Novels like True Stories of Folk Horror
Books Chinese readers most often put in the same booklists as True Stories of Folk Horror, best match first.
- 101 The Haunted House 诡异之家 Three of us went up the mountain to pick mushrooms, but there were four of us when we came back. I desperately told my parents there was an extra person, but they laughed and said I was imagining things. Until, in the middle of the night, I heard them whisper, “She seems to have noticed.” Mom gripped the meat cleaver and sneered. “Just kill her like we did the last one. Then everything will be fine.” —Reads—Score—Shelves
- 102 The Intern Who Died at His Desk 死在工位上的实习生 On my first day at my new company, the boss said, “Remember, you must leave before seven.” I thought it was a perk, until my coworker Xiaojuan saw a woman with “limbs like bamboo poles” in the empty office next door. The next day, she jumped to her death. That night, I worked overtime until 7:01. Suddenly, someone cut the power, and a freezing hand slipped inside my collar. The cleaning lady appeared in the darkness. “Run! Everyone on this floor has been dead for ages, except you!” —Reads—Score—Shelves
- 103 Please Do Not Use the Voice Button 请不要使用发声按钮 At midnight, my dog pressed the talking buttons in the living room: [Mom] [Bad thing] [Went out]. I was too sleepy to pay attention, until it pressed them again: [Mom] [Hungry] [Want food]. But my dog was fast asleep at my feet. The living room was empty, except for the overturned dog bowl and the soaked buttons. My best friend said, “Cats and dogs can see things people can’t.” I tried to stay calm, but then I felt a dog leash tucked between the sofa cushions. It wasn’t mine... Just then, the be —Reads—Score—Shelves
- 104 Manor of Strange Tales 庄园怪谈 I came to Cloudtop Manor to look for clues about my younger sister’s disappearance. When the gates closed, the manor’s steward told us: “You can only leave once you find the key.” Each of us was given a list of rules about the manor: “Do not set foot in the red house to the east. It will bring misfortune!!!” “Do not wander around the manor after eleven o’clock!!!” “Do not pick a single rose in the manor, or you may bring a deadly disaster upon yourself!!!” The remaining rules are still “unlockin —Reads—Score—Shelves
- 105 The Door Guardian Statue 门神像 The company is built on a mass grave, and every night, “something” follows me into the bathroom. My boyfriend told me to put up a Door God poster, but I accidentally put up a “Yin-Gathering Formation” instead. Ever since, the ghostly knocks at my door haven’t stopped. He said that repeating “I do” three times would drive away the evil spirits. But after I actually said it for the third time... I realized he didn’t want me. He wanted my body. The male ghost who’d been chasing me kept whispering i —Reads—Score—Shelves
- 106 Beware of Yourself 小心你自己 Every Wednesday, a note warning me would appear in the company suggestion box. I thought it was a prank. I thought my colleague Lin Hao was getting revenge, until the police shot him dead in my living room. The last note said: “Watch out for yourself.” I turned around and saw my wife raise a knife —Reads—Score—Shelves
- 107 The Vengeful Ghost 怨鬼 My roommate sobbed as if her heart were breaking every night. I posted online to complain, and a female Taoist priest messaged me: “She’s not human. She’s a vengeful ghost. The more often she cries, the sooner you’ll die.” I didn’t believe it, until one night she bit into my wrist and smiled. “Have a taste.” I ran, she chased me, and the Taoist priest Jiang Yu handed me a string of bodhi beads. “Put them on. They’ll protect you.” I put them on, and she smiled. It turned out this wasn’t a protect 1Reads—Score—Shelves
- 108 Knock on the Door and Die 敲门会送死 An delivery driver chasing online views deliberately targeted orders marked “Don’t knock.” This time, he’d picked the wrong person. He pounded on the door, picked the lock, and stormed into my home with a group of people, shouting to the millions watching his livestream, “Come out and apologize, beautiful!” Cradling the ghost baby, I said softly, “Go eat, sweetheart.” The next second, a tiny blue-gray figure pounced That night, every viewer in the livestream remembered: Some doors, once knocked —Reads—Score—Shelves
