Dear Reader,
You can refer to the female protagonist as the embodiment of the institution in the Soviet Union responsible for reviewing and censoring cultural products and publications.
Also, there is no communist content whatsoever.
Alright, you don't need to read the content of the next two chapters. You can start directly from the third chapter.
...
...
I am confident that you must have found the first two chapters confusing. Actually, these chapters are not very important; the real story begins from Chapter Three. So, if you didn't understand the first two chapters, it's okay.
Let me make a few notes. The National Radio and Television Administration is an agency responsible for the censorship of all cultural works, such as movies, games, novels, and anime, especially those imported from foreign countries through official channels. All such works must undergo its scrutiny and modification, and it also has the power to ban any cultural work.
However, this is not a political satire novel. The main theme of this book remains swords and magic, and heroes battling the demon lord.
Additionally, the heroine's behavior in the first hundred chapters is quite strange and unlikable. After Chapter 100, the heroine becomes much more normal.
Okay, let our story begin.
...
It was late autumn, early in the morning, along the rugged mountain path on the waist of Mount Hua.
The sun was just rising. Leaning against the railing on the mountain trail, you could gaze far into the distance where a brilliant streak of dawn light pierced through the sea of clouds, stunningly beautiful.
A young couple leaned on the railing, snuggling close and whispering sweet nothings to each other. Their eyes were fixed on the sunrise amid the boundless sea of clouds, their hearts surging with emotion. Their interlocked hands gripped even tighter.
The warm glow of the morning sun bathed them, and as they locked eyes, brimming with affection, they couldn't help but close their eyes. Their lips drew closer… closer…
"Whoosh!"
Suddenly, an aged hand thrust between their almost-touching lips, interrupting their kiss. The young man's lips landed on the palm, while the young woman's pressed against the back of the hand.
"Pfft, pfft, pfft!" The guy had been about to stick out his tongue when he kissed a wrinkled hand covered in age spots. He spat a few times in disgust, glaring furiously at the old geezer who'd ruined their moment.
It was an old man with a square face and a straight back. His gray hair was neatly combed, and he wore a well-fitted Mao suit. Climbing halfway up the mountain had left him panting, with beads of sweat dotting his forehead, yet not a single button on his collar was undone.
The old man shot them a stern look and barked with authority, "Public place! No kissing! Young people shouldn't be doing such shameless things!"
"Mind your own damn business, you old fart!" The young man couldn't hold back and raised his fist as if to swing at him.
"Ugh." The old man shook his head, disappointed, like he was scolding a kid who'd let him down. "Youngsters these days have forgotten even the basic virtues of respecting the elderly and caring for the young."
With that, he let out a sigh, stepped onto the stone path, and continued trudging up the steep trail.
At another rest platform nearby, he spotted a family of three taking a break from the climb. The parents leaned against the railing, chatting and laughing about something. Meanwhile, their kid sat on the stone steps, brows furrowed, hands furiously clicking away at a handheld gaming console, totally lost in his own world.
"You're toast! My combo's about to drop!" The kid's eyes were glued to the game screen, his thumbs dancing across the buttons so fast they left afterimages.
An old, wrinkled hand swooped in and snatched the gaming console right out of his grip.
"Hey! What the hell?!" The kid jumped up from the stone steps, pissed off.
"Little kids shouldn't be playing such violent games!" The old man caught sight of the "Street Fighter" logo on the screen and scrunched up his face in disapproval.
Then he noticed a character in a high-slit qipao, lifting a long leg on the screen, her thick thighs wrapped tight in black stockings, fully on display.
"And it's a damn porn game too!!" The old man's voice shot up an octave, his hands trembling as he clutched the console like it was a steaming pile of blasphemous crap. If it weren't someone else's, he'd have smashed it into the ground already!
"Mom! Dad! Some mean old grandpa stole my stuff!" the kid screeched.
The two middle-aged parents turned around, looking at the old man in surprise. Before they could say a word, he cut them off with a lecture: "What kind of irresponsible parents are you? Letting a kid play such a filthy, violent game! You can tell at a glance this is some sugar-coated poison cooked up by foreign capitalists to corrupt our nation's youth!"
