Novels like Forbidden Ground for the Living
Books Chinese readers most often put in the same booklists as Forbidden Ground for the Living, best match first.
- 151 The Uncanny One 邪门儿 In the old days, bandit gangs had four pillars and eight posts. The foremost pillar was called the Heaven-Supporting Pillar, and its holder served as the gang's strategist. Since strategists tattooed goshawks on their chests, they were also known as Mountain-Circling Eagles. A Mountain-Circling Eagle is neither monk nor Daoist, yet can discern yin and yang, communicate with spirits, and foretell fortune and misfortune. Neither immortal nor shaman, yet can cast talismans, drive out evil spirits, 1.4kReads8.6Score154Shelves
- 152 Snatching Immortality 抢仙 [Mystery and adventure + occult battles + a nontraditional path to immortality + ruins around the world] I've practiced Daoism for twenty years and watched my master ascend with my own eyes. Becoming an immortal has become an obsession. But the Heavenly Dao has run out of opportunities for me. I'm just one step away, yet the gap is as vast as heaven and earth. The chance to become an immortal should be somewhere between the highest heavens and the deepest underworld, but I can find it nowhere. I 50Reads8.5Score—Shelves
- 153 The Living Dead Bring Fortune 活尸送财 One a day. For the past three months, the overpowering stench of blood and rot in Qi Lao San's incense hall had never let up. The fouler the stench, the more people came. Zhao Er, who had lost his manhood, buried his father in the hills behind the village so he could enter the incense hall. It was all started by the village chief, who chopped his own daughter-in-law into pieces. Today, it was Li Si's turn. Qi Lao San pointed his pipe toward the incense hall. “Go on in.” —Reads—Score—Shelves
- 154 The Lost Soul 失魂之人 After a car accident left Han Jin in a coma, he woke to find himself out of his body, wandering between the realms of yin and yang. His memories from before the accident had vanished, too! To return to his body, he went back to the accident scene, only to discover that someone had tried to murder him! His missing memories, the mystery of his disembodied soul, the secret of extending his life... Whose plot lies behind it all? 1Reads—Score—Shelves
- 155 Inferior Humanity 劣等人性 Liu Kai and several of his friends came down with a mysterious illness. Their skin rotted, but no camera could capture evidence of it, and hospital tests showed nothing wrong! Everything was deeply unsettling. By chance, he found a mysterious shop run by a shamanic practitioner and acquired a pig-headed, human-bodied figurine. His illness eased, but when his friends betrayed him, he suffered an even more terrible backlash! This disaster, which seemed like a strange illness, actually stemmed from 1Reads—Score—Shelves
- 156 My Team Leader Tried to Psych Me Out, So I Sent Him Back to the Village as a Sacrifice 组长想要PUA我，我把他送回村里当祭品 When I left the village, the High Priest hung a fish-shaped jade pendant around my neck. The High Priest said that if I wore it, I would never get lost. I’m descended from the guardians of the spring at the Loulan ruins. The Moon Spring is my beacon home. Why would I need a jade pendant? Back then, I didn’t understand, and the High Priest didn’t explain. Not until later, when I met him. 1Reads—Score—Shelves
- 157 A Shocking Murder Plot 惊天杀局 There’s a corner in the police station’s archives where files on unsolved and bizarre cases are kept. [The Headless Corpse Case] [The Water Ghost Murder Case] [The Grinning Case] None of the above happened to me. They’re my stories. 251Reads—Score—Shelves
- 158 The Killer Elevator 夺命电梯 10:30 p.m. A “friendly reminder” that popped up in the residents’ group chat jolted me wide awake. [Midnight Elevator Safety Notice...] Auntie Wang next door scoffed. “Quit with the spooky nonsense!” Then, late that night, she went out to take the trash, and a scream ripped through the silence... 29Reads—Score—Shelves
- 159 After Licking the Neighborhood, My Husband Turned into a Monster 丈夫舔过小区之后，变成了怪物 I posted a missing-husband notice at the entrance to the residential compound. “Missing husband: Zhang Jianguo, two meters tall, recently developed a taste for licking...” The post made everyone laugh. Who still turns a missing-person notice into a joke these days? But after surveillance footage surfaced of our neighbor in Unit 905 being disemboweled, they finally started to feel afraid. —Reads—Score—Shelves
