Novels like The Strange Gate Subdues the Eight Wastelands
Books Chinese readers most often put in the same booklists as The Strange Gate Subdues the Eight Wastelands, best match first.
- 101 The Celestial Master Is Here, and I Am the Evil God 天师在此，我为邪神 [Folklore Supernatural + Underdog's Rise + Mystery and Twists + Cool Exterior, Contrasting Side] When I was twelve, my father ran away. Now that I'm seventeen, my sister is close to death. The village's old blind man said someone in the Liu family had died. If I sneaked into their home and stole a carpenter's ink line, I could save my sister. So I went. In the end, I discovered that the thing lying in the coffin wasn't human. After my sister was saved, I thought that surviving a great cala —Reads—Score—14d adds
- 102 The Shroud Tailor 寿衣匠 [Supernatural Horror + Leveling + Supernatural Collecting + No Romance, Healing] It may start slowly, but if you keep reading, you should find something to enjoy. The most obsessive attachments in this world turn into threads. My job is to find them, weave them into a shroud for battle, and uphold my own sense of justice! [Thread of Worry]: A mother’s concern that she never forgot, even in death. I drape it over myself, and it blocks a deadly curse for me. [Thread of Scent]: A stray dog’s longin —Reads—Score—14d adds
- 103 A Hundred-Year-Old Villager’s Tales of Ghosts and the Supernatural 农村百岁老人口述鬼怪奇谈 I grew up in the countryside, and whenever I had free time, I liked listening to centenarians in the village tell strange tales of ghosts and other uncanny events from days gone by. I have collected, recorded, and adapted these folk stories. There is no overarching plot. Each chapter is a standalone horror story. Not for the faint of heart!!! 32Reads—Score—14d adds
- 104 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
- 105 Breaking the Deadlock: Inheriting the Feng Shui Arts of a Scruffy Old Man 破局：继承邋遢老头的风水术 On the first day of school, a disheveled old Taoist blocked my way. With a single remark, he revealed the secret of the bronze cauldron my mother had left behind, then warned me to stay away from my roommate, whose birth chart was purely yin. The moment I turned around, I discovered a life-draining thread of yin energy wrapped around my roommate. And the university we attended was nothing less than a geomantic death trap laid two hundred years ago! Born with a purely yang birth chart, I wield a 2Reads—Score—14d adds
- 106 I’m a Descendant of the Zhang Family 我是张家后人 [Mysterious Inheritance + Spiritual Qi Revival + Folk Legends + Mr. Vampire + Homage to the Classics + Classic of Mountains and Seas] The world has gone mad. Zhang Su was just trying to unwind with a drink after work when he encountered a supernatural incident in an underground parking garage. A decorative sword he had bought online somehow got him tangled up with the paranormal. The Cat-Faced Granny, monsters from the Classic of Mountains and Seas, village guardians from folk legends, and pre-Q 3Reads—Score—14d adds
- 107 Chaos Invades the World, and I Become a God by Mediating Disputes 全球混沌入侵，我靠调解成神 Light is not necessarily pure, and darkness may hold warmth. The answer lies in a truth deeper than the abyss. When the only hope of saving the world points down a dead-end path with no chance of survival, will you still have the courage to wager everything on a faint glimmer of light? 3Reads—Score—14d adds
- 108 A Bewildering Labyrinth of Strange Tales 诡谲迷迭 [Infinite Flow] [No Golden Finger] My name is Wang Hong. My younger sister has gone mad. She's been haunted by a ghost. When I started searching for the truth, I was haunted by a ghost too. I should have realized sooner. Now, there's no going back. And ghosts are like a plague. I was the one who brought them into the lives of those around me. Believe me, I didn't mean to. If she comes to find me, it'll be inevitable once she comes to her senses. Anyway, while I was still more or less lucid, I le 2Reads—Score—14d adds
