Eight danmei novels to read after Mo Dao Zu Shi

The big three get most readers through the door, and then the door closes and you're standing in a very large room. These are eight danmei novels to read next, sorted by which part of that first experience you are trying to find again.

Danmei novels to read when you miss the sects

Thousand Autumns (千秋)

Shen Qiao, head of the Daoist sect on Xuandu Mountain, loses a duel, falls off a mountain, and wakes up blind in the care of Yan Wushi, the one man in the world most interested in proving that goodness is a lie. What follows is a slow argument between two philosophies with swords attached. It's the wuxia answer to the cultivation romance: same longing, same sect politics, more mud and less magic. Novel Updates

The Husky and His White Cat Shizun (二哈和他的白猫师尊)

Mo Ran, a tyrant emperor, dies hated and wakes up back in his teenage body as a disciple of Sisheng Peak, the sect he once destroyed, with Chu Wanning, his cold, correct master, still alive. He plans to enjoy himself this time. It's the master-disciple story taken to its most punishing extreme, and readers who like their catharsis expensive keep coming back to it. Novel Updates

Peerless (无双)

Cui Buqu, an ailing spymaster of the Zuoyue Bureau, and Feng Xiao, a vain, brilliant agent of the Jiejian Bureau, are forced to solve the massacre of a foreign envoy together, and neither is willing to let the other be right. The romance is a duel of wits before it is anything else. It is on this list for readers who liked the mystery threads in the big three more than the mountains, and want a jianghu built out of paperwork and poison. Novel Updates

Danmei novels to read when you miss the scale

Sha Po Lang (杀破狼)

In Great Liang, an empire that runs on a purple fuel and iron war machines, Chang Geng, a boy on the northern border, learns that his family and his history are not what he was told. The book is politics, war, and a romance with the marshal Gu Yun that takes its time. It has the sweep of a national epic and one of the best-loved slow burns in the genre, with steam where other books put spiritual energy. Novel Updates

Golden Stage (黄金台)

Yan Xiaohan, a feared court enforcer, and Fu Shen, a war hero, have openly despised each other for years, and are ordered by the emperor to marry right after the general loses the use of his legs. They move in together and discover the hatred was never quite what it looked like. It's the shortest book on this list and the most grown-up, a romance between two competent adults who actually talk. Novel Updates

Danmei novels to read when you want something new

Guardian (镇魂)

Zhao Yunlan, head of the Special Investigations Department in Dragon City, meets Shen Wei, a soft-spoken university professor, at a crime scene, and the professor knows far more about ghosts than a professor should. The city is modern; the things under it are not. It's a modern-fantasy procedural with a romance that's warm from the first scene, and it makes a good bridge for readers who have only read historical settings. Novel Updates

Little Mushroom (小蘑菇)

On a ruined future Earth, a mushroom called An Zhe takes human form and walks into the Northern Base, the last human city, to recover the spore that was taken from him. Lu Feng, the man in charge of hunting things like him, is the first person he meets. It is the strangest and saddest book here, a science-fiction romance about what a person is, and it belongs on the list because it proves the genre can carry real literary weight. Novel Updates

Global Examination (全球高考)

The entire world is pulled into a deadly standardized exam, and You Huo, a man who can't remember his past, starts breaking the exam's rules on his first day. The most senior invigilator, 001, takes an interest. It's the funniest danmei many readers have found, with puzzle-box arcs and a pairing that flirts through the apocalypse, and it is the one to hand a friend who thinks the genre is all longing. Novel Updates

How to pick your next danmei novel

Ask yourself which scene you keep rereading. A mountain and a robe, take the top three. A throne room or a battlefield, the middle two. If it's the moment you laughed out loud, go straight to the exam.