"Old man, you're sticking your nose where it doesn't belong. He's not your kid, so what's it to you?" The dad yanked the console out of the old man's hands and handed it back to the boy.
"What's it to me? I'm the damn director of the National Radio and Television Administration! Every cultural product in this country falls under my watch!" the old man bellowed, puffing out his chest with pride.
He thought back to the good old days when he and his colleagues had pushed through laws—kids under 12 could only play online games for one hour a day, and those between 12 and 18 got two hours, max.
They ordered the blood on screens to be turned green, forced skeleton monsters in games to become fleshy creatures, made criminals in foreign movies who got away scott-free turn themselves in at the end, demanded female characters pull up their collars to cover their chests and yank down their pant legs to hide their thighs, smeared thick mosaics over any gore or sexy scenes, and banned female streamers strutting their stuff in tight yoga outfits… Their glorious achievements were too many to count.
What a golden age that was—every adult and kid under their watchful eye, shielded from anything remotely "unhealthy."
"National Radio and Television Administration?" The woman let out a mocking snort. "Didn't that get shut down back in 2048?"
The old man's proud expression crumpled in an instant, his sword-straight back slumping like he'd aged 20 years in a heartbeat.
She was right. The National Radio and Television Administration had been dissolved in 2048, vanishing into the river of history. And he, NyeRonpin, was its very last director.
NyeRonpin turned away in silence, his legs heavy as if weighed down by sandbags, and trudged up the stone steps, pressing on toward the peak of Mount Hua.
Behind him, whispers floated through the air. "Poor guy, still thinks he's hot stuff even after retirement. Too hooked on power." "No clue if he's lying about being the director, but if it's true, kicking him off Mount Hua wouldn't even begin to pay for the damage they did to Chinese culture…"
NyeRonpin didn't hear those voices; the hike up the mountain had worn him out. In a pavilion by the trail, a young Taoist apprentice was doing homework, pulling him into a flood of memories.
Over sixty years ago, he was just a wild kid who didn't know his limits, with a kind mom, a strict dad, and a little brother even rowdier than him. The four of them lived carefree at the foot of the imperial city, happy as clams.
One day, a wandering Taoist showed up at their house. With one look, he zeroed in on NyeRonpin's younger brother, two years his junior, marveling at his natural talent and sturdy build. After showing off some mind-blowing magic, the Taoist took the kid away to Mount Hua to chase immortality and the secrets of the Dao.
From then on, the brothers went their separate ways. NyeRonpin clawed his way through the bureaucracy, step by step, until he hit the top as director. Meanwhile, his brother, who hadn't come home in decades, was said to have stumbled into all sorts of wild adventures and mastered the art of the Dao.
I've got to find my brother, NyeDepin! NyeRonpin made up his mind, and his steps up the stairs quickened with resolve.
Finally, he reached the peak of Mount Hua.
NyeRonpin weaved through the noisy tourists and pilgrims, slipping over to a weathered stone staircase tucked under some green pines.
Compared to the famous "Sky Ladder" of Mount Hua's main stone path, this staircase was short—barely more than ten steps—ending at a solid rock wall. Looked like a dead end.
NyeRonpin climbed the short stairs, moving deliberately: up nine steps, down three, back up six, then reversing seven. Without hesitation, he strode toward the end of the path—that hard stone wall.
Naturally, he passed right through the stone wall, stepping into a small courtyard. A young Taoist in green robes was sweeping up autumn leaves with a straw broom, not even blinking at NyeRonpin's sudden arrival.
NyeRonpin cupped his hands in a salute and asked, "Excuse me, is Master NyeDepin here?"
The young Taoist gave NyeRonpin a slight nod in return and said, "You've come at just the right time, sir. The Master is in his 'engagement with the world' phase right now, so he's open to seeing outsiders. Normally, he'd never meet folks from the mundane world."
