diff --git a/docs/source/recipes/librispeech/conformer_ctc.rst b/docs/source/recipes/librispeech/conformer_ctc.rst
index 40100bc5a..a8b0683f4 100644
--- a/docs/source/recipes/librispeech/conformer_ctc.rst
+++ b/docs/source/recipes/librispeech/conformer_ctc.rst
@@ -299,9 +299,9 @@ The commonly used options are:
     .. code-block::
 
       $ cd egs/librispeech/ASR
-      $ ./conformer_ctc/decode.py --method attention-decoder --max-duration 30 --lattice-score-scale 0.5
+      $ ./conformer_ctc/decode.py --method attention-decoder --max-duration 30 --nbest-scale 0.5
 
-  - ``--lattice-score-scale``
+  - ``--nbest-scale``
 
     It is used to scale down lattice scores so that there are more unique
     paths for rescoring.
@@ -577,7 +577,7 @@ The command to run HLG decoding + LM rescoring + attention decoder rescoring is:
     --G ./tmp/icefall_asr_librispeech_conformer_ctc/data/lm/G_4_gram.pt \
     --ngram-lm-scale 1.3 \
     --attention-decoder-scale 1.2 \
-    --lattice-score-scale 0.5 \
+    --nbest-scale 0.5 \
     --num-paths 100 \
     --sos-id 1 \
     --eos-id 1 \
diff --git a/egs/librispeech/ASR/RESULTS.md b/egs/librispeech/ASR/RESULTS.md
index d04e912bf..43a46a30f 100644
--- a/egs/librispeech/ASR/RESULTS.md
+++ b/egs/librispeech/ASR/RESULTS.md
@@ -40,7 +40,7 @@ python conformer_ctc/train.py --bucketing-sampler True \
                               --full-libri True \
                               --world-size 4
 
-python conformer_ctc/decode.py --lattice-score-scale 0.5 \
+python conformer_ctc/decode.py --nbest-scale 0.5 \
                                --epoch 34 \
                                --avg 20 \
                                --method attention-decoder \
diff --git a/egs/librispeech/ASR/conformer_ctc/decode.py b/egs/librispeech/ASR/conformer_ctc/decode.py
index b5b41c82e..5a83dd39c 100755
--- a/egs/librispeech/ASR/conformer_ctc/decode.py
+++ b/egs/librispeech/ASR/conformer_ctc/decode.py
@@ -23,6 +23,7 @@ from pathlib import Path
 from typing import Dict, List, Optional, Tuple
 
 import k2
+import sentencepiece as spm
 import torch
 import torch.nn as nn
 from asr_datamodule import LibriSpeechAsrDataModule
@@ -77,6 +78,9 @@ def get_parser():
         default="attention-decoder",
         help="""Decoding method.
         Supported values are:
+            - (0) ctc-decoding. Use CTC decoding. It uses a sentence piece
+              model, i.e., lang_dir/bpe.model, to convert word pieces to words.
+              It needs neither a lexicon nor an n-gram LM.
             - (1) 1best. Extract the best path from the decoding lattice as the
               decoding result.
             - (2) nbest. Extract n paths from the decoding lattice; the path
@@ -106,7 +110,7 @@ def get_parser():
     )
 
     parser.add_argument(
-        "--lattice-score-scale",
+        "--nbest-scale",
         type=float,
         default=0.5,
         help="""The scale to be applied to `lattice.scores`.
@@ -128,14 +132,26 @@ def get_parser():
         """,
     )
 
+    parser.add_argument(
+        "--exp-dir",
+        type=str,
+        default="conformer_ctc/exp",
+        help="The experiment dir",
+    )
+
+    parser.add_argument(
+        "--lang-dir",
+        type=str,
+        default="data/lang_bpe",
+        help="The lang dir",
+    )
+
     return parser
 
 
 def get_params() -> AttributeDict:
     params = AttributeDict(
         {
-            "exp_dir": Path("conformer_ctc/exp"),
-            "lang_dir": Path("data/lang_bpe"),
             "lm_dir": Path("data/lm"),
             # parameters for conformer
             "subsampling_factor": 4,
@@ -159,13 +175,15 @@ def get_params() -> AttributeDict:
 def decode_one_batch(
     params: AttributeDict,
     model: nn.Module,
-    HLG: k2.Fsa,
+    HLG: Optional[k2.Fsa],
+    H: Optional[k2.Fsa],
+    bpe_model: Optional[spm.SentencePieceProcessor],
     batch: dict,
     word_table: k2.SymbolTable,
     sos_id: int,
     eos_id: int,
     G: Optional[k2.Fsa] = None,
-) -> Dict[str, List[List[int]]]:
+) -> Dict[str, List[List[str]]]:
     """Decode one batch and return the result in a dict. The dict has the
     following format:
 
