Last touch added to a drawing

Once a famous artist Zhang Sengyou drew four dragons on the walls of the Anle Temple, Jinling, but he left the pupils of the dragons unfinished. Someone asked him the reason of the omission. In answer, he said that if he put the pupils therein the dragons would become alive and fly away. The questioner did not believe it and requested him to complete the work. The artist nodded assent. But as soon as the two dots were drawn, all of a sudden, there were thunder and lightning and the dragon became alive and instantly flew away, while the other three without pupils still remained there.

Based on this fairy tale, the last touch added to a drawing is said to be the act of adding pupils to a dragon; that is to say, the last touch in a masterpiece is the most important part of a drawing, or any other important business. And now it becomes a phrase to suggest adding a word or two to clinch the point.

  Professed love of what one really fears

In the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476BC), there lived in the Chu state a person named Chu Zhuliang, who addressed himself as "Lord Ye". It is said that this Lord Ye was very fond of dragons. The walls had dragons painted on them. The beams, pillars, doors and windows were all carved with dragons. As a result, his love for dragons was spread out. When the real dragon in heaven heard of this Lord Ye, he was deeply moved. He decided to visit Lord Ye to thank him.

You might think Lord Ye would have been very happy to see a real dragon. But, in fact, at the sight of the creature, he was scared out of his wits and ran away as fast as he could.

From then on, people knew that Lord Ye only loved pictures or carvings that look like dragons, not the real thing
.