Yaoguai (Chinese: 妖怪; pinyin: yāoguài) are a class of creatures in Chinese mythology, folk tales, and literature that are defined by their supernatural (or preternatural) abilities and by being strange, uncanny or weird.[1][3][4] A popular translation for them in Western texts is simply "demon", but this label can be very misleading, demons in the religious sense are termed "mo" (魔) rather than "yao" (妖). Other translations include "fiend", "monster", "goblin", "evil spirit" or "bogeyman". These creatures blur the boundaries between the natural and the unnatural, the human and the non-human, and their appearance in tales is often related to political portents or as a reflection of the social and cosmopolitical order.

Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaoguai