Salted Fish Stories

After My Love-Brain Woke Up

Sun, 18 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

By the time my son was three, he still didn’t resemble me in the slightest.

I secretly had a parentage test done.

There was no blood relationship between mother and son. Father and son, however, were connected by blood.

1

“Shen Yi’s parents don’t know the whole story.”

The waiter closed the door to the private room of the teahouse from outside, and the private investigator spoke.

After the Flop Starlet's Cover Gets Blown like Crazy

Sun, 18 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I’m the eighteenth-tier flop starlet with the most hate-magnet constitution in the entertainment industry. Black material like plastic surgery, bad acting, diva behavior and having a sugar daddy is always by my side.

Translator’s note: “Always by my side” (常伴吾身) is borrowed from Yasuo’s famous line in the Chinese version of League of Legends: “Death is like the wind, always by my side.” Black material (黑料) means dirt or scandal.

Cat-Ear Wine

Sun, 18 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

My good friend Peng Yu and I were traveling together, and he died in his hotel room.

And according to the police investigation,

if I hadn’t swapped rooms with Peng Yu on a whim that night, I would have died three times over…

1

Zhang Chen sat slumped behind a square table. The shirt he hadn’t changed in three days was wrinkled; dark bags under his eyes and dense stubble on his chin showed how exhausted he was.

Have You Ever Experienced Something That Made You Suspect Parallel Worlds Exist?

Sun, 18 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Translator’s note: The pen name 施眠药 (shi1 mian2 yao4) is a homophone of “insomnia pills.”

My friend’s daughter mysteriously disappeared in ‘07. Afterward, he actually saw his daughter in a photo printed in a newspaper from years back, and the photo was of a mirage. My friend said he was going to find his daughter, and a few days later, he too vanished from the face of the earth! I started searching for him, and ended up entering a parallel otherworld.

How Would You Write a Story Beginning with “Don’t Touch”?

Sun, 18 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

If you’re going to be an out-and-out scumbag, then you deserve to die thoroughly and completely!!!

“Don’t touch.”

He Zhiyang took two steps back, shielding her heavily swollen belly.

Shen Weiqi withdrew the hand suspended in the air. His smile froze on his face, and he tucked both hands into his pockets. “So you’re really not going to let me touch my son.”

How Would You Write a Story Beginning with “What? Crying Already?”

Sun, 18 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

What?

Crying already?

Useless thing! I was my master’s shadow guard, and also the servant who warmed his bed. Unable to bear hurting the woman he loved, he came to torment me instead, and wouldn’t even let me cry. I could only bite through my lip and endure in silence…

1

“Forget it. I’ll marry him.”

I Just Feel Sorry for Gege

Sun, 18 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Translator’s note: “I just feel sorry for gege” (我只是心疼哥哥) is a famous “green tea” meme line: a girl sweetly sowing discord while claiming she only cares about her “gege” (big brother, also a flirty term for a man).

If Lin Daiyu’s Parents Were Both Still Alive, What Would Her Ending Be?

Sun, 18 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

After transmigrating into a book, I became the heroine’s stepmother.

The man taking a second wife was called Lin Ruhai. My stepdaughter was the Crimson Pearl Fairy, Lin Daiyu, whose fate was thinner than paper.

Looking at soft, milky little Daiyu, wasn’t this simply a raising game?!

Jiaqi Ruxu

Sun, 18 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Translator’s note: The title plays on the heroine’s name, You Jiaqi (佳期, “happy occasion,” also used for a wedding day), plus 如许, “just like this,” echoing the classical line 佳期如梦, “the happy meeting is like a dream.”

Life-or-Death Escape from Northern Myanmar

Sun, 18 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Northern Myanmar is a hell on earth. If a so-called friend tells you they’ve made money over there and invites you to come get rich with them, I urge everyone: do not believe it. I’ll use my own experience to show you that once you get to northern Myanmar, your life very likely no longer belongs to you.

1

A year ago, I invested in face masks, the business failed, I was buried in debt and had nothing to do.

No Verdict

Sun, 18 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

“I just made a mistake every man in the world makes. Tian Yu, I know I wronged you, but I’m not reconciled, not reconciled!”

After he finished speaking, Lin Hao’s pupils dilated, the rise and fall of his chest went from violent to still, and he gradually stopped breathing.

1

“Tell me, do people know they’re about to die before they die?”

The Vicious “One of the Guys” Green Tea

Sun, 18 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

My boyfriend and I had agreed to wear matching couple outfits on our date.

But his female bro tagged along, wearing that very couple outfit. With an arm around my boyfriend, she said, “Saozi, we’re bros! You’re so petty. Can’t you take a joke?”

Translator’s note: Saozi (嫂子) means sister-in-law, often used for a friend’s girlfriend. A “one of the guys” green tea (汉子茶) uses her supposed bro status to cross boundaries with men while belittling other women.

What Famous Real-Life Serial or Deranged Murder Cases Are There?

Sun, 18 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Some earth-shaking cases, when they are first exposed to the world, look like nothing more than very minor matters.

The Nehe case was like that.

October 23, 1991, Hangzhou, Zhejiang.

In the interrogation room of the Yongjin Police Station of the Shangcheng District Public Security Sub-bureau, a young police officer had just finished questioning a good-looking woman from the Northeast. Head down, finishing up the record, he asked routinely: besides this case, is there anything else you want to confess?

What Is Something That Still Scares You When You Think Back on It?

Sun, 18 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

At two in the morning, I heard someone chopping dumpling filling next door. Thud, thud, thud, without stopping. I already had a fever, nearly forty degrees Celsius, and was almost delirious. Add that chopping sound, and my head was about to explode.

I went straight over and knocked on the door. “Can you keep it down? It’s the middle of the night. My head’s about to explode.”

The Lighthouse Keeper's Cat

Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The lighthouse went automatic eleven years ago. Nobody told the cat.

Every evening at a quarter to six she climbs the iron stairs, one hundred and twelve of them, and sits beside the lamp as it wakes. She watches the beam swing out across the water, once, twice, and then she settles, satisfied that the job has been done properly.

The Night Market Umbrella

Tue, 11 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The umbrella was green, with one bent rib, and it had been leaning in the corner of my grandmother’s hallway for as long as I could remember.

“It isn’t ours,” she said whenever anyone reached for it. “It belongs to the man who sells roasted chestnuts.”

The chestnut man had not sold chestnuts for decades. But when she died, I found a note tied to the handle with an address on it, and so one rainy Thursday I carried it across the city to a small flat above a bicycle shop.

About

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Hi, I’m saltedmermaid, the person behind Salted Fish Stories. I share Chinese stories and English translations here.

Browse the story tags to find something you enjoy, or use the EN | 中文 switch to read the corresponding version when a translation is available. Original authors are credited on each story when their names are available.

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