@@ -190,7 +208,11 @@ def decode_one_batch(
       model:
         The neural model.
       HLG:
-        The decoding graph.
+        The decoding graph. Used only when params.method is NOT ctc-decoding.
+      H:
+        The ctc topo. Used only when params.method is ctc-decoding.
+      bpe_model:
+        The BPE model. Used only when params.method is ctc-decoding.
       batch:
         It is the return value from iterating
         `lhotse.dataset.K2SpeechRecognitionDataset`. See its documentation
@@ -209,7 +231,10 @@ def decode_one_batch(
       Return the decoding result. See above description for the format of
       the returned dict.
     """
-    device = HLG.device
+    if HLG is not None:
+        device = HLG.device
+    else:
+        device = H.device
     feature = batch["inputs"]
     assert feature.ndim == 3
     feature = feature.to(device)
@@ -229,9 +254,17 @@ def decode_one_batch(
         1,
     ).to(torch.int32)
 
+    if H is None:
+        assert HLG is not None
+        decoding_graph = HLG
+    else:
+        assert HLG is None
+        assert bpe_model is not None
+        decoding_graph = H
+
     lattice = get_lattice(
         nnet_output=nnet_output,
-        HLG=HLG,
+        decoding_graph=decoding_graph,
         supervision_segments=supervision_segments,
         search_beam=params.search_beam,
         output_beam=params.output_beam,
@@ -240,6 +273,24 @@ def decode_one_batch(
         subsampling_factor=params.subsampling_factor,
     )
 
+    if params.method == "ctc-decoding":
+        best_path = one_best_decoding(
+            lattice=lattice, use_double_scores=params.use_double_scores
+        )
+        # Note: `best_path.aux_labels` contains token IDs, not word IDs
+        # since we are using H, not HLG here.
+        #
+        # token_ids is a lit-of-list of IDs
+        token_ids = get_texts(best_path)
+
+        # hyps is a list of str, e.g., ['xxx yyy zzz', ...]
+        hyps = bpe_model.decode(token_ids)
+
+        # hyps is a list of list of str, e.g., [['xxx', 'yyy', 'zzz'], ... ]
+        hyps = [s.split() for s in hyps]
+        key = "ctc-decoding"
+        return {key: hyps}
+
     if params.method == "nbest-oracle":
         # Note: You can also pass rescored lattices to it.
         # We choose the HLG decoded lattice for speed reasons
@@ -250,12 +301,12 @@ def decode_one_batch(
             num_paths=params.num_paths,
             ref_texts=supervisions["text"],
             word_table=word_table,
-            lattice_score_scale=params.lattice_score_scale,
+            nbest_scale=params.nbest_scale,
             oov="<UNK>",
         )
         hyps = get_texts(best_path)
         hyps = [[word_table[i] for i in ids] for ids in hyps]
-        key = f"oracle_{params.num_paths}_lattice_score_scale_{params.lattice_score_scale}"  # noqa
+        key = f"oracle_{params.num_paths}_nbest_scale_{params.nbest_scale}"  # noqa
         return {key: hyps}
 
     if params.method in ["1best", "nbest"]:
@@ -269,9 +320,9 @@ def decode_one_batch(
                 lattice=lattice,
                 num_paths=params.num_paths,
                 use_double_scores=params.use_double_scores,
-                lattice_score_scale=params.lattice_score_scale,
+                nbest_scale=params.nbest_scale,
             )
-            key = f"no_rescore-scale-{params.lattice_score_scale}-{params.num_paths}"  # noqa
+            key = f"no_rescore-nbest-scale-{params.nbest_scale}-{params.num_paths}"  # noqa
 
