Novels like Matters of the Underworld
Books Chinese readers most often put in the same booklists as Matters of the Underworld, best match first.
- 151 The Spirit Burying Master 葬灵师 Every year since the year I was born, someone in the village has died. To keep me alive, Grandma arranged a marriage for me, and my betrothed was supposed to come for me when I came of age. On my eighteenth birthday, I discovered that the one who had come for me wasn't human... 147Reads7.9Score241Shelves
- 152 The Spirit-Suppressing Coffin 囚灵棺 I was curious about the coffin necklace around my boyfriend's neck. Before I could even touch it, he broke up with me on the spot. I complained about it to the viewers in my livestream, but then a fortune-telling streamer suddenly joined the call and warned me: “Break up with him right now. Your boyfriend is wearing a Spirit-Binding Coffin!” From that day on, eerie nightmares, a mysterious female ghost, and my boyfriend's secrets... One strange event after another began to unfold. Just when I th —Reads—Score—Shelves
- 153 Horrifying Hauntings: Ghost Stories 恐怖灵异诡：鬼故事 Do you really think stories are just stories? In fact, behind every story lies a real event! In this book, I wrote a story about the last bus on Route 24. To experience what it would really feel like, I set myself a goal: for seven days straight, I'd ride the last Route 24 bus from its starting point to its final stop, then ride it all the way back. And that's where the story begins...! 361Reads—Score—Shelves
- 154 The Hanging Charm 魅巾悬 No romance + fantasy and the supernatural + mild horror + modern-day imaginative premise + episodic plot + feel-good power fantasy Liu Yixian, with a high forehead and a broad, square face, was taken in as an apprentice by Daoist Wu in the twelfth year of his life, setting him on an extraordinary path. A thousand-year-old fox or a century-old ginkgo: which one will win Yixian’s heart? A blood-red sickle stabbed the ghost seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, maybe twenty times. The ghost couldn’t take 1Reads—Score—Shelves
- 155 The Haunted Inn 惊魂旅馆 An unexpected downpour drowned out the sounds of murder. Late at night, in a remote inn, a corpse lay sprawled across a bed, blood pouring from all seven orifices. The killer seemed to be hiding among the guests, none of whom trusted one another: a police officer, a writer, a psychiatrist, a celebrity, a fan, a college student... Every one of them had something to hide. After a second murder, the line between the dead and the living grew increasingly blurred. Everyone was a suspect, and everyone 2Reads—Score—Shelves
- 156 The Immortal of Strange Cores 怪核之仙 [Invasion by Transmigrators + Occupational Combos + A Touch of Cosmic-Horror Folklore + Dark Tone] Kill your family to cultivate immortality? Hurt others to become a Buddha? Overnight, the entire world suddenly began cultivating as one. An Qinghe thought it was a dream, until his own parents tied him up. Only then did he realize that it was all real... Cultivators have invaded the modern world, seizing people's bodies and souls! But right now, all An Qinghe wants to know is... why do they say he 1kReads9.0Score114Shelves
- 157 I Scared a Ghost to Death Again 我又把鬼吓死了 [No romance + Chinese-style horror + folk beliefs and the occult + first-person narration + ghost-catching prodigy] My great-grandfather, Zhang Tiansheng, was a taboo subject in the Zhang family. He had once been a highly respected exorcist throughout the surrounding villages, able to speak with ghosts and spirits and dispel evil influences. Then, for reasons no one knew, he suddenly went mad. Before he died, he even tried to kill his entire family. After my great-grandfather died, his body was 568Reads9.1Score—Shelves
- 158 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. 15Reads—Score—Shelves
- 159 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 1Reads—Score—Shelves
- 160 The Ghost-Hunting Qingfeng Lodge 捉鬼清风居 “Clear Breeze Hall” is a shop specializing in exorcising demons and driving away ghosts. A strange couplet hangs by the door: First line: If you’re free of disaster and trouble, don’t come in. Second line: If you’ve got ghosts or demons, come on in. The shop’s owner is a 21-year-old young man named Zhang Qingfeng, the thirty-ninth-generation heir of the Zixiao Sect. Some say the owner is obsessed with money and cares about nothing else. Others say he’s a living bodhisattva who came into the worl 6.2kReads8.8Score519Shelves
