Novels like Shanghai People Eat Rice Porridge
Books Chinese readers most often put in the same booklists as Shanghai People Eat Rice Porridge, best match first.
- 101 Reborn in 1978: Don't Even Think About Stealing My Life Again 重生1978，别再想偷我的人生 [This is a long novel about fated cycles of reincarnation across several lifetimes. No transmigration with memories, no System. Each volume is a complete story of its own: Volume One: Years Like a Song, a 1978 college entrance exam rebirth story. Later volumes include the flames of war in the Republican era.] In her previous life, she studied day and night beneath a kerosene lamp, tirelessly preparing for the college entrance exam. In the end, the acceptance letter went to someone else. In 1978, 192Reads—Score10214d adds
- 102 The Hidden Wife 隐妻 [The comic adaptation is now available! Tap “Adaptation Theater” in the lower-right corner of any page of this book to watch instantly. The original novel and short drama each have their own appeal. Share it with your friends!] No rebirth, no transmigration, and no System golden finger, just the true golden years of an entire generation! Having fled an arranged marriage, he joins the tide of migrant workers heading south. In a southern metropolis brimming with both opportunity and challenges, he 790Reads6.2Score10014d adds
- 103 Transmigrating Through the Famine Years: My Ties to Sidaogou 穿越荒年之情系四道沟 What on earth is going on? She looked up at the yellowed, old-fashioned mosquito net overhead. A roar filled her head, and as images flashed through her mind one by one, she realized she had transmigrated! She had transmigrated into the body of a seven-year-old girl in the capital in 1957, whose mother had just died in the line of duty and whose father had gone missing... Transmigrated into a turbulent era, she had no desire to get rich. All she wanted was to stand on her own two feet, work with 772Reads8.8Score10014d adds
- 104 First Love? Who Cares! The Chinese Teacher Has Big Plans 初恋算个屁，语文老师要干大事 (No System, no golden finger, no being reborn, just slow growth) After getting back together with her first love, being smacked by a parent, and getting stabbed by her own boyfriend, she lost the ability to have children. Then, after finishing her graduate school entrance exams, her mother died unexpectedly. Xia Shinan decided, “First love can go to hell. Building a career and making big money are what matter most!” Xia Shinan (a pun on “born female”), a 26-year-old woman, comes from a family t 5Reads—Score—14d adds
- 105 The Plains' True Colors 平原底色 Beginning in the twenty-first century, this novel follows Fang Lizhu, a child of the post-80s generation growing up in the rural Jianghan Plain of central China. Through Fang Lizhu's education, work, and the many people he meets and events he experiences, the novel portrays how life has changed for people across the plains since the start of the new century. It also depicts the many ways ordinary people respond to sweeping changes in a new era and a shifting social landscape: the choices they ma 17Reads—Score11414d adds
- 106 A Woman Named Chunxiu 一个叫春秀的女人 [Period drama + everyday family life + marriage + building a career + personal growth] I married a state-owned enterprise worker, and after years of trying, I finally had a son. Then, just as my husband was sent to prison, my mother-in-law branded me a bringer of bad luck and threw me out of the house. Qiu Yue, widowed and bullied, and Wang Feng, tormented by domestic abuse, shared my fate. The three of us hard-done-by women joined forces, working, doing business, and opening a factory. We neede 9.3kReads8.1Score78414d adds
- 107 Finding True Love Inside and Outside Marriage in Midlife 人到中年婚姻内外寻找真爱 Yang Duo is a flower in full bloom. Though she’s forty, she’s still young and beautiful. A woman in pursuit of true love, she yearns for romance and has spent her life exploring and experiencing it. A passionate love affair that nearly cost her life in her youth, a joyless marriage in middle age, and an unexpected encounter outside her marriage: whenever she falls for someone, she loves with wild abandon and suffers heartbreak that tears her apart. Her three close friends have very different l 638Reads8.7Score10114d adds
- 108 A Motherless Child, Cared for by His Sister-in-Law 没妈的孩子，嫂子疼 [Period drama + No System or storage space] After my adoptive parents died in a car accident, my older brother Zhang Dakui and I depended on each other. Ever since Dakui brought my sister-in-law Liu Chunmei home, our lives changed. And so did my life... 98Reads6.2Score11214d adds