         hyps = get_texts(best_path)
         hyps = [[word_table[i] for i in ids] for ids in hyps]
@@ -293,7 +344,7 @@ def decode_one_batch(
             G=G,
             num_paths=params.num_paths,
             lm_scale_list=lm_scale_list,
-            lattice_score_scale=params.lattice_score_scale,
+            nbest_scale=params.nbest_scale,
         )
     elif params.method == "whole-lattice-rescoring":
         best_path_dict = rescore_with_whole_lattice(
@@ -319,7 +370,7 @@ def decode_one_batch(
             memory_key_padding_mask=memory_key_padding_mask,
             sos_id=sos_id,
             eos_id=eos_id,
-            lattice_score_scale=params.lattice_score_scale,
+            nbest_scale=params.nbest_scale,
         )
     else:
         assert False, f"Unsupported decoding method: {params.method}"
@@ -340,12 +391,14 @@ def decode_dataset(
     dl: torch.utils.data.DataLoader,
     params: AttributeDict,
     model: nn.Module,
-    HLG: k2.Fsa,
+    HLG: Optional[k2.Fsa],
+    H: Optional[k2.Fsa],
+    bpe_model: Optional[spm.SentencePieceProcessor],
     word_table: k2.SymbolTable,
     sos_id: int,
     eos_id: int,
     G: Optional[k2.Fsa] = None,
-) -> Dict[str, List[Tuple[List[int], List[int]]]]:
+) -> Dict[str, List[Tuple[List[str], List[str]]]]:
     """Decode dataset.
 
     Args:
@@ -356,7 +409,11 @@ def decode_dataset(
       model:
         The neural model.
       HLG:
-        The decoding graph.
+        The decoding graph. Used only when params.method is NOT ctc-decoding.
+      H:
+        The ctc topo. Used only when params.method is ctc-decoding.
+      bpe_model:
+        The BPE model. Used only when params.method is ctc-decoding.
       word_table:
         It is the word symbol table.
       sos_id:
@@ -391,6 +448,8 @@ def decode_dataset(
             params=params,
             model=model,
             HLG=HLG,
+            H=H,
+            bpe_model=bpe_model,
             batch=batch,
             word_table=word_table,
             G=G,
@@ -469,6 +528,8 @@ def main():
     parser = get_parser()
     LibriSpeechAsrDataModule.add_arguments(parser)
     args = parser.parse_args()
+    args.exp_dir = Path(args.exp_dir)
+    args.lang_dir = Path(args.lang_dir)
 
     params = get_params()
     params.update(vars(args))
@@ -496,14 +557,26 @@ def main():
     sos_id = graph_compiler.sos_id
     eos_id = graph_compiler.eos_id
 
-    HLG = k2.Fsa.from_dict(
-        torch.load(f"{params.lang_dir}/HLG.pt", map_location="cpu")
-    )
-    HLG = HLG.to(device)
-    assert HLG.requires_grad is False
+    if params.method == "ctc-decoding":
+        HLG = None
+        H = k2.ctc_topo(
+            max_token=max_token_id,
+            modified=False,
+            device=device,
+        )
+        bpe_model = spm.SentencePieceProcessor()
+        bpe_model.load(str(params.lang_dir / "bpe.model"))
+    else:
+        H = None
+        bpe_model = None
+        HLG = k2.Fsa.from_dict(
+            torch.load(f"{params.lang_dir}/HLG.pt", map_location="cpu")
+        )
+        HLG = HLG.to(device)
+        assert HLG.requires_grad is False
 
