The article considers the specificities of the figurative semantics of Russian and Chinese phraseological units with components two ( 无) and five (五). The authors observe that the internal form of the phraseological units in two languages reveals more differences than similarities, due to ethnocultural factors and, first and foremost, to the specifics of the symbolization of a numerical code in the course of conceiving the world. The numerals 无 and 五 in Chinese have a greater potential for forming phraseological units than their equivalents in Russian.