spread embroidered stories and malicious gossip
It is a Chinese idiom. Pinyin is f ē IDU ǎ NLI ú ch á ng, which means spreading rumors and slandering others. It comes from the strange tales of a Lonely Studio: Feng Sanniang.
The idiom comes from Pu Songling's strange tales from a lonely studio, Feng Sanniang in the Qing Dynasty: "those who make stories are short-lived and long-standing, and can't bear it."
spread embroidered stories and malicious gossip
A stalemate between clam and snipe - bàng yù xiāng chí