Records of Strange Tales from Ancient China 3

Huyan YunZhejiang People's Publishing House · ChinaJul 2025

Rating 3.5
Word count
126K words
Chapters
37
ISBN
9787213118913

Tags

History Books Historical ReappraisalSuspense ExplorationSupernatural NotesPopular ExplanationFolk CustomsFolk Legend

Summary

Why are there so many stories of humans turning into tigers in ancient biji? What really happened behind the murder case at the old temple in Di'anmen? Why did the dreaded 'Huang Daxian' cause people to become 'possessed'? What exactly is the tiger's accomplice in 'the most ghastly and miserable' tale? What was the truth behind the 'murder in the dry well' during the reign of Emperor Shun of Yuan? In the locust plague of 1644, locusts actually 'surrounded people and devoured them'? In the late Qing, how did photography become the so-called 'spirit summoning'? The uncanny is not ghostly; however ingenious, all tricks have their solution. Mysteries need not bewilder; after weathering a thousand sails, one speaks of the ordinary. China's vast corpus of ancient biji records a great many mysterious and unfathomable tales. Constrained by the undeveloped science of ancient times, ancients often explained them as 'ghosts, gods, and strange phenomena.' Beginning in 2015, Beijing Evening News and The Paper successively launched the column 'Tales of the Uncanny,' written by renowned scholar Huyan Yun, which uses modern science combined with textual and historical research to offer entirely new solutions and interpretations of the various strange tales in ancient biji. This book selects thirty-two of these articles, revealing to readers the hidden circumstances and inside stories concealed for hundreds and thousands of years, and restoring the truth.

Editor's review

Ancient Chinese Strange Tales 3 is another major work in Huyan Yun's 'Ancient Strange Tales' series, continuing the style of its predecessors in combining historical research with fantastical imagination. Compared with the first two volumes, this book is more ingenious in narrative structure: the author is no longer content merely to tell one bizarre story after another, but attempts to connect multiple seemingly independent events through deeper historical logic or threads of character fate, presenting an overall sense of history's subtlety and obscurity under a kind of 'scattered-point perspective.' Drawing on his solid historical training, Huyan Yun salvages from the vast sea of ancient texts and biji those fragments deliberately or inadvertently obscured by official history—perhaps a corner of palace intrigue, perhaps the lingering resonance of urban legend. His approach is not sensationalism but restrained inquiry, attempting beneath the surface of strange powers and chaotic gods to touch the collective subconscious of ancient society, the hidden rules by which power operated, and even the joys, sorrows, and fears of ordinary people outside grand narratives. Reading this book is more like an intellectual stroll through the fog of history: readers can enjoy the pleasure of puzzle-solving while also feeling a deep respect for a vanished time and space. It is not a quick-consumption collection of thriller stories; its value lies in providing another prism through which to observe history.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Reading in chapter order is recommended, but one may also begin with a period or theme of personal interest, as each essay is relatively independent
  2. It is helpful to consult relevant historical background while reading to better appreciate the author's skill in drawing out hidden matters
  3. It can be read alongside the first two volumes of Ancient Chinese Strange Tales to sense the evolution and deepening of the author's narrative style

About the publisher

Zhejiang People's Publishing House China · Founded in 1951

Zhejiang People's Publishing House is a comprehensive publisher known for its social science, history and foreign literature titles, covering philosophy, politics, law, economics, culture and history. Among the books in the library catalogue, its foreign literature list includes Yasunari Kawabata's Snow Country and The Old Capital in well-known translations, as well as Wuthering Heights; its history list is represented by Dangnian Mingyue's Ming Dynasty series, and its politics list by Zhejiang New Discourse. Authors represented include Yasunari Kawabata, Ye Weiqu, Tang Yuemei, Dangnian Mingyue, Emily Brontë and René Wellek, with Wellek's Theory of Literature (newly revised edition) among its titles in literary theory. Beyond these areas, the press also publishes works on literary appreciation and social culture, giving it a profile that combines classic translations, popular history and academic works. As publicly available information is limited, other details are not covered here.

