The sixth line closes the hexagram with its sharpest reversal: winning the dispute outright, even to the point of receiving a ceremonial belt of honor three times over in a single morning, and yet seeing it stripped away again just as quickly as it was given, because a victory built on contention alone does not last. Where line five showed judgment exercised from a rightful, central place, line six shows the opposite condition entirely, a triumph won simply by prevailing in the contest itself, without the impartial standing that made the ruler's judgment durable.
The repeated honors, granted and then withdrawn within the space of a single morning, make the point vividly rather than abstractly: rapid, showy recognition is itself a sign of instability rather than of genuine settlement. Positioned at the very top of the hexagram, past every earlier opportunity to withdraw, defer, or judge fairly, this line shows what remains once contention has been carried all the way to its end and answered only with more contention, an outcome that looks like success and functions like exhaustion. Read against line five's account of judgment exercised fairly from the center, line six shows what the same contention looks like when pursued instead from the extreme, a deliberate contrast the hexagram places at opposite ends of its six positions.