Looking for Realistic Horror Novels Based on Supernatural Events from Real Life 求真实的恐怖小说，根据现实生活中改编的灵异事件
Translated by GPT-6 Luna
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51
The Language of the Three Corpses 三尸语
You’ve heard of people who died with their eyes open, but have you ever heard of a dead person whose mouth wouldn’t close? His grandfather’s death turns the life of a broke college student upside down. A corpse glares, a soul is hooked; a corpse opens its mouth, and disaster strikes twice. As one bizarre incident after another unfolds, he accidentally discovers that there’s far more to it than ghosts…
83kReads9.3Score15.4kShelves
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52
Northeastern China's Forbidden Secrets 东北禁忌手札
[Extreme horror + a folk-horror story set in the countryside] In a remote mountain village, deep within the forest, countless taboos remain unknown to outsiders. The people here follow ancient rules of life and death: pregnant women must never encounter a coffin, and anyone who dies of old age at a hundred years old is destined to become an evil spirit. But in a single day, the old Yu family breaks both taboos, drawing every kind of demon and ghost to their door! At midnight, someone hears the s
983Reads8.7Score108Shelves
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53
The Midnight Ghost Market: Living People Keep Out 午夜鬼市，活人回避
[Mystery + supernatural + ghost market + narrow escape from death] My name is Tang Chao. I’m a broke young man scraping by in the antiques business, with hundreds of thousands in debt hanging over me. An ordinary porcelain-buying deal led me to pick up a strange Jun ware bowl at an unexpectedly low price. I thought I’d found a bargain. Little did I know, it was the beginning of my nightmare... On a bus, I met a burly man calling himself Jue Mingzi, who warned me that “a calamity is sure to befal
4kReads9.0Score233Shelves
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The Sound of Nightmares: 60 Horror Stories That Wake You from Your Dreams 噩梦之声：60个做梦吓醒的恐怖故事
[Standalone Ghost Stories + Supernatural Horror + Not for the Faint of Heart + Rural Tales] When night falls, terrifying ghostly figures emerge. Step into all kinds of bizarre and unbelievable tales, and spend your nights screaming! Haunted houses, ghostly shadows outside the window, a deadly lipstick, someone beneath the mattress, an umbrella that hunts people... Every corner conceals inexplicable phenomena and secrets that will fill you with dread! Every page will make your hair stand on end,
2kReads8.9Score219Shelves
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55
The One Who Borrows Lives from the Underworld 阴间借命人
[Standalone Stories + Supernatural Horror + Suspense + Folk Customs + Playful Tone + Ensemble Cast + Nonstop Ghost-Hunting Thrills!] Ever since I borrowed a life from the underworld, I’ve known no peace. My name is Quan Ning. I’m a lawyer, and one day I was in a car accident on a mountain road. As I lay dying, I saw a ghostly judge from the underworld come to claim my soul. I struck a deal with him and borrowed a sliver of hope for survival. The price of this life I borrowed was becoming
2.9kReads9.1Score287Shelves
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56
Ghostly Whispers at Midnight 夜半鬼语
[Rural + Supernatural + Ghost Stories] Back when my grandfather was young, he learned carpentry. As Old Zhao put it, a sixth-grade carpenter these days was worth half a scholar. But things were different back then. Carpenters belonged to one of the lowest trades. They had to carry their tools around every day, get up before dawn and stay out until the middle of the night, traveling from village to village to find work. And because they went so many places, and made coffins and dealt with the dea
6.5kReads9.0Score254Shelves
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57
Tales of Strange Happenings in the Countryside 乡村诡事录
The strange happenings in a mountain village. I was born and raised in the countryside. Deep in the mountains, there are always ghosts and spirits, and my village was no exception. Heaven, earth, black, yellow, the cosmos vast: demons and ghosts send shivers down your spine. One year, the start of spring fell on the fifteenth day of the eighth month. That year, so many strange things happened. Just bringing them up is enough to scare people. Meeting the Black and White Impermanence on a night wa
2.3kReads9.0Score147Shelves
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58
I Have 36,524 Folk Horror Stories 我有36524个民间恐怖故事
[Standalone stories] [Supernatural suspense] [Folk horror] [Mountain spirits and monsters] [Adapted from real cases] [Rural legends] There is no main storyline. Each chapter is a self-contained story adapted from folk rumors, with eerie, gripping plots. Note: This story discourages superstition and encourages belief in science. It is entirely fictional, so just enjoy it as entertainment.