- 109 Please Find My Body 请寻找我的尸体 I’m Hell Butterfly, a mystery writer who never shows her face. One day, I launched a puzzle game called “Find My Body,” and the whole internet thought I was just drumming up publicity. Until someone really found the body of a woman in white beside an abandoned building. Posing as a reporter, I called the police and pointed out “my own” corpse to them. Everyone thought the dead woman was me, not knowing she was my younger sister, who had been missing for half a year. The real killer lived in the —Reads—Score—Shelves
- 110 The Night Shift Guard 夜班保安 On my first day as a night-shift security guard, I found my predecessor’s patrol notes in a locker The last page was scrawled with the words, “Don’t trust Captain Wang. He’s been dead for seven years.” At that very moment, in the monitoring room, Wang Shouquan was staring at a screen full of static and smiling, his corpse-spotted hand clutching an employee badge from twenty years ago. And I’d just seen another uniformed version of him patrolling the fourth floor. —Reads—Score—Shelves
- 111 Last Train: No Living Passengers Allowed! 末班车，活人勿进！ The card reader let out a series of warning beeps, and the driver handed me a note: Don’t speak to anyone on the bus, or you’ll die. I turned around and saw Lin Shen, the senior I’d had a crush on for five years, sitting in the back. He was dressed in a suit, but his head was slick with cold sweat. “Everyone on this bus except us is a ghost,” he whispered. The next second, the wound on my wrist suddenly split open, and a drop of blood fell. Every passenger turned to stare at once. I recognized t 1Reads—Score—Shelves
- 112 A Thousand-Year-Old Zombie Awakens! And Becomes a Celebrity Ghost Hunter 千年僵尸苏醒！竟成网红捉鬼师 My name is Jiang Shi, and I’m a thousand-year-old jiangshi. But after waking from a long slumber, I took on a new identity. I’m going to become an internet-famous ghost hunter. 43Reads—Score—Shelves
- 113 The Ghost Whisperer 鬼语者 I’m a nurse, and I can talk to ghosts. After working night shifts for so long, I’ve seen my share of strange things. The nurses were chatting about the weird things that had been happening lately. Every night at midnight, we could hear the sound of a woman’s high heels. Click... click... click... “It’s so creepy. It’s our turn on the night shift tonight. What are we going to do?” Xiao Zhang asked nervously, clutching my sleeve. “What’s there to panic about? It’s normal for ghosts to show up in a —Reads—Score—Shelves
- 114 The Woman Eaten by a Cat 被猫吃掉的女人 Ten years ago, I handled a child abduction case. The child was never found, and the mother drank herself into a stupor every day. One day, she got drunk and passed out in an abandoned house on the outskirts of town. Dozens of rabid feral cats devoured her, leaving behind only a pile of bones. Many years later, I ran into the woman who’d been eaten by cats in a small town. —Reads—Score—Shelves
- 115 Route 14 Night Bus 14路夜班公交车 My name is Li Long. For triple pay, I took the night shift on Bus Route 14, the one everyone else avoids. It starts at the old depot in the west of the city and ends at the back gate of the crematorium. Departure time: exactly eleven at night. The passengers have no body heat, no breath, and no faces. They are the souls of those who drowned in the river three years ago. A chilling aura hangs over the route, ghosts follow in its wake, and every stop hides a curse that claims lives. Three rules ar 1Reads—Score—Shelves
- 116 The Haunted House at No. 13 13号凶宅 Number 13 Qianliang Hutong in Beijing has long been a haunted house. During the Cultural Revolution, several people died mysteriously one after another inside the residence. Long Fei, an investigator with the Public Security Bureau, assumed the alias Li Qiang and moved into the compound as a housing office inspector. After a series of thrilling struggles, Li Qiang finally discovered that Number 13 was an operational base for an enemy spy organization... 959Reads9.4Score—Shelves
- 117 The Living Burial Mound 活人坟 Never let an unfamiliar woman into your car! Especially at night! Because the person you meet... might not be alive! 63Reads8.0Score—Shelves
- 118 The Corpse-Eater Inn 尸人饭店 Driven by greed, I took a job at a restaurant that paid 50,000 yuan a month. I rested during the day and worked between midnight and 2 a.m. On my very first day, the chef told me I had only seven days left to live... 517Reads8.4Score102Shelves