With that, he pointed a small hand toward a little house deep in the courtyard, his cheeks dimpling as he giggled in a childish voice, "The Master's busy with his 'engagement with the world,' so don't you go bugging him, sir."
NyeRonpin had no clue what "engagement with the world" meant, but he stepped onto the green stone path anyway, heading toward the house the kid pointed out. A light mist hung in the air, wisps of smoke curling around him. As he breathed it in, he felt a rush of energy, his mood lifting, and all the exhaustion from the climb melted away.
He couldn't help but marvel to himself: no wonder a master of the Dao lives here. To him, this was probably the last patch of pure, uncorrupted land left in all of China.
He reached the quaint little house with its green bricks and clay tiles, oozing old-world charm, and pushed the door open, stepping inside quietly.
"Malphite, drop your ult already! ADC, keep up—I flashed in, I ate all the damage! Oh crap, we're gonna lose!"
On a computer screen inside the house, the enemy LeBlanc unleashed a slick EWQR combo, insta-killing a low-health Garen. The League of Legends game interface flipped from vibrant color to a dull gray, and NyeRonpin's heart sank into a cold, bleak shade of ash.
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?! AAAARGH!!!" NyeRonpin grabbed at his neatly combed gray hair and yelled, his heart—once brimming with hope—crashing into a bottomless pit of despair, shock, and rage.
"Oh, hey, big bro, you actually showed up. I figured three days ago you'd come."
A young guy in a teal-black Taoist robe, rocking a flashy red over-ear headset, heard NyeRonpin's scream and turned around, flashing a big grin as he waved. He yanked off the headset, stood up, and threw his arms around NyeRonpin, who was still clutching his own hair like a madman.
As he rose from the chair, an identical copy of him stayed seated, hammering away at the keyboard and mouse with laser focus, the "click-clack" filling the room.
NyeRonpin's eyes nearly popped out of his head as he stared at his little brother, totally baffled by how a gaming Taoist could pull off a cloning trick like it was no big deal.
"Bro, I can't just ditch my teammates, you know," NyeDepin—NyeRonpin's Taoist brother—said, scratching his head with a sheepish grin.
A twenty-something kid calling a gray-haired sixty-year-old "bro" might seem weird, but cultivators usually had a knack for staying youthful. NyeRonpin wasn't shocked by his brother's fresh face.
What shocked—and pissed him off—were other things.
NyeRonpin pointed at the obviously pricey water-cooled PC tower and the massive 8K monitor, stammering and slurring his words, "You… you… what the hell is this?! Last time I was here, it wasn't like this!"
"Bro, chill out!" NyeDepin, decked out in his old-school Taoist robe, dragged over a bamboo chair and plopped the trembling NyeRonpin into it. He explained, "I'm in the middle of engagement with the world right now. Some rich dude I met while messing around online sent me this stuff."
"Engagement with the world… what the heck does that mean?" NyeRonpin snapped out of it a bit, locking eyes with NyeDepin as he asked.
"'Engagement with the world,' put simply, is pretending to be a regular Joe and living like one to toughen up my Dao heart. You were a big-shot official—didn't you sometimes go grassroots to see how the little guys live? This is just the Taoist version of that."
NyeDepin steadied the still-shaking NyeRonpin as he explained, "Good thing tech's so advanced now. I can 'engage with the world' without leaving my room. Back in the day, I'd have had to play a butcher at the market, getting blood and guts on me every day—gross, right?"
"Alright, I get it." NyeRonpin, pushing seventy, had old bones that couldn't handle shocks like this. He shakily gripped the bamboo chair's backrest to sit steady, fished a small bottle of breath-calming pills from his Mao suit pocket, and popped one in his mouth.
A few minutes later, his breathing evened out. Solemnly, he pulled a yellow silk pouch from his coat, untied the drawstring, and took out a heavy, cylindrical bronze seal, handing it to NyeDepin.
NyeDepin flipped the seal over, eyeing the carved inscription. He frowned and said, "Why the hell are you giving me the National Radio and Television Administration's seal? What, you want me to take over as director?"
