Novels like Taboo of the Living
Books Chinese readers most often put in the same booklists as Taboo of the Living, best match first.
- 1 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! 8.1kReads9.1Score1.3kShelves
- 2 The Mystic Arts Curse Master 玄门咒神 On the day Yang Xuan was supposed to get engaged, a blood-red coffin inexplicably appeared in his home. Inside lay a beautiful woman with skin like jade. On the first day, his father died. On the second day, a yin-yang master told Yang Xuan: If he wanted to survive this calamity, he had to consummate his marriage with her... 115Reads—Score—Shelves
- 3 Fifth Watch 五更 The stories my grandpa used to tell me were probably meant to scare me into staying put, or maybe to lull me to sleep. He always told them with such conviction and vivid detail that I often found myself dreaming of the very scenes he had lived through. I met the old flower-growing woman on Yinshan Mountain, and one villager after another from Sangen Village. Their faces were gloomy and strange, and their deeds served as a warning, reminding us that “the gods are watching from three feet above yo 728Reads7.2Score100Shelves
- 4 The Spirit-Sealing Corpse Shroud 镇灵尸衣 On the day I was born, ghosts surrounded our home. I only survived because a master gave his life to save me. Only later did I learn the truth: I was born on a yin year, yin month, and yin day, making me a Yin Child. My master said that anyone born under all three yin signs would have a life full of misfortune and spend their days wandering from place to place. 140Reads—Score—Shelves
- 5 One Horror a Day 一天一个惊悚 One terrifying tale every day, and a different world each time. Just because you haven't seen it from in front of your phone doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Enough chatter. See you in the book, everyone. 9Reads6.6Score—Shelves
- 6 The Eerie Coffin Bearers 诡抬棺 Nine peaks, a sea of blood, mountains of bones... Murderous danger lurks everywhere. Every step is fraught with peril, and I never know how much longer I'll survive. It wasn't until I deciphered the nursery rhyme I'd heard when I became someone's disciple that I uncovered a shocking secret... 57Reads9.0Score—Shelves
- 7 A Living Person's Ghost Marriage 活人冥婚 A ghost marriage is traditionally a union between two people who are already dead. But I was supposed to die at the age of three. By defying fate and holding a ghost wedding while still alive, I secured a future for myself… 425Reads—Score—Shelves
- 8 The Soul-Returning Soup 还魂汤 I was born in a remote village. The day my mother gave birth to me, she died a horrible death! I was born disabled, missing an arm, and with a red birthmark shaped like a coiled snake on my foot. My master said I had been cursed by an evil spirit, and that the curse could only be lifted if I found the one who cast it. Otherwise, I wouldn’t live to see twenty... 83Reads—Score—Shelves
- 9 A Fading Lamp Shines on the Lonely Dead 残灯照孤冥 (Mystery + supernatural + no female lead) (Ghost case files + Taoist arts) (Tomato Original) The male lead is born under the fate of a lone star of calamity, destined to walk alone. A dying lamp lights the lonely darkness, and that darkness lights me in turn. 321Reads—Score—Shelves
- 10 Lord of the Origin Clan 源族之主 [Mystery and the Supernatural, Ghost Wife and Fox Demon] In my senior year of high school, I became the top scholar in a dream and married a female ghost and a fox demon. After I woke up, one strange thing after another began happening around me. Together with my ghost wife and the fox demon, I embarked on adventures, weathered countless trials, and fought powerful foes. Bizarre and uncanny cases, strange folk customs, Miaojiang sorcery, demon arts, magic, and all manner of oddities await. Let’s 28Reads—Score—Shelves
