Ghost Coffin

Fu Lei17K Novel Network2013

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Word count: 777.1K words
Chapters: 26

Summary

Twenty years ago, a tomb raider nicknamed "Six-Inch Nail" slipped into Pigeon Cave beyond a mountain village in Shandong on a rainy night. Deep within the hollow mountain he discovered a black ironwood coffin and a gilded mirror, only to be ambushed by a shadowy figure and witness with his own eyes a pale-faced form rising from the coffin. Years later, a boy from a remote mountain town is sent into the mountains with a hunting rifle by an old man, and from there the story passes into the adventures of a new generation. The trail leads from the ancient city of Xi'an to the hidden reaches of the Qinling Mountains, to sinkholes and grasslands, unfolding layer by layer around the Seven Evils Death Formation and the traps of ancient tombs. Mysterious creatures appear one after another—mermaid tears, the Beast of Chaos, mountain spirits—interwoven with the legend of Cangjie's invention of writing and historical enigmas such as the mystery of Yuan Tiangang and Wu Zetian, drawing ever closer to the ultimate suspense of the Smiling Buddha and the abyssal monster.

Editor's review

A typical tomb-raiding adventure web novel: the opening builds tension with "Six-Inch Nail" descending into the tomb on a rainy night, and the trade rules such as "no touching gold after the rooster crows and the lamp goes out," along with the suspense of the black coffin and gilded mirror, are handled with real flavor. The middle and later sections shift to the Qinling tomb and twelve zodiac shikigami settings, with a high density of puzzles, suited to readers who enjoy mechanism-solving and folk legends. The weaknesses are somewhat clumsy switches between dual threads, too many historical allusions and explanatory passages, occasional dragging pacing, and thin character development.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who enjoy tomb-raiding adventure
Suspense fans who prefer ancient tomb mechanisms and folk legends
Readers interested in geography and historical puzzles of Qinling and Xi'an
Web novel readers who can accept multiple narrative threads and long buildup

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking light, sweet urban romance
Readers sensitive to horror and supernatural elements and easily frightened

Reading tips

Read the first few chapters to soak in the rainy-night tomb atmosphere before deciding to continue
Watch for echoes between the Xi'an and Qinling geographic clues and the historical puzzles; most answers are buried later
When the dual threads switch, don't rush to sort out character relationships; note the key objects and locations first

About the publisher

17K Novel Network

17K Novel Network (17K小说网) is a publishing platform centred on online literature, with 10,912 titles in its catalogue; publicly available information is limited, and its founding background and country or region are not confirmed. Judging from the existing titles, its publishing scope covers common categories such as male-oriented fiction, Eastern fantasy, urban fiction, female-oriented fiction, time-travel and alternate-history stories, and selected fiction, spanning male-oriented cultivation and urban-life themes as well as female-oriented time-travel and quick-transmigration narratives. Representative titles include Deities: Recruiting Earth Players from the Start, Rebirth of the Nine-Tailed Superstar, Quick Transmigration: When a Max-Level Boss Becomes a Toxic Dad, Supreme Pill King, My Beautiful Wife, Chaos Tang, Wind Howling through the Jianghu, and Great Qin: My Inner Thoughts Overheard by the Ancestral Dragon from the Start, most of which unfold with the length and pacing of online serialization. Representative authors include Yang Zhizhi, Yuyi Tingbing, Xuanyuan Lvedan, Zhenyong, Manyu, Wuweijiu, Meng Qingxuan and Tianyan Junran, reflecting a publishing approach built on contracted online authors and organized by genre.

Chapter 1: Six-Inch Nail
Chapter 2: The Black Coffin
Chapter 3: The Yellow Wolf
Chapter 4: The Ancient City of Xi'an
Chapter 5: The Sheepskin Scroll
Chapter 6: The Nine-Strand Crown
Chapter 7: Qinling
Chapter 8: The Blood Spring
Chapter 9: The Fire Turtle
Chapter 10: Entering the Tomb
Chapter 11: The Elephant-Trunk Arch
Chapter 12: The Straw Sandal Frenzy
Chapter 13: The Ghost Courier (1)
Chapter 14: The Ghost Courier (2)
Chapter 15: Seven Coffins
Chapter 16: The Seven Killings Deadly Formation
Chapter 17: The Coffin Not Fully Covered
Chapter 18: Mermaid Tears
Chapter 19: The Fragrant Coffin
Chapter 20: The One in the Coffin
Chapter 21: The Mummified Woman
Chapter 22: The Phantom
Chapter 23: The Seven Killings Suspicious Tomb
Chapter 24: Something Strange Beneath the Coffin
Chapter 25: The Underground Karst Cave
Chapter 26: Two Shadows, Human and Ghost

FAQ

Where was Ghost Coffin first published?

On 17K Novel Network, serialization began on August 29, 2013.

What genre is this book?

An adventure and mystery web novel blending tomb raiding, mechanisms, and supernatural suspense.

Who is the protagonist?

The opening centers on the tomb raider "Six-Inch Nail," then shifts to a new generation of adventurers.

Is it finished?

According to the sources, it is still serialized; later content is subject to platform updates.

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

Fu Lei Author · China · 1908–1966

Fu Lei (1908–1966), styled Nu'an and known by the sobriquet Nu'an, was a native of Nanhui, Shanghai, and a renowned Chinese translator, writer and literary critic. He studied at the University of Paris in his early years and devoted his life to translating more than thirty works by French masters such as Balzac, Romain Rolland and Voltaire. Adhering to the principle of valuing spiritual resemblance over formal likeness, his translations are celebrated for their vividness and concision and are still widely read today. His renditions of Jean-Christophe, Le Père Goriot and Eugénie Grandet have long served as key pathways for Chinese readers into French literature. Beyond translation, he wrote Letters from Fu Lei and Twenty Lectures on World Masterpieces of Art, works marked by sincerity and learning. The library holds 295 of his works, spanning essays, foreign literature and classic translations, testifying to the enduring influence of his writing and translation in the Chinese-speaking world.