At the end of the Spring and Autumn Period, wars for power and mutual annexation often occurred within the Jin ruling group. One year, he led troops to destroy the great doctor Fan Jishe and his family. From then on, the Fan family was left out in the cold. But there is still a big clock hanging in front of the door. A greedy man saw this big clock and wanted to take it home. But the clock was so big and heavy that he couldn't move it several times in a row. So he found a hammer and planned to smash the clock and take it home one by one. Unexpectedly, when the man rang the bell with a hammer, there was a loud noise. Now he is puzzled: "What if someone hears the noise and comes to grab the clock?" So, he thought of a way: plug his ears, as long as his ears can't hear, so can others' ears. He dared to slam the bell. The loud noise spread far away, and the officials heard the noise and caught him.

Li Yuan, a Tang Gaozu in the Tang Dynasty, heard about this incident and found it ridiculous. He said, "This is simply a cover-up." . Since then, people have derived the idiom "stealing a clock" from the story of stealing a clock, which is used to mean being smart and trying to deceive others, but actually deceiving themselves.