此地無銀 (Cǐdì wú yín)

[Daimashin]

此地無銀 (Cǐdì wú yín) - A cover up backfires.

Literal Meaning - There is no gold here.

Once upon a time while a man was walking he found a bag containing 300 ounce of gold. He brought it home but was afraid that the gold might get discovered so he buried the gold in his backyard. However, he was still worried that someone might find it. He then came up with an idea, he stuck a piece of paper on the wall which wrote, "There is no 300 ounce of gold here." and thought that there was no way anyone would knew about it anymore.

After a while, his neighbor walked by his house and saw the notice. He knew that there was bound to be gold in that spot where the notice was and dug up the gold. He realized that since he was the neighbor, the owner will be suspicious of him. The neighbor went ahead and did the same thing, he too stuck a piece of notice next to the original one that stated, "This gold is not stolen by your neighbor."

The next day, the owner of the gold woke up only to found out that his gold was stolen. He suspected his neighbor initially but put away the thought after he saw the notice about how the gold wasn't stolen by his neighbor.

此地無銀三百兩 (Cǐdì wú yín sānbǎi liǎng) means that someone that tried to cover up a secret but ended up being exposed by the cover up itself.

Example:

"我都沒有說我的手錶是幾時不見得，他就說哪個時候不在家，分明是「此地無銀」."