The Chinese idiom 兔死狗烹 is formed by sequentially combining two verb-object phrases: 兔死 (rabbits die) and 狗烹 (dog is boiled), where the first phrase establishes the condition and the second the consequence, creating a direct cause-and-effect structure that literally depicts the hunting dog being killed after the rabbits are gone, thus conveying the concept of discarding something once it is no longer useful.