- 11 I Only Take on the Most Ominous Cases 我只收大凶之物 [Supernatural] + [Traditional Folk Customs] + [First-Person Narration] + [Chinese-Style Horror] + [Decisive and Ruthless] + [Not a Do-Gooder] + [One Female Lead] I was born in a rural village in the mountains of Southwest China. I'm a third-year university student, and I'm also a yin-yang master. Calling myself a yin-yang master is really just to make myself sound impressive. Back in my hometown, people in the countryside call someone like me a Daoist ritual master. Most people probably know a l 53Reads8.2Score—Shelves
- 12 Shattered Yin-Yang Jade 阴阳玉碎 [Supernatural + horror + suspense + first person + no idiots in the story + clever protagonist + a touch of angst] "I'm turning eighteen soon. I should die, too." Yu Yue and I are twin sisters, born eighteen years ago on Ghost Festival. A fortune-teller gave us each a jade pendant and said that on our eighteenth birthday, whoever's pendant broke would die. We're seventeen now, and suddenly both pendants have shattered. How can we possibly survive? 43Reads—Score—Shelves
- 13 Old Tales of the Dead Village 死人村旧事 Chen Ergou holds a stalk of grass and gently pokes at the paper money still smoldering in front of him. Behind him, a dense crowd of “people” from the village and beyond stands packed together... Hanwa, his belly slit open and his tongue hanging down to his chest; Sufen, naked, with raw flesh exposed; the Fat Taoist, whose limbs and head are covered with tightly packed stitches at the joints; Tian Da, his body stiff, a walking stick jutting from his wide-open mouth; Xiao Zhao, pale-faced and dri 185Reads8.4Score109Shelves
- 14 The Maoshan Coffin-Raiser 茅山升棺人 From the moment I was born, someone secretly plotted against me, making my mother give birth prematurely and changing my birth date. My birth chart clashed with my parents' fates, and they both died on the very day I was born. I vowed to find the culprit, and in time became a Maoshan coffin-raiser! Coffin-raising is the practice of relocating graves. After death, people should be buried in a place with good feng shui to protect their descendants. But some ancestors are buried in malevolent place 1.2kReads9.0Score101Shelves
- 15 My Pale Life 我苍白的一生 My name is Zhang Yuan, though my childhood nickname was Ergou. I'm male, born in 1990. Everyone encounters all kinds of strange, inexplicable things in life. By the way, do you believe in ghosts? 473Reads8.4Score101Shelves
- 16 Someone New Appeared in the Footage 录像里多出一个人 The test shoot’s discarded footage was four seconds longer. Everyone in the frame held the same poses they had at the end of filming. No one moved. I counted three times. There were six people every time. But only five people had been there that day. On the hard drive my mother left behind, there was an empty folder with a four-character name: Do Not Fast-Forward. In the recycle bin was a deleted video, four minutes and twenty-five seconds long, which couldn’t be recovered. Our production crew w 3Reads—Score—Shelves
- 17 Mysterious Curse 1 神秘诅咒1 [Supernatural Mystery + Urban Cultivation + Folk Taboos + A Passionate Coming-of-Age Story] Enter a sinister world concealed beneath the bustle of the modern city! I have no control over life or death. My name is Zhang Wen. I thought getting into college would let me escape that bleak village in the southwest. Then my grandfather died suddenly, with these words written in cinnabar on his palm: "Dig three feet down at the southeast corner of the wall." I unearthed a bloodstained notebook. Its fir 5Reads—Score—Shelves
- 18 Paper Cutting to Prolong Life 剪纸续命 Three days after his master's death, Chen Zhi's name was pressed into a paper-cut figure. Someone cut paper outside his door late at night. A paper figure bearing his name appeared at the doorstep, and from then on, the blue-black mark on his hand began to seep inward along his veins. Paper can ward off evil and bind souls. And the darkest art of the Paper-Cutting Sect is called Name Binding. To stay alive, Chen Zhi can only follow the torn pages his master left behind, the black sand beneath t 10Reads—Score—Shelves
