Picture this: a grand palace, long, long ago. Inside lived a very powerful Emperor who was used to getting his way.

One day, news arrived that made the Emperor very grumpy. His best general, General Li, had lost a big battle far away and had been captured by the enemy! The Emperor stomped his foot. "How could this happen?" he boomed. All his advisors and helpers in the palace were very quiet. They were scared to say anything that might make the Emperor even angrier. Most of them just nodded and agreed that General Li must have done a terrible job.

But one man, a wise historian named Master Sima, was brave. He stepped forward. "Your Majesty," he said calmly, "General Li fought very hard with only a few soldiers against many. Perhaps he had no other choice but to surrender to save his men."

The Emperor did not like this at all! He was used to everyone agreeing with him. He got even angrier at Master Sima for daring to speak up for the general. So, the Emperor punished Master Sima unfairly, and Master Sima had a very hard time.

Later, Master Sima felt very sad and thought about everything that had happened. He knew he was right, but he had been treated badly. He could have just given up on everything. But he had a very important job he wanted to finish: writing a giant book about all the history of their land.

He thought to himself, "If I just give up now because of this unfairness, my life and my suffering would be as unimportant as one single, tiny hair taken from nine big, strong oxen. Imagine nine huge oxen! They have so much hair. If you plucked out just one, would anyone even notice? Would it make any difference to those nine big oxen? Not really."

"But," he continued thinking, "if I stay strong and finish my history book, that will be something important. That will be a big contribution that people will remember for a long, long time."

And so, Master Sima decided to keep working on his book, even though things were tough. He knew that just disappearing or giving up would be like that one tiny hair – hardly noticed. But his book, that would be something truly valuable.

And that’s how we got the saying "nine oxen and one hair." It means something so small, so tiny, or so unimportant compared to something very, very big, that it almost doesn't count at all.

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