Contents

  1. 版权信息
  2. 第一章 奇人篇
  3. 一、古代笔记中形形色色的“人变虎”
  4. 二、地安门古寺杀人事件的真相
  5. 三、“泥娃娃”缘何成了“恐怖片的开场”
  6. 四、古代笔记中的“啖石”记录
  7. 五、古代不小心吞了活蜈蚣咋办？
  8. 六、世界上真有“飞头之国”吗？
  9. 七、天降血雨与“妖人王臣案”
  10. 第二章 神怪篇
  11. 一、《子不语》中诡异至极的“种螃蟹”
  12. 二、黑色猿猴：招福还是招祸？
  13. 三、弘治年间的“蚕神杀人事件”
  14. 四、“黄大仙”为何会致人“中邪”？
  15. 五、哪儿来的那么多“绿毛怪”？
  16. 六、“太常寺仙蝶”的最后下落
  17. 七、“铜镜为妖”的几个先决条件
  18. 八、“厌胜”到底是个什么东西？
  19. 第三章 异兽篇
  20. 一、“最是阴惨”的虎伥究竟是个什么东西？
  21. 二、《大鱼海棠》里没有提到的那些古代大鱼
  22. 三、给古代笔记中的巨蝎“排座次”
  23. 四、人面疮，宛如人脸作人言
  24. 五、晚清最后一只大象的下落
  25. 六、元顺帝年间的“枯井杀人事件”
  26. 七、人参：何以两百年涨价七百多倍？
  27. 第四章 怪谈篇
  28. 一、1644年蝗灾：蝗虫竟然“环抱人而蚕食之”
  29. 二、八双“象牙筷子”，揭示“人骨经济”
  30. 三、打雷怎么成了“专治不孝特效药”？
  31. 四、端午节才能制造出的“终极毒物”
  32. 五、古代笔记中的“吃野味闹出人命案”
  33. 六、古代笔记中神通广大的“奇异水”
  34. 七、给孩子治天花，古代名医曾用“猪圈疗法”
  35. 八、明代中秋节的“广寒宫翻修奇案”
  36. 九、偏要杠一杠“转世”这件事儿
  37. 十、清末，摄影术咋就成了“招魂术”？

FAQ

If I haven't read the first two volumes, can I go straight to this one? Yes. The stories in this book are basically independent, and the author provides necessary explanation of the historical background involved, so it will not affect understanding of the core content. But if you start from the first volume, you can more fully experience the entire 'strange tales' system the author constructs.
Are the stories in the book all based on real historical records? The author Huyan Yun uses records from ancient texts and documents as the blueprint and starting point, then carries out literary dramatization, connection, and reasonable imaginative extrapolation. It can be understood as 'creative reconstruction based on historical sources,' aimed at exploring possibilities in the gaps of historical records; it is not a work of strict historical research.
What is the difference between this book and novels such as Zan Zhong Lu and Da Tang Xuanyi Lu? The main difference lies in creative tone and purpose. This book focuses more on presenting and interpreting historical fragments themselves; the literary narrative serves the investigation of historical strange tales, with a stronger emphasis on textual research and speculation. The latter two are genre novels set against history with highly fictionalized plots, whose core is weaving complete suspense storylines.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Huyan Yun Author · Chinese · 1976

Huyan Yun, whose original name is Zhang Wei, was born in Beijing in 1976 and is a Chinese writer of mystery fiction. He previously worked as a journalist and made his debut in 2009 with Metamorphosis, for which some critics have called him a "revolutionary of Chinese-language mystery fiction." His works include the "Truth Reasoning Master" series, The Yellow Emperor's Curse, The Black Basin, and the "Fate Trilogy"—Sweeping Rat Ridge, The Empty City Stratagem, and Ghost Laughing Stone—as well as Impossible Survival, Father's Revenge, A Record of Ancient Chinese Strange Tales 3, and The Collected Mystery Novels of Huyan Yun. His writing blends the orthodox puzzle-solving tradition with social mystery fiction and also touches on historical and folk-literature themes. Some of his works have been adapted for film and television and translated for overseas readers.