Novels like The Imperial Exams: I'm the Top Scholar from a Humble Family
Books Chinese readers most often put in the same booklists as The Imperial Exams: I'm the Top Scholar from a Humble Family, best match first.
- 151 I Strive for the Imperial Exams, But My Slacker Dreams Never Change 努力考科举，咸鱼梦想从未改变 [Imperial exams + everyday life + lighthearted] Lu Yang, a rich second-generation heir, wakes up one day as the youngest and most cherished son of the Lu family. This youngest son is a scholar, yet selfish and self-centered, turning a blind eye to his family's sacrifices and caring only about his own future. Lu Yang may be a slacker with little conscience, but he knows who's good to him. He keeps his dream of being a slacker tucked away and works hard to pass the imperial exams, hoping to become 17.6kReads9.1Score1.8k14d adds
- 152 My Ancestors’ Graves Started Smoking from the Start: Disguised as a Man, I Take the Imperial Exams 开局祖坟冒青烟，女扮男装科举忙 Xie Yuheng transmigrates from the Apocalypse to a farming household, where a tyrant rules the land. With no other choice, she disguises herself as a boy. As she grows older, everyone in the surrounding villages comes to know that the Xie family's prodigy has an exceptionally clever mind. Too bad he's a sickly weakling who can't lift a finger or carry a load. Bystander: “You're so noble, so impressive! Your sickly family member just kicked someone through a wall!” The Xie family: “Does the head o 12.2kReads9.2Score1.7k14d adds
- 153 My Dad Is Su Dongpo, My Wife Is Li Qingzhao, and My Bro Is Emperor Huizong 老爹苏东坡老婆李清照老铁宋徽宗 Tags: No System, not a mindless power fantasy, meticulous historical research, slow burn, personal growth, one heroine An utterly ordinary art student transmigrates as Su Dun, the prematurely deceased youngest son of the legendary Su Dongpo. A quick calculation tells him When his father goes to Huizhou to eat lychees, he’ll be eleven. When his father goes to Hainan Island to eat clams, he’ll be fourteen. When his father is pardoned and dies in Changzhou, he’ll be seventeen. When Cai Jing erects 11.3kReads8.5Score1k14d adds
- 154 Daiyu Has a Younger Brother, and the Red Chamber Is in Chaos 黛玉有弟红楼乱 Lin Jingyan, the eldest son of the Lin family, returned to the age of three. After lying unconscious in bed for two years, he woke just before his elder sister left for the Rongguo Mansion. In his previous life, after he died, he stayed by his sister’s side and shared her entire life. He saw that even the Lin family’s immense wealth could not keep their only daughter safe. So this time, I’ll do it myself! But don’t cry, Sis. My head hurts. 30.4kReads9.0Score3.5k14d adds
- 155 I Turned My Superstitious Father into the Chief Councilor 我把神棍老爹卷成首辅 [Ensemble cast + imperial examinations + daily life + farming + court politics later on] Father and son join forces to build a Ming dynasty on which the sun never sets. Yan Xun transmigrates to the Ming dynasty and discovers that his father can do everything except study. His dad has so many secret identities, like an onion with layer after layer to peel back. Huh! If I push Dad hard enough to make him Grand Secretary, can I become a Junior Grand Secretary? The filial son Yan Xun sells everythin 22.8kReads9.5Score2.8k14d adds
- 156 From Seventh-Rank Official to the Top: The Strongest Female Chief Minister 七品逆袭：最强女首辅 (A woman disguised as a man in an ancient political intrigue story) Qin Yuan first met He Lin in the summer of Jingli Year 29. The cicadas shrilled in the trees, and the heat was suffocating. In a dark, filthy prison cell, she sat in a corner, her face smeared with blood. Without a word, he left her a handkerchief to wipe the blood from her forehead. When they met again outside the prison, she was no longer in such a wretched state. Dressed in a vivid red official robe, her bright eyes blazing, 3.7kReads9.1Score47514d adds
- 157 The Poor Scholar's Rise 寒门贵子 After transmigrating into the body of a penniless scholar, Jiang Feng thought about how his computer science degree from his previous life was utterly useless here… Then it occurred to him: “Of all pursuits, studying is the noblest. I’ll just have to grit my teeth and take the imperial exams!” He kept going, and when he suddenly looked back, he had risen to the highest offices, expanded the empire’s borders, and built an unprecedented legacy! P.S. The new book, A Poor Scholar of the First Rank, 34.6kReads9.1Score3.4k14d adds
- 158 The Laid-Back Life of a Marquis’s Bastard Son 穿成侯府庶子的摆烂生活 [Transmigration + historical setting + non-virgin male lead + ordinary protagonist with no golden finger] Chen Heyu, a fine young man of the modern age, transmigrates into the body of a good-for-nothing ancient playboy. He is a middle-aged widower with children, a low-ranking son born to a concubine, and not a single money-making skill to his name. He does, however, have plenty of ways to spend money and a mountain of debts from his romantic escapades. To avoid another beating from his father, 34.4kReads9.3Score3.6k14d adds
