During the Western Zhou dynasty, a man wanted to make a fur coat worth a thousand pieces of gold. Hearing that fox fur was the most precious, he thought to himself, "There are many foxes on the mountain. I might as well go up and discuss it with them."
So, he excitedly went up the mountain, found a group of foxes, and said to them with a straight face, "Dear foxes, I want to make a fur coat worth a thousand gold pieces, so I've come specially to ask for your help—would you be willing to peel off your skins and give them to me?"
The foxes, hearing this, were so terrified that they turned and fled, vanishing into the deep mountain valleys in the blink of an eye. Seeing this, the man had no choice but to hang his head in defeat and descend the mountain.
After a while, he prepared to offer sacrifices to his ancestors but lacked mutton. Remembering a large flock of sheep grazing at the foot of the mountain, he went to them and said, "Dear sheep, I wish to honor my ancestors but have no mutton. Would any of you be kind enough to give me some of your flesh?"
Those sheep, upon hearing this, bleated in terror and scrambled to flee into the dense forest, vanishing without a trace in an instant.
"The idiom 'Seeking a Fox's Skin' originally meant asking a fox for its fur, implying that negotiating with someone whose interests conflict with yours is doomed to fail. Now it's often used to describe trying to persuade a villain to sacrifice their own benefit—an impossible task."
Source: *Taiping Yulan*
Meaning of the Idiom: Later, the Chinese idiom "与虎谋皮" came to describe how negotiating with someone whose interests conflict with yours is doomed to fail.