Novels like Those Years I Spent Running with the Wrong Crowd
Books Chinese readers most often put in the same booklists as Those Years I Spent Running with the Wrong Crowd, best match first.
- 1 The Thousand Gates Saga Continues: After Chu Liu 千门未了：初六之后 Important Announcement: Now that Teacher Ma Xiaohu has resumed updating, I won't presume to teach my grandmother to suck eggs. I only regretted the hiatus and wanted to chat with fellow Qian fans. Starting today, I will stop updating permanently. Anyone who wants to discuss the continuation of my story or the plot of Old Qian is welcome to join the group. Next month, I will take this book down. The unpublished content will stay buried in my gut. I'll write a new book called Midnight, with an up 8.7kReads8.2Score638Shelves
- 2 One Gamble for the Thrill 一赌为快 A casino-boat dealer is drawn into chaos by the lure of money. After he's caught cheating, he escapes the gambling boat and drifts across a desolate sea... Seeking revenge, love, friendship, and family, he embarks on an extraordinary path. What awaits him in the future? This is the story of young Fu Ming's journey from a naive boy into a true man, exploring responsibility, relationships, human nature, and his clashes with other powerful figures. Its vivid cast will draw you in. When I talk about 4Reads7.4Score—Shelves
- 3 My Casino's Golden Eyes Can See the End of All Life 我的赌场金瞳，能见众生末路 I’m Zhao Fan. I make my living in casinos, with a pair of eyes that can see through fate. But who knew this wasn’t some divine power? It was nothing but a shackle, one that bore the weight of human hearts and human nature. After spending enough time around gambling, I came to understand: Nine out of ten games are rigged, and every gambler loses in the end. Stay away from gambling. The moment you sit at the table, you’re taking the first step toward ruin. You’re after money, but everyone else is 15.5kReads8.4Score1kShelves
- 4 A Book Above the Clouds 云上的一本书 1.8kReads9.0Score159Shelves
- 5 My Life in the Underworld of Cardsharps: Unstoppable 我的老千江湖之所向披靡 A showdown between professional cardsharps isn't just about winning or losing. It can mean the difference between life and death. My name is Lin Lingdong. I'm a professional cardsharp and a powerful gang boss who commands respect throughout the underworld. As the saying goes, one thought can lead to heaven, another to hell. The underworld is a place where the strong prey on the weak, and in the world of cardsharps, you can get rich overnight or lose everything just as fast. Where do we go from h 3.8kReads8.2Score175Shelves
- 6 King of Gambling 赌王 Macau, a city where gambling is legal. You think gambling is all about luck? Actually, it isn't. Skill, probability, cheating… Often, a game is already decided before it even begins. And that means one thing: you lose! Anyone who comes here and gets hooked on gambling will never get back on their feet! Gambling isn't a game for ordinary people to dabble in. In the hands of those with an agenda, it's a blade that kills without drawing blood! 11.8kReads8.8Score1kShelves
- 7 My Life in the World of High-Stakes Gambling 我的老千江湖 [Based on a lifetime of gambling experience, revealing the secrets behind a hundred cheating techniques] I grew up in casinos. In the noisy halls, the lure of money blinded people to everything else: cheating, feuds, traps... They sank deeper and deeper into gambling, losing everything they owned, destroying their families, and plunging toward the abyss! After years of rising and falling, I became a professional cheat-catcher, feared throughout the gambling world! In this seemingly glamorous wor 2.1kReads8.8Score145Shelves
- 8 The Swindler: Through Fire and Water for You, Uncle! 老千：赴汤蹈火啊，二叔！ If you learn the art of cheating, you’ll see me as a mayfly sees the heavens. My name is Feng Shiqi, a veteran swindler who came out of the mountains. PS: The best quit-gambling novel on the whole internet, and the most wholesome swindler story online. ⚠️ Don’t open it at night, or you won’t be able to sleep. 16.7kReads8.4Score1.5kShelves
- 9 The Blue Road: Cardsharps and Beauties 蓝道江湖：老千和尤物 Don't gamble if you want to win. Stay away from gambling. In 2005, I got caught up in a conspiracy involving a gambling scheme and a rigged card game, and met three middle-aged female card sharks. These women were masters of deception, ruthless in their schemes, and had influence far and wide. Caught in their world, I felt like a boat adrift in a stormy sea. I couldn't believe there were so many temptations and traps in the world. I couldn't believe people could go so far as to turn the world up 1.3kReads8.5Score104Shelves
