Sun Zhiwei, a renowned painter of the Northern Song Dynasty, was once commissioned by Shouning Temple in Chengdu to paint a large mural titled *The Nine Luminaries*. After sketching the outline, he told his students, "The draft is done—I must visit a friend. You handle the coloring from here."
When Sun Zhiwei left, his students were thrilled at the rare chance to practice, so they eagerly prepared to color the painting. Suddenly, they noticed the attendant of the Water Star Bodhisattva holding an empty crystal vase and questioned, "Why is the vase empty?" One student replied, "The master must have forgotten to draw the flowers." Another insisted, "We should add them ourselves to complete the work."
A student named Tong Renyi said to several fellow disciples, "Our teacher used to always paint a bouquet in the vase. This time, perhaps he was in a hurry to keep an appointment and forgot. How about we add it in?"
His fellow disciples all agreed with him. So, they worked together and added a bouquet of flowers to the crystal vase.
A few days later, Sun Zhiwei returned. Seeing the extra bouquet in the Water Star Bodhisattva's vase, he scolded Tong Renyi and the others, "Who told you to add flowers to the crystal vase without asking? That vase is the Bodhisattva's sacred treasure for subduing demons. By adding those flowers, you've turned it into an ordinary vase. You've ruined the entire painting."
Sun Zhiwei then revised the painting, removing the bouquet of flowers.
Several of his students, lacking sufficient knowledge, ended up making things worse instead of better.
Later, the idiom "trying to be clever but ending up foolish" describes someone who intends to show off their intelligence but instead makes things worse and does something stupid.
Source: *Xuanhe Painting Manual*
Meaning of the Idiom: Later, the Chinese idiom "弄巧成拙" came to describe how someone who intends to show off their intelligence but instead makes things worse and does something stupid.