- 109 The Fortune-Teller's Stall on Old Street: One Look Reveals Your Fortune and Misfortune 老街摆摊相师，一眼断祸福 Protagonist: Chen Qingxuan, a fortune-teller who lives in seclusion and sets up a stall on the old street of a small town. Calm and steady, he has an uncanny eye for people and understands feng shui, physiognomy, and karmic cause and effect. He is kindhearted and never charges the poor. 385Reads—Score10514d adds
- 110 Urban Hauntings: My Paper Knife Can Pierce Illusions 都市诡异：我的纸刀能破妄 The rating has just been released, so it may still go up. Zhang Ping, an unemployed advertising copywriter, is attacked by a paper figure with a slit mouth in his shared apartment on a stormy night, at the lowest point in his life. On the verge of death, he desperately throws out an old piece of yellow paper he has carried for years, unexpectedly activating a fragment of the ancestral “Blade of Illusion-Breaking” and a mysterious “Night Watchman System.” The System turns terrifying supernatural 3Reads8.3Score—14d adds
- 111 This Taoist Master Can Really Catch Ghosts! 道爷我真能捉鬼啊！ [Young Taoist priest] [Jiangshi] [Magical duels] [Ghost hunting] [Romance, but no womanizing] [School life] When I was young, I regretted having so little affinity with the Dao. Now I fear I have too much! Young man, if you could choose all over again, would you still leave the mountain? Zhang Wuming’s unscrupulous master tricked him into coming down the mountain with a roast chicken. Only later did he realize he’d been sold! Sold to a rich man to protect his daughter for a year! “You old dog, j 54.3kReads7.7Score3.6k14d adds
- 112 My Shrine Is Full of Jokers and Screw-Ups 我的堂口，全是逗比和坑货 Yang Erlang reincarnated + an ancient tragic love + a cast of screwups + face-slapping comeback The whole village laughs at me for being a useless spirit medium. The immortals at my altar are all lazy screwups, and my uncle, a Qingfeng spirit and master thief, is the most unreliable of them all. I smash the ancestral copper coin and single-handedly conquer the Nine Hells. The underworld's soldiers keep three paces away from me! One sentence from my little aunt, muttered in her sleep, reveals t 8Reads—Score114d adds
- 113 Folk Feng Shui Taboos: I Can Expose Life-or-Death Traps 民间风水禁忌：我能点破生死局 He can see at a glance the deadly traps hidden in homes and burial grounds, but he never dares speak up. Every taboo he exposes costs someone a life. Until the night he revealed the “blood coffin crushing the pulse” to save an orphan girl. Seven people in the village died violent deaths, and with their dying breath, they all pointed at him: “It was you... You should have died long ago.” The truth was, he wasn’t a feng shui master at all. He was the “Life-Substitution Judge,” chosen by the ancien —Reads—Score—14d adds
- 114 Village Tales of the Chosen One 乡村怪谈之天命人 Programmer Wu Jie possesses the ancestral “Truth-Piercing Eye” and is forced to return to the isolated mountain village of Shoushan to inherit his family home. By day, the village seems perfectly normal, but at night it is shrouded in eerie taboos. Every night beneath the old locust tree at the village entrance, a woman in red appears and asks, “Am I more like a human or a god?” Anyone who answers incorrectly either dies or goes mad. While the villagers tremble and obey rules that have been foll 2Reads—Score—14d adds
- 115 Hounded by a Thousand Evils: Keep Your Distance 万邪缠身：生人勿近 The Exorcist Pavilion sits at the corner of an old alley. Ordinary people are not welcome, and it only takes cases involving people plagued by evil spirits. A red-clad ghost in an ancient well, a legless woman in an elevator, a slit wrist in the mirror, sobbing in a karaoke room, a bloody birth chart in a wardrobe, a shadow in the break room... Miaojiang gu sorcery, corpse-driving Taoists, and Nanyang black magic all take turns appearing. Jiang Xun: As long as you can pay the price, I'll snatch —Reads—Score—14d adds
- 116 The Haunted Inn 凶灵旅店 At Qiyun Inn, tucked deep in the mountains, terrifying ghost stories have been passed down for years. In this isolated place, the shadow of a desperate death looms! Is it the curse of an evil spirit, or a sinister plot by ruthless criminals? In these fog-shrouded, pitch-black mountains and wilderness, a strange dark shape suddenly appears up ahead! Is it a person? An animal? Or... a ghost? Through the dark rain and fog, a solitary, old-fashioned courtyard comes into view. A towering tree with an 159Reads8.9Score—14d adds
- 117 The Nuo Dancer's Ordeal 傩人难 Isolated and misunderstood, two people just alike meet because of fate. What kind of story will unfold? Will it be funny or terrifying? Everything takes place beneath a vast shadow. 2Reads—Score—14d adds
- 118 Master of Folk Occult Arts: My Livestream Terrifies the Entire Internet 民间秘法大师，直播吓疯全网 [Horror + no romance + comedy + innate spirit body + spirit communication + maximum fear factor] My younger sister drew the death lot, and the whole village demanded she be sacrificed. I turned on a livestream and made a century-old vengeful ghost into sashimi. From then on, haunted houses became my cafeteria, and ghost kings became takeout. The authorities begged me to work with them, the Taoist sects revered me as a master, and the underworld begged me to livestream. When fear returned and a h 70Reads—Score714d adds
- 119 I’m Going to Lure 100 Lost Souls 我要勾满100个亡魂 Sequel to I Guide Souls at Wangxiang Terrace Lin Jiaojiao, 24, an overworked office worker, suddenly dies on the Nth night in a row of staying up all night revising proposals. When she opens her eyes again, she has already completed every step of the underworld’s procedures. But just as she reaches Wangxiang Terrace, the guide Zhou Yi stops her. “Your attachment remains unresolved. You can’t be reincarnated.” Judge Li Muzi offers her a way forward: work as a soul reaper under him, and she can be 11.2kReads—Score4k14d adds
- 120 I Eavesdrop on the Little Fox's Thoughts and Become a Top-Tier Star of the Daoist World 偷听小狐狸心声，我成了道家顶流 [Slow-Burn Romance + Supernatural Mystery + Ghost and Demon Hunting] An irreverent young Taoist priestess + a naturally desireless nine-tailed fox Luo Li was born with the fate of a Yin messenger. She catches ghosts to store up life force! At first, she was just earning one day of life at a time, until she made a pact with a divine fox. One bizarre case after another soon came her way. Ghostly hoaxes, a rat spirit causing trouble, mending fractured souls, venturing into the sea, entering the gho —Reads—Score—14d adds
- 121 I'm a Bar Owner, Forced to Catch Ghosts 我，酒吧老板，被迫营业捉鬼 [Horror + supernatural + semi-invincible + no System + not brainless + ruthless decisiveness] I’m Heibai, an utterly ordinary bar owner. I only wanted to live a quiet life, but one commission and one problem after another keep landing on my doorstep. Curse magic, a drug-induced dreamless sleep, a yin-yang wedding, a deadly text message... As the Underworld descends, little Jiangcheng becomes a den of danger, and one strange incident after another unfolds. Well, looks like I can’t hide my abiliti 1.2kReads8.8Score11014d adds
- 122 Better Not to Meet Again 看见不如不见 “You’re not a curse. You’re the key!” “If you don’t want to die, stay away from me.” “Liu Yan, stop licking your lips! You might poison yourself!” “Mind your own business and you’ll live longer!” “Praying to gods? Worshipping Buddha? You’d be better off kowtowing to me.” “I decide whether you stay or go.” Better not to see me than to see me. I’m not talking about myself. I mean all of you. 11Reads—Score—14d adds
- 123 A Record of Funerals in a Small Town 小城丧葬录 In 2020, Rongcheng was battered by torrential rain. At 32, Chen Yan hit rock bottom after falling from a government post. Forced to resign over an air-gun incident, he crashed while hauling freight, went unpaid by an advertising agency, broke his leg at a construction site, and eventually became a food delivery rider, scraping by between his mortgage and daily expenses. One rainy night, he stopped to help someone and stumbled into the Xiao An Funeral Parlor, where he met Old Yang, who secretly c 4Reads—Score—14d adds