- 10 The Winners' Club 赢家俱乐部 He can predict the outcome of a match with near-perfect accuracy. But if the stake is your conscience, would you still place a bet? A born cardsharp, the likes of whom appear only once in a thousand years, spends the rest of his life trying to atone for the crimes he committed before becoming a crime boss. Does that make him a good person? A group of nobodies, caught up in gambling and the underworld, find the good and evil in human nature magnified. How should they choose, how should they liv 132Reads—Score—Shelves
- 11 At the Poker Table: The Dirtiest Underworld Around You 牌桌：你身边最肮脏的江湖 [The World of the Cardsharps] The card table is the easiest place in the world to get something for nothing, bar none. That is precisely why it is filled with greed, madness, and debauchery. Beneath the table lie filthy conspiracies, deceit, schemes, cruelty, and every unscrupulous trick imaginable. As the owner of a mahjong parlor for many years, I solemnly warn you: become hooked on the card table, and you’ve plunged into the devil’s abyss... 623Reads9.4Score102Shelves
- 12 A Thousand Paths 千人有道 [Modern underworld] [Stories of crooked gambling] [Gambling scams] [Anti-gambling] When I was six, my grandaunt said I was doomed to a life of loneliness. She sold me. She sold me to an old man who had lost one hand. An old man who made his living as a swindler. From then on, I learned how to cheat at gambling from him. The old man became my master, but he told me to call him Fourth Master. I became a professional swindler, too. But on the day I graduated from my apprenticeship, Fourth Master di 13.2kReads8.8Score1.2kShelves
- 13 The Cardsharp: Back to the Underworld 老千：重返江湖 11.2kReads9.0Score947Shelves
- 14 A Book by Black Shackles 黑色枷锁的一本书 My new work is out! You can read it on Tomato Novel. I hope you enjoy it. Your support is what motivates me to write, and I’ll do my best to tell every story well! 3.1kReads9.1Score243Shelves
- 15 Who Rules the Changing Tides of the Martial World? 江湖之谁主浮沉 “Northeastern Gangland,” “No Mindless Shenanigans,” “Based on Real Cases” A group of young people, driven by a moment of recklessness, set out on a path unlike any they had taken before... From Xiao Yao's days of loafing around to gradually growing up and setting off down the point of no return, making a living in the underworld... Family, friendship, and love all become entangled... Some die... some go to prison... and others... A new story, a new beginning. Come witness the rise of a true crim 218Reads—Score—Shelves
- 16 Fox Ji Mi's Fifth Book 狐姬幂的第5本书 My new work is out! You can find it on Tomato Novel. I hope you enjoy it. Your support is what drives me to write, and I'll do my best to tell every story well! 32Reads—Score—Shelves
- 17 The First Book by Jianghu Laoliu 江湖老六的第1本书 Stay away from gambling, or you’ll ruin your family. This book exposes all kinds of cheating tricks at the gambling table and reveals one rigged scam after another. Nine out of ten gamblers lose. The underworld isn’t just about fighting and killing; it’s about human relationships and social savvy! 2.6kReads9.1Score260Shelves
- 18 Tales of the Southern Underworld 南方黑道往事 A highly realistic and utterly authentic autobiographical story about the underworld. Many readers who have started reading have already been drawn deep into it. Open this book, and you'll see a real underworld: helplessness and betrayal, a deeply immersive world of bloodshed and brotherhood. 5.8kReads8.9Score461Shelves
- 19 The Boss of the Underworld 江湖话事人 [Not many readers, so the rating just won’t go up] One wrong turn brought me into the jianghu. Watch as I summon storms with one hand and calm them with the other. Starting from nothing, I’ll carve out a path through the jianghu. They say you become what you eat, so if you want to climb higher, there’s only one thing to eat... 2.7kReads7.8Score203Shelves
- 20 Southwest Storm: Turmoil on the Black Sea 西南风云：黑海沉浮 When I was eighteen, I met someone who led me down a certain path. Some describe this path with the idealistic word “jianghu.” But the jianghu you actually find yourself in is better summed up by a rather funny saying: “After all this time, I’ve made no friends, only learned lessons.” My name is Lin Dongxia, and I’ve learned my fair share of lessons. 33.2kReads9.3Score3.2kShelves
- 21 Underworld Storm: The Uncrowned King 黑道风云：无冕王侯 (First person, period setting, underworld) A big brother? A big brother isn't some glamorous, all-powerful emperor who does whatever he pleases. A big brother is just the guy who picks up the tab. The underworld? It's brotherly loyalty, deceit and betrayal. It's a place that strips the tenderness from gentle-hearted men and hardens them, and turns green young boys into grizzled old gangsters. My name is Zhao Qingfeng. I've been around the underworld, and I was once a big brother! 37.4kReads9.2Score3.9kShelves
