众口铄金

Origin and story

In the Guoyu, Zhouyu Xia, King Jing of Zhou has a great bell cast and is pleased when musicians pronounce it harmonious. The musician Zhou Jiu challenges that judgment: a project that exhausts the people and provokes resentment cannot embody true harmony. He invokes an existing proverb comparing united hearts to a city wall and many mouths to a force that can melt metal.

The original setting concerns the power of public support or opposition, not a literal experiment with gold. Later uses emphasize how repeated accusations can overwhelm the truth and damage a reputation. The passage already calls the saying a proverb, so it should not be presented as Zhou Jiu's newly invented phrase.