Mr. Hu Xueyan (1823 - 1885)was one of the most successful businessmen during the Qing dynasty (1636 - 12 Feb. 1912)in China. He was a talent in commerce and had original ideas, vision and strategy. One strategy he used in selling his cat is "trying to cover up something in order to make it more conspicuous" (欲盖弥彰，pronounced in Chinese "yugai mizhang"), fooling the opponent about your real intention.
Here is how Mr. Hu sold his cat.
Before Mr. Hu became rich, he lived a very hard poor life. He sold almost everything to scratch for a living. Finally, he wanted to sell the last object in his house: a cat he raised with all the care. However, the cat would not give him too much money. Then he came up with a marvellous idea. Every time he went out of his door, he purposefully called out to his wife and told her to take very good care of the cat: "my darling, take every care of our cat. Never allow anybody to touch it. Absolutely no stranger shall be allowed to see it. You really take this into your heart." As time went by, his neighbours all believed that his cat was something very precious.
Soon a very rich man searched and came to buy this cat. Mr. Hu firmly refused to sell. The more resolute he was, the more eager the rich man was to want to buy, offering higher and higher a price. Eventually, the rich man gave Mr. Hu 300,000 Yuan for the cat. In reality, the cat was just as normal as others.
Key message: the more you cover something up, the more it is conspicuous.