画蛇添足 （huà shé tiān zú）

画蛇添足 （huà shé tiān zú； draw snake add feet）

A long time ago, a family gave their God an offering of a jar of wine. After the ceremony, the host of the family gave the wine to his servants. There were several servants and all of them wanted the whole jar. One servant came up with an idea to decide the issue. He suggested that they hold a drawing contest. They would each draw a snake. The person who finished drawing the snake first would get the wine. Everyone agreed to this plan and started drawing. One person drew very fast. He finished the snake and grabbed the wine jar with one hand. Noticing the others were still working, he used his other hand to continue drawing the adding feet to his snake. When he was doing so, another person finished drawing and grabbed the jar of wine from his hand saying, “Snakes don’t have feet, so what you drew is not a snake!” I finish drawing a snake first so I am the winner.”

This story is a warning not to ruin the effect by adding something unnecessary.