5.1kReads8.8Score266Shelves
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59
Folk Tales: One Chapter, One Horror Story 民间怪谈一章一个恐怖故事
[Anthology of stories] [Folklore horror] [Supernatural horror] [Village legends] [Chinese-style horror] [Old-time storytelling] There is no overarching plot. Each chapter is a standalone horror story adapted from folk tales, with eerie, unsettling plots that grow more terrifying the more you think about them. Note: This story discourages superstition and encourages belief in science. It is entirely fictional, so just enjoy it as a bit of fun.
31.9kReads7.5Score1.5kShelves
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60
My Wife Is the Asura King 我的老婆是修罗王
Enter a ghost marriage, command a hundred ghosts, recruit ten thousand immortals, return to Yuxu... A new disciple’s “Madman’s Diary”
42Reads—Score—Shelves
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61
My Twenty Years as a Spirit Medium 我出马的二十年
After cultivating his character deep in the mountains, he emerged from an ancient cave to make a name for himself across the land. In twenty years as a spirit medium, he has overcome countless obstacles and witnessed countless events. This true account of those twenty years offers insight to readers unfamiliar with the profession and shares experience with fellow practitioners.
11.8kReads9.4Score712Shelves
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62
My Three Lives and Three Worlds 我的三生三世啊
A fantastical tale, all beginning with two bowls of expired Meng Po soup. By the time my hair reaches my waist, the soup's effects will have slowly worn off, and love will have quietly found its way to me! But can love really overcome every obstacle?
297Reads8.2Score—Shelves
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63
A Few Things from the Underworld 地府里的二三事
As a disciple of the Ma family with more than twenty years of experience in spirit-medium work, I've written this book based on what I know. Some of it is true, some of it false, and some lies in between. Whether you can understand it is up to your own fate!
304Reads8.2Score—Shelves
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64
Folk Tales: A Daily Dose of Horror 民间怪谈：每日恐怖奇说
Which is more terrifying, humans or ghosts, or perhaps something unseen and even more frightening? With its distinctive narrative style, this book brings readers a series of spine-chilling horror stories. In this book, you will follow different protagonists into worlds filled with terror and eerie unease. From mysterious ancient buildings to remote, desolate places, and from ordinary everyday life to bizarre supernatural phenomena, every story is packed with unexpected twists and horrifying mome
285Reads—Score—Shelves
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65
The Years I Spent as a Funeral Mourner 我当哭丧人的那些年
Some people must be mourned loudly when they are laid to rest. Otherwise, according to old folk customs, it is considered an act of filial impiety. After I was born, everyone in my family except my grandfather died because of me. My grandfather fell gravely ill, and to earn money for his treatment, I had no choice but to join Zhang the Elder, a man from my village, as a professional funeral mourner. From then on, I set out on a path of mourning with no return!