- 109 Life Afloat on the Riverbank 江岸浮生 [Contemporary realism + period chronicle + rural ensemble cast + women’s struggles] Spanning half a century of rural China, this book tells the story of three generations of women on the Jianghan Plain. Caught in the tides of history and the shackles of their families of origin, each struggles against fate in her own way and faces her inner demons, ultimately learning to live for herself. (I’m only here to tell the story as it is. I won’t give the characters perfect personalities. I’ll portray h 541Reads8.5Score10614d adds
- 110 Her Secret Thoughts: A Young Man’s Hidden Diary in a Small Village 致她的心事：小村青年的隐秘日记 No formulaic plot | Not a wish-fulfillment novel | Realistic fiction | Zhou Zhiqiang grows up amid poverty and chaos in her birth family, with her father instilling in her the survival rule that “you have to please people to survive.” She gets into college and lands a job at a bank. A well-off man, Ke Qingyan, pursues her, but as the truth about her family comes out, she gradually loses her self-respect and her relationship. Later, burdened with debt, she returns to her hometown and, under he 2Reads—Score—14d adds
- 111 The Blood-Tear Tung Blossoms 泣血油桐花 In the 1970s, Zhao Zhicheng was an older bachelor. Because he had one disabled leg and came from a dirt-poor family, the women from the surrounding villages all refused to marry him. In the end, he married Yan Wenyin, a woman of similar age who also had one disabled leg. From then on, the fates of these two determined people, each with a physical disability, were bound tightly together! That year, he said, “My left leg is lame, and Xiaoyin’s right leg is lame. Put us together, and don’t we make 2.6kReads6.6Score30414d adds
- 112 Died by the River 逝于江河 Two years into their marriage, Meng Ran became pregnant with Yang Peng's child, but something about it all felt wrong. Those choices that seemed so firm were really just hesitant attempts to weigh the pros and cons. “How wonderful it is to be young” was nothing but an illusion. We all once held lofty dreams, but now we live ignobly. Can Meng Ran and Yang Peng clear away the fog, cross the wilderness, and make a steady passage into the real world? Or are they headed for ruin? 7Reads—Score—14d adds
- 113 Nothing Major in Life 人生无大事 I was born in the abyss and raised in the netherworld. Lost, struggling, helpless, despairing. The hardships along the way shaped my body and mind. When everything had finally calmed down, when spring had come and flowers were blooming, when everything was just right, I finally reached the most important moment of my life. 4kReads8.1Score43914d adds
- 114 Stories from the Construction Site 工地上的那些事儿 [No System, entirely hand-written. Men and women on a construction site, struggling to survive in the workplace.] They say construction sites are chaotic, women are scarce, and beautiful women are even rarer. After graduating from college, I started working at a construction site. On my very first day, I met Sister Xiaoya, who was already married, and accidentally offended the site boss. It turned out that the construction site held more than just men and women. There were also stories few peopl 10.9kReads7.6Score81814d adds
- 115 The Man with Six Marriages 六婚男人 A marriage spanning half a century, full of ups and downs, and one man's six sorrowful, blood-stained journeys into wedlock. In the late 1970s, at a state-owned coal mine in Northeast China, Kim Dazhuang, an ethnic Korean Chinese who had returned from Korea, was tall and burly, with a fiery temper. He sweated through his work amid the roar of steam locomotives. Over the course of his life, he went through six marriages. Each time, he entered with hope, only for almost every one to end in heartbr 22Reads—Score—14d adds
- 116 Old Liu and His Daughter 老刘和他的女儿 Lao Liu is an ordinary, down-and-out farmer with nothing to be proud of. But his ideas about raising his children are completely at odds with the mainstream. After 18 years of perseverance, his daughter has given him his proudest reason of all. Is he happy or unfortunate? Everyone probably has their own answer. 504Reads—Score—14d adds