- 119 The Midnight Last Train 午夜末班车 He was on the last bus home late at night when a beautiful woman got on. He was about to confess his feelings, but then he noticed how sinister her reflection looked in the window. He got off the Route 155 bus and instinctively looked up, meeting her gaze... 721Reads6.7Score—Shelves
- 120 Forbidden Strange Tales: The Taboos of the Folk 禁忌聊斋：民间禁忌的那些事 What you’re reading isn’t just an ordinary supernatural story. It may be a set of rural survival rules that can keep you safe. The taboos of the countryside aren’t just old people’s nagging. Every “don’t touch that” carries the weight of lives lost long ago. When dusk seeps into an abandoned village, the names on the road markers glisten with a deathly aura in the rain; white crows on the eaves of a birthing room beckon a newborn’s soul; copper coins in an old mansion rust into blood scabs; an 706Reads8.2Score—Shelves
- 121 The Underworld Patrolman 阳间巡阴人 Other babies are born crying, weeping over the hardships of the mortal world. He was born laughing, laughing hysterically. Born with demon eyes, burdened by the Five Afflictions and Three Deficiencies, his yin lifespan longer than his yang lifespan. A living person's soul in a dead person's fate: isn't he a natural spirit walker?~ The Ghost King Zhong Kui begs to be his master, while the King of Hell fights to be his godfather. What a background, tsk tsk~ Come meet Li Mufeng, the spirit walker, 71Reads—Score—Shelves
- 122 The Strange Studio: Ten Thousand Tribulations of Reincarnation 异斋之万劫轮回 [Chinese-Style Supernatural Horror + No Romance] [Infinite-Flow Stories Set in the World of Strange Tales + Causal Loops Driven by Human Obsession] Have you read Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio? Do you think of it as folk tales of the supernatural from the late Ming dynasty, or as the heartwarming, romanticized “fox spirits and ghosts” seen in TV dramas and movies? The evil in human nature, the ferocity of spirits and monsters, and the poison of karma rebuild every Strange Tales story into a 1Reads—Score—Shelves
- 123 The Ominous Coffin 凶棺 It all started with a coffin that floated up from the river... I thought it was a fortune dropped from the sky, but it turned out to be a disaster. After I pried open the coffin, I began to feel that something unclean had followed me home. My daughter grew stranger by the day. She was only three, yet she had already started developing! 120Reads—Score—Shelves
- 124 Whispers of the Ghosts 鬼魅低语 [Standalone Stories] [Eerie] [Thriller] [Strange] [Wild Imagination] Worlds full of distortion and absurdity. Whether it's seemingly ordinary snippets of everyday life or strange phenomena that gradually come to light, everything sends a chill down your spine and grows more terrifying the more you think about it. 39Reads—Score—Shelves
- 125 Someone New Appeared in the Footage 录像里多出一个人 The test shoot’s discarded footage was four seconds longer. Everyone in the frame held the same poses they had at the end of filming. No one moved. I counted three times. There were six people every time. But only five people had been there that day. On the hard drive my mother left behind, there was an empty folder with a four-character name: Do Not Fast-Forward. In the recycle bin was a deleted video, four minutes and twenty-five seconds long, which couldn’t be recovered. Our production crew w 3Reads—Score—Shelves
- 126 Strange Tales, Volume 1 奇闻诡事录1 This is a collection of folk tales about the uncanny, strange accounts from across the land. Each chapter is a complete story, each tale a separate supernatural mystery, revealing the mysteries of yin and yang, folk taboos, and the obsessions of the dead. You never know when a casual remark might draw the attention of spirits lurking in the wilderness; when an old object you pick up might hold the memory of a tragic death; or when an everyday habit might already have crossed a forbidden boundary 20Reads—Score—Shelves
- 127 Eternal Damnation 永世沉沦 When I was little, my family was very poor. My father made me a kite out of paper, but when it came down from the sky, it was covered in blood... After that, all kinds of strange, inexplicable troubles began to descend upon me. To deal with them, I traveled across the country and ventured into one forbidden zone after another, places where no one knew there was life. It took me years to understand that what is truly terrifying is the human heart. When raging desire intertwines with the ugliness 765Reads7.9Score104Shelves