- 159 My Clan Raised Me to Greatness, So I Gifted Them Purple Robes 全族扶我青云志，我赠族人朱紫袍 After dying suddenly from overwork, workaholic Chen Yan is reborn as the only son of a newly born provincial graduate in the Great Liang Dynasty. His father is successful, so Chen Yan promptly decides to lie flat and enjoy the good life, with food brought to him and clothes laid out for him. But when he learns at the age of six that he was switched at birth with a farmer's child, his life takes a turn. The day the fake young master returns to the Chen family, he goes out to work in the fields an 216.4kReads9.3Score21.7k14d adds
- 160 Reborn in Dream of the Red Chamber as Jia Huan, the Concubine’s Son 重生红楼之庶子贾环 A doctor transmigrates into the Jia household of the Jia family in Dream of the Red Chamber, becoming Jia Huan, the most useless son born to a concubine. Follow his efforts as he rises step by step, blooms like a lotus, escapes his predicament, and makes up for the story's many regrets. 69.1kReads9.1Score4.8k14d adds
- 161 This Top Scholar Plays by His Own Rules 这个状元路子有点野 [Farming + imperial examinations + alternate history + lighthearted] My Parents Flipped the Table and Quit, So I Want to Take the Imperial Exams Too Just as Wang Xuezhou was about to reach the peak of his life, he transmigrated. The good news: in this life, his parents were loving, and his siblings got along. The bad news: the whole family was pinching pennies to fund his eldest uncle's studies. They had next to nothing and were living on coarse grain and wild greens. But before he could flip t 50.9kReads8.9Score6.3k14d adds
- 162 Great Ming: The Village's Little Top Scholar, Whom Old Zhu Absolutely Adores 大明：乡村小状元，老朱贼稀罕我 During the Hongwu era of the Ming dynasty, Zhu Qiniu, an ordinary four-year-old farm boy, accidentally comes across a silver bell. From then on, he dreams every night of entering a room filled with books: the Thousand Character Classic, the Hundred Family Surnames, the Four Books and Five Classics, collections of successful candidates’ exam essays from every dynasty, and more. With his golden finger and relentless effort, he becomes the top scholar before the age of ten. Beloved by Old Zhu, Litt 18.5kReads8.9Score1.5k14d adds
- 163 A Stick in the Tang Dynasty 大唐一根棍 [Comedy + Suspense + Brainy Wish Fulfillment + Historically Grounded Tang Dynasty] A farm boy with a serious lack of virtue gradually grows into the Tang dynasty's number-one troublemaker (no, wait, strike that). He grows into a pillar that holds up the sky, a beam that spans the sea. If I'm having a good time and you're not, I'll beat you until you are. If I can't reform you, I'll cremate you. I crush foreign kingdoms, dissect the aristocratic clans, discipline princes, and slap emperors I can' 2.9kReads8.7Score23314d adds
- 164 My Wife Is Actually a Female Demon Lord 娘子竟是女魔头 After transmigrating, Wang You found himself married on the spot. Not only did he become a county magistrate, he also got to marry a beautiful bride... But on their wedding night, he was poisoned and carried away. His wife's family are a band of local tyrants, every one of them a peerless martial artist. In a tiny county yamen, there are more than ten people scheming against one another. The maid who is always smiling can take down more than a dozen burly men. His wife practices martial arts eve 35.7kReads9.0Score3.5k14d adds
- 165 A Commoner Conquers the Nine Provinces 布衣镇九州 Zhao Ce transmigrates to the Ming Dynasty, becoming an impoverished scholar with a terrible reputation. He also discovers that he borrowed money to get married, then squandered it all, and ended up buying a pitiful little cripple on the way back to make up the numbers. The little cripple has mismatched eyes and is treated like a monster. Zhao Ce: What kind of miserable life is this? A disastrous start? But when he takes another look at the little cripple, so tiny and thin, blinking those big eye 25.9kReads9.2Score2.7k14d adds
- 166 Ming Dynasty: My Years as Zhu Yuanzhang's Heckler 大明，我给老朱当喷子的那些年 If there’s anything you think could be improved, please point it out gently. I’ll make changes. Thank you. The protagonist’s official career: Investigating Censor, Supervising Censor, County Magistrate, Inspecting Censor and Deputy Censor-in-Chief, Censor-in-Chief, Grand Secretary of the Cabinet, Grand Secretary of the Hall of Cautious Diligence and Minister of Personnel. Gu Chen opens his eyes and finds himself in the Hongwu era of the Ming dynasty, as a low-ranking remonstrance official. He ha 49.1kReads9.1Score3.4k14d adds