- 124 Secrets of the Mortuary 殓尸秘录 Chen Mo is the young heir to the Wangsheng Studio funeral home. He thought he would spend his life in quiet company with cold, lifeless bodies. Then he took charge of a strange corpse known as the “Bride in Red,” and everything began to spiral out of control. The body never decays, and its smile is as lovely as a flower. The bronze bell tied around its ankle rings silently in the dead of night. From then on, Chen Mo is swept into one whirlpool after another, woven from local ghost stories and ho 3Reads8.3Score—14d adds
- 125 The Fox Immortal Seeks a Title: I Said You Look Like My Future Wife 狐仙讨封：我说你像我未来的老婆 The white fox who once snuggled under the covers with me came to ask me to grant her a human form. I said: “You look like my future wife: a tempting face and figure, a slender waist, soft breasts, peach-round hips, fair skin, stunning looks, and long legs. You're even more beautiful than a nine-tailed fox spirit descended to the mortal world.” 18Reads—Score—14d adds
- 126 One Man, Five Ghosts: Want to Run? Pay Five Million First 一个男人五个鬼，想跑先赔五百万 [Completed novel + horror + supernatural + comeback + face-slapping + episodic stories] My name is Cao Dakui, and I just inherited a massive fortune: a four-hundred-square-meter luxury apartment in the capital, plus a storefront. Sounds great, right? Except... The butler in the apartment says he was born during the Wanli era. One of the residents is a beautiful woman who, whenever she's in a good mood, takes off her head and plays with it like a ball. There's also a mysterious person living in t 298Reads—Score10214d adds
- 127 The Sinful Eye 罪业视界 The people they're hunting aren't the killers, but the dead. There's a rumor at the local police station that no one dares discuss openly: retired veteran detective Yan Mingguo can see the "sins" people carry. Faced with the baffling "Red-Clad Bride Serial Murder Case," rookie officer Lin Fan knocks on Yan Mingguo's battered iron door, having run out of options. After touching the evidence, the old man delivers a chilling verdict: "The killer isn't human..." "But it isn't a ghost, either." He —Reads—Score—14d adds
- 128 Merufa 梅鲁法 In Fenghuang, western Hunan, Chen Lu, a master who practices both Maoshan and Meishan arts, finds a copper coin engraved with the character “Lu” in a fresh grave. The dead person’s soul has been taken, and the coin is an invitation left for him. That same night, a woman named Mei Ruosheng arrives through the rain. Her arms are covered in living patterns, and she carries a lost handwritten text, The Lu-Mei Art. Chen Lu has the same markings on his arm. They are something he sealed away ten years 7Reads—Score114d adds
- 129 The Heavenly Fate Shop 天命铺 Some borrow years from others. Some change their fate. Some seek wealth. Some yearn for children. But people don't know that every gift fate bestows comes with a price already marked. My name is Lu Qing. Other fortune-tellers charge money. I tell fortunes and collect lives. Before my grandfather died, he left me with just one sentence: “The day the Heavenly Fate Shop opens is the day you repay your debt.” Then one day, a little girl, soaked from head to toe, walked into my shop… She handed me a 8Reads—Score—14d adds
- 130 The Person Under the Bed, the Eye on the Wall, the Peeping Tom Outside the Door 床下的人，墙上的眼，门外的窥 The person beneath the bed, the eye on the wall, the peeping outside the door 2Reads—Score—14d adds
- 131 The Daoist's Notebook 道门笔记 On a rainy night in Suzhou, a night watchman comes across a barefoot, waterlogged corpse. Its face is blue, its fangs bared, and beneath the black chrysanthemum mark between its brows, something writhes under the flesh, making the skin bulge in terrifying waves. The Thunder Talisman from Longhu Mountain has barely warmed in his hands when the corpse vanishes, leaving only a sickly-sweet black mist curling around an old Daoist at the street corner. Hong Ying, a Miao woman, watches her golden sil 14Reads8.8Score—14d adds
