The 'Red thread of fate' is an East Asian belief originating from Chinese legend. According to the myth, the gods tie an invisible red cord around the ankles of those that are destined to meet one another in a certain situation or help each other in a certain way.

  One story featuring the red thread of fate involves a young boy. Walking home one night, a young boy sees an old man (Yue Xia Lao) standing beneath the moonlight. The man explains to the boy that he is attached to his destined wife by a red thread. Yue Xia Lao shows the boy the young girl who is destined to be his wife. Being young and having no interest in having a wife, the young boy picks up a rock and throws it at the girl, running away. Many years later, when the boy has grown into a young man, his parents arrange a wedding for him. On the night of his wedding, his wife waits for him in their bedroom, with the traditional veil covering her face.

  Xingshi Yinyuan Zhuan, literally "The Story of a Marital Fate to Awaken the World", is a Chinese classical novel of the late Ming or early Qing dynasty. One recent scholar calls it "one of China's most underrated traditional vernacular novels", a saga of two families, one a reincarnation of the other, whose "catalog of vices and moral decay conjures up the apocalyptic vision of a doomed nation".

  The date of composition lies between 1618 and 1681, placing it either in the late Ming or early Qing dynasty. It shares structural features and techniques with the Four Classic Ming Novels, such as the 100-chapter paradigmatic length, which is broken down into ten-chapter units, often punctuated with climactic or prophetic episodes in the ninth and tenth chapters.