He couldn't wrap his head around why his brother NyeRonpin would lug this official seal all the way to Mount Hua, dragging his nearly seventy-year-old body from the base to the peak, just to hand it over.
The seal felt solid in his hand, layered with faded red clay residue in the grooves. The handle gleamed from decades of wear, every inch screaming history. This bronze seal had clearly been in use for years.
"This is the seal of the National Radio and Television Administration's director! The Administration's history now, but its will has to live on!"
NyeRonpin stared at the bronze seal in his Taoist brother's pale hands and said, "This seal's the official stamp of every director in the bureau's history! It's slapped red marks on countless official docs, banning wave after wave of freaks and creeps! It's choked out one poisonous idea after another before they could sprout! It's blocked foreign trash—hedonistic books, anime, movies—from rotting the minds of the people of this land!"
"Is that so?" NyeDepin flicked a glance at the flickering computer screen nearby. "That's not what folks online are saying. Seems like the people are kinda… pissed off about it."
"Hmph! A bunch of short-sighted clowns—how could they ever get the good intentions of us old-timers who've weathered decades of storms?!"
NyeRonpin snorted, sitting up straighter, his old director swagger kicking back in.
"The way of heaven's falling apart, people's hearts are screwed, and the world's going to hell! Take my climb up the mountain today—Mount Hua's supposed to be a pure place, but all the way up, I lost count of how many young couples were all over each other in broad daylight, hugging and even kissing like no one else was around!
"What's the difference between that and brainless animals screwing in public?! Out of the kindness of my heart, I tried to set those kids straight, tell 'em to watch how they act. But those little brats didn't appreciate it—they cussed me out and even tried to get physical with an old man like me!"
"Uh…" NyeDepin wasn't sure what to say to his fired-up brother.
"The National Radio and Television Administration might be history, but our spirit's gotta carry on! This seal holds the will of every director before me. I want you to use your badass skills to turn that will—that drive to wipe out every rotten thought—into something real! Let it clean up the filth in all that vulgar garbage literature!"
NyeRonpin finally spilled his goal: he wanted NyeDepin to cast a spell and pull a spirit embodying the old bureau's will from the seal, then shove it into toxic works to fix the world.
NyeDepin didn't answer the request. Instead, he shot back, "Climbing all the way up Mount Hua, did you only see those shameless couples?"
"Of course—what else was there to see?" NyeRonpin's cloudy yellow eyes widened as he stared at his clear-eyed Taoist brother.
"Did you notice the porters hauling heavy loads on their shoulders, scrambling up and down the deadly Sky Ladder like ants?
"They're the backbone of Mount Hua. The tourists, pilgrims, temples burn through mountains of food, water, and supplies every day—and it's these guys, up before dawn and working past dark, who lug it all up on their backs.
"Pretty much every panting tourist on the trail gets blown away by the porters' heavy burdens and quick steps. But you, climbing from the base to the peak, only had eyes for the cuddly couples?"
"I…" NyeRonpin went quiet. For the first time, he felt that he—an official who once thought he couldn't stand a speck of dirt in his sight—might've missed something big during his decades in the system.
After a long pause, he mumbled, head down, "That's not my job…"
"But!" NyeRonpin snapped his head back up. He wasn't about to lose this brotherly showdown—because if he did, the National Radio and Television Administration's decades-long will would go up in smoke!
"Our people wear their blue jeans, listen to foreign pop tunes—I'm seriously worried. Sure, some say we went overboard, but you can't deny we kept a lot of rotten ideas out of the country!"
NyeDepin frowned. His brother's rant reminded him of a recent game of Civilization VI. He'd battled three players for a day and night, only to get smoked by a cultural victory.
In Civ VI, a game about nations duking it out, a "cultural victory" means one country takes over by drowning the others in its culture.
After chewing it over, he tucked the bronze seal—loaded with decades of bureau willpower—into his robe. He nodded at NyeRonpin, who was gearing up for a full-on speech, and promised, "I'll do my best. I'll definitely pull a spirit out of this seal."