-    if not hasattr(HLG, "lm_scores"):
-        HLG.lm_scores = HLG.scores.clone()
+        if not hasattr(HLG, "lm_scores"):
+            HLG.lm_scores = HLG.scores.clone()
 
     if params.method in (
         "nbest-rescoring",
@@ -593,6 +666,8 @@ def main():
             params=params,
             model=model,
             HLG=HLG,
+            H=H,
+            bpe_model=bpe_model,
             word_table=lexicon.word_table,
             G=G,
             sos_id=sos_id,
diff --git a/egs/librispeech/ASR/conformer_ctc/pretrained.py b/egs/librispeech/ASR/conformer_ctc/pretrained.py
index c924b87bb..00812d674 100755
--- a/egs/librispeech/ASR/conformer_ctc/pretrained.py
+++ b/egs/librispeech/ASR/conformer_ctc/pretrained.py
@@ -125,7 +125,7 @@ def get_parser():
     )
 
     parser.add_argument(
-        "--lattice-score-scale",
+        "--nbest-scale",
         type=float,
         default=0.5,
         help="""
@@ -301,7 +301,7 @@ def main():
 
     lattice = get_lattice(
         nnet_output=nnet_output,
-        HLG=HLG,
+        decoding_graph=HLG,
         supervision_segments=supervision_segments,
         search_beam=params.search_beam,
         output_beam=params.output_beam,
@@ -336,7 +336,7 @@ def main():
             memory_key_padding_mask=memory_key_padding_mask,
             sos_id=params.sos_id,
             eos_id=params.eos_id,
-            lattice_score_scale=params.lattice_score_scale,
+            nbest_scale=params.nbest_scale,
             ngram_lm_scale=params.ngram_lm_scale,
             attention_scale=params.attention_decoder_scale,
         )
diff --git a/egs/librispeech/ASR/tdnn_lstm_ctc/decode.py b/egs/librispeech/ASR/tdnn_lstm_ctc/decode.py
index 1e91b1008..54c2f7a6b 100755
--- a/egs/librispeech/ASR/tdnn_lstm_ctc/decode.py
+++ b/egs/librispeech/ASR/tdnn_lstm_ctc/decode.py
@@ -97,7 +97,7 @@ def get_parser():
     )
 
     parser.add_argument(
-        "--lattice-score-scale",
+        "--nbest-scale",
         type=float,
         default=0.5,
         help="""The scale to be applied to `lattice.scores`.
@@ -146,7 +146,7 @@ def decode_one_batch(
     batch: dict,
     lexicon: Lexicon,
     G: Optional[k2.Fsa] = None,
-) -> Dict[str, List[List[int]]]:
+) -> Dict[str, List[List[str]]]:
     """Decode one batch and return the result in a dict. The dict has the
     following format:
 
@@ -210,7 +210,7 @@ def decode_one_batch(
 
     lattice = get_lattice(
         nnet_output=nnet_output,
-        HLG=HLG,
+        decoding_graph=HLG,
         supervision_segments=supervision_segments,
         search_beam=params.search_beam,
         output_beam=params.output_beam,
@@ -229,7 +229,7 @@ def decode_one_batch(
                 lattice=lattice,
                 num_paths=params.num_paths,
                 use_double_scores=params.use_double_scores,
-                lattice_score_scale=params.lattice_score_scale,
+                nbest_scale=params.nbest_scale,
             )
             key = f"no_rescore-{params.num_paths}"
         hyps = get_texts(best_path)
@@ -248,7 +248,7 @@ def decode_one_batch(
             G=G,
             num_paths=params.num_paths,
             lm_scale_list=lm_scale_list,
-            lattice_score_scale=params.lattice_score_scale,
+            nbest_scale=params.nbest_scale,
         )
     else:
         best_path_dict = rescore_with_whole_lattice(
@@ -272,7 +272,7 @@ def decode_dataset(
     HLG: k2.Fsa,
     lexicon: Lexicon,
     G: Optional[k2.Fsa] = None,
-) -> Dict[str, List[Tuple[List[int], List[int]]]]:
+) -> Dict[str, List[Tuple[List[str], List[str]]]]:
     """Decode dataset.
 
