Evil Genius

About

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Lonely spirits of the wilderness, strange tales from the streets.

Here you will find reimagined Chinese horror stories — drawn from films, folklore, and urban legends. 🕯️

The Water Grass

Mon, 21 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The water grass grows along the banks of the slow-moving rivers in the southern counties.

It looks like ordinary mint. The leaves are the same shape, the same color, the same scent when crushed between the fingers. The only difference is the root—a pale, fleshy thing that splits into three tendrils, each one ending in a bulb the size of a fingertip.

Chew one bulb, and you die within the hour.

Scholar Ye

Sun, 20 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I do not remember dying.

That is the strangest part. I remember the fever. I remember the way the ceiling looked that night—the same crack in the plaster that I had stared at for three winters, the same water stain shaped like a bird spreading its wings. I remember my wife’s hand on my forehead, and my son’s voice from somewhere far away, asking if I would be all right in the morning.

Sorcery

Sat, 19 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The fortune teller lived at the east end of the market street, in a room so dark you could not see the walls.

I went because my friends insisted. Three days earlier, a man in my neighborhood had died of a sudden fever. Then another. The city was whispering about curses and bad omens. My friends said it could not hurt to have my fortune read.

“Stay away from fortune tellers,” my mother used to say. “They tell you what you fear, and the fear makes it true.”

The Peach Thief

Fri, 18 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I saw it happen on the morning of the Spring Festival, in the year I turned nineteen.

My father had taken me to the city for the celebrations. I had never seen so many people in one place. The streets were packed shoulder to shoulder. Vendors sold candied hawthorns and paper lanterns. A troupe of acrobats balanced on each other’s shoulders in the middle of the square.

But I remember none of their faces.

The City God Exam

Thu, 17 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The fever came on the third night of the seventh month.

I had been sick before. Every scholar knows what it means to burn through the night with an examination looming. But this was different. This was not the heat of ambition or anxiety. This was the heat of something leaving the body, something that would not return.

I lay in my bed and watched the ceiling warp. The wooden beams softened at the edges, their grain swimming like water. My wife’s voice came from somewhere far away, asking if I needed tea, if I needed more blankets, if I needed a doctor. I could not answer. My mouth would not cooperate with the simple work of forming words.

Painted Wall

Wed, 16 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The temple sat at the edge of the eastern hills, forgotten by everyone except the old monk who swept its courtyard each morning.

My friend Meng said we should rest there. The sun was high, the road was dust, and the gates stood open like a mouth waiting to receive us. I agreed because I was young and had no reason to disagree with anything.

The monk received us with tea so thin it tasted of nothing but warm water. We sat in the main hall. The air smelled of old incense and stone that had been cold for a long time. The walls were covered in murals—Buddhist scenes, mostly. Celestial maidens scattering flowers. Bodhisattvas seated on lotus leaves. Colors faded by decades of incense smoke, faces worn soft at the edges.

The Corpse Chamber

Tue, 15 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I told myself it was only one night.

The old innkeeper stood in the doorway with an oil lamp. His hand shook. The flame threw shadows across his face that made him look older than he probably was. He had told us three times already—no rooms. Then that pause, that particular way a man looks at the ground when he has something to say but doesn’t want to say it.

A Field Guide to Chinese Jiangshi | The Hopping Dead