Novels like Tales of a Desolate Village
Books Chinese readers most often put in the same booklists as Tales of a Desolate Village, best match first.
- 101 Starting by Hunting Down the Dao-Provers of This Age 从猎杀当世成道者开始 Hao Chen, a mortal who has cultivated by an unconventional path in a world much like Shrouding the Heavens after being reincarnated, only wants to become an immortal. Is that so wrong? Is slaughtering all living beings wrong? Or is devouring those who have attained the Dao wrong? You say I should go home? What a load of crap. I’m the ancestor around here now! Beauties, come be my collectible figures. I’ll carry you to victory! 479Reads6.0Score—14d adds
- 102 Running a Small Business in Silent Hill 我在寂静岭做小生意 [Comedy + humor + no-brainer fun] No System, not invincible When I entered this vast, white place, air raid sirens went off every night, and the walls were always shedding plaster. I'm just an ordinary person who served in the military. I came here to do business because it was cheap. I should have fled this desolate, uninhabited place, but poverty made me overcome my fear. Just when I thought this was a lawless land, someone actually told me to pay taxes. I can't take this anymore, I... 61Reads6.8Score—14d adds
- 103 Gu Master: Starting with the Dreamweaver Gu 蛊师：从获得衍梦蛊开始 Huang Ting was traveling through Miaojiang, exploring secluded places, when one misstep sent him tumbling off a cliff. He transmigrated into the Gu World. (You can follow the story without reading the original; the setting is gradually introduced.) Here, the Gu path flourishes, with countless wondrous and bizarre uses. Here, people are treacherous and scheme against one another... Here, clans and sects hold sway, making it hard for those at the bottom to rise. Here, no one is free; all living be 214Reads8.6Score—14d adds
- 104 The Neighbor Auntie’s Secret 邻居阿姨的秘密 Each volume is a standalone horror story. Read them in any order. Open one at random and plunge straight into terror for a frightening reading experience anytime, anywhere. The scares never stop. —Reads—Score—14d adds
- 105 Possessed by the Demon-Suppressing Tower, I Rise to Godhood with the Demons' Help 镇妖塔附身，众妖魔助我成神 The Six Realms are locked in chaos, heaven and earth are crumbling. Gods and demons wage war, while monsters and ghosts run rampant. Immortals and Buddhas descend to earth as divine beasts roar. At the summit of the Celestial Realm, Sun Zheng swings his sword and cleaves heaven and earth. In the shadowy underworld, Sun Zheng holds up his pagoda to subdue the demons! 1Reads—Score—14d adds
- 106 Mystery Revival: The Golden Book 神秘复苏：黄金书籍 Do you think the story of the supernatural revival is over? Did Yang Jian really suppress all paranormal phenomena in the world for good? Wrong. He merely sealed countless bizarre entities and evil spirits away in a parallel world. This golden book is the key connecting the two worlds and unlocking the forbidden abyss. The paranormal has begun to manifest again, returning to this world. [Similar to the original, but also different] The moment you turn the page, a deadly curse quietly takes hold 74Reads—Score—14d adds
- 107 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 174Reads8.4Score10914d adds
- 108 The Pawnshop 典当 [Urban + supernatural + mystery] My name is Mo Linyuan. I run my family’s ancestral pawnshop. Other pawnshops deal in dirty money; mine trades in lives! Grandpa says our family has always had three storerooms: one for Heaven, one for Earth, and one for mortals! Rules: No strange item is ever refused; the redemption price is a hundredfold. Advertisement: Pawn ghosts, take immortals as collateral. We do not pawn past lives or future ones. Deceive Earth and Heaven, and you can redeem a life as old 242Reads7.4Score—14d adds
- 109 Records of Yin and Yang Mysteries 阴阳诡录 Ji Rendong was born with Yin-Yang Eyes and brought misfortune to her father, her mother, and her entire family. Since childhood, she has been able to see a girl who looks exactly like her, following her everywhere. At the age of five, her grandmother abandoned her, and a mysterious man took her away. She thought she would finally have a home, but it turned out the man only wanted her extremely yang blood. Her blood could save his son, in exchange for her life. Should she save him or not? That is 229Reads8.5Score5714d adds
- 110 Campus Mysteries: The Dark Invasion 高校异闻录之暗黑侵袭 Ever since Gao Sifan inexplicably chose this medical university after having a strange dream, everything has seemed increasingly unusual. Terrifying supernatural rumors have circulated about the university ever since it opened, and after Gao Sifan enrolls, paranormal incidents become more and more frequent. The Japanese people and pro-Japanese groups hiding nearby gradually come to light, along with bizarre sacrificial rituals, onmyoji, possessed faculty members, and extreme militarist educati 10Reads—Score114d adds