- 22 The Scoundrel Immortal's Eight Gates and Generals 贱仙千门八将 [Comedy + Fortune-telling + Sleazy antics + Con artist + Flashy face-slapping + Demon-catching + Ghost-slaying + Cunning schemes + Outrageous stunts + Memorable one-liners] Wu Xuanye, Blue Star’s “Prince of Trash Talk,” stays up all night in a fierce battle and transmigrates into the cultivation world, where he becomes “Wu the Half-Immortal,” a third-level Qi Refining cultivator from Backing Mountain Village. Armed with an ancestral tortoiseshell that works only some of the time, and carrying a 169Reads7.6Score—Shelves
- 23 The Era After the Martial World 后江湖時代 [Underworld + Passionate + Satisfying + Ensemble Cast + Jianghu + Big Shots + School + Comedy] “After midnight, we call the shots on this land, whether you’re on the right side of the law or the wrong one!” Jiang Nan stood proudly at the summit like a solitary eagle, looking down at the young generation shining like stars across the jianghu below. “The Su District...” “The tragedy from ten years ago will never happen again in our generation!” “I’ll make sure everyone knows that this era belongs 24.8kReads8.9Score1.6kShelves
- 24 1980: A New Order in the Underworld 一九八零：江湖新秩序 What is the martial world? Wherever there are people, there will be conflict! The strong survive, and the weak perish. That is the martial world! Relive the 1980s and pay tribute to a youth long gone! This is the story of Han Yue, and how he rose from the bottom to the top of the provincial capital, only to fall again! The road through the martial world is treacherous. Everyone survives by their own wits! Hold on, and you can make something of yourself. Give up, and you're out... (This book is p 4.5kReads8.7Score286Shelves
- 25 Ghost Hand Chen: The Eight-Gate Lockdown 鬼手陈：八门锁局 Every gambler has three defining traits: First, they’re lazy and gluttonous, dreaming of getting rich overnight. Second, they think they’re clever and see everyone else as an idiot. Third, they’re missing a screw and never consider the consequences. Third Master Chen makes a living fleecing people like that... 24.9kReads9.1Score1.9kShelves
- 26 My First Half of Life: A Bloody Underworld 我的前半生：血色江湖 [The rating just came in and it’ll keep rising, so don’t let it scare you off! This book is entirely handcrafted, and writing it isn’t easy. Hope you enjoy it!] Eight years in the army, decorated for valor, only to have his future stolen by a substitute! He moves to the city for work and tries to keep his head down, but is forced into a dead end! His brother goes to prison, and his sworn brother dies a tragic death. Good people have no way out, while the wicked run rampant! He abandons the strai 1.4kReads8.4Score129Shelves
- 27 Bloodshed in the Black Abyss 黑渊血戮 (Realistic + Period Setting + Underworld + Political Battles) What is the underworld? It is an endless abyss. Once you take a single step into it, you’ll be trapped forever, with no way out. To make a name for yourself in the underworld, you have to be ready to end up dead in the street or locked away for life at any moment. Now, let me take you back to the late 1980s and show you how the son of a worker gets dragged into this dark abyss and rises step by step to become a crime boss of his era. 886Reads—Score—Shelves
- 28 The Gambling Den 赌城 My new book, I’m a Proper Chinese Medicine Doctor, So Why Am I Being Treated Like a Gynecologist?, is out. As the saying goes, nine out of ten gamblers lose. But as someone who lost everything and worked as a junket agent, I can tell you for sure: every single gambler loses! Even if you can avoid a cheat’s tricks, you can’t escape the odds of the casino. Gambling is a game ordinary people should never touch. It’s a blade that kills without drawing blood! 5.5kReads9.1Score465Shelves
- 29 Northeast China: The Tragic End of the Underworld 东北往事黑道悲情大结局 This is a fanfiction inspired by the tragic underworld saga Black Morality. It tells of the people who appeared and the events that took place in the four years after Wang Luoguo's death and before Zhao Hongbing's crew burst onto the scene. Readers of Northeast Tales Prequel: Black Morality 1, Northeast Tales Prequel: Black Morality 2, and Northeast Tales: Twenty Years of Underworld Turmoil may have wondered what happened during those four years between Black Morality and Twenty Years of Underwo 4.8kReads6.9Score270Shelves