- 132 Sanliao: China's Number One Feng Shui Village, a Thousand Years in the Making 千年三僚：中国风水第一村 [Feng shui + sacred sites of geomancy + geomantic arts + feng shui masters + feng shui knowledge, taboos, and ways to overcome them + mysticism, occult arts, fortune-telling, divination, and geomancy that can change both fate and fortune + no transmigration, no livestreaming, no female lead] In the chaotic final years of the Tang dynasty, Yang Junsong, also known as Yang Jiupin and Yang Yi, and later honored as Master Yang, carried a compass and led two boys into the mountains of Xingguo Sanliao 4Reads—Score—14d adds
- 133 Eerie Descent: The Great Sage Taught Me to Draw a Prison, and It Begins 诡异降临：大圣传我画地为牢开始 After transmigrating to ancient times, Chen Fan opened his eyes to a living hell. The Great Yan dynasty had reached its final days. Strange monsters roamed everywhere, devouring people’s vital energy and turning them into puppets. He became one of countless refugees, struggling to survive in the mud beneath the city walls, living each day with hunger, exhaustion, and the ever-present fear of death. Hope was scarce. His only lifeline was a Journey to the West game interface inside him that charge —Reads—Score—14d adds
- 134 Chou Xian'er 仇仙儿 Good demons are for Fahai to handle, and bad ghosts need bad people to deal with them. If life is already miserable, who cares if you end up in the frying pan after death! If you won’t let me, Chen Guang, live in peace, then what the hell am I cultivating merit for? One word: fight to the bitter end! 3.3kReads—Score19714d adds
- 135 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? 169Reads7.3Score—14d adds
- 136 The Code to Breaking the Deadlock: Feng Shui Taboos You Should Never Violate 破局密码：那些被触犯的风水禁忌 The seventh day of the seventh month, at the Wuyu Pavilion teahouse. “Master Yunwu, every night we hear a baby crying in our home, but there isn't a single baby in the entire building.” When Zhao Mingcheng and his wife said this, Yunwu laid out their birth charts on rice paper and asked just one question: “Does your front door face the balcony?” Behind every strange occurrence lies a feng shui taboo that has been violated. Yunwu, owner of the Wuyu Pavilion, was born into a family of metaphysics 23Reads—Score—14d adds
- 137 Tales of the Uncanny 诡话传说 “Hey, everyone, I’m here.” I pointed my phone camera at the abandoned village gate in front of me. The characters on the archway had long since blurred beyond recognition. All that remained was a sinister, rust-red color, splashed irregularly across the stone pillars like blood that had dried long ago. “See that color? Is it a good enough opening for the ‘Blood Axe’?” The comments immediately began to fly. [Sister Xue is charging into a new map!] [Just looking at this place gives me the creeps.] —Reads—Score—14d adds
- 138 The Mystic Arts Curse Master 玄门咒神 On the day Yang Xuan was supposed to get engaged, a blood-red coffin inexplicably appeared in his home. Inside lay a beautiful woman with skin like jade. On the first day, his father died. On the second day, a yin-yang master told Yang Xuan: If he wanted to survive this calamity, he had to consummate his marriage with her... 115Reads—Score—14d adds
- 139 Decoding Life's Dilemmas: A Guide to Feng Shui and Destiny 破译众生困局：风水命理指南 This is an “alternative guide to life,” forged from 20 years of hands-on experience. It explores the ancient system of the Book of Changes and destiny, and how it can be applied in the modern city. In a quiet corner of a bustling metropolis stands an inconspicuous teahouse called Wuyu Pavilion. Its owner, Yun Wu, brews excellent tea and has inherited a family tradition: reading fate from the Eight Characters, divining subtle signs with the Six Lines, and using feng shui to adjust the balance of 222Reads—Score10614d adds
- 140 The Book of Changing Fate: I Defy Heaven by Manipulating All Things 改运天书：我靠拨弄万物逆天改命 Traditional fortune-telling relies on a person’s birth date and hour, but the incomplete scroll of the Book of Guicang inherited by the protagonist, Su Zhe, teaches the Plum Blossom Numerology: “All things are hexagrams.” In his eyes, the entire world is made up of the sixty-four hexagrams. A falling leaf, a bird’s cry, even the color of a passerby’s clothes, will automatically combine in his vision to form a floating “hexagram.” 20Reads7.2Score—14d adds