94Reads8.6Score—Shelves
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66
The Tale of the Silver Flood Dragon 银蛟传
[Metaphysics + Suspense + Taoist Magic + Historical Relics + Mythical Beasts from the Classic of Mountains and Seas + Folk Mysteries] Legend has it that the Dragon-Locking Well imprisons a wicked dragon guilty of an ancient crime. But when Zhuang Jiang, a junior clerk at the Cultural Relics Protection Institute, finds a piece of a jiao's horn at the bottom of the well, she discovers a silver-white jiao sealed inside it. From then on, the ten thousand ghosts hidden in a calligraphy album, the dea
201Reads7.2Score119Shelves
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67
Midnight Wonders 午夜惊奇
At the stroke of midnight, amid a terrifying atmosphere, strange ghost stories begin to unfold! A bluish-white hand suddenly appears on the window in the middle of the night. Is it looking for someone to take revenge on? A bus still running in the dead of night: does it lead to the world of the living or to hell? The shapewear hanging in the wardrobe at home is made of human skin! During the Qingming Festival, a figure appears in the glass of the bathhouse. After returning to her room, a beautif
426Reads8.7Score—Shelves
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Midnight Terror: Human Nature Stories That Will Haunt You 午夜惊魂：让人细思极恐的人性故事
At midnight, let's listen together to the little stories that circulate all around us. Maybe they're true. Maybe you've heard them too, or even experienced them yourself. Those moments that grow more terrifying the more you think about them go perfectly with the pitch-black night beyond the window. Red brick walls are common in many places. But we've never stopped to wonder: why are those bricks so red, so vivid? Rideshares at night aren't necessarily safe. Passengers have their concerns, and dr
616Reads8.8Score—Shelves
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69
Tales of the Supernatural 民间怪谈录
[Rural Horror Stories + Anthology + Folk Horror Tales + Chinese Supernatural] Supernatural happenings are most likely to occur in mountain villages, and the stories we've heard may well have really happened. In the eerie night wind, Granny Hao, the midwife who receives the dead, is like a messenger from the underworld, guiding the spirits of helpless mothers and children home. Locust trees commune with spirits, and poplars attract yin energy. Beneath the village's ancient trees lie secrets that
994Reads8.9Score105Shelves
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70
The Netherworld Inn 阴间客栈
My name is Qin Yu. While on a business trip, I checked into a uniquely styled inn called the Yin Room Inn. It even offered “special services” in the middle of the night. Little did I know it was an inn from the underworld. I began having nightmare after nightmare, and my friends kept getting into trouble...
2.4kReads9.0Score139Shelves
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71
My Years as a Buddhist Nun 我当师太的那些年
I was born a girl with a Pure Yang fate into a family of feng shui masters. For generations, my family had practiced feng shui in the countryside. My grandfather had hoped his eldest grandchild would be a boy, so he could pass down his skills to the eldest son and grandson. But I turned out to be a girl. Grandfather never took a liking to me, so my parents could only take me to live in the city. No one expected that, during the Ghost Festival in the year I turned twenty-five, Grandfather would s
388Reads8.7Score—Shelves
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72
I Might Have Changed the Wrong Fate 我可能改了个假命
When I was little, my mom asked a Taoist priest to tell my fortune. He said I'd face a calamity at 26, and that he'd come help me get through it the day before my 26th birthday. When the day finally came, the priest really did show up to change my fate. He even gave me a “Fate-Changing Ruler” and told me I had to change the fates of seven people with different destinies to survive the calamity. Otherwise, I'd only have five years left to live. So much for changing my fate for me! Did he only cha
79Reads8.9Score—Shelves
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Notes on Folk Spirit Mediums 民间出马仙笔记
[Spirit Mediums + Chinese-Style Horror + Episodic Stories + Supernatural Mystery + Karma + Mind-Blowing Twists + Feng Shui and the Occult] "Unraveling one strange and unpredictable tale of karmic retribution after another" In a remote suburb of the city lies a cemetery. Few people know that a shop dealing in the supernatural stands there, run by a spirit medium who can communicate with the dead and the living. The owner specializes in paranormal cases beyond ordinary people's understanding, but