- 117 Six Sisters: Liu Meixin’s Very Different Life 六姊妹之刘美心的别样人生 The period drama Six Sisters is currently airing. As I watched, I couldn't help feeling that the fate of the six sisters' mother, Liu Meixin, was unfair. Never mind how hard life was in that era: simply giving birth to six children as a woman already made her exceptional. It was no easy feat. And yet her life was full of misfortune. So I dared to imagine that, even if we couldn't change the era she was born in, we could give her a powerful mindset: one that was confident, independent, and ahead 193Reads6.6Score—14d adds
- 118 What's There to Fear About Divorce at 40? My First Love Has My Back 40岁离婚怕什么，还有初恋兜底 [A levelheaded housewife who knows when to retreat and when to advance + an icy doctor who advances by retreating] [Midlife struggles + parent-child relationships + redemption + mutual healing] Her husband is having an affair with his boss. Her son is a high school senior and has started dating. Zhu Yi, who quit her job three years ago, feels as if her world is collapsing. Then she unexpectedly runs into Yang Yiqing, her first love, whom she had lost touch with years ago. Suddenly, time speeds 111Reads—Score—14d adds
- 119 My Wife Comes First 老婆最最大 Fang Jianqiao never imagined that his first time would change his life so dramatically, all because of a married woman. What shattered him even more was that after just one brief lapse, the woman became pregnant with his child! From then on, the wheels of fate spun wildly. Su Jiaoru entwined herself around his life like a vine, pressuring her husband to divorce her at any cost and stubbornly demanding that Fang Jianqiao marry her, dragging him into a storm of emotions and moral conflict. This s 215Reads—Score10214d adds
- 120 The Little Earthen Tower Family 小土楼人家 They say there’s no one better than a mother, and a child with a mother is treasured like a precious gem. But for Yu Jian, it’s that there’s no one better than a grandmother, and a child with a mother is like a blade of grass. One earthen building, one world, smoke curling from the chimneys. A lifetime of love, a lifetime of warmth in the heart. 43Reads—Score—14d adds
- 121 A Child's Grief 亲殇 Yu Jiacheng’s mother was full of energy during the 2023 Mid-Autumn Festival, on September 29, and the National Day holiday. Then, on October 4, she suddenly suffered an acute myocardial infarction. She was rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery, stayed in the UCU until October 23, then moved to a regular ward and remained there until she was discharged on November 3. In all, she spent 31 days in the hospital. During her hospitalization and recovery after discharge, Yu Jiacheng and his olde 17Reads—Score—14d adds
- 122 1987, Before Spring Arrives 一九八七，春未至 This is a novel you won’t forget, especially its heroine, Li Shan! [No System, no pocket space, no transmigration, no rebirth] Period-setting comeback story + single mother builds a career Li Shan joyfully brings her college acceptance letter home, only for her parents to tell her the family has no money and she can’t go. Through her brother-in-law’s connections, she gets a job as a textile factory worker and works her way into the office as a translator. Then the factory goes bankrupt. Her pare 346Reads—Score—14d adds
- 123 At 21, I Worked Every Kind of Odd Job at the Bottom of Society 21岁，我打遍了底层的各种零工 For four years, I've been trying to cure an incurable illness by working odd jobs. [A slice-of-life story, light comedy, nothing too dark, personal growth, and a comeback. Give it a try...] Everyone cries at some point in their twenties. I'm no exception. What about you? Have you found a job? How is it going? At an age when our ambitions reach for the sky, I want to be the master of my own life. If I work fast enough, even the capitalists can't keep up with me! In the bustling city, everyone in 9Reads—Score—14d adds
- 124 Zhi You: Mom, Take Me with You 知柚：妈妈，带我一起走 [Growing Up with a Little One] [A Post-90s Mom's Comeback] [No Romance] [No Male Lead] "Mommy, don't go..." Youyou buried her face in Lin Sui's neck, her muffled sobs coming one after another. "Youyou will be good. Don't leave me..." Lin Sui stroked her daughter's back again and again. Her voice steadied, then trembled, then steadied again. "Be good and listen, Youyou. Mommy is only leaving for a little while. I'll find a way to come back for you, I promise." The man standing in the entryw 98Reads—Score—14d adds
