He is from the State of Chu and has a beautiful pearl, which he intends to sell. In order to get a good price, he tried his best to package the pearls. He felt that with noble packaging, the "identity" of pearls naturally rose.

The Chu people discovered the valuable Mulan, and invited skilled craftsmen to make a box (that is, a bamboo raft) containing pearls. First, they smoked boxes with cinnamon spices. Then, the outside of the box is decorated with jade beads and fragments, decorated with precious red gems, and filled with kingfisher feathers. It looks as delicate as jewelry, and it is really a delicate and beautiful handicraft.

In this way, the Chu people carefully put pearls into boxes and took them to the market to sell.

Soon after arriving at the market, many people gathered around to admire the Chu people's boxes. A Zheng people hold the box in their hands and can't put it down for a long time. Finally, he paid a high price for the Chu people's box. Zheng paid the money and came back with a box. But he came back after a few steps. The Chu people thought that Zheng people regretted returning the goods. Before the Chu people could finish thinking, Zheng people had come to the Chu people.

I saw Zheng people take pearls out of the open box and give them to the Chu people, saying, "Sir, you left a pearl in the box. I'll return it to you when I come back." So Zheng gave the pearl to the Chu people, then looked down at the wooden box and went back.

The Chu people stood there awkwardly with the returned pearls. He thought others would appreciate his pearls, but he didn't expect the exquisite outer packaging to exceed the value in the box, so that "a presumptuous guest usurps the host's role" made the Chu people laugh and cry.

Extended data:

Buying bamboo slips and returning pearls is also an idiom:

Buying bamboo slips and returning pearls is an idiom in China, pronounced m m 4 I d ú huá n zh. I bought the box and returned the pearls. Metaphor has no vision and improper choice.

Source: Han Feizi's Foreign Storage at the end of the Warring States Period.

Usage of idioms: continuous verbs as predicate, object and attribute; Used in written language

Synonym? :? attend to trifles and neglect essentials

Abandon the fundamental and main parts of things and pursue the secondary and secondary parts. Metaphor fails to grasp the main problem and only cares about the details. Now it is often used to mean that the priority is reversed and the priority is not clear.

On Mencius and Li Lou in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period: "The Tao lies in the monarch and seeks all directions."

Translation: It was a short journey, but it happened that I had to go far away to ask for it.

Use: combined; As predicate, object, attribute and adverbial.

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