Novels like Dark Face Reading
Books Chinese readers most often put in the same booklists as Dark Face Reading, best match first.
- 51 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
- 52 The Ghost Emerges from the Coffin 鬼出棺 Xie Bangui is secretly recruited into the Ghost Yamen and, on his master's orders, serves there, making a living by hunting demons and ghosts. Yet he has no idea that he carries a world-shaking secret. Leading the Ghost Yamen's warriors, Xie Bangui launches a night raid on a prison for evil spirits, fights a bloody battle on the execution platform against a demon, encounters a soul-snatching carriage, and cleverly breaks a skeleton lock. He survives evil spirits' attempts to claim his life, outw 1.5kReads9.1Score139Shelves
- 53 What Do You Mean the Corpses I Sew Together Are All Cursed? 什么叫我缝的尸体都是大凶之物？ [Chinese folk customs] [Corpse seamster] [Traditional supernatural horror] [A clever protagonist who isn’t an idiot] My name is Chen Yang. I’m a mortician, or rather... a corpse seamster. I can sew up corpses no one else can. I can take jobs no one else dares to accept. I’ve handled all sorts of bizarre cases: people who jumped from buildings in red clothes, corpses missing arms and legs, and even one person who was holding their own head... Everyone says the corpses I sew up are all terribly un 215.9kReads9.1Score28.8kShelves
- 54 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
- 55 The Six Lines: Principles of Hexagram Divination 六爻卦理篇 This book focuses on a detailed discussion of the principles behind Six Yao divination. In simple, accessible language, it uses a wealth of practical hexagram examples to analyze how these principles are applied in actual Six Yao divination. It offers everyone who enjoys or wants to learn Six Yao divination a faster and easier way to master this art. 389Reads—Score114Shelves
- 56 Corpse Driving in Western Hunan: The Soul-Calling Guide on the Night Road 湘西赶尸：夜行引魂人 A sudden disaster at a mass grave! Wu Liangzi is struck on the back of the head and wakes among rotting coffins and bones, clutching a bloodstained piece of yellow paper. It bears the name of the man he has spent three years tracking down for murdering his father! Seven corpses in black robes dance around him all night, their lifeless eyes seeming to “acknowledge their master.” A mysterious corpse driver tosses him a life-and-death contract. “Four of your seven souls have scattered. If you can’t 240Reads—Score—Shelves
- 57 The Godslayer of the Countryside 乡村弑神者 [Chinese-style horror + not a power fantasy + more terrifying the more you think about it] When I was eight, my maternal grandfather took my two uncles and me to Chang'an Village to help harvest rice. Not long after we arrived, someone died under mysterious circumstances. Worried something might happen to me, my grandfather told my eldest uncle to take me home first. Before we left, he repeatedly warned us not to speak to anyone we met on the road. My eldest uncle agreed, and we hurried back. Ha 722Reads8.9Score105Shelves
- 58 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
- 59 The Yin-Yang Artisan 阴阳诡匠 [Author's note: This book has no System and isn't mindless. Most of the events… really happened. Do not try any of the customs or taboos described here! Any consequences are your own responsibility!] It's better to offend the King of Hell than a poor carpenter. When you've worked as a carpenter long enough, you'll inevitably encounter all sorts of terrifying, bizarre accidents and stories. Sometimes, we're part of them ourselves. I used to think my grandfather was just an eccentric old carpenter 1.1kReads6.3Score102Shelves
- 60 The Daoheart’s Journey 道心征途 (This novel focuses primarily on horror, the supernatural, and suspense. It isn't mindless, it isn't about cultivating immortality, and the story is tightly connected. The early chapters lay the groundwork, and there are many genuinely frightening scenes. If you don't like it, feel free to say so in the comments!) My master said there are only two principles to being a Taoist priest. First: Never put off revenge until tomorrow. Let it fester in your heart, and it will throw your Daoist mind into 8Reads6.5Score—Shelves