433Reads9.3Score—Shelves
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74
The Yin-Yang Hot Pot Restaurant 阴阳火锅店
I took over a hot pot restaurant from my second uncle. He told me never to serve customers a yuan yang hot pot after midnight! After I took over the place, everything I believed in began to crumble... One night, I wasn't paying attention and served a couple a yuan yang hot pot. The next day, I saw in the newspaper that the couple had died! They'd jumped to their deaths together! After that, every night at midnight, a strange couple would appear in my restaurant and ask me to make them a yuan yan
1.5kReads7.7Score—Shelves
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75
The Rat King Underground 地下的鼠王
In Northeast China, there are things you must never ask about, places you must never go, and some graveyards that even rats won’t dare approach… Forty years ago, a plague of rats devoured an entire village. The bodies, gnawed down to bare bones, became a taboo the villagers never dared mention. But no one expected that forty years later, the nightmare would return: bloodstains, gold bracelets, overturned graves, and rafters creaking with “squeaks” in the night… Everything filled them with terror
1Reads—Score—Shelves
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76
Death’s Pallbearers 死亡抬棺
There was a half-immortal in this little mountain village named Yu Shouwang. Just after dusk, someone came rushing to his house. “Uncle Shouwang, you have to come take a look. The village chief's father's coffin was just carried to the village entrance, and now nobody can move it. It's downright eerie!” Strangely enough, as soon as the half-immortal arrived, they were able to move the coffin. But at the time, only Old Yu Shouwang knew that this and the series of tragedies that followed were all
1Reads—Score—Shelves
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77
The Blood Sacrifice’s Curse 血牲的诅咒
In the Northeast, there's a taboo no one dares to break lightly: eat livestock that have become spirits, and you'll suffer retribution. But one year, during a famine, the harvest was good in that remote little village. Old Yang suddenly slaughtered the old ox he'd raised for fifteen years. On the very day the ox was killed, a crowd of strange, unfamiliar people came to the village, demanding meat night after night.
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78
The Spirit-Summoning Garment 招魂衣
They say Northeast China is full of taboos, and you can’t even wear the wrong clothes! Old Li was tempted by a bargain and accepted a new outfit that was “free.” But he never imagined it was a “life robe” sent by a soul-caller. The price was his grandson’s life. From that day on, strange things plagued the household: a dog’s head rolled across the floor, relatives died gruesome deaths, living people were burned alive, and even the dead began knocking at the door to claim their lives…
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79
The Death Camera 死亡相机
I don't like digital cameras. I like old-fashioned film cameras. After my grandfather's funeral, I inherited one of his belongings: an unused roll of film. My grandfather once said, "Don't touch the future, or you'll be caught up in an unknown disaster." I didn't understand what he meant then, not until a short while later, when I used that roll of film to photograph a murder. A murder that had yet to happen.
6Reads—Score—Shelves
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80
A Sheet of Human Skin 一张人皮
When beads of blood seeped from the claw marks on Li Jun's back, I recognized their shape: they were fingernail marks, exactly like the ones on the female corpse at the crematorium thirty years ago. Three days earlier, when he tremblingly handed me that faded pellet drum, the smiling faces of the boy and girl painted on its surface had suddenly split open, revealing locust-wood grain writhing beneath the skin. Now the lights above the emergency room flickered, and black blood was flowing through
4Reads—Score—Shelves
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81
A Terrifying New Year's Eve 惊悚除夕夜