     Args:
diff --git a/egs/librispeech/ASR/tdnn_lstm_ctc/pretrained.py b/egs/librispeech/ASR/tdnn_lstm_ctc/pretrained.py
index 0a543d859..2baeb6bba 100755
--- a/egs/librispeech/ASR/tdnn_lstm_ctc/pretrained.py
+++ b/egs/librispeech/ASR/tdnn_lstm_ctc/pretrained.py
@@ -232,7 +232,7 @@ def main():
 
     lattice = get_lattice(
         nnet_output=nnet_output,
-        HLG=HLG,
+        decoding_graph=HLG,
         supervision_segments=supervision_segments,
         search_beam=params.search_beam,
         output_beam=params.output_beam,
diff --git a/egs/yesno/ASR/tdnn/decode.py b/egs/yesno/ASR/tdnn/decode.py
index 325acf316..57122235a 100755
--- a/egs/yesno/ASR/tdnn/decode.py
+++ b/egs/yesno/ASR/tdnn/decode.py
@@ -124,7 +124,7 @@ def decode_one_batch(
 
     lattice = get_lattice(
         nnet_output=nnet_output,
-        HLG=HLG,
+        decoding_graph=HLG,
         supervision_segments=supervision_segments,
         search_beam=params.search_beam,
         output_beam=params.output_beam,
diff --git a/egs/yesno/ASR/tdnn/pretrained.py b/egs/yesno/ASR/tdnn/pretrained.py
index fb92110e3..14220be19 100755
--- a/egs/yesno/ASR/tdnn/pretrained.py
+++ b/egs/yesno/ASR/tdnn/pretrained.py
@@ -175,7 +175,7 @@ def main():
 
     lattice = get_lattice(
         nnet_output=nnet_output,
-        HLG=HLG,
+        decoding_graph=HLG,
         supervision_segments=supervision_segments,
         search_beam=params.search_beam,
         output_beam=params.output_beam,
diff --git a/icefall/decode.py b/icefall/decode.py
index e678e4622..62d27dd68 100644
--- a/icefall/decode.py
+++ b/icefall/decode.py
@@ -66,7 +66,7 @@ def _intersect_device(
 
 def get_lattice(
     nnet_output: torch.Tensor,
-    HLG: k2.Fsa,
+    decoding_graph: k2.Fsa,
     supervision_segments: torch.Tensor,
     search_beam: float,
     output_beam: float,
@@ -79,8 +79,9 @@ def get_lattice(
     Args:
       nnet_output:
         It is the output of a neural model of shape `(N, T, C)`.
-      HLG:
-        An Fsa, the decoding graph. See also `compile_HLG.py`.
+      decoding_graph:
+        An Fsa, the decoding graph. It can be either an HLG
+        (see `compile_HLG.py`) or an H (see `k2.ctc_topo`).
       supervision_segments:
         A 2-D **CPU** tensor of dtype `torch.int32` with 3 columns.
         Each row contains information for a supervision segment. Column 0
@@ -117,7 +118,7 @@ def get_lattice(
     )
 
     lattice = k2.intersect_dense_pruned(
-        HLG,
+        decoding_graph,
         dense_fsa_vec,
         search_beam=search_beam,
         output_beam=output_beam,
@@ -180,7 +181,7 @@ class Nbest(object):
         lattice: k2.Fsa,
         num_paths: int,
         use_double_scores: bool = True,
-        lattice_score_scale: float = 0.5,
+        nbest_scale: float = 0.5,
     ) -> "Nbest":
         """Construct an Nbest object by **sampling** `num_paths` from a lattice.
 
@@ -206,7 +207,7 @@ class Nbest(object):
           Return an Nbest instance.
         """
         saved_scores = lattice.scores.clone()
-        lattice.scores *= lattice_score_scale
+        lattice.scores *= nbest_scale
         # path is a ragged tensor with dtype torch.int32.
         # It has three axes [utt][path][arc_pos]
         path = k2.random_paths(
@@ -446,7 +447,7 @@ def nbest_decoding(
     lattice: k2.Fsa,
     num_paths: int,
     use_double_scores: bool = True,
-    lattice_score_scale: float = 1.0,
+    nbest_scale: float = 1.0,
 ) -> k2.Fsa:
     """It implements something like CTC prefix beam search using n-best lists.
 
