若干年后齐宣王过世,他的儿子齐愍王继承了王位。这位齐愍王和他爹一样也喜欢听人吹奏竽,不同的是,他喜欢听独奏。有天,他颁布了道命令,要求隔天让那三百位乐师逐一吹竽给他听。乐师们听闻命令都相当开心,大家都想要在君王面前大展身手,只有那位滥竽充数的南郭先生觉得非常心虚,十分焦虑。心想:”这可是欺君之罪,要杀头的啊!我还不得赶紧溜之大吉?”于是连忙收拾行李,有多远逃多远了。
Some years later, the King passed away and his son, the King Min, inherited the throne. The King was similar to his dad in that he also loved listening to the yu. The difference was that he preferred solo performances. One day, he enacted an order, asking the 300 musicians to play the yu for him one by one. The musicians were quite happy to hear this order since they all wanted to show their talent in front of the King. However, Nan Guo, who has been pretending to play the yu, felt very guilty and anxious about this order. He thought “This is a crime of deceiving the King, people are decapitated over this! I must escape right this moment!” So he urgently packed his luggage and fled as far as he could.