- 125 True to Myself 本心 No one can live solely for others, but neither can we completely cast aside our responsibilities. In real life, we often waver between “living for others” and “living for ourselves,” all the while judged by moral standards. Family relationships are not static; they change over time. Families that endure hardship may fall apart, rebuild themselves, or eventually go their separate ways, living along parallel paths of their own. As we struggle to survive, how do we come to understand ourselves and 693Reads—Score—14d adds
- 126 The Three Treasures Pagoda and Purple Gold Mountain 三宝塔与紫金山 The story unfolds slowly between Sanbao Town in southeastern Yunnan and Nanjing, the ancient capital of six dynasties. Yun Kun, a young man from southern Yunnan, dreams of escaping the mountains. Through sheer perseverance, he rises from a poor boy to a faculty researcher at a military academy. Ning Xiang, who lives east of Nanjing, once enjoyed a peaceful, ordinary life, but the tides of the times bring a drastic turn: her household registration is falsified, and she is forced to move to the co 8Reads—Score—14d adds
- 127 Whose Youth Is Without Scars? 谁的青春不带伤 In the eighties and nineties, I was a child too. I went from being confused and bewildered to a rebellious teenager, from a student whose ideals shone bright to a laborer struggling through hardship. Friendships faded and were forgotten; my first love left a deep mark before ending in heartbreak. Being young means constantly growing up. 87Reads—Score—14d adds
- 128 Reborn in 2008, Saving Myself with 110 from the Start! 重生08年，开局110自救！ Reborn + childbirth + real and fake young masters + sweet romance + cozy life + raising a child Xin Yuan realizes she seems to have died and been reborn. Other people are reborn in the 1960s or 1970s. She wakes up one day and finds herself reborn in early 2008. That year, she and her husband, both orphans, are separated from each other. That year, they are forced to lose their home and family. The first thing she does after waking up reborn is call the police. "Hello, 110? We've run into human t 46Reads—Score—14d adds
- 129 Zhao Jiji’s Love Story After Divorce 赵吉吉离婚后的爱情故事 To be loved is an extension of self-love! I thought I'd shut myself off from love for good, but I never expected to meet him in my forties... After her son takes the college entrance exam, Zhao Jiji divorces her ex-husband. She delivers food, works as a real estate agent and caregiver, and writes novels, doing her best to make a life for herself. While working as a caregiver, she meets a man she once went on a blind date with, and the two begin a beautiful relationship. 71Reads—Score—14d adds
- 130 An Elder Sister Is Both a Mother and a Father! 长姐如母，亦如父！ [A story set in a bygone era, with no transmigration, rebirth, or golden finger. Family life, rural romance, and a hard road to growing up.] Zhou Zimei thought she would soon marry her childhood sweetheart and fiancé. Then an accident happened, and she became what people called an old maid. Her younger siblings' tuition taught her everything she hadn't known how to do. The hardships of rural life, the warmth and coldness of human nature, and the struggle to keep growing... 42.8kReads8.2Score1.7k14d adds
- 131 The Newlywed Young Widow 新婚小寡妇 In the winter of 1976, Li Yanmei was newly married when her husband died. Branded a “husband-killing” jinx, she was pregnant when her cruel in-laws threw her out with nothing. On a stormy night, she gave birth in a melon shed. Starving and freezing, she swallowed the slur “loose woman” along with her tears. For the little one in her arms, she wiped away her tears and turned humiliation into a stepping stone. She went from selling goods at a black-market stall to reclaiming land for farming, from 1.6kReads6.5Score11014d adds
- 132 The Men I Met After My Divorce 离婚后，我遇到的男人们 We had known each other for 26 years and been married for 20. We went from having nothing to building an estate worth tens of millions, and from being alone to having a son and a daughter. To outsiders, our marriage looked enviably perfect. At last, after all my years of waiting, it came to a happy ending. At last, I’m divorced and completely free. Now I can observe the men around me as an outsider. Men come in all kinds. There’s a type for everyone. This is my new book. If you happen to come ac 574Reads6.5Score—14d adds
- 133 The Sun and Moon in the Steamer 蒸屉里的日月 Set against the changes sweeping the northern countryside in the 1990s, this story follows an ordinary rural woman as she spends half her life juggling household chores, conflicts with her sisters-in-law, small business ventures, and her children’s education. With only an elementary-school education, she supports her family with her skill at making steamed buns, putting her son through college and helping him build a life of his own. She lives through the transition from earthen houses to brick 307Reads—Score—14d adds