- 141 The Devious Game of Fate 天机诡局 My master died under mysterious circumstances. Before he passed, he branded the Chen family’s ancestral secrets of heavenly calculations onto my wrist, leaving me with just one warning: “Never use them unless you have no other choice.” With the century-old brass compass he left me, I saw through the soul-locking formation at the haunted spot in the old mansion at a glance. A bronze mirror to suppress the evil, Big Dipper coins to seal the aura: how could ordinary people doubt eighteen years of f 1Reads—Score114d adds
- 142 The Black Dog of Misty Mountain 雾山黑犬 Black Dog of Mist Mountain 11Reads—Score—14d adds
- 143 Twelve Ghosts 十二鬼魂 Twelve Ghosts 17Reads—Score214d adds
- 144 Memoirs of a Spirit-Medium Taoist 出马道士回忆录 First establish a spirit-medium altar, then head to Bayu to study the ritual arts. A Qingwei disciple, holding the rank of Dujiao, with a white crane in his cave. A book of real experiences, true stories, and popular science! Everything in this book comes from my own real experiences and true stories! This book only covers things that really happened. It contains no fantasy or cultivation tales! 7Reads—Score—14d adds
- 145 Feng Shui Yin-Yang Master 风水阴阳师 "Born under the Emperor Ziwei's fate, with yin-yang eyes from birth." An extraordinary life is his destiny. He inherits his ancestors' feng shui arts. In the world of the mystic arts, yin flourishes while yang declines. A thousand-year plan awaits just one person. 1.2kReads7.1Score11614d adds
- 146 The Taoist Who Travels Between the Worlds of Yin and Yang 穿梭在阴阳两界的道士 [No System, no transmigration, supernatural horror, occult arts, hilarious nonsense, a touch of vulgarity, and religious culture] Good is repaid with good, and evil with evil. If it hasn’t happened yet, the time simply hasn’t come. The protagonist was born with yin-yang eyes, allowing him to see ghosts invisible to ordinary people. By chance, when he was young, he met the spirit of a Taoist priest who had died not long before. Impressed by the boy’s extraordinary talent, the ghost priest taught 83Reads—Score—14d adds
- 147 How to Heal a God 治愈神明的方式 The Cangshan Sanatorium has only one rule for its caregivers: observe, record, and never understand. Senior caregiver Cheng Jiuyue has followed it for three years, until a new visitor, Zhang Sanfeng, is admitted. His file contains just one line: “Claims to have fully experienced 137 cycles of reincarnation. Classification: undetermined.” From that day on, the sanatorium begins to spiral out of control. A blind old woman's scarf predicts death. A sleepless veteran digs up the bones of the Norse —Reads—Score—14d adds
- 148 A Little Crazy, a Little Daoist, Crazy and Daoist All the Same! 癫癫又道道，道道又癫癫！ [Fortune-telling + face reading + feng shui + ghost hunting + lighthearted comedy] Stories and lessons always go hand in hand. Who knows whether young people will understand them. Zhang Jiuyue, a young Taoist from Sanxian Temple, slings his pack over his shoulder and heads down the mountain, with no idea what hardships life has in store for him. But as far as he is concerned, if gods come, he’ll kill the gods; if demons come, he’ll vanquish them. What’s there to be afraid of? Life is only a few 376Reads—Score—14d adds
- 149 Master Jin’s Unusual Life 金大师的别样人生 An accident left Jin Yu blind. His father looked down on him, his neighbors mocked him, and everyone lamented that his life was over. No one expected him to step into a whole new world from then on. Fortune-telling, divination, character readings, storytelling, and predicting good and ill fortune. He and his fellow practitioners traveled across Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Inner Mongolia, and Shanxi, meeting people of great kindness as well as vicious villains. Though blind, he saw straight into peo 3Reads—Score—14d adds
- 150 I Was Watching a Movie at Work, and Came Out a Murder Suspect? 上班摸鱼看个片，出来我成凶手了？ I was killing time at work watching a movie. Why did I come out a murderer? 1Reads—Score—14d adds