- 19 The Yin-Born Child 阴生子 Before I was even born, someone plotted against me. I was cut from my mother’s womb before I was full-term, born with a congenital defect, and prone to attracting evil spirits. My fate was cursed, and I was destined not to live past a hundred days. To stay alive, I went to live with my maternal grandfather, a medium who could travel between the worlds of the living and the dead. After years of learning from him, I became a medium myself. From then on, I could communicate with the gods, enter the 108Reads8.9Score—Shelves
- 20 The Soul Ferryer Between Yin and Yang 阴阳渡魂人 Soul-snatching ghost weddings, bathroom hauntings, the legend of the red-clad senior, Thai black magic, ghost soldiers borrowing the road, man-eating mountain demons, nightmare fiends that enter your dreams, the mystery of the headless woman, a bizarre bride in an escape room, vengeful child spirits, games that summon ghosts, human organ trafficking, a shocking exhibition of human deformities, and long-lost Maoshan secrets... Do these things send a chill down your spine? - The truth is, this wor 186Reads9.2Score102Shelves
- 21 My Cute and Fierce Undead Bride Protects Me as She Slaughters Her Way Through! 我的女尸老婆萌凶甜，护我杀疯！ [A Taoist priest becomes a demon king, protected by his corpse bride][Ghost hunting, traditional supernatural fiction] [By the command of the heavens, I’ll take your life!][Strange tales from the folk tradition] I slept in a pigsty and drank sow’s milk. Later, I shared a bed with a female corpse. After our wedding ceremony, she awoke. I rely on her to keep me alive, while she relies on me to grow stronger. Our fates are intertwined. My fate is unusual. An old man’s guidance helped me survive, an 1.7kReads7.6Score126Shelves
- 22 The Forbidden Island of Human Nature 人性禁岛 I couldn’t get a ticket for the Spring Festival, so I took an unlicensed car home. I never expected the woman in the car to keep staring at me. I wanted to call the police... [Deep Dive] The horrifying truth behind going missing after getting into the wrong car during the Spring Festival. Don’t ride in unlicensed cars carelessly, because it’s not just your money that disappears, but your life! 1kReads8.6Score100Shelves
- 23 The Coffin of Life and Death 生死棺材 In our line of work, there’s a type known as the miscellaneous school. They follow unorthodox paths, dabbling in everything but mastering nothing. They have no sect above them and no helpers below them, and nobody takes them seriously. I’m an heir to the miscellaneous school, yet I turned their world upside down and left them in chaos. Only when I decided to retire did I discover a shocking mystery hidden within me... 486Reads8.7Score100Shelves
- 24 Yin and Yang: The Book of Life and Death 阴阳：生死簿 Lin Zhao spent ten years as an outer disciple Taoist at Longhu Mountain and learned only one spell: the Soul Summoning Art. > Until one night, the voice of Heaven rang out in his mind: “Ten zhang ahead, a wronged spirit seeks help.” > Following the voice, he found an old woman clutching a black cat and sobbing that her son had gone missing. > He formed a hand seal to investigate and discovered that the cat's eyes reflected the scene of her son's death: the neighbor butcher's hideous face. > When —Reads—Score—Shelves
- 25 The Coffin Walks at Night 灵棺夜行 I was carrying a coffin up the mountain for a burial when they stuffed me inside and buried me alive. Then, in a single night, all three hundred or so people in the village vanished. Only at night was the place alive with voices. I crawled out of the coffin, only to discover... 5.8kReads8.2Score366Shelves
- 26 I'm a Bar Owner, Forced to Catch Ghosts 我，酒吧老板，被迫营业捉鬼 [Horror + supernatural + semi-invincible + no System + not brainless + ruthless decisiveness] I’m Heibai, an utterly ordinary bar owner. I only wanted to live a quiet life, but one commission and one problem after another keep landing on my doorstep. Curse magic, a drug-induced dreamless sleep, a yin-yang wedding, a deadly text message... As the Underworld descends, little Jiangcheng becomes a den of danger, and one strange incident after another unfolds. Well, looks like I can’t hide my abiliti 1.2kReads8.8Score110Shelves
