杯: cup, in cup
弓: bow
蛇: snake
影: shadow
Literal translation: Mistake the shadow of a bow in one's cup as a snake.
It came from a story: Long long ago, Ying Chen treat Du Xuan to dinner, and there was a red bow on the wall, after several cups of wine, they became a little drunk, and suddenly Du Xuan saw a snake in his cup which actually was the shadow of the red bow, he became so afraid, but since Ying Chen was so zealous, and Du Xuan didn't wanna be an impolite, so he drank the wine with that "snake" anyway. When Du Xuan got home, he felt very bad and sick, several days later, Yin Chen came to visit him to see if he was fine, Du Xuan finally told him the truth. Yin Chen felt so sorry, but when he got home, he saw the bow on the wall and figured out that it was a mistake, so he told Du Xuan, after knowing this, Du Xuan laughed and recovered from the sickness immediately. From then on, "Mistake the shadow of a bow in one's cup as a snake" is used to describe that people who are always jittery with imaginary fear.
Corresponding English idom: Self-created suspision.
Example sentence: That's just a stone, don't be so suspicious, you are just frightening yourself!
（那是块石头！别杯弓蛇影，自己吓自己！）
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