One year, a great famine struck the State of Qi.
A wealthy man named Qian Ao set up a stall by the roadside, stocking it with food to give to the hungry as charity.
Soon, a man, weak with hunger and barely able to walk—his head covered by his sleeve and his shoes tied with string—approached. Seeing him, Qian Ao held out food in one hand and drink in the other, calling out, "Hey! Come and eat your fill!"
The man suddenly looked up, his eyes wide with anger. "It is precisely because I refuse to accept food given with such contemptuous shouting that I have been reduced to this state!" he declared.
Hearing this, Qian Ao immediately apologized.
In the end, however, the man starved to death, unwilling to accept the offered food.