Novels like True Strange Tales from the Folk
Books Chinese readers most often put in the same booklists as True Strange Tales from the Folk, best match first.
- 1 The Yin-Yang Shopkeeper 阴阳掌柜 [Forgotten River Shop Rules] 1. The shop opens at the hour of the Pig and closes at the hour of the Rabbit. 2. Red cords are sold to the living, white candles to the dead. Do not mix them up. 3. If you see a customer whose feet do not touch the ground, do not trade with them. Close your eyes and look away until they leave on their own. 4. On the fifteenth of every month, you must complete a special order. It will be posted inside the counter. 5. Take good care of the bookkeeper. 1Reads—Score—14d adds
- 2 The Taoist Apprentice 实习道士 Daoist priests sound so awe-inspiring and righteous, but it's all an illusion. My unreliable master was the one who talked me into taking up the trade, and I've been through all sorts of strange and bizarre things... 3Reads—Score—14d adds
- 3 Send Money in the Living World, Climb the Rankings in the Underworld 阳间打钱，阴间打榜 My name is Chen Fugui. I died from working overtime. When I woke up, I was lying on a drab street in the underworld. The ghosts waiting in line beside me told me the Terrace of Looking Homeward was up ahead. Once I drank Granny Meng’s soup, I could cross the bridge and get my place on the roster. I didn’t drink it. My wife was still pregnant with a child I’d never met, and I wanted to wait a little longer. Then the Ghost Festival gala began. The living world was holding a vote for “the ghost mos —Reads—Score—14d adds
- 4 The Night of the Return 回魂之夜 The Night of Returning Souls —Reads—Score—14d adds
- 5 Rule Horror: I'm an NPC, and I'm Going Crazy Again Today 规则怪谈：我NPC，今天也发疯 Others enter Rule Horror scenarios to survive. I got sucked in as an NPC, and the System even forces me to go crazy. If I don’t, I die. Fine, then I’ll go crazy for everyone to see. 1Reads—Score—14d adds
- 6 The Eerie Game: From the Start, I Picked Up a Top-Tier Star 诡异游戏：开局捡个顶流女星 [Horror game + dark tone + unscrupulous tactics + Infinite Flow + one female lead] Could the strange creature Gu Changqing brought out of a haunted villa really be a top-tier star and a high-level player in the horror game? And does she really need to form a "deep connection" with Gu Changqing and devour his "life essence" to maintain her human form...? 9Reads8.0Score—14d adds
- 7 The Down-and-Out Pet Husband I Picked Up Is Actually a Big Shot 捡的落魄小宠夫竟是真大佬 The day my scumbag ex publicly called off our engagement, I casually picked up a homeless boy and asked, “Want to marry me?” He nodded obediently, his eyes shining like a fallen star. Later, when my ex discovered I was the second princess of Tianqi Group, he knelt outside my villa and begged me to take him back. Wearing the silk pajamas I bought him, the boy leaned against the door and smiled. “If you want to be my little kept husband, you’ll have to get in line, Sis.” At an auction, he casually 1Reads—Score—14d adds
- 8 The Beautiful Teacher Asked Me for Help, and I Became Her White Bone Lady 美女老师求助我，我的白骨夫人 The Beautiful Teacher Asked Me for Help, and My White Bone Madam 1Reads—Score—14d adds
- 9 The Water That Ate People in My Childhood Village 小时候，乡下吃人的水 When I Was Little, the Water in the Countryside Ate People —Reads—Score—14d adds
- 10 My Passengers Aren't Human 我的乘客，不是人 My Passengers Aren't Human —Reads—Score—14d adds
- 11 Food Delivery Rules: Don't Look Back 外卖规则：别回头 Food Delivery Rules: Don't Look Back —Reads—Score—14d adds
- 12 The Curse of 3:45 PM 下午3:45的诅咒 The Curse at 3:45 p.m. —Reads—Score—14d adds
- 13 A Billion-Dollar Collection of Horror Stories 一个亿恐怖故事集 A Collection of One Hundred Million Horror Stories [Standalone stories + supernatural horror + folk customs + feng shui and mysticism + heartfelt emotion + mild horror + timid readers beware] A hundred wildly different tragic fates await. When long-forbidden folk taboos passed down by the ancestors are broken, and eerie legends from the corners of the city quietly come true, the everyday world you know will begin to fall apart on the very next page. Whispers by the pillow, shadows beneath the wa 3Reads—Score—14d adds
- 14 My Girlfriend Is a Corpse 我的女友是腐尸 On the day before graduation, my girlfriend turned into a rotting corpse overnight, all because I was responsible for what happened... 131Reads—Score11214d adds
- 15 A Modern Narrative of Supernatural Horror 灵恐现叙事 Original horror and paranormal fiction. Horror stories are only meant to help everyone unwind, not to make you more afraid. We welcome discerning readers to come and help answer everyone’s questions... 6Reads—Score—14d adds
