Story about Yuelao

Story about Yuelao	Story about Yuelao

In China, god of love is called Yuelao, abbreviation of Yuexia Laoren (old man sitting in the moon light). Not like Cupid carrying bow and arrows, Yuelao draws people together with a thin red thread. Even now, the modern matchmakers also called themselves Yuelao.

There are a lot of interesting stories about Yuelao in Chinese literature, but there is one you cannot miss.

It was in the Tang Dynasty, a young man called Wei Gu met a weird old man when loitering on the streets in the night. The old man was reading some file in the moonlight, with a big bag near his feet. "What are you reading?" Wei Gu asked the old man. "People's marriage file." he answered. "Then what's in the bag?" "Red threads to tie people's ankles together. If two people (one male and one female) are connected by the red thread, no matter where they are and who they are, they will get married." Therefore Wei Gu asked the old man who would become his wife, the old man told him that his wife now was only three year old and she was the daughter of an old blind peddler who lived in the corner of that street. Wei Gu was so angry about that and sent a servant to kill the baby but only hurt the girl on her eyebrow. Ten years later, Wei Gu had become a brave warrior, and an officer would like to let his daughter marry him. The young wife was pretty, but with a scar on the eyebrow. Wei was curious and asked the reason, then finally found she was that baby and she was adopted by the officer by chance.

It is also said, Yuelao have a lot of clay figures and a marriage stone. He always wrote down people's names on the back of the figures according to his file, and connected their ankles together with the red thread, then put them on the marriage stone, for one day, that means one life, two days, then two life.