The Old Man Under The Moon

During the Tang dynasty there is a dude named Wei Gu. By the ripe old age of 16 or so, he's supposed to be getting married, but he's too picky and keeps turning up his nose at all the eligible 14-year-old bachelorettes in town (when the average life span is 30, you gotta start pumping 'em out early).

One day a leering haggle-toothed matchmaker shows up at his door and starts showing him portraits of beautiful potential wives, but he will have none of it.

Portrait 1: "Her mouth is too big"
Portait 2: "Her eyes are too narrow"
Portrait 3: "I want someone literate"*

Anyway, Wei Gu is pissed about the matchmaking ordeal so he goes off for a walk to get that off his mind, and winds up somewhere outside the city, where an old dude with a big package on his back is sitting under the moon, reading a book.

Wei Gu's like, "What is that book?" and the old dude's like, "This is the marriage book. The names of everybody and who they will marry are written down here." Then he reaches into the package, pulls out a big bundle of red string, casts the string into the air, and lassoes Wei Gu around the left ankle as he's trying to walk away. He says, "Whenever a man and woman get lassoed by this red string, they will inevitably be destined to get married, no matter what." He goes on to inform Wei Gu that his future wife is the daughter of a vegetable seller outside the city.

Wei Gu visits the vegetable seller to see his future wife; unfortunately, she is a screaming, revolting three-year-old described as having "disheveled hair and an unkempt face" (peng tou gou mian). He gets so pissed that he pulls out his sword and slashes the toddler in the forehead.

Fourteen years later, Wei Gu is still unmarried because he's too picky. Some rich dude is like "Wei Gu you should marry my daughter" and Wei Gu is stoked because the guy is rich so he says yes but when he sees his new bride for the first time even though she is hot he is surprised because she's wearing some kind of flower ornament over her forehead, so he asks her why she's wearing it and she's like "cuz some horrible man slashed my forehead with a sword when I was 3" and suddenly Wei Gu recalls his terrible deed and confesses all to her and because she is a fictional product of the imagination she forgives him.

Later, Chinese people think that the story is really romantic and they decide that the old guy from the beginning of the story is actually the god of matchmaking, who they call "The Old Man Under the Moon" (Yue Xia Lao Ren).

I hope you have learned something today.

*I didn't make that part up*