- 16 The Hidden Chamber 诡藏室 On the edge of a bustling city stands the Lin family’s ancestral home, a sprawling old mansion utterly out of step with the times. Reporter Jiang Wan moved into the family estate after marrying her husband, Lin Jianshen. Gradually, she begins to notice his secretive comings and goings, the rooms in the house that remain locked year-round, and an indescribable chill in the air. One night, by chance, Jiang Wan sees Lin Jianshen carefully seal an old, bloodstained wooden comb inside a specially mad —Reads—Score—14d adds
- 17 Reborn to Save You: Death Replay 重生一次拯救你-死亡回档 Reborn Once to Save You: Death Rewind —Reads—Score—14d adds
- 18 Reborn in 1998: From Scrap Collector to Global Tycoon 重生98：从收破烂到全球首富 Billionaire Chen Yuan breathes his last in a hospital bed, closing his eyes with endless guilt over his wife, Lin Shiyu. When he opens them again, he is back in the sweltering summer of 1998, an era when fortunes lie everywhere for the taking. His memories of the future, 27 years ahead of everyone else, are his greatest asset as he starts over. Beginning with a street stall selling radios, he will reclaim everything that should have been his, one step at a time. He beats Boss Ma to the punch, in 121Reads—Score—14d adds
- 19 Dragons and Serpents in the Sea of Sand 沙海龙蛇 In 1985, in the Congo Desert, he was clutching half a handful of tea leaves and starving to the point of becoming a lamb led to slaughter. In this desperate situation, Chen Mo, a Chinese survivor, seized a spring by force in Dead Camel Valley and founded the Rock Corps. After ten years of bloodshed, the group grew from four men to control three desert cities. Through sheer ruthlessness and cunning, Chen Mo carved out a domain. Then the prodigy Rudy rose to power. With an iron fist and boundless 4Reads6.2Score—14d adds
- 20 The God in the Cage 笼中之神 This is a requiem for prisoners, echoing between the abyss of reality and illusion. When the prison of consciousness is exposed, will you choose to sink into a sweet lie, or awaken to a cruel truth and be destroyed? The answer was already decided from the very start of the search. 1Reads—Score—14d adds
- 21 The Ming Dynasty Dream-Eater Chronicles 大明噬梦录 In the tenth year of the Wanli reign, demons and monsters roam behind the lantern-lit streets of Jinling. Tong Yan, a junior official at the Imperial Observatory, finds a strange black cat gravely wounded on a rainy night. With jade-black fur and mismatched eyes, it feeds on nightmares and sees through the demons lurking in people’s hearts. A painted-skin ghost combs her hair night after night, while a seamstress’s fingers are utterly ruined. Hongwu-era coins reappear, and everyone who obtains o —Reads—Score—14d adds
- 22 Life at a Crossroads 岔路人生 If you could truly live your life over again, would you regret the choices you made? Shen Que never imagined there could be a real answer to that question. That day, the subway stopped at 5:42 p.m. Two people with the same name and the same face, each having lived through twenty-seven years that were almost, but not quite, the same, appeared before him at once. Only then did he learn the truth: Every truly important choice could allow another version of your life to keep going. They weren' —Reads—Score—14d adds
- 23 The Fear-Soothing Shop 收惊铺 Don’t open this novel in the middle of the night! The protagonist runs a shop in Nanjing that helps people ward off evil spirits and calm their fright. He thinks it’s just a way to make a living, until one rainy night, a woman rushes into his shop and says her husband vanished into thin air at the foot of Baohua Mountain. I went to investigate, and after a fishpond was drained, an ancient well over a thousand years old appeared beneath it, covered in talismans! Buried inside was none other than 359Reads—Score—14d adds
- 24 Doomsday Makeup Class: Surviving Among Zombies with Stinky Tofu 末日化妆班，靠臭豆腐混丧尸堆 The apocalypse has arrived, and zombies are surrounding the city. Zhang Yu, a makeup instructor, hasn’t even had time to finish her class when she’s swept into this fight for survival. Looking at her trembling students, Zhang Yu slaps her thigh. “Machetes and guns? We don’t have any! But makeup brushes, foundation, and half a box of stinky tofu? Those are the ultimate survival weapons!” Smear some gray-black paint on your face, add a few lifelike streaks of blood, then slather on a secret “zombi —Reads—Score—14d adds