- 27 Republic-Era Notes on Summoning Evil 民国招邪笔记 Chinese-Style Horror + Episodic Mysteries + Ancestral Taboos + Republican-Era Suspense + Cursed Objects That Claim Lives Each supernatural case wraps up in three to five chapters. The pace is breakneck, with no dragging things out! Folk-horror elements: red wedding gowns, ancestral halls, midnight opera troupes... If you’re a scaredy-cat, read during the day. If you’re brave, listen to the audiobook at night for the full dose of terror. 87Reads—Score—Shelves
- 28 The Unlucky Heavenly Master Walks the Mortal World 冤种天师走人间 The Maoshan Celestial Master holds yin and yang in check, slays ghosts, banishes demons, and dispels ill omens. A three-foot peachwood sword, a stick of incense for virtue! My fate is unusual: I court death but never die, so my master took me in as a disciple and taught me the secret arts of Maoshan. After descending the mountain, I met a beautiful older girl I knew as a child, and she led me down a road of no return. A beauty in an ice coffin, a snow-mountain witch, a fox spirit beneath the moo 729Reads7.4Score101Shelves
- 29 The Fragrance of Corpses for Ten Miles 十里尸香 Most people receive gifts that are heartwarming or romantic. Even if they aren't a surprise, they're at least well-intentioned. But the gift I received when I turned twenty was a very real shock, and a curse. 1.9kReads8.2Score165Shelves
- 30 The Coffin Bearer 抬棺匠 My family has dealt with the dead for generations. Following in my father’s footsteps, I became a coffin bearer. Before carrying a coffin, I always offer the deceased five incense sticks. When offering incense to the living, three long sticks and two short ones are taboo. When offering incense to the dead, three short sticks and two long ones are taboo. That day, I carried a coffin, and the dead pregnant woman inside gave birth to a pair of twins, a boy and a girl! [Shh, keep quiet! We’re settin 2.9kReads8.3Score194Shelves
- 31 Spirit Village 灵村 Thrills and the supernatural! There's an ancient village called Lingzhuang, also known as Bagua Village. I was born there. Lingzhuang is always shrouded in an atmosphere of terror: Enormous pythons, centipedes, black spiders, strange birds, and ferocious beasts roam about, attacking people... Lingzhuang is also rife with strange tales and bizarre happenings: A female ghost haunts the village; a cave in Longmian Mountain holds an arsenal from the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom; a mysterious master live 75Reads—Score—Shelves
- 32 The Night-Sealed Door 夜封门 Seven months pregnant, the woman was brutally hounded to death, and her seven-month-old baby was thrown into a well. Her wronged soul is cut off from the road ahead, and evil spirits come to claim their due. The gates of hell swing open, and the underworld seals its doors in the dead of night. 2kReads8.3Score159Shelves
- 33 A Young Feng Shui Master Betrothed to a White Tiger at Birth 少年风水师，出生就和白虎定亲 At the Human Skin Inn, a hundred ghosts carry a coffin. A yin corpse borrows a life. A demon child lies hidden in a Buddhist womb… From the moment I was born, my father pledged his life to arrange my engagement to a White Tiger. Because of that, I embarked on a little-known path… 5.9kReads9.2Score541Shelves
- 34 Ghost-Hunting Yin-Yang Master 捉鬼阴阳师 On the day I was born, the clear sky suddenly filled with lightning and thunder. A bolt struck a tree in our yard, and everyone in the village decided my birth was an ill omen. They all kept their distance. One villager accidentally offended me, and that night he mysteriously hanged himself. The body could only be taken down if someone knelt before me. On the day of his funeral, his brother died a violent death and the coffin fell to the ground. That was how the whole story began… 214Reads8.8Score100Shelves
