列子·湯問·偃師列子·汤问·偃师

King Mu of Zhou went west on a tour of inspection. He crossed the Kunlun mountains but did not reach Mount Yan. On the way back, before he had reached the central states, someone on the road presented him with a craftsman named Yan Shi. King Mu received him and asked, "What can you do?" Yan Shi said, "Whatever Your Majesty commands me to try. But I have already made something, and I hope Your Majesty will look at it first." King Mu said, "Bring it with you another day, and you and I will look at it together." The next day Yan Shi came to see the king. The king received him and said, "Who is this you have brought with you?" He answered, "It is something I have made, which can perform." King Mu stared at it in astonishment. It walked fast and slow, bowed and looked up, exactly like a man. When the craftsman moved its chin, it sang in tune; when he lifted its hands, it danced in time. It changed in a thousand ways and did whatever was wished. The king took it for a real man, and watched it with Lady Sheng and the women of his palace.

When the performance was nearly over, the performer winked and beckoned to the concubines who attended the king on either side. The king was furious and wanted Yan Shi put to death on the spot. Yan Shi, terrified, at once took the performer apart to show the king: it was all made by joining together leather, wood, glue and lacquer, and white, black, red and blue-green. The king examined it closely. Inside were liver, gall, heart, lungs, spleen, kidneys, intestines and stomach; outside were sinews and bones, limbs and joints, skin and body hair, teeth and hair, all of them artificial, and nothing was missing. When it was put back together, it was again as it had been when he first saw it. The king tried taking out its heart, and its mouth could not speak; taking out its liver, and its eyes could not see; taking out its kidneys, and its feet could not walk. Only then was King Mu pleased, and he sighed, "Can human skill really equal the work of the Maker of things?" He ordered it carried home in a carriage of his train.

Now Ban Shu's scaling ladder and Mo Di's flying kite were thought by their makers to be the height of what could be done. When their disciples Dongmen Jia and Qin Huali heard of Yan Shi's skill and told the two masters, the two never again dared to speak of their art for the rest of their lives, and only now and then took up their compasses and squares.