- 25 Corridor of Resentment: Endless Terror 怨念回廊：无尽恐怖 When the bloody handprint on the classroom blackboard dragged Chen Mo into the Corridor of Resentment, he thought it was just a hallucination brought on by near-death. That is, until he saw his best friend in the hospital instance, chewed to pieces by his own mirror double, dissolving into a cloud of blood. [Welcome to the Five-Dimensional Corridor of Resentment. Clear 80 dimensions to reach the Gate of Guixu.] As the icy announcement rang out, the five-person team was forced onto a path of no r 2Reads7.7Score114d adds
- 26 A Ghostly Officer in My Arms 阴差入怀 The living world hides the uncanny, while the underworld makes its rounds. An old foundation-piling case, long buried, draws the living and the dead into a deadly pursuit across both worlds. A decisive, aloof CEO in the world of the living, and a rookie underworld constable just starting out in the netherworld. What kind of sparks will fly between a human and a ghost? This is an urban supernatural romance about justice and redemption, with a pursuit of love. —Reads—Score—14d adds
- 27 Top-Secret Blueprints: 1986 绝密图纸：1986 Set in 1986, this long-form web novel for male readers blends rebirth in a bygone era, military engineering research, espionage and counterintelligence, and devotion to country and family. It tells the story of Lu Changfeng, a top submarine engineering expert in his previous life, who is assassinated by foreign spies and reborn in the 1980s. Armed with decades-ahead knowledge of core nuclear submarine technology, he devotes himself to mastering two top-secret innovations: silent nuclear propulsi 9Reads6.7Score—14d adds
- 28 The Transmigrators' Alliance: Dedicated to Tearing Apart Twisted Plots 穿越者联盟，专拆变态剧本 After waking from a deep sleep, Qin Weiwei, an information architect at the Ministry of State Security, finds herself the frail, dying legitimate daughter of the Minister of Personnel. But she is horrified to discover this is no transmigration. It is a cage. After entering the palace, she discovers she is not alone. Chu Huaiyu, a widow who carves silverware with shards of broken porcelain; Su Jingyao, an orphan who arranges flowers with the precision of a chemistry experiment; and Lu Zhaoyue, a —Reads—Score—14d adds
- 29 The Greatest Folk Art of All 民间第一奇术 When Mother was pregnant with me, my older brother thought I shouldn't be allowed to live. He was supposed to be the only son in the family! From that day on, Mother started acting strange. I was born in a coffin and survived on milk from the dead! My name is Chen Guansheng. 429Reads8.4Score10014d adds
- 30 Strange Tales from Candle Bridge 烛桥异闻 [Supernatural]+ [Xuanhuan]+ [Tomb Exploration] The story takes place in a rural village called Shizhu Village. Told from the perspective of the protagonist, Fang Jidou, it recounts how his father and grandmother ward off evil and avert disasters for their neighbors. The village built a Candle Bridge to support production, but someone disrupted its feng shui, unleashing a series of strange events. Some people saw things in their dreams, some heard rumors, and some experienced them firsthand. Ther 1Reads—Score—14d adds
- 31 I, Zombie Celestial Master, Picked Up an Ancestor of Zombies. That's Normal, Right? 我，僵尸天师，捡漏个尸祖正常吧 Bai Xiang, a First-Rank Celestial Master of the Celestial Master Sect, encounters evil spirits terrorizing a small town as soon as he leaves the sect. He expects to exterminate the demons with ease, but the villagers mistake him for a fraud and attack him. The demons even ambush him, nearly costing him his life. Yet at the brink of death, a hidden power within Bai Xiang awakens. He can absorb the demons' blood essence, heal his wounds, and even command zombies as easily as moving his own limbs! —Reads—Score—14d adds
- 32 I Became the Village Secretary Right After Graduation, and I Really Can't Handle It 刚毕业就当村书记，我真的顶不住 Who could have expected it? A top student at Capital University of Technology and student council president, he had always looked forward to a nine-to-five career in the city. As graduation approached, he resolutely put down roots at the grassroots level and headed for a remote mountain village. Taking on the roles of both Party branch secretary and village committee director, he shouldered the responsibility of developing the countryside. A recent graduate who had never worked the fields and kn —Reads—Score—14d adds