- 128 A Horror Story Lives Next Door 你的隔壁住着恐怖故事 Have you ever noticed how horror lurks everywhere in your everyday life? Listen. Listen closely... Where does horror come from? Nothing is scarier than reality. The unknown parts of our real lives, and the anxieties and desires we feel about them, are the greatest sources of horror. 12.3kReads9.4Score2kShelves
- 129 What Kind of Security Guard Is Responsible for Catching Ghosts? 谁家保安还负责抓鬼啊？ Baiyun Residential Complex is an upscale neighborhood, but the countless strange tales and ghost stories surrounding it have made many people wary of the place. The story begins when Li Si applies for a job as a security guard there... 5Reads—Score—Shelves
- 130 Thirty Years of Strange Tales from the Northeast 东北异事三十年 Forty years ago, the old man ventured into Ghost Mountain at night and negotiated with the ghosts, winning Dongshan Village forty years of peace. Forty years later, a lone grave has thrown the whole village into chaos. A tragedy from forty years ago has claimed nearly a hundred innocent lives! What started it all? Why has a corpse's white hair turned black, and what is the red-clad female ghost trying to point to when she appears at midnight? 178Reads7.3Score—Shelves
- 131 One Thousand and One Modern Tales of the Supernatural 一千零一个，现代灵异故事 [Based on True Stories] [Folktales] [Horror and the Supernatural] The stories in this novel feel full of everyday life. The people and events in every story are portrayed in a realistic way, bringing to life the supernatural experiences of all the main and supporting characters. If you’re a horror story fan, don’t miss this novel. (If you get scared, call your best hapless friend over… so you can be scared together.) 5.2kReads7.0Score212Shelves
- 132 Sewing Up Corpses at the Funeral Home, Until I Stitched Up My Blind Date 殡仪馆缝尸，缝到相亲对象 I learned corpse sewing from my grandma as a child. Before I even graduated from vocational school, funeral homes everywhere were clamoring to hire me. My monthly salary was 100,000 yuan, plus commission. Everyone said it was easy money, but nobody knew that a corpse seamstress stitches flesh and skin while laying restless souls to rest. My very first job went horribly wrong. When the body bag opened, I recognized that face at once. Wasn’t she the girlfriend who had slept beside me last night? A 1.6kReads6.9Score125Shelves
- 133 The Great Tomb of Ailao Mountain 哀牢山大墓 The Great Tomb of Ailao Mountain 4Reads—Score—Shelves
- 134 Haunted 撞邪 Can you guarantee that the people around you are really human? A lowly office worker had always kept his head down and worked in silence, until one day he accidentally discovered that his coworkers weren’t human at all… To stay alive, he has to pretend everything is normal, struggling to survive in the narrow cracks of this place day after day… 4.2kReads8.4Score304Shelves
- 135 Strange Little Tales from the Folk 灵异民间小故事 These are folk tales of the strange and supernatural, some true, some not. Some are quite old and have grown more and more fantastical with each retelling, so don't overanalyze them or take them too seriously. Some may resemble stories you already know, but that's purely coincidental. 171Reads6.5Score—Shelves
- 136 Multiple Fears 多重恐惧 An invitation to a party brings together nine writers, each with a very different style. At the party, the novelist who invited them traps everyone inside and demands that each guest tell a story. With no other choice, they comply. One story after another unfolds at the party: will they reveal the clash of human nature or unleash ghostly terrors? Everything will come to light here. "This is my debut work. I hope you'll show it plenty of support." 9Reads—Score—Shelves
- 137 A Performance at the Hour of Taboo 忌时演绎 The death knell rings, and black fog descends. With death hanging over you, you have no choice but to assume someone else's identity. Survive in an unfamiliar place where vengeful ghosts lurk, and struggle to breathe beneath the malice of unknown beings. With layers of fog all around, how long can you stay alive? Perhaps others have suffered the same fate as you, but will they be allies, or jackals ready to push you into the abyss? An emotionless, ethereal voice rings out: The forbidden hour has 390Reads8.0Score—Shelves
