A man from Chu State met a villager on the road carrying a pheasant. Because this man had never seen a pheasant, he decided that it was not a common thing when he saw a pheasant with beautiful feathers and a slender tail. He curiously asked the villager: "What kind of bird did you pick?" Seeing that he didn't recognize the pheasant, the villager said casually: "It's a phoenix." The Chu man was overjoyed when he heard this, and sighed with emotion. Said: "I only heard about the phoenix before, but today I finally saw it! Can you sell it to me?" The villager said, "Yes." The Chu man offered ten gold. The villager thought: "Since this fool thought it was a phoenix, how can I sell it for only ten gold?" When the villager doubled the selling price, he sold the pheasant.

The Chu man happily took the pheasant home and planned to set off the next day to present the "Phoenix" to the King of Chu. But who would have thought that the pheasant would die after one night. The Chu man looked at the stiff pheasant that had no energy, and suddenly felt that his eyes were filled with darkness. At this moment, there was no thought of being stingy with money passing through his mind, but he was heartbroken that he could not present this auspicious creature to the King of Chu.

This incident spread from one person to another, and the King of Chu soon learned about it. Although the King of Chu did not get the phoenix, he was moved by the loyalty of the man who offered the phoenix to him. The king of Chu sent someone to summon the Chu man who wanted to offer the phoenix to the palace and gave him 10 times more gold than what he paid for the pheasant.

Hypocritical people try their best to deceive, while honest and kind people still treat others with their loyalty when they don’t know the truth.