- 33 The Old Ancestor Has Arrived: Even Heaven Is in for a Shake-Up 老祖宗驾到，天庭都给你掀了 [The heroine never puts up with mistreatment] [She gets revenge on the spot] [Engineering genius] Just as the third young lady of the Wu family is being tormented by her own older sister, a crack opens in the sky, sending down an ancient powerhouse armed with the complete body of knowledge from the Industrial Revolution, who forcefully possesses her! Other families’ immortal ancestors fly on swords and show off their magic weapons. The Wu family’s powerhouse makes a flintlock rifle by hand to s 6Reads8.1Score—14d adds
- 34 The Alluring Beauty Who Made the Tragic Romance Hero Cry 钓系美人，虐文男主被我虐哭了 [One-to-many romance + teasing heroine + powerful men all around + men competing for her + regret and redemption + intense push and pull] A tragic-romance supporting heroine? Not even a dog would take that role… I’ll take it! I’m going to be the tragic-romance heroine. A seductive demoness who delighted in playing with people’s hearts and treated men like playthings transmigrates into a novel and becomes its tragic-romance heroine. She hears they’re treating her as a stand-in for her older siste 1.7kReads8.1Score23514d adds
- 35 Plum Blossoms Battle for a Thousand Miles 梅战千里 This is an age of war! The Tianyu Empire is beset by troubles. Wolf tribes threaten its northern borders, remnants of the previous dynasty lurk in the south, and border conflicts erupt one after another. The land is in peril. To the east, the golden-haired, blue-eyed Stardust army ravages the lands of the neighboring state of Dongsong. The brave Deputy General Dai Longmei longs to follow her father and brothers in an expedition against the Star People, but by chance she meets Lili, a tomb-raidin 32Reads8.4Score—14d adds
- 36 Great Qin: I Have a Little World 大秦：我有一个小世界 After accidentally binding to the Myriad Worlds Domain Lord System, Qin Feng empties Blue Star's nuclear arsenal and stockpiles of modern supplies, then transmigrates as the illegitimate son of the First Emperor, Ying Zheng! He possesses a chaotic minor world capable of storing billions of supplies, unlocks heaven-defying physiques and abilities, including perfect recall and heaven-defying comprehension, and has a System sign-in function that gives him modern breakthroughs every day! Bronze stir 18Reads—Score114d adds
- 37 Thanks to Worshipping Demons, I Have to Spend 200 Million in a Month or Die 拜鬼所赐一个月花完两亿否则死 Two million appears in my bank account every day, and I have to spend it all before midnight. At first, I think it's a windfall, and I splash the cash on a life of luxury and excess. But little by little, I realize that spending money has become a carefully designed death game. Something's wrong! This isn't luck, it's a curse. The ghost said that if I don't spend it all, it'll take my organs as payment. Today, there's only one minute left before the transfer, and the drink in my hand keeps winni 1.9kReads6.1Score11114d adds
- 38 One Room and Half a Person 一间房半个人 I played the fool for sixteen years just to stay out of the feuds of the wealthy, but I was still murdered. Now I’ve returned from hell, invincible. I’ll enter the mortal world and flatten the city, then descend underground and sweep across every corner of the land. Everything you treasure means nothing to me anymore... —Reads—Score—14d adds
- 39 Abyss of Horror and the Supernatural 恐怖灵异深渊 My name is Chen Geng. Yes, Geng as in the night watchman. I also have an older brother who is half a year younger than me. You read that right: my biological older brother is half a year younger than I am. I was born unlucky, so I often find myself caught up in things most people will never experience in their entire lives. Now, allow me to tell you about it, bit by bit. —Reads—Score—14d adds
- 40 Ten Lifetimes of Reincarnation: The Bottom-Ranked Outer Disciple Strikes Back 十世轮回，外门倒数的我杀回来了 Shen Zhuye’s family owned the last incense and candle shop in Qingxi Town. One day, he opened the account book and found three words on the final page that hadn’t been there before: One Question Owed. The words in the account book could ask questions on their own. That night, someone knocked at the door. The food delivery was half a bag of pond mud. As a chill crept in through the crack beneath the door, a man in white shielded him from disaster and spoke eight words: You have one year left to 190Reads—Score14314d adds
- 41 The Ultimate Ghost-Raising Master 极品养鬼师 [Adult] + [Adorable Pets] + [Sharp Tongue] + [Making Money] + [Secret Arts] Do you know how to raise ghosts? No worries, I do! Do you know how to catch ghosts? No worries, I do that too! Do you know where to find ghosts? No worries, I’ll take you there! Watch your step. Get in! —Reads—Score—14d adds
