One bright morning, in a place called Zheng, a man decided he needed new shoes. His old ones were getting quite holey!

So, very carefully, he took a piece of string and measured his feet. "This long, and this wide," he mumbled, writing the sizes down on a small slip of paper. He tucked the paper into his pocket. "Perfect!"

Off he went to the busy market. There were so many shoes! Pointy ones, round ones, soft ones, and strong ones. He spotted a pair he really liked.

"I'll take those!" he thought. But when he reached for his pocket to get the paper with his foot size, it was empty! "Oh dear!" he cried. "I've left my measurement at home!"

So, he turned right around and hurried all the way back to his house. He found the paper on his table. "Aha!" he said, grabbing it.

He rushed back to the market as fast as his old, holey shoes could carry him. But by the time he got there, the market was closing! All the shoe sellers had packed up and gone home. He couldn't buy any shoes.

A kind person standing nearby saw him looking sad. "Why didn't you just try the shoes on your feet when you were here the first time?" the person asked.

The man from Zheng looked very surprised. "Oh, I couldn't do that!" he said. "I trust my paper measurement much more than I trust my own feet!"

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