- 138 The Strange and Supernatural Things I’ve Heard and Seen 那些我所闻所见的灵异事 I’ll tell stories about the strange things that have happened to me over the years, along with the folk secrets and I Ching mysticism I’ve learned. At the start of each story, I’ll say whether I experienced it myself or heard it from someone else. I may not tell them in chronological order. I need to remember and organize everything, so I’ll just talk about whatever comes to mind. Things I experienced myself may be exaggerated, but they’re absolutely true. As for some of the stories I’ve heard, 2.5kReads—Score163Shelves
- 139 Silent Screams: True Records of 101 Major Cases, Season One 无声尖叫：101宗大案要案记实录（第一季） 41Reads9.0Score—Shelves
- 140 The Black Dog of Misty Mountain 雾山黑犬 Black Dog of Mist Mountain 8Reads—Score—Shelves
- 141 Twelve Ghosts 十二鬼魂 Twelve Ghosts 14Reads—Score—Shelves
- 142 The Delusion of the Final Sequence 终序之妄 [Dual heroines + mental illness + supernatural] Mo Shanshan has a pair of unusual crimson eyes. She can see ghosts, yet she’s been sent to a psychiatric hospital and diagnosed with delusional disorder. Ringing in your ears? That’s because people can’t understand what ghosts are saying! The Heavenly God Path, the Water Corpse Curse, corpse infants, a haunted lake, the collapse of the Six Paths of Reincarnation: is it all the plot of the Entropy God? No. This time, Luo Shisan absolutely will not d 21Reads—Score—Shelves
- 143 Chenyu Midnight Teahouse: A Collection of Strange Tales 宸宇午夜茶馆：短篇志怪故事集 Midnight. The tea boils. The lamps dim. When the city falls silent, stories from another world are just beginning. The Midnight Teahouse of Chenyu gathers dozens of Chinese-style tales of the strange and supernatural, told with the easygoing voice of a storyteller in an old teahouse. They unfold strange local happenings, the secrets of old houses, and eerie tales from the streets and alleys. Written in modern vernacular while carrying on the spirit of classical anecdotal tales, these stories wea 8.3kReads—Score433Shelves
- 144 Dead City 死城 In this book, I’ll take you in search of the eerie things hidden in the city, and the terrifying taboos lurking in everyday life. 1.7kReads8.4Score251Shelves
- 145 The Man Buried Upside Down 倒着埋的人 The Man Buried Upside Down 7Reads—Score—Shelves
- 146 Bureau 749: A Yin Messenger on the Road to the Underworld 749局：黄泉走阴人 There is an organization that exists only in the darkness: Bureau 749. Founded in 1974, with no records and no official status, it is made up of scientists and people with supernatural abilities. It handles the dirtiest, most sinister, most forbidden affairs in the human world. Ghost soldiers march through the night, leaving nothing but empty skins in an entire village. The White God of Wealth kills anyone who worships him, taking their souls to feed evil. An ancient Buddha opens its mouth to de 5Reads—Score—Shelves
- 147 The Haunted Old Mansion 恐怖老宅 The living guard the yang, while ghosts hold the yin in check. Yin and yang are inseparable, and nothing is forbidden. In this world, everyone is either human or ghost, yin or yang. But there are people who walk between the two realms all year round, neither human nor ghost. They are the Yin-Yang House Guardians! 54Reads7.0Score—Shelves
- 148 Supernatural Revival: From the Start, I Bet on a Livestream from a Psychiatric Hospital 灵异复苏开局对赌直播精神病院 Haunted House Livestream: Three Million to Save a Life. The People of Longguo Never Bow Their Heads [Supernatural revival + No System + No saintly protagonist + Fresh plot + Escape + Exploration + Crime solving + Not dark] Chen Feng opens his eyes in a foot massage parlor to find himself three million in debt and his younger sister on the brink of death! A mysterious creditor offers him a deal: livestream three trips into deadly places, and the money and your life are yours. The first stop is 3Reads—Score—Shelves
- 149 The Temple That Eats People 吃人的庙 The Man-Eating Temple 1Reads—Score—Shelves
- 150 Terrifying Tales 惊魂诡事 Deep, silent alleyways, eerie, terrifying deserted villages, reed marshes choked with weeds... Every scene holds some of my most unforgettable memories! Everything that happens in this book is something I saw or heard myself. You can also read it as a story. Curious about the supernatural tales that have taken place in rural villages and mountain hamlets? Have you ever heard of or seen something that made your hair stand on end? If you find yourself sleepless in the dead of night, put on your he 308Reads6.5Score—Shelves
