Metal Rat

Lunar New Year fell on Feb 2. Anyone born before that date belongs to the previous year (Pig).

People born under the Rat tend to read a strange room before they speak: where the exit is, what is sitting on the table, who is pretending to be comfortable. They rarely talk over anyone, then replay the whole evening on the way home, keeping a private ledger of who is annoyed with whom. Give them a blocked door and they will find the side entrance rather than stand in the queue. The part few people see is that all that scanning is tiring. Shutting the door at night, eating cold leftovers straight from the fridge, is its own kind of relief.

Jia is wood that wants to grow upward, yet it lands in the deepest part of Zi, the rat's night water, with gold sunk in the seabed where no light reaches. People like this carry a strong push to grow but keep it stored, thinking more at night than in daylight. They rarely volunteer and almost never speak first, then bring out their own version once the room has emptied. They pick both the person and the moment, and swallow the sentence when either feels wrong.