10001

Since in Chinese vocabulary you have both the sound and the elaborate characters, it can happen that the characters transmit some meaning which otherwise could get lost. My current favorite example is 万一 (wan4yi1), which can mean “in case”, “random event”, “emergency”, “eventuality” and the two characters are literally just a number: 10001. For example, you can say 为什么你带雨伞？ (why are you taking the umbrella?) - 万一下雨了 (in case it starts raining). It is obviously a bit confusing why you can say “10001 it starts raining”. This becomes clear when you know the proverb 不怕一万，就怕万一 (bu4pa4yi1wan4, jiu4pa4wan4yi1) - somewhat literally “I don’t fear 10000 (times), I only fear the 10001(st time)”. That is, 万一 is the seldom event where everything goes wrong.