- 111 Blind Passion 盲眼迷情 One was gentle with me, the other cold. “Brother, please. Can’t you let me have her?” “Bullshit. You killed her sister. It’s too late to grow a conscience now!” “She has to die tonight!” Hmph. We’ll see who kills whom. 2Reads—Score—14d adds
- 112 Half a Step Beyond 半步多 Half-Step Pass, the boundary between yin and yang, a place where the living must not go. Grandpa and I escaped from there and lived under assumed names for twenty years, but they still found us... 507Reads8.9Score10714d adds
- 113 The Demon Returns 魔归 Mortal + No System + No Golden Finger + No Female Lead (but there are women) + Corpse Refining + Ghost Commanding + Demonic Cultivation … How does human nature change, and how is it preserved, in a cruel environment? Does the distinction between good and evil lie in power itself, or in the purpose of those who wield it? The conflict between survival and morality, and the choices it demands; the journey of revenge and the struggle to move beyond hatred. … All to recreate the cultivation world i 106Reads—Score—14d adds
- 114 I Am Not a Paper Spirit 我不是纸仙 A paper effigy is made by folding paper into the shape of a person, so it can take on another's sins, endure their punishment, and bear the consequences of their karma. I was an orphan from a young age, adopted by my master. He was a paper effigy maker, and when I was nineteen, I learned his craft. That set me on a road of no return and turned me into a jinx. Before long, I brought about my master's death. Through one mistake, I turned a “Lovers' Fold” into a “Life-Damaging Fold,” creating a pap 50Reads7.6Score—14d adds
- 115 Whispers by the Candlelit Ruins 幽庭烛烬语 In the dead of night, countless eerie secrets lurk in the dark folds of the city. The knocking in an old apartment, known as “Knocking at Midnight,” rings out like clockwork at three in the morning. When a woman living alone peers through the peephole, all she sees is a roiling cloud of scarlet blood mist in the hallway, while a damp scratching comes from the doorknob. In the basement of a century-old apothecary, “Whispers in the Medicine Crock” never cease, day or night. Every night at midnight 3Reads—Score—14d adds
- 116 I Quit School to Hunt Ghosts, and Eventually Became the Origin God of Wuji 不当学生去猎鬼，终修成无极源神 This story is entirely fictional and wholly original. It is a true cultivation adventure, with no political, military, or religious content. Its defining feature is its sheer, sheer, sheer, sheer, sheer, sheer, sheer, sheer… weirdness. 10Reads—Score—14d adds
- 117 Chronicles of Strange Folk Tales 民间怪谈事件录 Not for the faint of heart! Not for the faint of heart! Not for the faint of heart! The 1980s and 1990s saw one bizarre incident after another in Jubao Village: Zhao Laohei, who rose from the dead at the execution ground... The woman who hanged herself in town, her whole face turned a purplish black... The ghost child encountered during a game of hide-and-seek on the Ghost Festival... The terrifying bamboo fiend in the old bamboo grove... People and ghosts playing cards in a yin-yang card game.. 215Reads—Score—14d adds
- 118 My Job at the Horror Radio Station 我在恐怖电台任职这件事儿 [Folklore] [Supernatural] [Short Story] [No Superpowers] [No Rule-Based Horror] [Not a Wish-Fulfillment Story] [Not for the Faint of Heart] The author is working hard to make a living. 22Reads—Score414d adds
- 119 The Dark Realm of the Uncanny 谲暗物境 Lin Xue, a classmate of Qin Chuan and Ye Xin, mysteriously vanishes inside an abandoned old school building. Even stranger, everyone around them except Qin Chuan and Ye Xin has forgotten that Lin Xue ever existed. Determined to uncover the truth, Qin Chuan and Ye Xin embark on a strange and unsettling investigation. One inexplicable event after another follows. Yet when the truth finally comes to light, it turns everyone's understanding upside down! 5Reads—Score—14d adds
- 120 A Security Guard’s Guide to Survival 保安求生之路 After a phone call and a nightmare, the ordinary life of Qin Yun, a lowly security guard, is turned upside down. He encounters one bizarre event after another, unsure whether the people around him can be trusted or the things beside him are safe. As dreams and reality intertwine, he searches through the unknown for a way to survive. 54Reads—Score—14d adds