- 35 Heaven's Secrets Forbidden: A Metaphysics Master's Art of Feng Shui and Yin-Yang 天机禁忌：玄门风水相师镇阴阳 Xu Daoyi was born with a pure Yang constitution, a once-in-a-century rarity. The Yang energy within him was so strong it could burn vengeful ghosts to ash. But this gift was also a death sentence. His master told him that unless he found a woman with a pure Yin birth chart before the Summer Solstice and united their Yin and Yang, he would explode and die seven days later. The seven-day deadline drew closer, and the Yang energy in his body surged higher every day. Xu Daoyi had saved countless liv 110Reads—Score155Shelves
- 36 The Corpse of a Mountain Village Woman 山村女尸 [Feel-Good Read + Urban + Suspense + Supernatural] He Xi is an ordinary security guard. One day, the west gate of Chaoxi Psychiatric Hospital desperately needs a guard. The pay is 30,000 yuan a month, but nobody dares take the job! Nobody else dares, but He Xi does! Only after arriving does he realize something is wrong. The west gate isn’t meant for people to pass through at all. It’s a gate for ghosts! 7.4kReads7.7Score341Shelves
- 37 The Demon Wife at Home 家有妖妻 Grandma arranged a marriage for me. Only after the wedding did I learn that the bride I'd brought home was a fox spirit... Chapter preview: …I stole a glance into the pool. A beautiful older girl was standing by the washing platform, washing her hair. She was gorgeous, with snow-white skin, delicate willow-shaped brows, an oval face, and luscious red lips like ripe cherries. Most striking of all were her captivating, tender eyes, deep as a pool of spring water. She was alluring to the very cor 1.9kReads8.2Score130Shelves
- 38 The Corpse Keeper 守尸人 The morgue is where life and death meet. At this boundary, there are many taboos to heed. I grew up beside a hospital morgue, and I'll tell you about the hospital's taboos from a different perspective. Taboo 1: If you see a patient being resuscitated, don't gather around to watch. Taboo 2: If a patient's family throws away something the deceased used while alive, don't toss your own trash on top of it. Taboo 3: If you hear a cat meowing at night, don't go outside to look, whether you're a patien 917Reads6.3Score100Shelves
- 39 Hearse 灵车 A hearse is a vehicle used to transport coffins or urns. You could also call it a vehicle exclusively for the dead. I was a bus driver for four years, and for all four years I kept a secret bottled up inside. Now I'll tell you firsthand about the terrifying things that happen on trains, things you don't know about. Maybe you've never heard of hearses being converted into buses, but the buses you've ridden may not have carried only the living... 1.5kReads8.0Score131Shelves
- 40 Horror: Death Comes at Midnight 恐怖：夜半索命 I lived a routine life until the death of Old Chen changed everything. Beside his body lay a pile of handmade paper figures. One had been painted blood red and clutched in his stiff, dead hand. Blood-red words began appearing in the mirror: “Get out.” “He’s still in the building.” Then I received an ultimatum: his daughter needed a living substitute. Paper figures weren’t enough. Neither were his belongings. She wanted a living person in the building, someone warm and breathing. Tomorrow, at mid 17Reads—Score110Shelves
- 41 The Strange and Supernatural Things I’ve Heard and Seen 那些我所闻所见的灵异事 I’ll tell stories about the strange things that have happened to me over the years, along with the folk secrets and I Ching mysticism I’ve learned. At the start of each story, I’ll say whether I experienced it myself or heard it from someone else. I may not tell them in chronological order. I need to remember and organize everything, so I’ll just talk about whatever comes to mind. Things I experienced myself may be exaggerated, but they’re absolutely true. As for some of the stories I’ve heard, 2.5kReads—Score163Shelves
- 42 Tales of the Unextinguished Lights 不熄灯异闻录 More chilling than ghost stories, these tales recount the uncanny happenings secretly passed down by our elders! Children will be too scared to walk alone at night after hearing them, and adults will want to pay their respects to their ancestors. This is a book of taboos that the village elders tried to keep from being written! This collection of short stories features folk horror, supernatural mysteries, thrillers, legends, strange tales, and fantasy from across China and around the world. 23Reads—Score—Shelves