@@ -474,7 +475,7 @@ def nbest_decoding(
       use_double_scores:
         True to use double precision floating point in the computation.
         False to use single precision.
-      lattice_score_scale:
+      nbest_scale:
         It's the scale applied to the `lattice.scores`. A smaller value
         leads to more unique paths at the risk of missing the correct path.
     Returns:
@@ -484,7 +485,7 @@ def nbest_decoding(
         lattice=lattice,
         num_paths=num_paths,
         use_double_scores=use_double_scores,
-        lattice_score_scale=lattice_score_scale,
+        nbest_scale=nbest_scale,
     )
     # nbest.fsa.scores contains 0s
 
@@ -505,7 +506,7 @@ def nbest_oracle(
     ref_texts: List[str],
     word_table: k2.SymbolTable,
     use_double_scores: bool = True,
-    lattice_score_scale: float = 0.5,
+    nbest_scale: float = 0.5,
     oov: str = "<UNK>",
 ) -> Dict[str, List[List[int]]]:
     """Select the best hypothesis given a lattice and a reference transcript.
@@ -517,7 +518,7 @@ def nbest_oracle(
     The decoding result returned from this function is the best result that
     we can obtain using n-best decoding with all kinds of rescoring techniques.
 
-    This function is useful to tune the value of `lattice_score_scale`.
+    This function is useful to tune the value of `nbest_scale`.
 
     Args:
       lattice:
@@ -533,7 +534,7 @@ def nbest_oracle(
       use_double_scores:
         True to use double precision for computation. False to use
         single precision.
-      lattice_score_scale:
+      nbest_scale:
         It's the scale applied to the lattice.scores. A smaller value
         yields more unique paths.
       oov:
@@ -549,7 +550,7 @@ def nbest_oracle(
         lattice=lattice,
         num_paths=num_paths,
         use_double_scores=use_double_scores,
-        lattice_score_scale=lattice_score_scale,
+        nbest_scale=nbest_scale,
     )
 
     hyps = nbest.build_levenshtein_graphs()
@@ -590,7 +591,7 @@ def rescore_with_n_best_list(
     G: k2.Fsa,
     num_paths: int,
     lm_scale_list: List[float],
-    lattice_score_scale: float = 1.0,
+    nbest_scale: float = 1.0,
     use_double_scores: bool = True,
 ) -> Dict[str, k2.Fsa]:
     """Rescore an n-best list with an n-gram LM.
@@ -607,7 +608,7 @@ def rescore_with_n_best_list(
         Size of nbest list.
       lm_scale_list:
         A list of float representing LM score scales.
-      lattice_score_scale:
+      nbest_scale:
         Scale to be applied to ``lattice.score`` when sampling paths
         using ``k2.random_paths``.
       use_double_scores:
@@ -631,7 +632,7 @@ def rescore_with_n_best_list(
         lattice=lattice,
         num_paths=num_paths,
         use_double_scores=use_double_scores,
-        lattice_score_scale=lattice_score_scale,
+        nbest_scale=nbest_scale,
     )
     # nbest.fsa.scores are all 0s at this point
 
@@ -769,7 +770,7 @@ def rescore_with_attention_decoder(
     memory_key_padding_mask: Optional[torch.Tensor],
     sos_id: int,
     eos_id: int,
-    lattice_score_scale: float = 1.0,
+    nbest_scale: float = 1.0,
     ngram_lm_scale: Optional[float] = None,
     attention_scale: Optional[float] = None,
     use_double_scores: bool = True,
@@ -796,7 +797,7 @@ def rescore_with_attention_decoder(
         The token ID for SOS.
       eos_id:
         The token ID for EOS.
-      lattice_score_scale:
+      nbest_scale:
         It's the scale applied to `lattice.scores`. A smaller value
         leads to more unique paths at the risk of missing the correct path.
       ngram_lm_scale:
@@ -812,7 +813,7 @@ def rescore_with_attention_decoder(
         lattice=lattice,
         num_paths=num_paths,
         use_double_scores=use_double_scores,
-        lattice_score_scale=lattice_score_scale,
+        nbest_scale=nbest_scale,
     )
     # nbest.fsa.scores are all 0s at this point
 
diff --git a/test/test_decode.py b/test/test_decode.py
index 7ef127781..97964ac67 100644
--- a/test/test_decode.py
+++ b/test/test_decode.py
@@ -43,7 +43,7 @@ def test_nbest_from_lattice():
         lattice=lattice,
         num_paths=10,
         use_double_scores=True,
-        lattice_score_scale=0.5,
+        nbest_scale=0.5,
     )
     # each lattice has only 4 distinct paths that have different word sequences:
     # 10->30