.
- Hair growing on brows and excessively small ears are both linked with being brought up in another household.
- The no-turning-pupils-above wording and looking up, down, left and right are assigned theft.
- Drooping brows and low ears often mean illegitimate birth or birth to a secondary partner.
- A woman's rimless ears, or pared forehead with coarse bones, often mean becoming a concubine.
- A woman's upturned face is linked with treacherous, floating conduct.
- A man's drooping head is assigned a wholly greedy heart.
- A large body and small hands mean lifelong failure to gather wealth.
- A small body and large hands mean lifelong folly.
- Sand skin often rising into snake-like skin means household ruin. The gloss compares it with shark skin appearing after cold weather. Youth is unfavorable, but old age may establish a household from nothing.
- A large-faced woman is often assigned lack of filial conduct.
- A round-eyed woman is said to harm her mother-in-law.
- A pointed mouth and sunken face mean servitude, followed by a damaged one-day/three-encounters clause.
- A servant with a large face and small nose is called loyal and upright, establishing the household and prospering the master.
- A broad mouth and red lips mean great appetite for food and drink.
- A small belly and sunken back mean lifelong lack of stipend.
- A slanted waist and deep navel are linked with sexual misconduct.
- Red eyes and tangled speech bring the source's endless color/fondness phrase.
- Large eyes and little beard are followed by an unclear false/left/all-within phrase.
- A high left shoulder with the source's white-ear wording means great wealth; a high right shoulder great poverty and hardship.
- Talking in dreams means much reckless, false talk throughout life.
- The bao-teeth wording is joined with an unclear all-within phrase, the wife's illness and unsettled youth.
- Thin, moving lips mean treachery, failure to gather wealth and untrustworthiness.
- Blue-green lips mean hunger-related illness in old age.
- Much sweating in a woman means lifelong toil, no sweat no children, fragrant sweat noble children and turbid sweat lowly children.
- A child grinding its teeth is said to harm both parents.
- Sleeping with the mouth open is linked with difficulty obtaining food.
- An unraised middle of the Pavilion means a man attracting malign spirits. The gloss calls the high bone behind the palm Pavilion, and places its middle below the thumb root.
- Talking to oneself means ghostly delusion and also early death.
- A cross line at Jian Gate is said to indicate beating one's wife.
- A woman's cheekbones above the eye corners are here linked with supporting her husband.
- High, large cheekbones and coarse hand bones in a woman mean ability to make a living.
- A mole within a man's eye means intelligence.
- A mole within a woman's eye is assigned sexual disorder.
- Thin ears, low bridge, the nu-mouth wording and protruding chest are four signs of servitude. All four mean lifelong service without pleasing others.
- Scattered spirit in the young means death; dry head and neck skin in the old likewise death.
- A woman's pale lips mean illness, blue-green lips death.
- A child's black eyes are said to leave nine in ten not reaching adulthood.
- A man's slanted head is said to leave not one in a hundred accomplishing anything.
- A woman's pale lips are said to leave not one in ten with a child.
- Dryness of the head in old age is said to leave not one in ten surviving.
- Fine brow hairs mean only longevity; pointing upward harms sons and wife.
- A beard dividing into swallowtails is said to mean ten sons dying.
- In old age, a pale face, the yellow-line/beard/hair wording and tails white like a goat's beard are all linked with harm to sons.
- White ears in old age mean noble sons, purple lips likewise noble sons.
- Frequent intercourse in old age is claimed to mean longevity and noble sons.
- A weak old person losing beard hair is said to harm sons.
- Not losing head hair in old age means toil.
- A woman not losing head hair in old age is assigned great longevity.
- A dark Turtle Head means children early, a white one children late.
- A slanted nose tip is here linked with a worthy son.
- Pared, small heels mean unfavorable descendants.
- Blood-red brow tips and a lone peak rising by itself mean loss of wealth, family ruin and personal poverty.
- Ears without borders are here assigned eighty years of life, prosperous sons and glorious grandchildren.
- Reversed beard growing below the neck means much property from an external family.
- Raised bones below the neck often mean early death.
- The following fragment reads: external-family ruin and waste.
- No beard at Receiving Fluids and purple lips and ears mean certain water peril.
- Hair on a mole means an outstanding, heroic person.
- Fine hairs beside the breasts mean lofty, clear-minded sons. The parenthesis gives two or three fen of fine hair, calling more grass.
- A woman's lower lip covering the upper means lifelong fortune and stipend; upper covering lower is Thunder Lord's mouth, assigned no children and lack of worthiness.
- A woman's unresonant voice means low standing, a man's poverty.
- Short toes, hollow soles and bony feet: any one means poverty and low standing.
- Flesh on the feet and soft foot hair both mean lifelong ease.
- Red, moist feet mean much rank.
- Blue-green and white within the ears mean illness ending life.
- Coarse head hair in men often means punishment, in women harm to husband and sons.
- Color like powder clouds must not be called favorable; grave punishment is feared.
- Six fingers are linked with harm to the father, lifelong lack of distinction and low standing.
- A pale body and yellow face soon face hardship; a yellow body and pale face soon glory.
- Deep palm lines in a woman permit children to be promised. No scrotal lines in a man are linked with ending the lineage, with an irregular heart-word in the clause.
- Raised hand joints in a woman mean lifelong toil and much low standing.
- A woman's round head means good children.
- A man's pared forehead means lifelong lack of distinction.
- A woman without fingernails is assigned lifelong folly; hair below the navel sexual disorder. A shallow/thin clause is also unfavorable. The parenthesis calls below the navel the Womb Palace.
- Red vessels at the region written zhou-heart mean rank in women and wealth in men.
- A sinew rising at waist and abdomen means rank if transverse, poverty if vertical; blue-green is lesser, scarlet noble. Both sexes are distinguished through transverse and vertical.
- A tall person with short hands is said never to become useful.
- A straight Fish Tail line up to Heavenly Storehouse means great rank achieved from nothing.
- A woman's non-red face with a single mole at Heavenly Storehouse is assigned four sons.
- A woman's outward-pointing teeth mean traveling trade, inward-pointing teeth solitude.
- A woman's dark face and pale body are called lowly, as are a patched face and light body.
- A thin woman with red lips is assigned children in groups.
- A thin person with pale lips is assigned short life.
- Yellow-faced people are often assigned sexual desire.
- Blue-green or pale lips are categorically denied children.
- A thin person's pale blood is attributed a cruel heart; a fat person's red-white color a benevolent one.
- No fine facial hair means poverty and flight elsewhere.
- The chuo-head/beard-mouth phrase is assigned an extremely treacherous heart.
- Dark skin patches in youth mean death; a broad waist and beard in a child are here assigned longevity.
- Spots in the old mean longevity: raised and dark are good, flat and yellow poverty.
- Flesh first growing at the waist is useful, first at chest or face unfavorable.
- Dry limbs mean death in a year, moist limbs wealth in two years.
- A beard turning black or teeth growing anew in old age means longevity but harm to sons and grandsons, a greatly solitary configuration.
- Whorled forehead-corner hair means the source's zhou-house wording; many confused forehead lines adoption into another household.
- Three or four forehead lines, large forehead with small face, or pointed forehead without a bridge are called Canopy. The gloss distinguishes Canopy Bone, a band at the two Greater Yang regions and Heavenly Court, from Canopy Forehead.
- Bones like three lines in the river-character pattern are promised a name on the Golden List.
- A mole at Forest means great wealth.
- Frost-like fine hairs on a mole mean noble sons; purple Sleeping Silkworm likewise noble sons; a small dark mole upon the cord likewise noble sons.
- A low, dark cord means children all lost through harmful restraint.
- Mixed color at Jian Gate means marrying a courtesan as wife or concubine.
- One defect, hollow, line or scar at Year and Longevity means one rise-and-fall episode; two lines two episodes.
- White like millet at the source's twelfth Hai Palace means calamity.
- White lumps above and below the brows' middle mean destruction through wine and sexual pursuits.
- Lumps beside the eyes mean much harm to children.
- Lumps over the face mean injury to wife and sons.
- Sole lines should be straight rather than transverse, varied rather than chaotically crossed. Confused crossings bring the source's many-delays wording.
- Toes like snake heads or duck bills mean lifelong craftiness and solitude, and in women harm to parents.
- A woman with the source's tooth-child/toothlet wording is assigned harm to husband and sons and lifelong poverty and low standing.
- Women's duck feet are assigned the yi-po aunt/elder-woman designation; men's duck feet lifelong folly.
- A man's shallow navel means no clothing stipend, a woman's no established children.
- Having children and gaining wealth both require strong blood and sufficient qi.
- Harm to wife and sons is attributed to unmoistened qi and color. The gloss says not to use Jian Gate or Sleeping Silkworm alone: the whole physiognomic book uses qi and blood, essence and spirit.
- Among all facial regions, Seal Hall is primary. The gloss gives it the whole body and whole life, making it primary for all affairs.
- Women's navel, breasts and genital opening are examined for children's rank. The gloss favors the forward, upper birth-opening position over the rear, and rejects disorderly hair and a shallow navel.
- One transverse Mountain Root line means leaving ancestors, two leaving the six kin, three founding a great household from nothing.
- Saliva is called Night Increase, welcomed in the old and rejected in the young. The age sequence reads thirty with two years and death, forty with three, fifty with five, sixty with six. The old-book gloss ranks brow hairs below ear hairs, ear hairs below neck bands, neck bands below Night Fluids. A further speaker calls Night Increase water, not the source's edge word, and links frequent urination in old age with foot and lower-limb illness.
- Much sleep in the old means death, in the young folly.
- Eyes suddenly opening wide during sleep bring the source's seeing-death wording; a suddenly noisy voice grave illness, dry resonance death.
- Even favorable qi and color with pale lips is unfavorable.
- Midlife hair loss in either sex means hardship in old age.
- Head hair growing downy strands means poverty in either sex.
- White hair in youth means loss of parents and great disadvantage.
- A trailing form at Fish Tail means household ruin through the wife in old age; straight lines great hardship.
- Forehead lines mean great expenditure and loss.
- Transverse or vertical Heavenly Storehouse lines mean household ruin. The book says Earth Storehouse needs lines, Heavenly Storehouse brightness.
- A southerner's slanted nose tip is not rejected, whiteness is. The gloss says the south has no upright Earth, while northerners reject slanting: left means external-family ruin, right poverty in old age.
- One or two nostril hairs, when long, are assigned complete rations; many surplus grain.
- Storehouses with surplus grain must not combine Fire and Earth.
- Thin, moving Wells and Stoves mean no lifelong gathering of wealth, a household-ruining son.
- One place of chin lines produces one estate, two places two estates.
- Wild cries in sleep mean death at a harmful person's hands.
- A sick person lying prone is assigned survival, an ordinarily well person lying prone death.
- Sighing in sleep is declared no favorable sign.
- Grinding teeth in sleep means harm to sons and wife.
- Sleep as if blowing fire means death by punishment in youth, an ill end in old age.
- Red fleshy growths are called favorable, white ones unfavorable.
- A thick back means wealth.
- The source's ox-lump growths on the face mean poverty, on the lower body low standing.
- Outward-turning nails mean solitude.
- Neck flesh rising fist-shaped is linked with the unclear at-fa wording; mounded neck flesh with calamity.
- For dark facial moles the source favors Fire and height as noble; low, small ones are denied longevity.
- Hairs at the eyes should be soft, fine and few. Much confused grass-like growth means unworthy descendants, none unfilial descendants.
- Lines at Food and Stipend Storehouses mean poverty in old age.
Note: These are historical physiognomic judgments, not validated determinations of health, character, fertility, social worth or lifespan. Every one of the 164 supplied source paragraphs is represented, including the separate external-family fragment. Damaged phrases such as secondary-mother transmission, luan-tail slackness, looking-closely, false/left/all-within, bao/nu teeth and mouth, zhou-heart/zhou-house, tooth-child, Night Increase and its age sequence, and the at-fa/Fire-mole words are retained or disclosed rather than silently reconstructed. The distinct predictions about high cheekbones, hair loss, new teeth and sleeping postures are not harmonized. Historical fen are unconverted.
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