Horror
Carrion for Crows
I was the legitimate daughter of an illustrious clan, mild by nature and untouched by worldly desire, and I should have become the sacred monk’s disciple at the imperial temple, spending my life before an ancient Buddha and a solitary lamp.
For the sake of prestige, however, my parents insisted on marrying me to the eldest son of a ducal household—a well-matched libertine notorious for his debauchery.
Before I left, the monk heaved a long sigh and gave me a fragment of the Buddha’s bone, warning me to wear it at all times and never let it leave my body.
After I entered the Zhu household, my husband first brought home a concubine, then took a proper wife, but I did not mind, and my husband’s aunt praised me for knowing my place.
When my husband molested a colleague’s female relative and the Censorate denounced him, I did not mind, and my husband’s aunt praised my sweet temper.
My sister-in-law kept control of the household accounts, claiming that someone as pure as I was should never sully herself with the stink of money.
My mother-in-law demanded that I wait upon her morning and night and handle every task myself, so that I might become a model noblewoman.
At an imperial banquet, the Grand Empress Dowager took a fancy to the Buddha’s bone at my breast and demanded it for herself.
My mother-in-law hurried to tear it from my neck and offered it up with both hands, fawning shamelessly.
At last, I smiled in deliverance.
Twenty years, you damned bald donkey—let us see how you plan to keep the evil inside me chained now.
Horror Game: Siren’s Curse
I was dragged into a horror game instance and forced to listen to a Siren sing.
I took off my hearing aids and stared blankly at the Siren baring its fangs.
“Sorry, sorry. I may not be able to hear, but I can definitely sleep!”
After a peaceful night’s rest, I safely survived the first day.
In the middle of the second night, someone quietly put my hearing aids back on me.
But then…
“Huh? I forgot to charge my hearing aids. Good thing I brought spare batteries.”
The Siren stared at me in silence, its expression dark and sinister.
Later, a group of Sirens gathered around the side of the ship, planning to pick someone to attack.
I performed CPR while playing “Most Dazzling Ethnic Style.”
The terrifying cruise ship turned into a blistering-hot party.
That day, every Siren sang off-key…
Green Branches
The Noble Consort resorted to every conceivable means to secure a baby boy, plotting to pass off another woman’s son as her own so she could regain the emperor’s favor.
On the day she gave birth, she sent her men to a secluded village, where they murdered a young couple and abducted their swaddled infant.
I survived by hiding inside a rice vat.
But what she didn’t know was that the village was called Half-Ghost Village.
Once its residents turned fifty, they began aging in reverse.
The baby her men had taken was my Great-grandfather.
Escape from the Kingdom of Women
Men with big butts are good at bearing children. That’s what my mom always taught me.
She said that no matter how disobedient a man was, once you got him pregnant, he’d do whatever you said.
As luck would have it, my boyfriend abducted me and took me deep into the mountains, demanding that I bear children for his bachelor buddies.
“You’re not allowed to stop until you’ve had eight sons!”
Eight? I passed out from sheer delight.
Well, in that case, don’t mind if I do…
When He Tore Off His Prayer Beads
I had profaned the divine after all.
The aloof, ascetic monk from the altar now stood inside my red-draped bedchamber, tearing off his prayer beads as he clasped my ankle, his Adam’s apple shifting.
“Little Highness, this humble monk has broken his vows.”
The Eighty-Eight Buddhas
When our village reservoir dries up, several skeletons and eighty-eight strangely shaped stone Buddhas emerge from the mud.
Grandma warns everyone never to touch the statues.
But after my cousin dies by smashing his own head against one of them, I uncover a century-old injustice—and a vengeful spirit determined to make every descendant of the Lin family pay.
I Don’t Want to Be Famous on a Supernatural Variety Show Either
Five years into my career, people called me pale, skinny, young-looking, and a fake-innocent schemer.
Meanwhile, my stunt double used me as a stepping stone to climb her way up, becoming wildly popular with an occult persona.
On shows, she told fortunes for celebrities, saying she had learned it from her boyfriend.
That boyfriend she kept talking about was the eldest son of a famous Occult Family.
But when she and I ended up on the same paranormal variety show, her talismans suddenly stopped working.
As for me, right in front of an audience of tens of millions, I took down a whole pack of ghosts with my bare hands.
“You want to be my nephew’s wife? Did you get my permission first?”
After My Sister Fell for a Criminal
After my older sister was assaulted, she fell for her attacker.
He was handsome, she said, and she wanted to marry him.
The news landed our parents in the hospital.
She still refused to come to her senses.
She clung to that man shamelessly and even transferred our family’s money to him behind our parents’ backs.
Everyone thought she had lost her mind.
Only I did everything I could to grant her wish and help her marry him.
Deadly Dorm Rules
My roommate Chen Ling was always coming up with strange rules. For example, after the dorm power went out, we weren’t allowed to turn on any lights, and once a bag of snacks was opened, it had to be finished within five minutes.
If we didn’t follow them, she would nag us about it all day long.
Just now, at three in the morning, she woke all of us from a dead sleep and said:
“You have to survive. The drill is officially over now.”
With that, she gave us an eerie smile, then turned and walked out the door.
A scream came from downstairs soon after.
She had jumped from the dorm room below ours.
Painted Skin
By the tenth year of failing to find a human skin, I was ready to flay even the old yellow dog at the temple.
Then I met a beautiful concubine who had been thrown out of the marquis’s estate.
She knelt beside my white bones and burned paper money at the altar.
“The Immortal Lady likes the skin of beauties, and I hate this pretty face of mine. Let’s trade.”