Novels like Rural Ghost Stories
Books Chinese readers most often put in the same booklists as Rural Ghost Stories, best match first.
- 51 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! 126Reads8.5Score—Shelves
- 52 Lu Ban's Secret Art of Feng Shui 鲁班风水秘术 Carpenters revere Lu Ban as their patriarch. He left behind the Lu Ban Book, divided into two parts. The first contains carpentry techniques, while the second is a collection of secret spells, never to be shared with outsiders. The patriarch also left a curse: anyone who learns the spells in the second part must suffer one of the fates of being widowed, orphaned, childless, or disabled. That is why later generations called the second part of the Lu Ban Book the “Missing One.” In the old days, mo 5.9kReads9.1Score832Shelves
- 53 Taboo of the Living 2 活人禁忌2 Heaven Official's Blessing, no taboos under heaven. The second installment of Living People’s Taboos! 7.9kReads9.1Score1.2kShelves
- 54 Ghost Sightings at the Nightclub 夜场见鬼录 A Long is a DJ at a bar with a legendary “Stage of Death.” Many people have died there under mysterious circumstances. The cause of death could never be determined, and some bodies were never even found! The strange incidents stopped only after the bar was shut down. As the legend of the deaths gradually faded from memory, someone opened the stage once more! After that, disaster struck again and again! A terrifying ghostly figure appears in the girls’ dormitory, a faceless baby clings to a chand 242Reads8.8Score—Shelves
- 55 The Ghost Marshal’s Yin-Yang Inn 鬼差之阴阳馆 By day, she transforms into a human; by night, she helps ghosts cross over. Come visit this unassuming little shop, run by a newly hired underworld makeup artist, and make an inquiry. 802Reads9.1Score105Shelves
- 56 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. 25.6kReads7.5Score1.1kShelves
- 57 The Fox Bride of Qingqiu 青丘狐妻 Liu the Half-Immortal told my mother, “On the night of the full moon, take your child and a chicken to Qingqiu Mountain and wait. Whoever eats your family’s chicken will become your child’s spouse, whether it’s a snake, an insect, an ant, a bird, or a beast...” That night, a little fox and a little white wolf fought fiercely over the chicken, and from then on, the gears of fate began to turn... 9.5kReads8.6Score831Shelves
- 58 Tales of a Haunted Village 荒村怪谈录 [Rural Mysteries + Folk Customs + Chinese-Style Horror + Feng Shui and the Supernatural + Anthology + Shocking Twists] There is an old well in Jiulitun that has been sealed for thirty years, and one eerie incident after another keeps occurring. Why has a little girl become unbelievably strong and deranged? Why do villagers keep drowning, and why is the village taboo so difficult to speak of? It all goes back thirty years... 243Reads8.7Score—Shelves
- 59 Tales from the Northern Horsemen 北马见闻录 I’m a spirit medium. What do I need brains for? As long as I’m stubborn enough, those weasels can’t get the better of me. This is a story full of blood and heart, and the legend of a spirit medium’s life. Whether it’s life or human nature, the wise will eventually find the answers meant for them. A record of strange encounters, and half the history of the Ma family. Folk legends, chilling mysteries, and uncanny wonders, all within... 3.5kReads8.9Score287Shelves
- 60 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 416Reads8.7Score—Shelves
- 61 Horror's Edge: 100 Absolutely Terrifying Ghost Stories 恐怖边界：100个绝对惊悚的鬼谈 [Standalone Stories + Supernatural Horror + Folk Customs + Feng Shui and Mysticism + Mild Frights + Shocking Twists] Horror tales beyond anything you could imagine. Each story is like a dark door swinging open, drawing you into moments that will make your skin crawl. Listen. A faint whisper, an indescribable shadow creeping closer. Danger by the river, terror in the cemetery, ghost babies in the maternity ward, evil headhunting magic, apparitions at the hot springs, a bloodstained umbrella... On 2.5kReads8.9Score192Shelves
- 62 Ghostly Eyes 鬼灵瞳 A reclusive man known as Little Master, along with several strange people brought together by coincidence but united by their shared interests, gradually uncovers a history buried for many years: the five great clans of the ancient world and the Yin-Yang adepts who could do anything. It seems that fate has long been leading them into one thrilling fantasy adventure after another... 1kReads9.1Score103Shelves