- 161 Old Tales of Jiangyang: The Evil Dragon of Sanjiang 江阳旧事之三江孽龙 Luzhou, in central Sichuan, was known in ancient times as Jiangyang Commandery and is also called the City of Liquor. The Yangtze, Tuo, and Chishui rivers surround the city, which also borders Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan, making it an important transportation hub for the three provinces since ancient times. The constant streams of mule caravans within the city, cargo boats on the rivers, and merchants lining the streets, along with the local brotherhood halls where sworn brothers trained with f 65Reads—Score—Shelves
- 162 The Wolf King's Wife: Sacrificed in the Womb 狼王妻：胎祭 The night my younger sister and I were born, a blood moon hung in the sky and a thousand wolves howled. From then on, a black wolf clung to me… ✨ When I was twenty, I killed my sister. But strange scales sprouted on my legs, and I became pregnant with the beast’s abomination… 75Reads8.2Score—Shelves
- 163 Horror Taboo: Returning the Soul Beneath the Coffin 恐怖禁忌，压棺回魂 The dead open their eyes, ghosts come to claim souls, the living borrow lifespans, and the dead press down on their coffins... One bizarre, uncanny experience after another keeps resurfacing in my mind like a nightmare. The strange tales in this book are mainly based on Yang Jian’s firsthand experiences... A warning: the actions in this book are for entertainment only. Do not imitate them! There are three kinds of people who read this book: thrill-seekers who aren’t easily scared... those who pu 973Reads6.2Score101Shelves
- 164 The True Story of a Haunted House Sleep Tester 我，一名凶宅试睡员的真实经历 If there were a job where you didn’t have to do anything, but could charge by the minute and make a fortune just by sleeping, would you be interested in trying it? There’s just one catch: you can’t be afraid of ghosts. If you’re curious about what kind of job this is, I’m a veteran in the field, and I’ll tell you about my own experiences… 3.1kReads8.3Score204Shelves
- 165 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 1.3kReads9.0Score102Shelves
- 166 The Soul-Summoning Lantern 招魂灯 The Soul-Summoning Lantern 21Reads—Score—Shelves
- 167 The Spooky, Hilarious Legend 恐怖幽默搞笑传 Synopsis of The Spooky, Humorous, Hilarious Tale Other streamers are scared out of their wits when they encounter ghosts on camera. When he runs into evil spirits, his go-to move is “cuddle up”! In a gloomy old mansion, instead of heartrending sobs, the streamer blasts his absurdly catchy “Good Luck Is Coming” theme music. A ghost in white lifts her long hair to scare him, only for him to whip out a pair of Tony's scissors and ask, “Want a makeover?” Even the supernatural crowd rushes to post co 9Reads—Score—Shelves
- 168 The Double Fiend 子母双煞 The Mother-and-Child Fiends —Reads—Score—Shelves
- 169 The Haunted Inn 恐怖旅店 A new graduate faces the toughest job market in years and, with no other options, applies for a night receptionist position at an inn. On my first day, I was told that the job had two requirements. First, I must not speak to the guests. Second, I must not leave the front desk. 512Reads8.0Score103Shelves
- 170 The Ghost King Is Sealed Inside Me, Yet I’m a Good-for-Nothing 体内封印鬼王，我却是个废柴 A rainy night in a cemetery, a man-eating black cat, a man searching for his late daughter, a school guard hanged on the stairs, a wedding coffin sealed with red paper, a grotesque face hiding in a mirror... What secrets lie behind it all? What other mysterious events will Wang Shier, the gravekeeper, have to face? As terror and dread slowly close in, those secrets seem to be steering his fate. (The stories in this book are all adapted from real events. If anything sounds familiar, it is pure co 7Reads6.4Score—Shelves
- 171 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... 5.7kReads8.2Score373Shelves
- 172 Stealing Faces 偷脸 One day, a stranger added me on QQ and told me my girlfriend was a man. I called him an idiot. Then my girlfriend died, and when she died, she really did become a man. Her head had been cut off and sewn onto the neck of a male corpse... 225Reads8.9Score—Shelves
- 173 The Demon in the Coffin 至棺重妖 The new novel, The Fragrance of the Living Dead: Handling Ghostly Affairs Among the Living, is now being serialized. The excitement never stops, with new chapters every day. If you enjoy it, please support the author, Ye Wei. Thank you all! [Mystery + Horror + Supernatural + Folk Tales of the Strange + Female Ghosts + Monsters + Mountain Spirits + Corpses] This is a strange little village hidden deep in the mountains... Ever since he was nine and encountered the dead rabbit crouched on his windo 1.6kReads9.2Score112Shelves