- 61 The Last Paper-Cutting Artist 最后一位剪纸人 My name is Song Xiaohan. I’m a living corpse with no heartbeat, and a paper-cutting artist of the underworld. On the surface, I cut paper decorations for a funeral shop, but behind closed doors, I trade with humans and ghosts. My master passed away two months ago and left me the family craft, along with this modest little shop and my tools of the trade: a pair of scissors and a carving knife. “You want to make a deal with me? But all I want is your shadow!” Song Xiaohan grinned. 210Reads8.5Score—Shelves
- 62 The Mountain and Sea Coffin 山海棺 Wooden coffins bury the dead, iron coffins conceal ghosts; silver coffins nurture demons, and golden coffins seal gods. After Grandpa dies, all spirits pay their respects at the shrine, and he is buried in a coffin among the mountains and seas... 371Reads8.2Score100Shelves
- 63 My Master Gave Me a Car for Investigating the Supernatural 师父传我一辆看事儿车 A thousand-year-old van? Built by hand from scratch [Traditional horror]➕ [Even more immersive as an audiobook]➕ [Uncovering the truth about my origins] Greetings, dear readers! [Traditional supernatural horror, primal fear] The original experience of horror is the fear a person feels when experiencing it firsthand. [First person, highly atmospheric] Give me a chance to tell this story from my own point of view. [Uncovering the truth about my origins] Along the way, I met many people. “The gates 17Reads—Score—Shelves
- 64 An Unmarked Lonely Grave 无名孤坟 My grandfather buried my mother by our front door. Every night after that, a woman would stand outside our house... 1.2kReads8.8Score101Shelves
- 65 Supernatural: My Years Hunting Ghosts at Bureau 749 灵异：我在749局打鬼那些年 The appearance of a white coffin and a red coffin at the construction site changed my fate. That night, I saw corpses that could move and a ghost that could steal a person's soul. They were all "deceiving" me, trying to make me die. What should I do... When you think the person behind you is a ghost, the real ghost may be the one standing in front of you... Once it's dark... don't read this!! 211Reads—Score—Shelves
- 66 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
- 67 I Asked You to Read the Feng Shui, Not Dig Up Their Ancestral Grave! 让你看风水，你刨人家祖坟？ Also known as "The Folk Feng Shui Secrets". [Supernatural + Feng Shui Master + Unmatched Skills + No System + No Saintly Hero] An old man dies full of resentment and is buried in a dangerously inauspicious ancestral grave. Disasters strike one after another on the day of the burial. Wang Nan, a yin-yang master, spots the problem and immediately tells the descendants to dig up the ancestral grave and choose a new feng shui site for a deep burial, only to discover that this was all part of a plot 317Reads8.9Score100Shelves
- 68 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
- 69 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
- 70 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
- 71 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
- 72 The Heavenly Master’s Divine Husband 天师神婿 My grandfather was a renowned ghost diviner in the martial world. He lost his health and cultivation saving my fiancée. Yet when I turned twenty and went to ask for her hand in marriage, they threw me out! They thought I was useless and wanted to break off the engagement! But they had no idea that my skills in physiognomy, feng shui, talismans, and Taoist medicine had all reached the pinnacle. And with the bloodline of a great shaman in my veins, I could determine wealth and poverty with a singl 8.6kReads8.3Score577Shelves
- 73 Little Dongbei 小东北 Nature has yin and yang, and society has good and evil. An imbalance between yin and yang brings chaos, but so does drawing too sharp a line between good and evil. When righteousness dwells within, evil cannot intrude. When yin is balanced and yang is secure, the spirit is at peace. Your path is yours to choose: follow your nature, let go of judgment, and wisdom will shine. The Dao moves by returning to its source. In a word, avoid extremes and don't make the same mistake twice... 339Reads7.1Score—Shelves
- 74 The Skinning Ghost 扒皮鬼 (Traditional supernatural horror + extreme horror + multiple twists + mystery + entirely handcrafted) Lately, I've been having nightmares every night. A fortune-teller said I might have a ghost clinging to me. He told me about a forbidden folk ritual: Put on a pair of worn underwear over your head, and it will block a ghost's sight. That night, I got home and followed his advice, half believing it. My girlfriend came back to the room after washing up and stared blankly at where I was. "Where... 64.7kReads8.3Score7.2kShelves