- 63 The Underworld Bureau of the Yellow Springs 黄泉阴司 When I was a kid, I went to the back hill of the village to play and pick up human bones. There I stumbled upon a ghost opera and nearly lost my life. Luckily, a green snake saved me, but the snake also began a strange, shadowy romance. Ghost operas, spirit summoning, yellow-skin spirits' yin graves, peachwood seals against evil: the bizarre folk customs of southern Guizhou and chilling, uncanny tales of the worlds of yin and yang are coming your way. Warning: Not for the faint of heart!!! 5.8kReads8.4Score586Shelves
- 64 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. 4.2kReads8.8Score217Shelves
- 65 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... 2.7kReads9.0Score152Shelves
- 66 Horrifying! The Haunted House That Claims Lives 惊悚！索命凶宅 After moving into a haunted house, I discovered the secret behind a murder. I'm a suspense writer. After moving into my new home, I discovered it was a murder house! I stumbled upon some hidden clues that seemed to point to rumors of a murder from years ago! At night, beneath the bright moonlight, I stared in shock at a horribly disfigured face! A woman's rotting corpse was hanging from a tree outside the window! A little boy in a black-and-white photograph, a dried corpse sealed inside a wall, 6.1kReads9.1Score453Shelves
- 67 The Midnight Gravekeeper 午夜守墓人 A desolate mountain. An ancient tomb. A woman in white. A blood-red moon at midnight. A corpse monk on the move. I’m a high school senior. With the college entrance exam just around the corner, I suddenly came down with a fever that wouldn’t break and missed the test. After recovering at home for more than half a year, I found a job guarding the gate at a cemetery. Seeing how frail I was and how weak my yang energy was, Old Zhang, the gravedigger, found me a protector. But she wasn’t human. She 6.1kReads8.5Score324Shelves
- 68 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, 2.1kReads8.9Score176Shelves
- 69 Plenty of Stories at the Funeral Home 殡仪馆里故事多 Ever since Lin Yu took a job driving a hearse at a funeral home, his life became anything but ordinary. He and his friends went through all kinds of bizarre, inexplicable events together. Vengeful spirits possessing people, a dead infant in a pot, opera singing in a graveyard... No one knew what would happen next. 13kReads8.7Score978Shelves
- 70 Record of the Spirit Seekers 2: Farewell to the Mortal World 访灵笔录2：入世辞 [Mystery + supernatural + powerful partners + lively humor + episodic stories + ghostly tales + an ensemble cast hunting ghosts] “Nothing brings greater joy than meeting a new friend; nothing brings greater sorrow than parting from a loved one.” A chance encounter with a beauty on Ghost Wasteland Mountain turns out to be a deadly ghost's attempt to claim a soul! Karmic ties from a past life and entanglements in this one: whose mistake is it, and whose fate? Quan Ning and Yin Cangyi are accidenta 40Reads7.9Score—Shelves
- 71 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 5kReads9.0Score204Shelves
- 72 Terror in the Haunted Dorm 诡寝惊魂 I got a job as a dorm supervisor in a university women’s residence, but the girls there were a little too friendly… Crying in the middle of the night, dorm rooms catching fire, rooms that don’t exist. Hidden in the deepest corners of memory is a bizarre and fantastical world… The night is deep, the dream unfinished. A mountain spirit blows out the lamp. Where can a lonely soul return? 10.4kReads8.5Score1.1kShelves
- 73 A Decree from the Underworld 阴司有旨 Before Grandpa died, he gave me a strange ledger. The first page bore four eerie characters: “Filed with the Underworld.” And the entries weren't sums of money, but “lives.” I used that strange ledger to collect debts and settle accounts on Grandpa's behalf, and it was as if I'd become a living judge of life and death in the human world. Somewhere beyond mortal sight, everything had already been decreed... 21.9kReads9.1Score1.2kShelves
- 74 The Sobbing Maitreya 哽咽的弥勒 A truly thrilling horror fantasy, with a master like Lin Zhenying guiding you through terrifying adventures, slaying demons and monsters, exploring forbidden arts, and cultivating as a demon immortal. Once you start reading, you won't be able to stop. It's pure exhilaration from beginning to end! 14Reads—Score—Shelves