- 160 My Mother-in-Law's Secret Baby-Making Soup 婆婆的秘密生子汤 Before the Qingming Festival, my mother-in-law went looking for a folk remedy. They said drinking it for a month would help me get pregnant. But during the days she forced me to drink it, there was always a woman standing not far away. As time went on and the day drew closer, a friend from work finally told me I was being haunted because I’d taken something that belonged to someone else. —Reads—Score—Shelves
- 161 The Hunted “Dead Man” 被追杀的 “已死之人” At 2:47 a.m., I was curled up in a forest in the middle of nowhere. My companions’ screams rang in my ears, and Lin Peng’s blood still clung to my palm. Just seven hours earlier, we’d been laughing and chatting as we drove along in a Corolla, until a face covered in blood flashed in front of the car. It was unmistakably Wang Xuechun, who had been sitting in the back seat. There were no bodies and no signal. Only four shadowy figures stood before the gravestones in the cemetery, staring straight —Reads—Score—Shelves
- 162 The 1001 Nights of Killing My Lover 杀死爱人的1001夜 In the middle of the night, someone knocked at the door. I opened it. A strange man stood outside. He asked me a question. “Darling, do you know what day it is today?” I froze in place. In an instant, a dagger plunged into my heart. “You really forgot. Damn you.” I was lying in bed when my eyes suddenly flew open. I touched my chest. It had only been a dream. Relieved, I scrolled on my phone for a while. When sleep finally came over me, I rolled over, ready to drift off again. That was when some 1Reads—Score—Shelves
- 163 Don't Live in a House Where Someone Has Died 不要住在死过人的房子里 The man on the phone said his girlfriend was dead, but the rental agent said he’d been executed by firing squad two years ago. The night I moved into the haunted house, the black landline rang right on schedule at midnight. Zhang Jian cried over the phone, saying he wanted to see Han Chunyan. Yet through the peephole, I clearly saw a long-haired woman in a denim jacket standing outside. Blood was still seeping from the knife wound on the back of her neck. The rental agent, Zhao Shuang, texted me 1Reads—Score—Shelves
- 164 Don't Build a Land Temple on a Whim 不要随便修建土地庙 I watched with my own eyes as Bian Guoshun smashed the Earth God statue with his head, while blood seeped in rivulets from its base. On the night the village built the temple in 1986, everyone heard knocking at their doors. Not with a hand, but with a head. Li Duyan said the temple had been built over a vein of evil energy, but no one believed him. Not until the Bai family’s boy started banging his forehead against the wall in the middle of the night, and Bian Guoshun was tied to a century-old w —Reads—Score—Shelves
- 165 A Deadly Sense of Ceremony 致命的仪式感 I’m the full-time housewife everyone envies. I never lift a finger around the house. I wake up to spend money and close my eyes to beauty treatments. And I have a handsome, wealthy husband who takes care of my every need. Even my best friend says I must have the luckiest ancestors in the world to be this fortunate. But the truth is, the person sharing my bed isn’t my husband at all. —Reads—Score—Shelves
- 166 Beauty Balm 美人膏 I'm a matchmaker who specializes in training men for rich women. Men talk about “self-respect,” but once they become kept men, they'll still do whatever it takes to cling to their rich benefactors. Lately, my husband has started paying more attention to his looks, but he doesn't know that he has very thick eyelids. Very thick. That's exactly what those rich women like to feast on. 39Reads—Score—Shelves
- 167 The Tomb Raider's Jade Talisman (Original Novel of the Film and TV Adaptation) 摸金玦（影视原著） In the 1960s, a sweeping movement engulfed all of China. Fatty, Lu Jun, and I were assigned to a farm in the Heilongjiang Production and Construction Corps. With winter approaching, our old platoon leader arranged for the three of us and our courier, Jian Guo, to stay behind and guard the supplies. Before long, a once-in-a-century blizzard swept in. We set a trap for a fox stealing firewood, only to encounter a pack of wolves that had wandered down from Siberia. To escape, we followed the fox in 3.2kReads9.3Score504Shelves
