横

The hèng reading carries two related ideas, both of them 'sideways' in a figurative sense: people who are bullying/unreasonable (going against the grain) and events that drop in sideways (out of the blue). Key fixed expressions: 蛮横 (rude and overbearing), 专横 (imperious), 强横 (tyrannical), 横财 (windfall, usually ill-gotten), 横祸 (unexpected disaster), 飞来横祸 (calamity out of the blue).

Connect the two readings through 'sideways': héng is literally horizontal (sideways in space), hèng is figuratively sideways (people who don't run with normal social rules, fortunes/disasters that don't follow expected patterns). The unifying image is a beam thrown across the path — both physically and morally 'in the way'.