- 75 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
- 76 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
- 77 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
- 78 The Yin Deliverer 送阴人 A burial master, also known as one who sends the dead into the shadows. When Li Mazi from my village died suddenly, I was drawn into the affair. I thought it was an accident, but later I learned it had been plotted for a long time. To stay alive, I began studying the Burial Scripture my grandfather left behind. The Burial Scripture has three volumes: one on burying people, one on burying ghosts, and a third whose whereabouts are unknown. Blood corpses in the Southern Ridges, ancient monsters in 668Reads8.4Score101Shelves
- 79 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
- 80 Walking Between Yin and Yang 行走阴阳 To carry on the family line, Grandma forcibly brought home a madwoman... Ten years later, someone came to our door and delivered five bright red coffins, each bearing the name of a member of our family... 2.8kReads8.7Score257Shelves
- 81 A Dragon's Son, Carried in a Ghost's Coffin 龙生子，鬼抬棺 My name is Ding Lin, and I was born covered in dragon scales. The villagers said my mother wasn’t human. When she died, a hundred ghosts carried her coffin, and the River Earl wept at her funeral. My mother said I was the child of a dragon, born extraordinary, blessed by a hundred ghosts and immune to every taboo... 5.2kReads8.8Score522Shelves
- 82 The Heavenly Coffin Comes to Town: Living Must Keep Away 天棺出巡，活人回避 The year Jiangnan suffered a terrible drought, a coffin was dredged up from the river. From that day on, torrential winds and rain battered the region for a month. Floodwaters surged, swallowing countless towns and cities. I was ten that year. More than a dozen red Hongqi cars with Beijing plates, along with rows of luxury cars, arrived in our little town. I don’t know how many important people knelt outside my home, begging my grandfather to stop the floods... [Folk customs, feng shui. A coffin 8.6kReads8.8Score792Shelves
- 83 The Secret Notes of a Feng Shui Master 风水师秘记 My grandfather left me a handwritten ancient manuscript. When I turned eighteen, a dream of mine shook the entire world of feng shui... Liu Bowen severing dragon veins, feng shui guiding a celestial dragon, paper figures controlling one's fortune, plum-blossom tattoos, the dead seeking justice... Everyone knew Yang Qingtian was a legend, but no one knew that I was him! 3.8kReads8.2Score397Shelves
- 84 The City's Exorcist 都市驱魔先生 When shadows emerge beyond the reach of the city’s neon lights, young exorcist Jin Lei sets out on the path fate has laid for him. He inherits more than his family’s powers: he also inherits a tragic mystery spanning a hundred years. Why did his ancestor and fellow disciple turn evil? What earth-shattering scheme is the Xuanjing organization plotting from the shadows of history? From strange happenings on campus to bloody feuds in the countryside, from urban crime investigations to a battle ove 274Reads—Score—Shelves
- 85 Folk Horror Taboos 民间恐怖禁忌 Do you know the stories old people tell? Do you know there are many things in folk tradition that people say must not be spoken of? Do you know what the elders say about dreams? The elders say there are things you mustn't talk about at night. Did you know that? 130Reads6.3Score—Shelves
- 86 I Have the Body of a Ghost King, Yet Became the Strongest Exorcist 我，鬼王之体，却成了最强术士 [Traditional supernatural horror, folk horror, strange tales and bizarre encounters, taboos of yin and yang] On the third day of the third lunar month, ghosts go mad. Chen Sansan was born on just such a day. Because of him, his father was buried alive by his master in the old house in Heilong Village. For his sake, his master was trapped in a tiny room. As for Chen Sansan, he has no choice but to keep signing contracts between yin and yang with ghosts to prolong his life. Otherwise, he won't sur 40Reads6.8Score—Shelves
- 87 Stay Away, Spirits 阴人勿扰 Someone dug up our family grave and put the newlywed daughter-in-law who’d just died in their family in there. My uncle told me to go get her out in the middle of the night... 496Reads7.1Score—Shelves