- 134 Rust and Blossoms 铁锈与繁花 1990s + inspirational realism + female awakening + a determined comeback + making a life far from home + workplace transformation + family ties + sincere romance + friendly neighbors At seventeen, she never imagined that the peachwood talisman her mother pressed into her palm would accompany her through so many storms: from the crowded sleeper cars of a green train to the fluorescent-lit workshop of an electronics factory; from an old night-school building overgrown with ivy to the desk in her o 609Reads—Score—14d adds
- 135 Fifty Years of Bride Price: In 1974, It All Began with a Broken Engagement 彩礼50年，1974从悔婚开始 In the bitter winter of 1974, Zhao Shuangzhu publicly called off his engagement and was given three days to come up with a hundred yuan for the bride price. He swallowed his pride and borrowed from every neighbor he could, took the old folks’ burial savings, and went into the mountains at night to hunt rabbits and trade them for cash on the black market. Dodging the market inspectors, he stumbled through the hardest hurdle of his life. He spent the rest of his life marrying, raising children, an 113Reads—Score—14d adds
- 136 Old Huang and Old Hei 老黄与老黑 [Period Drama] [Countryside] [Married Life] Set in the early 1980s, this novel tells the story of four families, the Lins, Wangs, Lius, and Chens, in an unremarkable village on the Loess Plateau in the Great Northwest. They scheme and struggle against one another, while brothers and sisters-in-law within each clan bear their own grudges and grievances. But it is better to resolve enmity than let it fester. Lin Junjie is the first young man in the village to get into college, bringing honor to th 56Reads7.4Score—14d adds
- 137 A Shooting Star Streaks By, Leaving Traces on the Years 流星划过，岁月有痕 This is a powerful work that deeply portrays the intertwined paths of growth for the post-80s generation and the changes of the times. The story follows its protagonist, Zhao Fei, from his green and innocent days in middle school, through the passionate years of university, and into the struggles and discoveries of life after graduation. It delicately depicts how Zhao Fei and his generation search for themselves and realize their worth amid the currents of the times, while also reflecting the sw 11Reads—Score—14d adds
- 138 Transmigrating into a Book: The Stepfather in a Period Novel 穿书之年代文里的继父 (The new book’s rating just opened, everyone. It’ll go up!) 1970s setting + sign-in System + raising kids + mutual devotion. The moment I open my eyes, I’ve transmigrated into a period novel and become the cannon-fodder stepfather who abused his stepchildren and eventually died miserably in a cowshed. I look at the three thin, malnourished children staring at me in fear, and their gentle, resilient but distant teacher wife. I silently activate the Daily Sign-In System. Today, a pound of meat. 98Reads6.0Score11814d adds
- 139 Demolition Debris Hits My Head! The Land Grab Ending Had Me Rolling 拆迁砸头！抢房结局笑疯 Demolition debris hits him on the head! The scramble for the house ends in hilarious chaos. 2Reads—Score—14d adds
- 140 The Brash Stepmother from the Eighties Becomes a Nobody 八零泼妇养母成了路人甲 Liu Peiyun was ready to enjoy a quiet retirement, but instead transmigrated into a book as Lu Xuebi, a village girl whose engagement had been broken off in the 1980s. Since she was already here, Lu Xuebi decided to make the best of it. She studied for college entrance exams while leading her whole family to seize the opportunities of the times. Only later did she learn she had transmigrated into a book: she was the heroine’s shrewish adoptive mother, an obstacle on the heroine’s road to wealth a 646Reads5.8Score11614d adds
- 141 Neither Storm Nor Sunshine! 也无风雨也无晴！ Marriage Before Love, a realistic urban romance about everyday married life! Su Qin and Zhou Xinping marry after being introduced through a matchmaking arrangement, and they bicker constantly. Just as Su Qin feels disappointed and lost, a new dawn arrives. She discovers that her husband truly cares for her, and together they take on a new stage of life! 419Reads—Score—14d adds