- 174 The Spirit Medium's Strange Cases 通灵诡事 Parental love? I have none. From the moment I was born, they wanted to strangle me. Sibling affection? I have none. My own brother calls me a country bumpkin. Friendship with my peers? I have none. Everyone in the village says I'm a demon in human form who eats children. Love? What even is that? The first time I saw Qi Yue, I just thought he looked clean-cut and handsome. The next time I saw him, I found out his mother was the woman who had gone looking for Fourth Auntie years ago. Only now, she 1.9kReads9.2Score377Shelves
- 175 The Maoshan Occultist 茅山诡术师 My name is Fang Gang. I was stolen the moment I was born. From then on, my life unfolded into an epic tale, as turbulent as it was mysterious. 397Reads8.6Score106Shelves
- 176 Strange Demons at the Teahouse: Tales of a Hundred Flavors 茶肆异妖，百味诡谈 [Mysticism + Satisfying Read + Supernatural + Strange Tales] The Many-Flavored Teahouse in Liuyi Lane is mysterious and uncanny. It only serves tea at night. What’s brewed is fragrant tea; what’s savored is the human heart. The proprietress, Liu Xu’er, and her young sidekick, Qing Cen, hunt ghosts, subdue demons, and catch evildoers. Their only focus is building their business. But one moment of bad judgment leads them to take on a job for an unlucky man. He’s been set up, and one misfortune aft 11Reads—Score—Shelves
- 177 The Sealed Cave Behind the Mountain: I Became the Village's Soul Guardian 后山囚洞：我成了全村守魂人 After accidentally entering a century-old forbidden site in the back mountains, Jiang Ningyue unexpectedly inherits a fated duty and becomes the village’s only soul guardian. A deep, secluded prison cave suppresses countless wrongfully dead spirits. Ancient village rules conceal secrets unknown to outsiders, while turmoil erupts along the boundary between Yin and Yang, and one eerie calamity follows another. Generations of cave guardians have borne endless suffering, and a century of tangled gru 7Reads—Score—Shelves
- 178 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. 5.5kReads9.0Score388Shelves
- 179 Insomniacs' Forbidden Tales: 444 Midnight Ghost Stories 失眠者禁忌：444个午夜鬼谈 A horror anthology with a bonus at the end of every story. I have 444 folk ghost stories guaranteed to keep you awake until midnight, terrify you, make you break out in a cold sweat, and pull the covers over your head! At the end of every chapter, the “Author’s Note” will include an illustration or bonus! But before you open it, brace yourself. The author accepts no responsibility for what happens next! [Supernatural Horror] [Folk Horror] [Rural Ghost Stories] [True Cases] [Urban Oddities] [L 4.2kReads—Score369Shelves
- 180 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
- 181 Dark Web 暗网 How terrifying is the dark web? You may have brushed against its edges without even realizing it... Have you heard of the dark web? Hackers call it the other side of the internet. Every day, things that seem impossible to ordinary people happen there. A young woman goes missing for seven days. By the time we rescue her, she can hardly be called human. Then she tells me something so outrageous it makes my blood boil. She stumbled onto the dark web and was sold by human traffickers. She saw what s 8.3kReads8.1Score1.1kShelves
- 182 My Years in the Funeral Business 我干殡葬的那些年 People light candles, ghosts blow out the lamps. The dead return at midnight, corpses rise in funeral halls, and ancient relics lie buried for thousands of years. In my years working in the funeral business, I’ve encountered plenty of strange and uncanny things. The living walk the roads of the living world, and the dead walk the roads of the underworld. But sometimes, not everyone on the underworld’s roads is a ghost, and not everyone on the living world’s roads is human… 50.4kReads9.2Score5kShelves
- 183 You Won’t Find This During the Day: One Ghost Story Every Day 白天刷不到：每天一个诡故事 I’m a horror writer who publishes online. I have no fame and no income, so I can only grab people’s attention by writing the most sinister, unsettling, and realistic stories. To make them feel “real,” I’m used to grounding my characters in details from the real world: real streets, real neighborhoods, real outfits, and real little gestures. I always thought a novel was just a novel. That is, until the serial killer I wrote stepped out of my story and found me in the real world. 971Reads—Score—Shelves
- 184 Coffin Shop No. 44 44号棺材铺 Everyone knows what a coffin shop is, but would you dare enter one where someone has died? Ever since I took over a coffin shop, strange things have been happening all around me. Only then did I realize that the people who come to buy coffins aren't necessarily alive… 2.2kReads8.0Score253Shelves