- 168 Tomb Raiding: I Put All My Talent Points into Reincarnation! 盗墓：天赋都点投胎上了！ The protagonist, who transmigrated from Blue Star, arrives in this world that combines many tomb-raiding settings. On the day he comes of age, his father gives him a golden waist token bearing the four characters “Guanshan Taibao,” forcing him to learn about this strange and wondrous world. 2kReads6.7Score104Shelves
- 169 The Kunlun Scripture: The Dragon Bones of Lianshan 昆仑经前传之龙骨连山 His father was among the first generation of archaeological researchers in the People's Republic of China. He mysteriously disappeared during an excavation of a Uyghur king's tomb. Qin Feng traveled to Altay to search for his father. After a series of strange and bizarre expeditions, and unraveling one baffling case after another, he gradually discovered the truth behind his father's disappearance and the ancient secret concealed in half a dragon bone… 235Reads—Score—Shelves
- 170 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
- 171 The Wolf King’s Revenge 狼王的报复 They say wolves are spiritual creatures and must never be killed recklessly. That winter, heavy snow sealed off the mountains. The village was bitterly cold and hungry, and nearly every household had run out of food. When a she-wolf died at the village entrance, the villagers took notice. Desperate to survive the famine, they skinned her, enraging the pack in the mountains. That was when misfortune began. Every farm animal in the village was bitten to death. Hair began growing on the villagers' 23Reads—Score—Shelves
- 172 Graveyard Hauntings 坟地诡事 Strange things have been happening in the village lately. Every night, a chilling woman's voice can be heard asking, "Who has seen the father of my child?" "Come back, child's father. Look how adorable our baby is." The villagers say it's the ghost of a young woman who hanged herself from a tree, returned to claim lives. But more than one girl hanged herself from that tree. Which of them is the ghost? 6Reads—Score—Shelves
- 173 The Red Ghost in the Village 村里的红厉鬼 The village lies far from anywhere, with winding mountain roads. The harvest is good every year, but the crops simply can't be transported out. The only family in the village with a vehicle is Niu Dakui's, who owns a secondhand three-wheeler. The whole village relies on the two Niu brothers to haul its crops to the city and sell them for cash. The brothers use this advantage to bully people in our village all the time. And now Niu Dakui has set his sights on Xiaorou, the new wife of Chen Sheng. 4Reads—Score—Shelves
- 174 Back from the Dead 死而复生 When I was little, there was a saying in the village. If someone in a family died, then came back to life after lying in state for three days, they might turn into an evil ghost. But that was just something the old folks said. Nobody had ever seen it with their own eyes. Then one day, something like that happened to Old Zhao's family. 1Reads—Score—Shelves
- 175 The Longevity Lock 长命锁 For the past two weeks, whenever Song Yaozu steps into the bathroom to shower, he sees a woman's head dangling from the ceiling, glaring at him. He gets a longevity lock from a Maoshan medium, but everyone who later receives the lock dies in a freak accident… A longevity lock, a longevity lock. But isn't it also a lock that demands a life in payment?… 1Reads—Score—Shelves
- 176 The Village of the Dead 死人村 Rainy days gather ghostly energy. Moving graves is most taboo at such a time, but someone ignored the warning, dug up their grandmother's grave, and threw her bones into a mass burial ground. After that, strange things began happening in the village. People died one after another. Yet Grandpa Tianci was thinking of using ghosts to summon the souls of the dead! 122Reads—Score—Shelves
- 177 The Cursed Mirror That Takes Your Place 替命诡镜 A strong, heavyset man becomes so emaciated that he's on the brink of death. Doctors can't figure out what's wrong with him, and even fortune-tellers are helpless. His wife gets him a Yin-Yang Mirror that can restore his fortune. But the mirror's power comes at a price: every name written on it makes someone else suffer his misfortune. The man is overjoyed. As one name after another is written down, death follows close behind… 1Reads—Score—Shelves
