In the Tang Dynasty (táng cháo 唐朝), there was a minister called Li Yifu who was always affable and smiling. But in his heart he was very sinister and ruthless. He constantly schemed against people he saw as possible rivals. He was called : The knife in the smile". This idiom, derived from the above story, means disguising a ruthless nature behind a pleasant appearance.

There once was an impatient farmer who lived during the Song Dynasty (sòng cháo 宋国,960-1279 AD). Everyday the anxious farmer would measure the growth of the crops. To his dismay, his crops were growing much slower than he expected.The farmer racked his brains trying to find better ways of planting in order to get quicker results. One day he finally came up with a solution. He started to physically pull the crops out of the ground, thus making them taller. The farmer worked very hard and at day’s end was physically exhausted but mentally happy as his plan had produced the desired results.When the farmer went home, he told his son of his “brilliant” method. His son went to the field only to discover that all of his crops were all dead.