- 121 The Outcast Ghost of Wancun Village 万丛村的边缘鬼 Some say death, the end of life, is the fairest thing of all because everyone dies. But in truth, unfairness is absolute, fairness is relative, and even the end can be unfair. There are homeless wanderers with nowhere to live and no place to call home, and there are the rich, with mansions everywhere. The same goes for ghosts: some are lonely spirits with "nowhere to be buried," while others are wealthy ghosts with burial grounds bigger than a kingdom... Wanderers are pitiful, and lonely ghosts 3Reads—Score—14d adds
- 122 Grandma's Notes on Yin and Yang 奶奶的阴阳笔记 Supernatural mystery + first person + calls from the underworld On the day my grandmother, Granny Wang, died, I received a call from the underworld, number 444: “Did Granny Wang bring them back to life? If she did, we won’t be coming up.” While sorting through her belongings, I found a reddish-brown notebook beneath the household shrine. It recorded how my grandmother used our great-grandfather’s Maoshan techniques to exorcise evil spirits: “Paper Figures Eavesdrop on the Yin” means cutting out 79Reads9.4Score—14d adds
- 123 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—14d adds
- 124 Impostor Files: Monsters Want to Take Over My Life 伪人档案：怪物想要取代我的人生 The Fake People Files: Reborn is now available. Have you ever wondered if the people you know have long since stopped being themselves, replaced by some unknown creature... Fake people have the following traits: 1. Strange appearance 2. Uncoordinated movements 3. Bizarre behavior If you encounter someone like this in your everyday life... Shh! (I’m the security guard downstairs, the lunch lady in the cafeteria, your friend, teacher, colleague, family member. I’m a fake person.) I am you. I am yo 685Reads8.2Score10114d adds
- 125 Encountering a Ghost 撞鬼 I'm a truck driver, and I haul freight all over the country. Truck drivers have many taboos. For example, if you encounter a funeral procession, flash your headlights a few times. If a small animal suddenly darts out onto the road, or when driving through a tunnel, especially one with a square entrance, don't whistle or say anything disrespectful. When staying at an inn at night, always point the toes of your shoes toward the door... 1.8kReads6.8Score15314d adds
- 126 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 69Reads—Score—14d adds
- 127 Ghosts: They Exist If You Believe 鬼魂：信则有，不信则无 [Supernatural + Thriller + The Bizarre + Horror] Do ghosts really exist in this world? Some say they’re hallucinations; others call it delusion. Yet all kinds of bizarre, inexplicable events remain shrouded in mystery, their truth impossible to discern. If you insist on believing there are no ghosts, some things become impossible to explain. That’s why many old folks tell us: Believe, and they exist; don’t believe, and they don’t! 12Reads—Score—14d adds
- 128 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—14d adds
- 129 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—14d adds
- 130 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—14d adds
- 131 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—14d adds
- 132 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—14d adds
- 133 The Blood-Binding Corpse Scripture 血引尸经 The world of Changbai’s demons, home to the northern immortals. I was just an ordinary village boy from Changbai Mountain until I accidentally obtained the strange books Blood Guide to the Corpse and Soul-Eating Blood Eyes. I wanted to save people, yet somehow I was always killing them. My father’s bizarre sect legacy, the thousand-year secrets of the Twelve Strange Sects, the shadowy depths of the Tomb That Moves Mountains. Just how many plots and mysteries are hidden all around me? The bronze 1.1kReads8.8Score14214d adds
- 134 The Death Contact List 死亡通讯录 A mysterious secret identity appeared in the company group chat. No one knew who it belonged to, and from then on, the entire company was plunged into a state of panic! 413Reads7.2Score10514d adds
- 135 The Iris Strikes Back 鸢尾花的反杀 As night fell, I rode my bike through the streets and alleys, when someone suddenly stepped into my path. “Who are you?” The alley was dimly lit, so I couldn’t make out the stranger’s face, but I could clearly see his outline. The man looked utterly disheveled. Gasping for breath, he said, “Help me!” I caught sight of someone chasing him relentlessly and swiftly pulled him onto my electric scooter. “Come with me!” The cold night wind stung my cheeks, but inside, my emotions were churning. “Got y —Reads—Score—14d adds
- 136 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—14d adds
- 137 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—Score114d adds