- 30 Sons and Daughters of the Jianghu: That Midnight Sun 江湖儿女：那一轮午夜的太阳 The rules of midnight are a way of life much like the law of the jungle. At midnight, what you see may be the moon, but in their eyes, it is their sun. Set against the real-life underworld of the 1990s, this story follows Zhou Shenghua's life in the jianghu. 21Reads—Score—Shelves
- 31 The Art of Deception! 千术！ As the saying goes, nine out of ten gamblers lose. You'll never see the knives hidden behind the gambling table! I have a plain name: Niu Tiezhu. Of course, you can also call me... A-Yao. 23.7kReads9.0Score2.3kShelves
- 32 There's No End to Gambling, Turn Back Before It's Too Late 赌海无涯，回头是岸 People often say that nine out of ten gambling games are rigged. There's another old saying, too: gamble long enough, and even the gods will lose. Even in our harmonious society, where material and cultural life are highly developed, the age-old scourge of gambling is still all around us. Countless people have lost everything to it, some even losing their families and their lives. Told from the perspective of someone who works in a casino, this book exposes the little-known shady dealings behind 14.9kReads9.2Score1.4kShelves
- 33 Making a Living on the Side in Australia 我在澳洲捞偏门 This story is based on real events. I came to Australia with a dream of studying abroad, only to be driven to the brink by reality. From a lowly street-level smuggler to a force to be reckoned with, commanding the underworld and crossing the world, I paved my way to power with cunning and bloodshed. Only when I stood at the summit and looked back did I realize that the most dangerous gamble of all is the one you make with human nature. This is a road with no turning back, but who knows which cor 35Reads—Score—Shelves
- 34 Tales of the Northeast: Fortune Is in Heaven's Hands 东北往事之富贵在天 [Underworld] [Not Mindless] [Ensemble Cast] [Realistic] [Passionate] [Not a Feel-Good Power Fantasy] After spending three years in prison for injuring someone while collecting a debt, Chen Yang’s first move after getting out is to track down the lousy bastard who reported him and got him arrested, then demand forty thousand yuan. But that incident sets off a chain of events that once again leaves Chen Yang at a crossroads, just when he had hoped to settle down. So... will he accept the hand fate 127.2kReads9.1Score11.6kShelves
- 35 The Man Who Reached the Top of the Underworld 黑道触顶之徒 The underworld is shallow waters teeming with big shots. Thousands shout my name: Brother Tian. Xia Tian, a young man from the bottom of society in Northeast China, gets caught up by chance in the feud between two underworld bosses. From then on, he sets out to climb to the top of the criminal world. Benefactors, moles, bandits, desperados… all sorts of characters take the stage, and the action is heart-pounding. Watch as he leads his brothers from small-time nobodies to become the biggest kin 3.8kReads8.8Score258Shelves
- 36 Big Brother 大哥 At the end of the last century, before the rules were fully established, all sorts of people emerged in great numbers. They exploited loopholes, ran gray-market businesses, and moved between the worlds of crime and respectability. A young man returned from military service, only to be dragged into the underworld. More than a decade of life on the fringes followed: wine and laughter with friends in spring, late-night talks beneath the lamplight; hardship at first, then glory at last. He had walke 4.1kReads9.0Score302Shelves
- 37 The Underworld: My Dongguan Girlfriend 黑道：我的东莞女友 At the turn of the millennium, I headed south to Dongguan with just 800 yuan in my pocket. Someone stole my wallet on the train, and I staggered into town after going hungry for three meals. I planned to keep my head down and work on an assembly line, but on my very first day, the team leader told me to take off my pants. I beat him up. Then I beat up the fourteen guys who came after me with machetes. Then I took on the whole street. The female owner of a nightclub handed me a gun and a stack of 611Reads6.3Score109Shelves
- 38 The Jianghu: What Is It, Really? 江湖，到底是什么？ [Pure Underworld] [The Jianghu of the 1980s] Where there are people, there are grudges; where there are grudges, there is a jianghu; people are the jianghu! It used to be called the jianghu, but now it's called society! When the storms had passed, Lang Aowen knelt once more before the sacred image of Guan Yu, holding three sticks of incense high above his head. Only one question remained in his heart: The jianghu, what exactly is it? [Serious Warning: The characters and plot in this book are 1.8kReads—Score109Shelves
- 39 A Heartbeat That Ends With Youth 心动止于少年 A Crush That Ends in Youth 8Reads—Score—Shelves