On New Year’s Eve, I was driven mad by the nonstop kitchen noise from upstairs. I bombarded the tenants’ group chat with voice messages. “I just want to know which lunatic is cooking in the middle of the night! Are you making food for ghosts?” Someone replied almost immediately. “Don’t you know we make our New Year’s Eve dinner at midnight here in Hunan? It’ll be ready soon. Why don’t you come up and join us?” Then they sent a gruesome photo. The picture was quickly deleted. In its place came a
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82
Seven Hours of Terror in the Villa District 别墅区惊魂七小时
In the early hours of Qingming, a notice from the deceased property manager, Bohe, appeared in the residents’ group chat: “Pay your property fees in full by nine.” The residents sneered, until the doors and windows locked, the phones lost signal, and at exactly nine, everyone who’d skipped their payments jumped to their deaths. The bloody footage played on loop across every screen. I pulled out the payment records. My wife looked away. When I was tearing down an illegal structure, she’d secretly
1Reads—Score—Shelves
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83
Possessed by a Starving Ghost on the Ghost Festival 七月半饿死鬼附身
When I was little, the village elders used to say that on the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month, the gates of hell swung wide open and restless spirits roamed everywhere. It was the worst night of all to go out. But I refused to believe in that sort of thing. I opened a tea shop in a mahjong parlor, thinking I could make a little extra money. Instead, I came face to face with something I should never have seen. No one was in the private room, yet I heard it bustling with noise. A customer
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84
Who Killed Him? 是谁杀了他
At 8:30 on Saturday night, a woman arrived at her friend's home for dinner, as invited. The security door was ajar, and light from the hallway spilled through the gap, brightening the entryway. She could just make out the outline of a person lying flat in the bedroom opposite the door. As she turned on the lights, she caught sight of a woman lying facedown in the middle of the kitchen, vomit piled around her nose and mouth, half her face submerged in dirty water. Water from the sink dripped over
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85
The Deadly Delivery 致命快递
I’m a Buddhist: beautiful, kindhearted, rich, and gullible. I can’t stand to see the poor suffer. If my fried noodles cost seven yuan, I pay ten. That can have its downsides, though. For example, some penniless creep from the noodle stall might latch onto me. Or I might find my husband’s severed finger in my fried noodles.
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86
The Blood-Red Bun Shop 血色包子铺
The buns I sell have already sent two customers to their deaths. And yet my shop is still packed with customers. Just as the police run out of leads in the case, there is a third person who dies after eating one of my buns...
13Reads—Score—Shelves
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87
Death Trip 死亡旅行
Before graduation, everyone wanted to take a graduation trip that was a little different, so one of my rich classmates rented an old, rundown cruise ship. On the first night aboard, the rich kid posted a raffle in the group chat: “I’ve prepared a grand prize for everyone. Entries close at midnight. We’ll reveal the luckiest winner tomorrow morning!” I was just about to open the link when an anonymous text came in. “Open it and you die.”
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88
Blind Passion 盲眼迷情
One was gentle with me, the other cold. “Brother, please. Can’t you let me have her?” “Bullshit. You killed her sister. It’s too late to grow a conscience now!” “She has to die tonight!” Hmph. We’ll see who kills whom.
6Reads—Score—Shelves
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89
Escape from Hell 逃出地狱
Because my cousin is weak-willed and a classic henpecked husband, my sister-in-law's family wanted to take my father's inheritance all for themselves. Just before my father was about to die of his illness, they actually kidnapped me and sold me into northern Myanmar, that living hell, without my cousin's knowledge!
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90
The Human Dog 人形犬
After my sister was assaulted, she died a horrific death in a cabin in the back hills. My parents chopped up her body and fed it to the old dog they kept at home. After that, the old dog began to look more and more like my dead sister. Late at night, it would stand outside my room and call for me in my sister’s voice.
