During the Warring States period, the philosopher Yang Zhu's neighbor lost a sheep and, in great distress, immediately asked many friends and relatives to search for it.
A short while later, the neighbor rushed back to Yang Zhu, pleading, "Sir, I need to borrow your servant to help find my sheep." Yang Zhu asked in confusion, "You lost just one sheep, yet you want so many people to search for it—isn't that making a mountain out of a molehill?" The neighbor gave a wry smile and explained, "Sir, please listen. Outside the village, there are several fork roads, and with too few people, we simply can't cover them all."
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A short while later, the neighbor, along with his relatives and friends, as well as Yang Zhu's servants, all arrived at Yang Zhu's house, panting and out of breath.
Yang Zhu asked, "Did you find the sheep?" The neighbor shook his head and said dejectedly, "It ran away, we couldn't find it." Yang Zhu asked in surprise, "With so many of you searching, how could you not find it?"
After drinking some water, the neighbor calmed down and said, "Once you leave the village and hit the main road, there are several forks, and each fork has more forks. The more you go, the more forks there are, like a spider's web. In the end, even with so many of us, we couldn't be sure which fork the sheep escaped from."
After hearing his neighbor's words, Yang Zhu remained silent for a long time, his expression suddenly turning solemn and tinged with sorrow. His students, greatly puzzled by this reaction, cautiously asked, "Master, a single sheep is worth little, and the lost sheep is not even from your household. Why are you so dejected?"
Yang Zhu listened but remained stone-faced, refusing to speak.
A student told this to a scholar named Xinduzi. Xinduzi said, "There are too many forks in the road, so sheep easily get lost. Similarly, scholars, due to conflicting doctrines, fail to find the true path and principle, thus straying and gaining nothing."
"The 'forked road' refers to a branching path; 'lost' means missing. Later generations used the idiom 'Lost Sheep at the Forked Road' from this story to illustrate that complex and changeable situations require the right direction to find the truth."
Source: *Liezi*, Chapter "Explaining Signs"
Meaning of the Idiom: Later, the Chinese idiom "歧路亡羊" came to describe complex and changeable situations require the right direction to find the truth.