- 43 The Deadly Taboos of Horror 惊悚死人禁忌 [Definitely not ordinary paranormal fiction. Focused on horror and suspense, not mindless wish fulfillment. Folk tales of the supernatural, ghost babies. If you don’t like it after reading, feel free to criticize it.] A mountain village shrouded in mystery is beset by one strange incident after another. A coffin that cannot be lifted at a funeral, children mysteriously drowning, and the question of why a water ghost has appeared. What truth lies behind the deaths? A baby’s anguished cries ring o 154Reads—Score—Shelves
- 44 The Yin-Yang Exorcist 阴阳摸诡人 I have two mothers, and neither of them is alive. The moment I was born, a heavenly dog swallowed the moon, blood rained from the sky, every beast bowed its head, and ghosts wailed... 812Reads8.7Score101Shelves
- 45 A Record of Strange Encounters 怪异见闻录 [Folk horror, Taoist exorcists, spirit mediums banishing evil, no romance, intelligent protagonist] My grandmother is a spirit medium. Just tonight, Uncle Bei from our village came to ask her to perform an exorcism. He said Auntie Liu from the village was actually a ghost? But Auntie Liu only came to my shop yesterday to buy paper money! And so began a series of strange encounters… that turned me from an ordinary person into someone with only three souls and six spirits left! 15Reads—Score—Shelves
- 46 Strange Yin-Yang Tales: A Half-Immortal’s Records 阴阳诡事：半仙诡录 [This is no ordinary supernatural story. It’s all about horror and suspense: no mindless power fantasy, just yin-yang taboos, the Grinning Fiend, the Ghost Bride’s Gown, eerie shadows in an ancient mansion, and the Mandarin Duck Pendant. If it’s not good, you can break my legs!!] There’s no shortage of bizarre happenings between the worlds of yin and yang. The Grinning Fiend: what unknowable resentment lies behind that sinister face? The thousand-year-old fox: what cunning schemes hide beneath h 1.2kReads—Score—Shelves
- 47 Paranormal Encounters: What I Saw and Heard 灵异事件之所见所闻 No System + no transmigration + no power fantasy + no harem + no invincible protagonist + no sweet romance + no clichés + no female lead + no cultivation. Important notice: if this isn’t for you, don’t read it. If this isn’t for you, don’t read it. If this isn’t for you, don’t read it! Do you believe there are things in this world that science cannot explain? Have you ever experienced anything supernatural yourself? Treat the events in this novel as stories, and remember: Fear and respect the sp 130Reads—Score—Shelves
- 48 The Bride of the Vengeful Ghost 猛鬼新娘 When I was sixteen, I rescued a woman who had been tricked into coming to our village, simply because I wanted to help. I never imagined that my actions would not only get the poor woman killed, but also lead to the deaths of more than a hundred villagers. And so my strange life began. 4.7kReads9.0Score333Shelves
- 49 The Demon Taoist Breaks Through the Underworld Pass 妖道破阴关 (Supernatural horror, feng shui and geomancy, warding off evil and misfortune, one heroine) My parents used forbidden magic to conceive me, but on the day I was born, my strange appearance frightened them away... My third uncle raised me in a cage. I barely managed to grow up on borrowed yin virtue and incense offerings... On my eighteenth birthday, I was buried alive in the ancestral graveyard. She saved me... but she wasn’t human... 5.5kReads9.1Score496Shelves
- 50 Upholding Justice in Heaven's Name 替天行道 Yin cannot thrive alone, and yang cannot exist by itself. I grew up in the countryside, left behind by my parents and raised by my grandfather. All his life, Grandpa was either helping widows and orphaned girls or on his way to help them. So, for as long as I can remember, I heard the villagers cursing him behind his back. Then one day, a stranger in a burial shroud asked me a question. A tree without bark but with a soul is bound to die. What happens to a person with skin but no soul? The relat 3kReads8.9Score247Shelves