- 75 Borrowed Corpse, Stolen Life 借尸命 When a plague swept through my mother’s village, she was the only one who escaped alive and made it to Chen Village. My mother was graceful and beautiful, but after arriving in the village, she went mad. There’s something wrong with this village. Every night, we hear strange noises. My father’s name is Chen Jiu, and mine is Chen Lintian. I suspect he isn’t my real father... 1.8kReads9.0Score130Shelves
- 76 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 3.5kReads9.1Score217Shelves
- 77 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 2.5kReads9.1Score236Shelves
- 78 I Live in Fengmen Village 我住在封门村 My hometown shares its name with the legendary number-one haunted village in China: Fengmen Village. What’s more, our village also has a grandmaster’s chair. Whoever sits in it is doomed to die! It was 1997, and I had been accepted into the high school in town. Once summer vacation was over, I would finally be able to leave the place where I’d spent sixteen years. But what I never expected was for one terrifying incident after another to strike the village! Rats that ate human flesh, five-colore 712Reads6.1Score—Shelves
- 79 The Soul Ferry Lantern 渡魂灯 [Supernatural + mildly scary + episodic stories, a fast-paced ghost-hunting romp with all kinds of tricks!] Fire runs in my veins, and I'm cursed to bring bad luck. When I was fifteen, my father kicked me out. To survive, I climbed into a stone tomb. The strange knocking at the door of the funeral home at midnight, The body that mysteriously vanished after a fatal car crash, A headless old man, a talking human skin, and haunted schools and skyscrapers... I guide five-element spirits onward and f 17.7kReads9.2Score1.6kShelves
- 80 The Serpent Coffin 蛇棺 On the day I was born, my family was moving our ancestral graves. My father killed a huge snake in a coffin that was on the verge of shedding its skin and transforming into a dragon, and nearly got bitten to death. When I was born, snakes surged in from every direction, hissing. Everyone said I was ill-omened. A rice medium from the village gave her life to save my father. She left me a black jade pendant shaped like a snake, but she too was bitten to death. Just after my eighteenth birthday, th 29.9kReads9.0Score1.9kShelves
- 81 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 912Reads8.8Score108Shelves
- 82 Disciple of the Maoshan Sect 茅山门徒 A strange antique shop where the owner uses his ghostly eyes to appraise treasures and spends a fortune buying ghost bones! Think the owner only knows how to appraise antiques? Think again. He can read beautiful women, too! The domineering female CEO, the hottest star, an unconventional beauty, the pure-hearted campus belle, the girl next door… He can see right through you with a single glance! 7kReads9.0Score648Shelves
- 83 I'm a Haunted House Sleep Tester 我在凶宅当试睡员 I worked for a real estate company, but later I was transferred to another department. I never expected to encounter something terrifying on my very first day... 5.7kReads8.8Score600Shelves
- 84 The Living Must Keep Away 活人回避 Originally titled Living People, Keep Away. An antique set me on a desperate path. From then on, just to stay alive, I became a yin walker who dealt with the dead and the walking corpses. Three years searching for dragon veins, ten years locating acupoints, roaming between yin and yang, dealing in ghosts and spirits. I kept walking, struggling my way to where I am today. 2.7kReads8.9Score327Shelves
- 85 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 1.9kReads9.0Score137Shelves
- 86 Suppressing the Dragon 镇龙 For one person, he dug up an ancient grave, broke into a dragon's tomb, and wielded the Yang Sword to slay yin spirits! An heir to a family of secret arts, he joins a group of men and women bound together by fate. Together, they travel far and wide, fighting monsters in the mountains, slaying evil in the cities, breaking into the underworld, and robbing ghost messengers... To change our fate, we defy the heavens! 2.5kReads8.8Score532Shelves
- 87 Special Operations Bureau 特事行动科 One thousand three hundred and ninety years ago, under the emperor’s direction, human adepts gained control of the “Void” and used it to create the “Wall,” which separated the real world from the anomalous one. After more than six centuries of effort by adepts from various schools, the anomalous remnants in the real world were finally purged, leaving humanity with a world of its own. Anomalous creatures became demons, ghosts, gods, and monsters in tales of the strange. As time passed, the adepts 1.7kReads7.0Score204Shelves