- 142 Day After Day 日子一天又一天 In the 1980s, two families lived across the street from each other: the Sun family, led by Sun Lanying, and the Chen family, led by Chen Guangtian. On a snowy morning, a teacher from Zicheng No. 1 High School arrived at the Sun family’s home, disturbing their usual peace. The eldest daughter, Ding Hong, ran away with Gao Yong, a married man, and her younger sisters were drawn into the fallout… Across the street, Chen Guangtian suddenly died of a heart attack. His wife, Liu Jinfeng, clashed with 8.9kReads9.3Score91414d adds
- 143 Sanxi: From Village Beauty to Village Bully 三喜：从村花到村霸 A beautiful country girl marries in a daze, only for upheaval to strike her family. She goes from depending on others to growing strong on her own, but in the end, desire consumes her and leads her to ruin. In her final moments, she realizes that human nature cannot be controlled… 136Reads—Score10114d adds
- 144 Single Piggy 单身猪猪 A deeply nuanced style, and an unconventional portrait of marriage and love. If corrupt officials are not punished, it is an injustice to ordinary people. A work of realism, peeling back the layers to examine the truth and reflect with cool, unflinching insight. 24Reads—Score—14d adds
- 145 Chang'an County 长安县 “Golden Zhouzhi, silver Huxian, Chang’an County is where they kill and burn...” goes a saying in Shaanxi. The author takes you into Chang’an County, where they kill and burn. This panoramic portrait of the customs and local life of Chang’an County, Xi’an, Shaanxi, depicts rural life in all its unvarnished authenticity: an ancient village, a great burial mound rising from the earth, and four clans descended from the tomb guardians... A secret buried for a thousand years, the scheming and rivalrie 4.4kReads9.2Score42414d adds
- 146 The Time Left Behind 被遗拾的时光 My new work is out! You’re welcome to read it on Tomato Novel. I hope you’ll enjoy it. Your support gives me the motivation to write, and I’ll do my best to tell every story well! This is a period novel set close to real life, following three generations through different eras, from the War of Resistance Against Japan and the turmoil of the Chinese Civil War to the educated youth years and modern city life. It tells how they struggled against the tide of social change and forged different paths 2Reads—Score—14d adds
- 147 There Was a Girl Named Xiaohua 有个女孩叫小花 My new work is here! You’re welcome to read it on Tomato Novel. I hope you’ll enjoy it. Your support inspires me to write, and I’ll do my best to tell every story well! This book captures some of the culture and food of rural northern Fujian in the 1980s and 1990s. Follow Xiaohua and her family as they work hard and lead warm, ordinary lives. No exaggeration, melodrama, or foolish antics. It’s not a feel-good power fantasy, and there’s no rebirth or transmigration. There’s no golden finger, just 33Reads8.9Score—14d adds
- 148 Green Vine 绿萝 This book is for everyone who has ever waited. This is a novel about all the things left unsaid: not saying you like someone, not saying you are waiting, not saying whether it was worth it. But all those unspoken words are tucked inside candy wrappers, hidden in a tin box, and buried in the beeping sounds of a phone booth. The bravest thing Lin Dong ever did was not repairing that imported machine or saving enough for a down payment on a house with a courtyard. It was telling Su Xiyue, “It's t 5Reads—Score—14d adds
- 149 Leaving on the Journey South 南下归途离开 Every so often, a generation leaves home to make a living, leaving its youth behind on construction sites and streets far from home. Our fathers left the mountains with worn-out woven-plastic bags on their backs, heading south to find work. They knew nothing of polished talk. They only knew to keep their heads down and work hard, relying on brute strength to feed their families. They lived in cramped shacks, endured grueling day and night shifts, and swallowed their homesickness and grievances. 27Reads—Score214d adds
- 150 Dongguan Memories: The Girls Who Loved Me Back Then 东莞往事：那些年爱过我的女孩 [Urban Slice of Life + Multiple Heroines + Underdog’s Rise + Workplace] In 2006, Lin Yu arrives in Dongguan just after graduating from college. The city is said to be full of opportunities and romantic adventures. There, he meets the women who warm and support him as he grows, while he slowly rises from a rookie who can’t even tighten a screw to a workplace elite. He struggles and fights for his dreams in the face of reality, but growth always comes at a price. No System giving him cheat powers, 988Reads—Score—14d adds
