The story of buying bamboo slips and returning pearls tells us that people only stare at beautiful boxes, but lose really valuable jewels. It can be seen that everything must have priorities, otherwise it will be like the Zheng people who "buy gifts and return pearls" to make stupid things such as giving up the basics and making improper choices.

Idioms and their stories

During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, there was a jeweler in the State of Chu. He often travels between Chu and Zheng, doing some jewelry business. One day, he prepared some jewels and planned to sell them to Zheng.

In order to attract customers and sell them at a good price, he thought of a good way. He chose some excellent wood, asked craftsmen to make exquisite and novel wooden boxes, and asked skilled sculptors to carve various exquisite patterns on the outside of the boxes. At the same time, he chose different precious spices to make the box emit charming fragrance.

The box is ready. It looks golden and smells charming. This is really a rare work of art. He thought that if the jewels were put in these boxes, it would definitely attract Zheng's people. Maybe they would scramble to buy his own jewels, and then they would make a lot of money.