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During the Warring States Period, when King Xiang of Chu ruled the State of Chu, the country was very depressed. The king of Chu and his ministers were dissolute and incompetent. Minister Zhuang Xin foresaw the danger of Chu. One day, he remonstrated with the king of Chu and said, "Your Majesty, all those flatterers around you tried their best to make you happy, but you forgot to handle state affairs. In the long run, the country will perish sooner or later. "

The king of Chu was furious: "Bold! How dare you curse my country with such vicious words and deliberately provoke people's dissatisfaction! " Zhuang Xin explained: "I dare not curse Chu, but I can predict that Chu is facing great danger." Zhuang Xin saw that the king of Chu loved those corrupt officials so much that he believed that Chu was bound to perish. So he asked the king of Chu to leave the state of Chu.

Zhuang Xin replied: "If the sheep are lost, it is not too late to repair the sheepfold." Then he put forward many good strategies on how to revive the country and recover lost land. The king of Chu was very happy.

The idiom "Better late than never" comes from Zhuang Xin's answer to the king of Chu. To make a metaphor, if something goes wrong, there will be losses, and if we remedy them in time, we can make up for them and learn from them.