The Red Mound Rope

A red cord from Hongling turns any ordinary person who touches it into a demon's thrall. It is known as the “red thread beneath the moon.”

That year, I flung the cord around a scholar on his way to the imperial examinations, but a Luban lock dangled from his neck. It was the very one that had pinned my soul in my previous life.

His voice trembled as he asked, “Why are you doing this to me, miss?”

I traced the features I'd carved into my dreams a thousand times and smiled through my tears.

“Don't be afraid. I'm just here to repay you with a life.”

But when the demon-revealing mirror and the colored-glass bottle appeared one after another,

he suddenly wound the red thread around his own wrist. “This time, I'll be the one to bind you.”

It turned out I was never the only one who remembered our past lives.