- 178 The Hanged Girls 吊死的姑娘们 Strange things had been happening in the village with increasing frequency. Every night, an eerie woman’s voice could be heard asking, “Has anyone seen my child’s father?” “Come back soon, dear. Just look at our little one, isn’t the baby adorable?” The villagers said it was the ghost of a young woman who had hanged herself from a tree, returned to claim lives. But more than one woman had hanged herself from that tree. Which one was this ghost? 6Reads—Score—Shelves
- 179 Soul Calming: A Violent Death 镇魂之死于非命 Latest murder case: A wealthy couple in a villa district have both met gruesome ends. The husband was found dead in bed, dressed as a woman. The wife turned on the gas and burned herself to death! The scene was bizarre, yet surveillance footage showed that both deaths were suicides! No one knew that this was simply the just deserts of their own evil, the consequences of their sins coming back to haunt them… 1Reads—Score—Shelves
- 180 The Bloodstained Embroidered Shoe 染血的绣花鞋 In the mountain villages of Northeast China, there are rules: those who die violently must not be cremated. At the very least, they should be put in a coffin and buried on the back hill. Lin Xiu, the new bride in Granny Wang’s household, was found naked and abandoned in a field. Her eyes and lips had been sewn shut while she was alive, and the embroidered shoes on her feet had mysteriously disappeared. The villagers cursed and complained about the bad omen. Granny Wang simply tossed the body int 92Reads—Score—Shelves
- 181 Tomb Raiding: Getting Stronger by Drinking 盗墓：从喝酒开始变强 He transmigrated to a tomb-raiding world and acquired the Daily Alcoholic God Training System. “Drink with Chen Yulou and gain Night Vision, allowing you to see clearly in the dark!” “Drink with Master Liaochen and gain a Feng Shui compass, which can help you determine the approximate location of Blackwater City!” “Drink with Partridge Whistle and gain ventriloquism, allowing you to imitate the calls of cats, weasels, foxes, and other animals whenever you want!” “Drink with Zhang Dafoye and gain 291Reads5.4Score100Shelves
- 182 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 1Reads—Score—Shelves
- 183 Twin Haunting: My Brother Is Actually a Corporeal Ghost 双生诡怨：我哥竟是实体鬼 [No romance] [No female lead] [Mystery and supernatural] [Mild horror] [Traditional setting, no cultivation] P.S. Younger brother: Chen Xing. Older brother: Chen Yan. The older brother is a ghost. He has long hair early on, so if that bothers you, please don’t read... The twins were born fifteen minutes apart, yet their fates turned out to be worlds apart. One of them was... an omen of great misfortune. A secret lies hidden in the attic. Inside, there’s a coffin. Who is lying in it? Is it me? Wh 988Reads8.8Score163Shelves
- 184 Sleepless 惊眠 An imperial edict brings to light a secret treasure buried for a thousand years, and a mysterious sect stirs up a storm across the north and south. A mysterious tomb-raiding sect, invincible Embroidered Envoys, and fearsome grave robbers alongside the Tiangang and Disha. A young man returned from overseas plunges into the fray like a dragon diving into the sea, throwing the north and south into turmoil. Does the Yuan Emperor’s treasure really exist, or is it a legend spread to deceive the world? 4.6kReads9.5Score548Shelves
- 185 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. —Reads—Score—Shelves
- 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 The Skeleton in the Wall of Dorm Room 404 404女寝墙里的尸骨 In November 2025, human remains were discovered in a girls' dormitory at a high school. I sat in my swivel chair, with the DNA test report the lab had just sent over beside me. It read: DNA testing was conducted on hair follicles from clothing found with the remains inside the wall of Room 404, the girls' dormitory at Xingming Private High School. Preliminary findings suggest the victim died between six and ten years ago. Name: Chi Zhuo, male, 181 cm... I stared intently at the name, then took a —Reads—Score—Shelves
- 188 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
- 189 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
- 190 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
- 191 My Uncle's Bizarre Experiences While Watching the Reservoir 老舅看水库时的离奇经历 They say that if you leave a reservoir deep in the mountains alone for long enough, giant fish will appear in it. And how big are these fish? With one flick of the tail, they can churn rivers and seas. With one thrust of the head, they can shake the earth and mountains. They can smash a small boat more than ten meters long to pieces with a single charge. A distant uncle of mine once visited a reservoir. In those days, food and clothing were scarce, and people were hungry and craving a taste of s 700Reads6.8Score—Shelves
