The Liver channel closes the loop. It rises from the big toe along the inner leg to the ribs, and from there an internal branch is described as carrying the circulation back to the Lung, where it began. Twelve channels, twenty four hours, and a return to the start: the system is a closed circuit by design, and the Liver is where the design becomes visible.
The organ's classical office is the general, the one who plans and makes strategy, and the tradition pairs that with the Gallbladder's office of decision. Planning and deciding are treated as two halves of one faculty, distributed across the yin and yang organs of the Wood phase. The Liver is further described as ensuring the smooth flow of qi throughout the body, so that constraint anywhere is referred back to it, and as being associated with anger among the emotions.
Its horary period is from one to three in the morning, the deepest part of the night, which the tradition links to the Liver's function of storing blood during rest.
Throughout these entries, the atlas is reporting what Chinese medicine holds. The Chinese Liver is not the anatomical liver, no physiological effect is asserted here, and nothing in this entry is guidance or a reason to postpone a medical question.