The villagers laughed at her. "What good is a broken bowl? And that rag wouldn’t even fit a scarecrow!"

"This fire never dies," Mai said. "And this dress will never tear, because it was woven not with gold, but with love."

In a small village nestled among misty mountains, there lived a poor orphan girl named Mai . Her only inheritance was a cracked, blackened clay bowl and a torn piece of faded silk.