- 88 The Last Soul-Quelling Master 最后一个镇魂师 I grew up at my grandfather's house in the countryside. He was the most respected suona player in our village. One day, Li Dashan, a fellow villager, beat his pregnant wife to death and came to ask my grandfather for help. My grandfather tried everything he could, but still couldn't calm the resentment of Li Dashan's wife. In the end, he had no choice but to play a suona dirge to forcibly pacify her soul. On the night of the Lantern Festival, Li Dashan and his family turned into vengeful ghosts 117Reads8.5Score—Shelves
- 89 Old Haunts 陈年诡事 There is only one disease in the world, and it's called poverty. There is only one kind of ghost in the world, and it's called a poor ghost. My name is Chen Xiaofei. I'm a high school sophomore who's both afflicted with the disease of poverty and a poor ghost. 31.5kReads8.5Score2.6kShelves
- 90 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 71Reads8.9Score—Shelves
- 91 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 829Reads8.9Score105Shelves
- 92 The Heavenly Coffin 天棺 Because of a joke, my grandmother’s spirit refused to leave after her death and insisted on taking me with her to the grave. Otherwise, my whole family would die. To save my family, I went into the grave with my grandmother... 21.8kReads9.0Score1.9kShelves
- 93 The Fragrance of the Coffin's Beauty 棺香美人 When I was born, the river swelled and washed a coffin right into my home. Fifteen years later, the coffin opened, and inside was a woman... Feng shui, fate and destiny... There are endless folk legends to tell, and more bizarre wonders than words can describe. 32.2kReads9.4Score761Shelves
- 94 EN Heavenly Calamity 劫天运 I was schemed against before I was even born. I was born with all five yin traits and naturally attracted vicious ghosts. A knowledgeable fortune-teller said I wouldn’t live past seven, and that after I died, someone would turn me into a blood-clothed child ghost to harm others. To save me, my grandmother arranged for me to marry a child bride, and I was able to live in peace... I’d been scraping by since childhood, and had long since grown used to enduring whatever came my way. But my grandmoth 12.4kReads9.0Score1.3kShelves
- 95 Tales of the Strange in Western Hunan 湘西异闻录 [A friendly warning: This book has no System. It's funny and terrifying, with suspense and clever twists throughout, plus plenty of passion and brains. The more you read, the better it gets.] When I was four, I was kidnapped and taken to a cursed village to be sacrificed alive. A fox spirit risked her life to save me, and secretly pledged herself to me for life. To marry my fox bride, I venture deep into the Miao Valley, tread the Nether River Gorge, and walk the boundary between Yin and Yang. I 6kReads9.1Score579Shelves
- 96 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 425Reads8.7Score—Shelves
- 97 Tales of Folk Taboos 民间禁忌杂谈 A pig butcher never slaughters a pig with five toes. The village guardian never guards a village with a temple. A feng shui master never selects a lair of an evil dragon. A midwife must wash her hands in rooster’s blood. There are three hundred and sixty trades in the world, and every one has its rules. Are these ancient, mysterious rules really nothing more than empty formalities? If I told you that some rules must never be broken, because breaking them means death, would you believe me? 9kReads8.0Score1.2kShelves
- 98 Snake Immortal 蛇仙 [The animated series Seven Days of Snake Entanglement is now streaming] My name is An Xin. On the day of the “Azure Dragon Wedding,” my great-grandfather killed a green snake and a white snake. The villagers said they were about to grow horns, transform into flood dragons, ascend, and become snake immortals. The night I was born, my grandfather knelt in the Snake Temple all night before my mother could give birth to me. He died in the temple. Ever since I was little, a snake has appeared in my d 5.2kReads9.3Score1kShelves
- 99 The Peerless Mage 法师无双 A top sorcerer who once led the Heavenly Masters’ Court returns, only to be cast out by his powerful family. As he prepares to leave, he discovers that his younger female cousin has fallen victim to dark magic… 3.9kReads9.1Score483Shelves
- 100 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 537Reads8.8Score—Shelves