- 138 The Autobiography of a Yin Walker 一位走阴人的自传 Adapted into a full-cast audiobook on Tomato Listen. [This story is based on the true account of someone who walks between the worlds of the living and the dead. The horror is off the charts, so timid readers beware!] Have you ever heard of someone who walks between the worlds of the living and the dead? I'm the only son in three generations of the Guo family. My name is Guo Lideng. I've had the yin-yang eyes since I was a child, and can see things ordinary people cannot. As an adult, I stumbled 5.7kReads7.1Score32514d adds
- 139 Building a Cultivation Sect from Scratch 从散修开始建立修仙宗门 [A Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality] [Ensemble cast, sort of] [Blood Dao] [No golden finger] [Local-born protagonist] [Slow-burn farming and development] [Not a power fantasy, mediocre aptitude] Mortal cultivation + sect development + demonic path (with an ancient, demon-cultivator flavor) Yin Yuan and his master make their fortune as rogue cultivators who prey on others, build up their foundations, purchase spirit veins, recruit disciples, establish the Yellow Springs Immortal Sect, 241Reads8.2Score—14d adds
- 140 EN Charting the Endless Sea 无尽海图 After witnessing the heat death of the universe with your own eyes, your consciousness leaves the universe you came from and journeys to an unknown world. This is the story of how you discard a vast store of redundant memories, transmigrate to an unknown universe, and begin a new adventure. Curses, treasures, contracts, relics: this is a world shrouded in mist. 40Reads7.3Score—14d adds
- 141 The Lady Is Spoiled Rotten by the Demon Lord 夫人被妖君大人宠野了 Her fiancé buried her alive. On the very day she was reborn, she clawed her way out of the grave, put on her red bridal gown, and married the great demon lord who would devour you without even spitting out the bones. She thought her story would end there, but who knew the Demon King would carry her across the Three Realms, sweeping all before him… (Note: The male lead is a domineering, possessive Demon Venerable, while the female lead is a clever and adorable veterinarian who transmigrated to an 14Reads8.7Score—14d adds
- 142 The Corpse Stitcher’s Daughter 缝尸匠的女儿 My father, Liu Si, was the most famous corpse tailor in Laoshan Village. After the start of winter, the women of the village were torn to pieces by wild bears in the mountains, one after another. My father suggested finding their bodies and sewing them back together so they could be buried in peace. But rumors spread through the village: “The bears were lured here by the Liu family. They'll do anything to make money sewing up corpses.” The village chief forced my father up the mountain to kill t 16Reads—Score—14d adds
- 143 The Wronged Ghost in the Incinerator 焚化炉里的冤魂 On the surface, he was an official who upheld justice. Behind the scenes, he was the most brazen crime boss around! He was a cunning, utterly inhuman demon! He killed, robbed, and took lives, yet remained above the law! And all his audacity came from his powerful "protectors"! Before he was brought to justice, he did whatever he pleased, leaving countless people and families with memories of unbearable pain... —Reads—Score—14d adds
- 144 The Jinx 丧门星 Li Datou married a girl from the city, which was quite the rare thing in the village back then. Lian was exceptionally beautiful. When she first married Li Datou, every man in the village, young or old, was green with envy. But in less than half a month, everyone in the Li household was dead. —Reads—Score—14d adds
- 145 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—14d adds
- 146 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—14d adds
- 147 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—14d adds
- 148 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—14d adds
- 149 The Person You Want to Kill Will Die Within Three Days 你想杀死的人，将会在三天内死亡 Type a name on the screen, and three days later, that person will die. A bizarre “Thrilling Murder Mission” System suddenly appeared on the computer screen. Young, down-on-his-luck Lu Yunming entered the name of someone he hated, though he wasn’t sure he believed it… Three days later, that person really did die in a crowd, an arrow piercing his head as blood sprayed everywhere. Lu Yunming had thought it was a freak act of judgment, but it turned out to be only the beginning of a nightmare. The S 1Reads—Score—14d adds
- 150 The Death Inn 死亡民宿 On the first night after checking into the guesthouse, the owner died. But at midnight that same night, Lu Shou actually received a text from the owner. “Please be sure to follow the rules of the Deerhorn Guesthouse. Find the landlady’s dowry box before five tomorrow morning, and you can leave with the deputy manager, an orange cat.” “Otherwise, you’ll be stuck here forever.” Lu Shou broke out in a cold sweat, utterly baffled. “I clearly took his phone. How can he still text me?” —Reads—Score—14d adds