- 185 Young Feng Shui Master 少年风水师 There are many things in this world that you and I have never encountered. Just because we've never encountered them doesn't mean they don't exist. Legends are often more than mere legends. And traditions must have an unknown reason for becoming traditions. 632Reads9.0Score114Shelves
- 186 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 —Reads—Score—Shelves
- 187 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 —Reads—Score—Shelves
- 188 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 —Reads—Score—Shelves
- 189 You’re Dead, So Stop Flirting with Me 死人，别撩我 I never imagined that after being kidnapped, drained of blood, and stuffed into a coffin, touching the dead man would bring him back to life. And the whole thing was my dad's fault. He'd taken money from them and sold me to that dead man! 638Reads8.9Score106Shelves
- 190 A Debt-Ridden Wage Slave Inherits a Mansion, but the Tenants Aren’t Human 负债牛马继承豪宅，但租客不是人 Chen Mo, a wage slave on the brink of being crushed by loan sharks, receives a mysterious phone call just as he’s losing hope. To his surprise, he inherits a mansion worth 30 million from a distant relative. He moves in overjoyed, only to discover that one of the tenants isn’t even human. The more he learns, the more shocked he becomes. It turns out a huge conspiracy is lurking behind it all... 1Reads—Score—Shelves
- 191 The Midnight Mantou Shop 午夜馒头铺 Have you ever noticed that some breakfast shops serve food that's delicious most of the time, but for a couple of days each month, it suddenly tastes dry and is hard to swallow? Have you ever wondered if perhaps that breakfast food was never meant for people to eat...? 373Reads7.4Score—Shelves
- 192 Blood-Tinged Rose 血语玫瑰 Every girl hopes her boyfriend will be young, handsome, rich, and well educated. The Devil ticks all those boxes, yet no one wants to date him. Mu Hanjun was being hounded by a demon from the human world. Her tormentor, Ming Yu, was as handsome and wealthy as the Devil. Ten years ago, he killed four people, then escaped punishment by claiming he had been mentally ill when he committed the crimes. Mu Hanjun accidentally fell into his clutches, and he forced her to date him. Sharing a bed with th 1.9kReads9.1Score313Shelves
- 193 Escape from Hell's Apartment 逃离地狱公寓 [Pure Deduction and Escape]+ [Infinite Flow]+ [No Golden Finger]+ [Mild Horror]+ [Two Male Leads] No female lead, no items, no cheats, just pure adventure and survival. If that’s not your thing, please don’t read. Ever since Lu Chao accidentally stumbled into this apartment building, he has been on the run. Every so often, the residents have to go out to designated locations to complete missions. Their targets are all ghosts, and they can only survive by carefully following the rules of each mis 4.8kReads6.8Score517Shelves
- 194 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
- 195 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. —Reads—Score—Shelves
- 196 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
- 197 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… —Reads—Score—Shelves
- 198 I'm Xie, a Yin-Yang Guide, Not a Taoist Priest 阴阳开路人谢邀，不是道士 I've seen too many lonely spirits trapped in corners, unable to move on, and too many people hell-bent on harming others. Sometimes I can't tell whether I'm imagining it in the throes of a psychotic episode or witnessing something real. The truth is far darker than fiction. “Absurd” is the only word for it. 21Reads—Score—Shelves
- 199 Strange Tales from Republican-Era Sanjiang 民国三江诡事集 Whenever Eunuch Li from the teahouse downstairs told stories about the many strange and uncanny things he had encountered in his youth, a crowd would always gather around him. Whenever I was bored as a child, I would run over to listen. A corpse that had been dead for days was pulled from the Yangtze River, yet bled when its relatives came to see it. The owner of Second Brother’s restaurant had a brother who was a sworn brother of the underworld. One night, he followed the gang’s leader to an ab 123Reads—Score—Shelves
- 200 The Yin and Yang of the Mist 迷雾阴阳 The Municipal Public Security Bureau's Special Cases Investigation Division, or Special Investigations Division for short, specializes in supernatural incidents that defy rational explanation. Shen Yanzhi, an officer in the division who is calm, rational, and skilled in talismans and spells, meets Lin Mo, a descendant of a family of yin-yang masters whose bloodline can suppress evil forces and whose gentle nature conceals a stubborn streak, while investigating a case. Together, they gradually un 33Reads—Score—Shelves
