Shift! The Side-Character Heroine

Self Contradicting Mentality

Of course, Lady Zhao was too liberal to bring out the Mythical River Crab. It was true that she maintained a good relationship with the "Five Gods" that owned Qidian online novel platform.[1] It was not by her luxurious spending on that platform, but with her true identity as Zhao Family member.

With a snap of their fingers, Qidian officials could easily "pacify" any novel they disliked. Why not do Lady Zhao a huge favor by "pacifying" the novel that incriminated and encroached upon her reputation?

After all, it was an insignificant and ordinary novel. Things would be different for novels that had a massive count of views, or tens of thousands of followers. In that case they would have to approach the author and drop a fair warning.

Generally, authors were intrepid with the nature of their content, especially when it concerned iconic characters. They were willing to step into the fire by creating iconic replicas and disgrace them in every way they wanted. They had a voice, and the law said nothing about forbidding them from exercising those free speech rights. But, which fool would actually condemn those influential individuals in the real world

On the contrary, most authors did not have the moxie to say no to an editor's demands. Most of them wrote for a living. They would stand to lose much, if those millions of words they wrote got stopped in their tracks!

If "I Love to Eat Pumpkin Pie" was aware of how close Ah Yu, the female broadcaster was with Qi Dian high ranked directors, he would not have written anything bad about her!

The Orphan Author "I Love to Eat Pumpkin Pie" was not an actual orphan. It was a malicious nickname that had been given to him. The protagonist of "God Level Leader" was an orphan, though. Hence it was logical to name him an Orphan Author.

"I Love to Eat Pumpkin Pie's" real name was Xu Liang Ming. He was a civil servant. Twenty-seven years of age, stationed at a rural area. As his daily, mundane work drained him of life, he grew disillusioned and morose.

It was a cruel fact. Civil servants with no support of their own, were nothing more than coolies. Being promoted to an administrative position was considered a great achievement. The protagonist in the novel was the embodiment of his own dreams. How could one climb up the stairs of bureaucracy with such ease?

Xu Liangming had complied to the requests of his family elders. They had egged him on to join the government service industry. He had been born in a family of farmers. In the eyes of those oblivious elders, a government job was stable and convincing.

Pressure from the elders aside, his wife had pushed him into this as well. Their love story began in the university in which they studied and graduated together. Later on, they had been forced into marriage due to an unplanned pregnancy. Both of them came from families that had nothing much to offer. It was a simple wedding, and also his biggest regret. Regret that he had been incapable of giving her more.

His university had been mediocre. Every job he took ended with angry words from his superiors. Hence, he swore to be better and managed to get himself a civil servant's job. His wife became a nurse, and they improved their living conditions progressively.

There was a reason why Xu Liangming started writing. He sought for an outlet to release his resentment of the world, and the self-hatred that traced back to his helpless insignificance. It was his identity as a nobody that had armed him with the knowledge of what ordinary people would love to read.

He littered profanities, depravity and the most perverse orgies ever within the upper echelons of society. Only such simple crudeness would draw outrage from the masses.

In Chinese, there was an old saying, "One highly ranked superior would crush all who were inferior." Unfortunately, it is no longer applicable in modern office politics. Managers had no right to interfere in the matters of other departments.

However, Zeng Dawei, the unscrupulous protagonist of Xu Liangming's novel "God Level Leader" was not bound by such restrictions. He promoted the ideology of "unity by one hall," and suppressed all inferior beings and subordinates with his iron authority. When he finally sat in the mayor's desk, he abused the power of his influence over the national security department to defile the culprits behind all incidents of insubordinations

In reality, that would have been completely impossible. Every organization had its own strict, disciplinary department. How could he get away after breaching over so many boundaries?

Even so, readers were pleased with his storyline, especially when it came to those chapters that featured the female broadcaster - "Ah Mao" Lady An Youyou. After his heroic attempt of saving An Youyou, he had mobilized the entire police force to scour every part of the nightclub for the punks. (Un)surprisingly, he came across some dark secret of his political enemy, and used it against them The ultimate prize for his actions was winning the trust and support of An Youyou's family.

The honorable An Family!

The sudden development had been absurd, but readers enjoyed it. The protagonist was a proud and hot-tempered politician. He surprised everyone with the speed at which he rose up the ladders of bureaucracy. He had also won the heart of such an angelic dame. He was unquestionably the biggest winner in every single aspect!

This was the ultimate novel of politicians. Fans had stated that they bowed to no politician but Zeng Dawei! Such a level of respect was almost at the same level as Li QiYe[2]

Therefore, Xu Liangming was considered a great author. Let's just glaze over the fact that he had a poor vocabulary, was completely devoid of the skills necessary to pull off blind-siding plot twists. Let's not forget that he had minimal exposure to the life of an actual bureaucrat. Even so, he wrote his novel in such a way that it became a cesspool of illogical manhood swinging!

On one fine day, Xu Liangming caught sight of his superior reading his novel "God Level Leader" with relish. At that point, the cat caught hold of his tongue. If an actual member of the government actually loved how the depravity of his protagonist, the government might truly be rotten to the core, what hope was there left?

People might not believe that Xu Liangming was probably the most conflicted soul over his own work. He expressed his deepest desire to satisfy the hunger of male readers.. At the same time, he greatly despised the idiot character he created.

The more he elaborated on how untouchable this orphan protagonist was, pulling the strings that dictated the fate of everyone's lives, the more he felt hopeless about his career.

The monthly tips that he earned from writing was the only thing that kept him going. It could hardly even be called side-income, it actually matched his full-time pay in the government. He had decided to empty his ink on this Zeng Dawei until he became the supreme leader of the world. That might last for a good ten million words or so. After all, no rules prevented rank limits from being used in the novel…

This much could support his daughter, at least until kindergarten. It was a good deal. All he needed to do was to numb his mind, and keep writing. He did not even dare mention this novel to his wife. She might be embarrassed by the behaviour of the protagonist. He was a depraved bastard who welcomed any woman into his arms.

Most horrifyingly, he feared that he might one day behave in such a way himself, should he attain that promotion.

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Translation Note:

[1] Qidian is original online literature website in mainland China. It was established in May 2003 and was formerly a fantasy literature association. Qidian is famous for collecting original network novels such as fantasy, martial arts, and military, and it mainly provides novels created independently by web writers. Operated by Shanghai Xuanzang Entertainment Information Technology Co., Ltd., it began an online fee-based reading service in October 2003. In October 2004, it was acquired by Shanda Interactive Entertainment Limited and became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Shanda Interactive. On July 4, 2008, Shanda Literature was established and Qidian became part of Shanda Literature.

[2] Li Qiye the protagonist of an online nover Emperor's Domination was a shepherd boy who blew the sheep. He strayed into the fairy magic cave and was made into the immortal crow by Shaw of the fairy magic. After the design to get rid of the fate of being enslaved, but it is still a crow. Trained several immortal emperors, mastered the nine dead books, "Death Book", "Body Book", "Empty Book", "Mind Book", "Tao Book" and "Shou Shu". At the beginning of the book, the Black Dragon King tore away his destiny to recapture it. Really flesh. All bodies, all rounds, mortals, nine stars, thirteen palaces of life.