- 88 Rule Horror: Don't Look Back During 72 Hours in the Dorm 规则怪谈：宿舍72小时不要回头 A word of warning: this is terrifying, so timid readers beware. (No female lead, no cheats, no romance, game instances, infinite flow, horror, mystery) Eight university students who returned to campus early found a mysterious sheet of rules in their empty dormitory building: Rule One: No matter what strange “person” you see, don’t cry out or scream. Rule Two: No matter who calls you from behind, don’t turn around or answer. Rule Three: One of you is an impostor who will eat people in the middle 4.6kReads6.0Score386Shelves
- 89 The Affairs Hall 了事堂 The Hall of Resolution’s motto: Settle the three thousand troubles of the mortal world, and let all people enjoy peace. If you have a problem, go to Tian Qi. As long as you have enough money, he can handle it. Not enough? Then, sorry. I'm a little tired. 5.2kReads8.5Score379Shelves
- 90 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
- 91 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
- 92 I Asked You to Write a Horror Play, So Why Did You Have to Add a Deity? 让你写诡剧，您非要往里加神人？ He Mo has always believed that eerie plays, with their dark, disturbing themes and wall-to-wall negativity, are bound to drive actors to a mental breakdown if they perform in them for too long. So he insists on adding a few absurd characters and comic plotlines to lighten things up. The more the theater objects, the more it proves he's doing the right thing. It shows that he's exposed the theater's intention to torment its actors through eerie plays. The more the actors object, the more it prove 329Reads—Score—Shelves
- 93 Grandma’s Ghost Stories 听奶奶讲灵异故事 I was raised by my grandmother. The bedtime stories I heard as a child were all supernatural events she had experienced herself. They scared me so badly I was afraid to go to the bathroom, but I could never resist listening to the end. What I didn't know was that the more stories I heard, the more likely they were to come true, and that I had plenty of secrets of my own. 159Reads6.7Score—Shelves
- 94 The Haunted Shroud 诡寿衣 My family sells burial clothes. Every seven days, a woman comes to order a set. Only at the end did I discover she had been ordering burial clothes for all four members of my family. 1.1kReads8.8Score117Shelves
- 95 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
- 96 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
- 97 Never Go to the Old House 千万不要去古宅 Na Ling and Bao Datong were looking for a thrill, so they drove around robbing old houses. One day, they came across a photo of Fengmen Village online and went there to steal a Grand Tutor's chair. They sold it to Li Wei, a chamber of commerce boss, but because the chair was haunted, he resold it to the speculator Meng Guozhao. During the handoff, Na Ling secretly kept the jade marrow hidden inside the chair. After leaving Fengmen Village, Na Ling traveled to Anhui, where he stumbled upon the an 7.8kReads8.6Score233Shelves
- 98 A Feng Shui Master Born in the 1990s 90后风水师 One glance tells you who is destined for riches. Two reveal who will live or die. After realizing that the goddess was doomed to disaster, Li Shiyi embarked on a road of death from which there was no turning back. 285Reads8.9Score—Shelves
- 99 The Xuanpin Teahouse 玄牝茶馆 [The author's profession is unusual; this book is best suited to readers in the field] (This is a mid-length novel, with an upper part, a lower part, and a prequel. I'm typing away as fast as I can!) Feng Cai is a hereditary ritual master in a folk religious sect. After receiving a favor from someone, he opens a teahouse in the capital. Though this quiet teahouse sits in a bustling part of the city, it takes on all sorts of baffling commissions... Young woman: “Hello, could you get me into a top 79Reads7.1Score—Shelves
- 100 The Grave Relocation Master 迁坟师 You've heard of yin-yang masters, fortune-tellers, and feng shui masters. But have you ever heard of a grave relocation master? Do you know how relocating a grave can affect the deceased's descendants? My name is Chen An, and I'm a grave relocation master. I've spent my whole life dealing with graves and bones. I've seen clients strike it rich after relocating a grave. I've seen clients rise to high office after relocating a grave. I've also seen clients whose entire clan died out after relocati 10.5kReads9.0Score911Shelves
