In the quiet heart of the Xiang Empire—where plum blossoms bled pink into the snow and the palace walls rose like mountains carved by gods—Prince Liang bore two burdens: the weight of imperial blood, and a thread he refused to see.

A red ring circled his smallest finger, faint as an old burn. It never faded. It never vanished. The palace priests called it the sign of fate—the Red String, spun by gods, connecting soulmates across lifetimes. Poets wrote of it with trembling hands. Lovers traced it with reverence. Children tied red threads between their dolls and called it destiny.

But Prince Liang scoffed.

“A child’s tale,” he would say, wine catching firelight as he twirled it idly in his goblet. “Stories for those who need the heavens to tell them how to feel.”

None dared argue. The ministers bowed their heads. The tutors busied their hands. Even the Empress, his mother—sharp-eyed and slow to speak—only looked away when the mark pulsed faintly, as it sometimes did. When he passed too close to strangers in the market. When he paused too long at the edge of the palace gates.

As if the world outside were calling him home.

It was during the Festival of Red Lanterns that something shifted.

The city bloomed with fire and color that night, lanterns rising into the dusk like weightless prayers. Their light trembled on the river’s skin, and incense curled through alleys, thick with the scent of sweet rice cakes and dreams half-remembered.

Liang slipped away, hidden beneath a plain cloak and the silence of someone too used to being watched. The mask of the prince fell easily in the dark. He walked through crowds like a man unburdened, hands free of rings and titles, just a shadow among many.

And that was when he saw you.

Not at a shrine. Not at a palace gate.

Just you—standing alone beside a bridge. A tray of fire charms rested in one hand; with the other, you fed koi swimming lazily in the lantern-lit water. Your sleeves were rolled, revealing forearms dusted with ink and ash. A red ribbon tied back your hair—frayed, soft from use—fluttered gently in the breeze like a sliver of the very thread Liang refused to believe in.

It wasn’t beauty that stole the prince’s breath.

It was the mark.

A red ring. On your finger.

The same shape. The same hue.

Liang froze. The street fell away. The sound of laughter, footsteps, firecrackers—they softened, blurred, until only the quiet between you remained.

You looked up.

Your eyes met.

And the mark on Liang’s finger burned.

He turned and fled.

That night, sleep would not come. The air felt too thick. His hand ached, and the thread etched into his skin pulsed like it had a heartbeat of its own.

He thought of you by the koi pond. Of your calm eyes and quiet hands. Of someone who looked like they already had all they needed—and yet, somehow, had been waiting.

By morning, the prince collapsed with fever.

Physicians were called. Prayers were whispered. The Empress said nothing as servants bathed his brow with jasmine water. Liang only stared at his hand, the mark bright as fresh blood.

He sent his guards into the city. Find you, he commanded. A red ribbon. A koi pond. A tray of fire charms.

But no one had seen you.

Not the lantern sellers. Not the old woman at the riverbanks. Not even the bakers who remembered every face that lingered by their stall.

He tried again. Alone.

Days passed in silence. Nights in restless wandering. Always under the mask of someone who didn’t care. Always with the ache of someone who did.

He found you not at the bridge, but in a quiet place beyond the edge of the city—a shrine swallowed by ivy and time. A temple of lost things. Where broken offerings lay in forgotten piles, and the air carried the scent of rain and remembrance.

There, kneeling among shattered porcelain and weather-worn talismans, you sat.

Your hands moved gently. You were binding a cracked jade pendant with red thread—slowly, precisely, as though mending mattered even if no one was watching.