城門失火, 殃及池魚 (Chéngmén shīhuǒ, yāngjíchíyú)

[Daimashin]

城門失火, 殃及池魚 (Chéngmén shīhuǒ, yāngjíchíyú) - to get dragged into other's troubles

Literal meaning - Gates on fire, affects the fish.

Once upon a time during the Sung Dynasty there was a huge gate standing between a city and a large pond. Inside the pool, there lived a lot of fish. One day, because of unknown circumstances the gate got caught on fire. The fire spreaded very quickly and the water reserve is situated far away so the citizens began taking water from the pond. As the fire got bigger, more and more water was taken from the pond. After a long time, the people finally managed to put out the fire but at the expense of the fish. Saving the gate has left nothing for the fish to live in and in the end all the fish died. Thus, from that day onwards people would use "城門失火, 殃及池魚" to describe when we inadvertantly get dragged into others misfortunes.

Example:

"你自己不好就算了， 幹嘛要連累我呢？這一次真的是『城門失火, 殃及池魚』！"