[1][2] It is commonly thought of as an invisible red cord around the finger of those that are destined to meet one another in a certain situation as they are "their one true love".
[1] In the original Chinese myth, the thread is tied around both parties' ankles, while in Japanese culture it is bound from a male's thumb to a female's little finger.
Walking home one night, a young boy sees an old man (Yue Lao) standing beneath the moonlight.
He asks her why she wears it and she responds that when she was a young girl, a boy threw a rock at her that struck her, leaving a scar on her eyebrow.
Another version of the same story involves an ambitious young man who talks to Yue Lao and insists on asking him about whom he will marry, thinking that he'll meet himself a rich girl.
Years later the man, now a promising public officer, marries a beautiful woman from a rich family who is very much the perfect wife for him save for two details: she has a limp and covers her forehead with a silk patch for undisclosed reasons.
He asks his wife why and she begins crying, telling him that she is the niece of the family leaders rather than their daughter: her parents died when she was young and she initially lived with her old blind nanny, but one day a madman stabbed her caretaker to death in a local marketplace and wounded her, leaving her scarred and almost crippled.