44Reads—Score—Shelves
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91
A Dead Man Fathers a Child 死人生子
Zhang Ni was the prettiest girl for miles around. Yet even though she was old enough to marry, not a single matchmaker came to ask for her hand. Some said she willingly sneaked off into the fields with the village chief's son. Others said the village chief followed right behind his son as soon as he went in. Smack! A slap landed on Zhang Ni's rosy cheek. "I've nearly settled the bride price, and now you're telling me you don't want to marry him?" Marry whom? This was going to be the death of the
1Reads—Score—Shelves
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92
The Vanishing Her: Who Is My Girlfriend, Really? 消失的她：我的女友究竟是谁
I'm a corporate wage slave. I've noticed my girlfriend has been acting strangely lately. She often dances in front of the mirror in the middle of the night and makes all sorts of eerie expressions. Worried about her, I started investigating her in secret. I discovered that she has a twin sister with dissociative identity disorder. The hospital staff said her sister went missing a month ago. My girlfriend seems to have changed completely around the same time. Just as I sat at my computer, feeling
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My Girlfriend and Best Friend Are Plotting to Have Me Killed 女朋友和好兄弟密谋让我去死
“Do you believe a painting can kill someone?” I took a job worth three hundred thousand yuan: recreating Along the River During the Qingming Festival. At first, I thought it was just an ordinary copy, until the old man from the coffin shop in the painting knocked on my bed in the middle of the night, a woman in a white dress silently watched me from the entryway, and the “boat girls” that had appeared out of nowhere seeped into every stroke of paint like a curse. My buddy urged me on: “Fortune f
2Reads—Score—Shelves
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94
Trading a Life for Wealth 借命换财
The money Grandma had secretly buried in the ground to treat her terminal illness was gone. I didn’t find out it had been stolen until our neighbor started livestreaming to show off his wealth. He’d also stolen the lucky doll I used to pray for Grandma’s recovery, and showed everyone how its wishes always came true. But the neighbor had no idea: he was trading luck for money.
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95
The Iris Strikes Back 鸢尾花的反杀
As night fell, I rode my bike through the streets and alleys, when someone suddenly stepped into my path. “Who are you?” The alley was dimly lit, so I couldn’t make out the stranger’s face, but I could clearly see his outline. The man looked utterly disheveled. Gasping for breath, he said, “Help me!” I caught sight of someone chasing him relentlessly and swiftly pulled him onto my electric scooter. “Come with me!” The cold night wind stung my cheeks, but inside, my emotions were churning. “Got y
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96
A Double Murder in an Aristocratic Estate 高门私宅双杀命案
This is a true tragedy that took place in Cixi County, Zhejiang Province, during the Jiaqing era of the Qing dynasty. After a heavy rain, a father and son who had gone up the mountain to gather herbs discovered a woman's body on the hillside behind the Chen residence. The victim was identified as Chen A Mao, the eldest daughter of the Chen family. Chen Yongjin, head of the Chen family, claimed that his granddaughter A Mao had been having an affair with their servant Gao Hongtong, and that in a
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Double Taboo 双重禁忌
When Dongzi was a child, there were many deadly taboos in the village. For example, a pregnant woman must never cross paths with a funeral procession. If she did, the dead person's soul would enter her body, turning her into a man-eating evil ghost. Another taboo was that anyone who lived past a hundred would become an evil ghost. Three days before an elder turned a hundred, people had to take them to the back mountain and leave them to fend for themselves. If they kept the elder at home, the ev
1Reads—Score—Shelves
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98
The Person You Want to Kill Will Die Within Three Days 你想杀死的人，将会在三天内死亡
Type a name on the screen, and three days later, that person will die. A bizarre “Thrilling Murder Mission” System suddenly appeared on the computer screen. Young, down-on-his-luck Lu Yunming entered the name of someone he hated, though he wasn’t sure he believed it… Three days later, that person really did die in a crowd, an arrow piercing his head as blood sprayed everywhere. Lu Yunming had thought it was a freak act of judgment, but it turned out to be only the beginning of a nightmare. The S
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99
The Killer Killed the Killer 凶手杀了凶手
Police tape cordoned off the underground parking garage. At four in the morning, someone found a body there. As I passed the cordon, a police officer asked me to register my details. I nodded without hesitation. “No problem. I hope you catch the person who killed that woman soon.” The officer looked up sharply. “Miss, I never said the victim was a woman.”
133Reads—Score—Shelves
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100
Three Partners in Crime 黄雀三人行
I went to the bathroom to take a shower. When I came out, I found my client lying dead on the floor.
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