Moral: Things must have priorities. You can't just pay attention to the appearance of things without seeing the essence of things, like people who buy gifts and return pearls. Only by seeing the essence of things clearly and prioritizing can we make appropriate choices.

Truth: tell us not to care only about the appearance of things, but to understand the essence of things in depth.

Introduction of buying bamboo slips and returning pearls.

Buying bamboo slips and returning pearls is an idiom, which comes from Han Fei's "Han Fei Zi Wai Chu Zuo Shang" in the Warring States Period.

Fragment acquisition:

Some Chu people sold their pearls to Zheng, that is, Mulan bamboo slips, cinnamon incense, pearl Yu Pei, Rose Yu Pei and Feather Yu Pei. Zheng Guoren bought the jewelry box and returned the pearls. This can be said to be a best seller, but it is not a good pearl.

To annotate ...

Used for: making.

Mulan: A kind of high-grade wood.

Cabinet: This refers to the small box.

Cinnamon powder: spice.

Affix: embellishment.

Rose: A beautiful jade.

Emerald: A kind of green jade.

X: Small box.

There is also: return.

Rudder: for sale.

Legend has it that a jeweler in Chu State went to Zheng State to sell pearls. In order to attract customers, he made a beautiful box out of precious wood. The box is also inlaid with precious stones and emeralds, which looks very luxurious. One of Zheng's buyers paid a high price for the pearl box, opened the box, took out the pearls and returned them to the merchants in the State of Chu. It can be said that this jeweler is good at selling boxes, but not at selling jewelry.