- 167 My Proud and Talented Lady of the Marquis’s Manor 我的侯府傲娇才娘子 Also known as: “I Just Transmigrated and Picked Up a Proud Marquis Household Heiress” and “One Female Lead” Food gives life continuity. Music, chess, calligraphy, painting, poetry, and song give it charm. A little wealth, fame, and success give it grandeur. Gu Zhengyan transmigrated and unexpectedly won first place in a poetry competition. He even married a young lady from a marquis’s household, only for the furious marquis to throw them both out. Gu Zhengyan took his wife back to his impoverish 31.7kReads9.0Score2.9k14d adds
- 168 The Great Qi Marquis of One Step 大齐一步侯 [Alternate history, airtight logic, a treat to listen to, multiple heroines, lighthearted daily life, the jianghu and court politics, love and hate, national and family vendettas...] A modern-day criminal investigator transmigrates into the body of a minor official in the State of Qi. At first, his only dream is to stay alive. But when foreign barbarians invade the Central Plains, slaughtering and pillaging until the kingdom falls and families are torn apart, he has no choice but to enter the fr 17kReads8.2Score1k14d adds
- 169 Master Calligrapher? Poet Immortal? Chief Minister? That's Right, I'm All of Them 书圣？诗仙？首辅？没错，都是我 In his previous life, Cui Xian was a PhD in Chinese Language and Literature at a top-tier university. In this life, he transmigrated to ancient times, into a poor family with no connections: A destitute home, a pregnant mother, young siblings, an uncle who had failed the exams six times and was hopeless at studying, a grandmother so obsessed with imagining her son placing high in the imperial examinations that she had become delusional, and Cui Xian, who was only eight years old. Cui Xian: This 28kReads9.4Score2.7k14d adds
- 170 Dream of the Red Chamber: A Chancellor of Unmatched Grace 红楼：风华首辅 [No System + intellectual battles + political intrigue + everyday life] Every line is stained with bitter tears, every page filled with absurdity. You might think this is merely a tale of infatuated, indulged young men and women behind closed doors, but who could know that the rise and fall of the world are all intertwined? Are the fortunes of the four great families destined to change? Is the dynasty beset by internal and external threats destined to fall? Must the path to a noble title and hig 43.2kReads9.2Score3.5k14d adds
- 171 Imperial Exam Triumph: The Strongest Female Grand Secretary 科举逆袭：最强女首辅 After finally becoming the first female heir in her family, she opens her eyes and finds herself back before the revolution. Her father is dead from the start, leaving her with a frail mother and three beautiful older sisters. She is the only son who can carry on the Cheng family line... Cheng Qing looks down at her slightly developed chest, wondering what on earth went wrong. Surrounded by scheming wolves, Cheng Qing, now with a new soul in her body, sets herself two small goals: First, keep pr 8.2kReads9.5Score1.3k14d adds
- 172 Reborn as a Wicked Foster Mother: I Raised the Villainous Tyrant All Wrong 穿成恶毒养母：把反派暴君养歪了 [No romance + teaching + adorable kids + farming + building wealth + infrastructure] A warm, slice-of-life story Zhang Ziruo transmigrates into the role of the evil adoptive mother of a tyrannical villain, destined for a tragic end. She plans to win the villain’s favor while he is still young, only to discover that he has been reborn... Taking stock of her new circumstances, she decides to open a school and become a teacher! She’ll raise the villain to be a virtuous, capable, open-minded, and po 15.2kReads9.5Score2.2k14d adds
- 173 With the Notable Ministers System in Hand, I Disguise Myself as a Man in Ancient Times 手拿名臣系统，我在古代女扮男装 Xu Yue transmigrates into a book. She becomes the delicate, vulnerable cousin of the male lead in an examination-themed novel: her mother died young, she has no brothers and no one to rely on, and her family won't take her in, so she is awkwardly forced to live in the male lead's home. In her previous life, Xu Yue rose from being an orphan to earning a doctorate. She never believed in fate, and even though it was hard for women to get by in ancient times, she never stopped thinking about how to 119.8kReads9.6Score11.5k14d adds
- 174 EN Impostor of the Langya Clan 冒姓琅琊 (Also known as “The Matter of Me Pretending to Be a Nobleman of the Southern Dynasties”) To transmigrate isn’t a dinner party. It’s a deadly game at every turn. The south is beautiful, yet lofty ambitions often fade away. Since ancient times, the Southern Dynasties have been weak, their heroes short-lived. No golden finger, no System, and no second chance at life. Everything starts from zero! Original owner’s memories: none! Identity: none! Supplies: none! When transmigration becomes reality, ho 497.6kReads9.7Score72.9k14d adds