- 42 In the Snow: Riding an Ox Across the Jianghu, Crushing Wang Xian from the Start 雪中：骑牛踏江湖，开局碾压王仙 I was just chanting scriptures and dozed off for a moment, only to knock over the memorial tablet of the Dao Ancestor of Tongtian! The next second, the Dao Ancestor slapped me straight into the world of Snow! Fortunately, Heaven bestowed upon me the complete inheritance of the Jie Sect. With near-invincible strength from the start, I mastered every kind of cultivation art, talisman, and formation. My cultivation had no bottlenecks, I crushed anyone at my level, and I slaughtered opponents above 141Reads—Score1214d adds
- 43 Subduing Evil 镇邪 There are always mysterious things in this world, yet people dismiss them as nonsense. Miaojiang gu poison, corpse-driving in western Hunan, Nanyang curses, the Flowerfall Cave Maiden, shamanic sorcery, and yin-yang demons are all forbidden taboos. You don't have to believe in them, but you must remain in awe. Above all, never profane them! When the taboo soul bell rings out in the sky and ancient horrors quietly awaken, the world teeters on the brink of disaster. Will there still be someone who 637Reads6.2Score—14d adds
- 44 The Surreal Club 超现实俱乐部 [No System + slow-paced + urban high martial arts. The first scenario is a transition; the second kicks things into high gear.] It was during a torrential downpour that a blood-red QR code and a black-and-gold envelope brought an invitation from hell. Ghosts, gods, spirits, monsters! One scenario after another, one surreal event after another. Are these game instances, or another world? By chance, Chen Rang steps into this bizarre and fantastical world. He often wonders: is he a player, a cannon —Reads6.1Score—14d adds
- 45 The Heavenly Official's Edict 天官敕令 When Chen Qi awakens the long-lost “Word Spirit Edict” during a haunted-house livestream, he thinks it’s just a way to earn money to save his father. But when fragments of an antique bronze mirror reveal a thousand-year-old formation, and the technology group “Entropy” uses algorithms to optimize feng shui and kill, he realizes he’s been dragged into an ultimate war between traditional occult arts and modern technology. From malignant spirits in haunted houses to ghost soldiers on the march, and 1Reads—Score—14d adds
- 46 This Immortal Is a Fake! 这仙，是假的！ The ancient True Immortal Realm was destroyed one hundred thousand years ago in the Catastrophe of the Dao’s Collapse. The laws of Heaven shattered, the power of True Immortals dissipated, and only a handful of ancient ruins, broken immortal bones, and incomplete Dao scriptures remained. In later ages, ignorant beings stumbled upon scattered fragments in the ruins and mistook the incomplete information for a complete system of cultivation. By imitating and fabricating what they found, they creat 34Reads—Score314d adds
- 47 Are You Crazy? I’m the Client for 'It' in the Seventies 疯了吧！我在七零给“它”当甲方 Are you kidding me?! I’m a client hiring “it” in the 1970s 2Reads—Score—14d adds
- 48 The Tomb-Keeper's Shaman Boy 守陵巫童 My name is Shen Yan, the lowliest tomb-guarding shaman boy on Mount Cangwu. A vengeful spirit in white bit my neck, leaving behind a black, snake-shaped mark. She said I had forty-nine days left to live. I thought that was as bad as things could get. Until my fellow disciples sold me out, and the tomb warden sealed off the mountain to hunt me down. Until the remnant soul of a Martial Emperor, who had slept beneath the earth for a thousand years, began coveting my cinnabar-bloodline body. One w 2Reads—Score—14d adds
- 49 Journey to the West: From the Start, I Make the Mosquito Jade Emperor Cry with My Bite 西游：开局蚊子玉帝被我叮哭了 [Journey to the West Fanfic] + [Nonhuman From the Start] + [Scheming, Cautious Path] + [Farming Across the Three Realms] + [God-Tier Trickster] Overworked office drone Lin Feng died suddenly and was reborn in Journey to the West as a mosquito, awakening the [Great Dao Devouring System]. From the start, he gained five hundred years of invulnerability. Devour anything, and evolve without limit! [Ding! Successfully devoured the Dragon Qi of the Celestial Emperor. Cultivation +1,000 years!] [Ding! S 4Reads7.3Score—14d adds
- 50 Above the Well's Edge 井沿之上 Wu Hao, 28, is a young man from a small town, forced by his father to stay in the county seat under threat of suicide. Zhang Xueyan, 26, is the office’s perennial “nice girl,” passed over for promotion every time. Then the mysterious Qiu Shilin hands them an unsigned manual, filled with “rules for the strong”: leave your hometown, stop letting people take advantage of you, set boundaries, build relationships with influential people... They believe in it. Over the next ten years, Wu Hao goes from 1Reads—Score—14d adds
