In xianxia stories, a mingjie is a trial written into someone's fate that they must pass through, often at the cost of great suffering, before they can rise or survive. Very often the ordeal is a person: falling in love with them is itself the danger, which is why the related word qingjie (情劫, love ordeal) is so common. The trope gives a romance its doom from the first episode. In The Longest Promise, a review noted, the hero knows from the start that the heroine is his mingjie and still never moves against her.
