A number's referent is a quantity. Shown two ways — pips clustered in fives, and the 正 tally, the East-Asian 5-stroke counting mark (each 正 = 5).
Place-values 十百千 cycle inside each block; blocks are named every four digits — 万 (10⁴), 億 (10⁸) — not every three. So big numbers group as 1,0000 and 1,0000,0000, not 10,000 / 100,000,000.
Every number is a sum of digit × place-value, read high to low. Type one and watch it decompose — the same generative rule that regenerates the entire number line from a handful of atoms.
| band | rule | what to watch |
|---|---|---|
| 11–99 | [T]十[U] = T×10 + U | drop the leading 一 — 十一 not 一十一 (but 110 = 一百一十) |
| 100–999 | [H]百… | 一百 keeps its 一; an internal skip inserts 零 — 105 = 一百零五 |
| 1000–9999 | [Th]千… | 1001 = 一千零一 — one 零 spans the gap |
| 10⁴–10⁸ | group by 万 | 10008 = 一万零八; 10⁸ = 一億 |
| “2” | 二 vs 两 | 两 before 百/千/万 & counters — 两百, 两个 — but 二 in 二十 & ordinals |