'Red Threads') or "The Tale of Hongxian" (紅線傳) is a Chinese short story dating back to the Tang dynasty, believed to have been written by either Yuan Jiao (袁郊) or Yang Juyuan (杨巨源).

[4] Distressed by Tian's intentions, Xue confides in his maid[a] named Hongxian (紅線),[b] who is also a skilled ruan player and Song's "inner record-keeper".

[13] "Hongxian" is one of the eight chuanqi tales collected in Ganze yao (甘澤謠) or Ballads of Timely Rainfall by Yuan Jiao (袁郊; fl. 868).

[6] Although most modern scholars believe that Yuan wrote "Hongxian",[15] other commentators, for example E. D. Edwards and Liu Ying (劉瑛) have attributed authorship of the story to the eighth-century writer Yang Juyuan (杨巨源).

[18] The protagonist Hongxian is an example of the nüxia (女俠) or "female knight-errant",[19] a common character in mainstream Tang dynasty fiction.