- 192 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! —Reads—Score—Shelves
- 193 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
- 194 Cheers Curse: Anyone Who Mishears It Dies 干杯咒：听错的去死 “That American exchange student says ‘Cheers’ to me in his dreams every night, until I realize he misheard ‘Go to hell.’” In the graduate dormitory, Dennis grows paler by the day, and the doctors can’t figure out why. Then Mina brings back the exorcist’s verdict: Seven years ago, a girl whose foreign boyfriend cheated on her jumped from this building. Every night, her shattered head presses against Dennis’s ear and repeats “Cheers” in English... But when we reach the tenth repetition, the corner —Reads—Score—Shelves
- 195 Bao Dadan’s True Accounts of Ghost Encounters 包大胆撞鬼实录 “You’ve heard of people who are ‘bold beyond belief,’ but have you ever seen someone scare a ghost into shutting itself away?” My name is Bao Dadan. It’s not a stage name, it’s my real name. My friends say I’m missing a screw, but they changed their minds after seeing it for themselves: I talked the “haunting female ghost” the landlord warned me about into silence; I roasted a “human-faced fish” deep in the mountains with pepper until it shrieked; even the “Slit-Mouthed Woman” covered her mask a —Reads—Score—Shelves
- 196 The Deadly Mirror Image in the Symmetrical Bathroom 对称浴室的死亡镜像 “At three in the morning, I saw my ‘future husband’s’ face in the mirror, and three days later, he ran me over with his SUV until I was nothing but scraps.” My landlady told me in a hushed voice that if I recited an incantation to a mirror at midnight for 49 days in a row, I’d see my destined partner. On the 47th day, her son’s twisted smile appeared in the mirror. I screamed and fled the apartment, but at the intersection he ran over me four times, reversing each time. The police said he kept s —Reads—Score—Shelves
- 197 Horror Sketches 恐怖素描 “The day I was accepted into art school through the recommendation program, I drew the killer who murdered Teacher Zhou with my own hands: the faceless woman who had been draped over my back for three whole months.” In the dead of night, a blizzard battered the studio windows with a crackling roar. I curled up in the bathroom and vomited, but a pale body slowly emerged in the mirror. Her long hair wound around my neck, her rotting fingertips stroked my spine, and where her face should have been. 5Reads—Score—Shelves
- 198 Paranormal Podcast 灵异播客 “What’s the most convincing paranormal story you’ve ever heard? As a paranormal podcast host, I thought I was just collecting urban legends, until a laugh that wasn’t mine came through my headphones. While I was adjusting the audio track, a shrill whisper seemed to breathe right into my ear, and a new waveform mysteriously appeared in the recording software. An expert told me, ‘That’s another audio signal. It isn’t human.’ Worse still, after I said, ‘Don’t come looking for me through my headphon —Reads—Score—Shelves
- 199 The Hypnosis Trap: The Forgotten Bloody Hand 催眠陷阱：被遗忘的血手 “I caused my husband and child’s deaths with my own hands, then spent an entire year forgetting them. The truth only tore through my memories as I fell, after my psychiatrist pushed me onto the rooftop.” The travel magazine from a year ago, the coffee cup that appeared out of nowhere in the living room, the unfamiliar father and son in the photo frame... I thought I was simply suffering from depression, until I encountered those blood-soaked hands during hypnosis and realized that forgetting was —Reads—Score—Shelves
- 200 The Night Shift Passage: An Invitation from the Dead 夜班通道：亡者邀请函 “Every night at ten, I open the supermarket’s rolling shutter right on time, never knowing that another world lies hidden at the end of the aisles: a black-gang nightclub that was burned to the ground. For two years, I watched my coworkers ‘disappear’ one by one. Even their names seemed to be erased, until Wang Tao grabbed my arm in the emergency exit, and a girl crawling with maggots in the Golden Ballroom pressed close to my ear and said, ‘Welcome to Brother Feng’s club. All the guests here... 1Reads—Score—Shelves