- 40 The Charismatic Hero 枭雄 The goddess who looked down on me back then now wants to partner with a company under my name… A golden-scaled carp is no mere pond fish. When its destined moment comes, it transforms into a dragon. I’m going to become a ruthless tycoon and make everyone who looked down on me regret ever crossing me. 594Reads8.5Score101Shelves
- 41 Searching the Underworld for My Missing Son, I Clean Up Crime and Clear My Father's Name 失子入江湖扫黑恶，父冤得伸 (Passionate urban action, a comeback! Multiple female leads!) Also known as "Lost Son Enters the Underworld to Fight Crime, Father’s Wrongful Conviction Finally Overturned" I am the son of a soldier. After getting lost during a sorrowful journey, I was raised to adulthood by a kind rural couple surnamed Ye. I thought it was pure chance that my master taught me peerless martial arts. From then on, I became the greatest martial artist in Nan Yue! Later, to improve my family’s financial situation, 5.9kReads8.8Score379Shelves
- 42 Tiger Husband 虎夫 [Born to be somebody, just going through a rough patch for now!!!] 3.9kReads8.8Score279Shelves
- 43 Tales of Liangzhou: Underworld Turmoil 梁州往事之黑道风云 The jianghu has never been just about fighting. It is about navigating human relationships and weighing the pros and cons. After years moving through the gray areas, I have seen the warmth and coldness of human nature, and witnessed betrayal and scheming time and again. With no one to rely on in my youth, I endured a bitter, hard life. Some took a wrong turn and ended up behind bars, their lives ruined before they were halfway through. I clawed my way up from the very bottom of society, swallowi 141Reads6.3Score—Shelves
- 44 The Underworld’s Final Ballad 黑道绝响 (Original title: Black Road, Final Echo) What is the underworld? Is it really not about fighting and killing, but about the ways of human relationships? Wrong. Only those who can still stand after all the fighting and killing have the right to talk about human relationships. My name is Luo Ping. I witnessed the so-called underworld in a corner of the southwest go from its golden age to its decline, until at last its echoes faded away. This is my story, and a glimpse into one corner of the underw 51.1kReads9.4Score5.6kShelves
- 45 Tales of the Northeast: The Turbulent Nineties 东北往事之九零风云 (Hot-blooded) (Brotherhood) (Youth) (Fast-paced, no dragging things out) The law-abiding worry all day, while the mighty sing all night. Those who harm others for their own gain ride in comfort, while the honest and fair go hungry. Those who build bridges and mend roads go blind, while those who kill and set fires have plenty of sons. I went to the Western Heaven to ask Buddha. Buddha said, “There's nothing I can do either.” This novel tells the blood-and-tears story of Shen Congwen, a great und 6.7kReads8.9Score428Shelves
- 46 Stop Making Excuses 别找借口了 Stop making excuses. —Reads—Score—Shelves
- 47 The Underworld: The Jianghu Big Shots I Brought to Heel Over the Years 黑道：我那些年收服的江湖大佬 The underworld is a road of no return. It's a last chance for those with nowhere else to turn to make a comeback. Win, and you reach the height of power and become fabulously wealthy. Lose, and at best you die; at worst, you become a cripple. This road takes three parts vision, six parts luck, and one part relying on yourself. By some stroke of luck, I won. When I got out of prison, I didn't have a penny to my name. Now I'm surrounded by beautiful women and rule this whole territory. This road w 6.8kReads8.6Score563Shelves
- 48 Jianghu Dragon: Underworld Storm in the Northeast 江湖枭龙：东北黑道风云 Three years in prison, and everything had changed. After his release, Lu Tao found himself at a crossroads in life. The snowstorm that year was so fierce it bent Lu Tao’s back. The friendship that year was so warm it helped him emerge reborn and fight his way upstream. Watch as a close-knit group of friends stand shoulder to shoulder, stride through a turbulent era, and build something magnificent! 19.7kReads9.1Score1.1kShelves
- 49 The Hidden Dragon of the Righteous Path 正道潜龙 One of Wei Jie’s four-part series A shooting case. An undercover agent lies dead in the street. An investigator once swore an oath beneath the solemn national emblem. At a crossroads of fate, a twin brother makes a dramatic entrance, leading to a lonely yet passionate story... Back to 1998! Our brotherhood is still here, our youth is still here. From this point, we set sail once more and forge the next great triumph! 38.9kReads9.5Score4.6kShelves
- 50 The Peerless Young Master 公子无双 Lin Qi seems like an ordinary delivery driver, but in this city, whether they are business tycoons, renowned doctors, or underworld bosses, everyone treats him with the utmost respect and calls him, "Young Master!" 334Reads9.1Score—Shelves
