The More Tragic I Act The Stronger I Get My Fans Beg Me To Stop Killing Off My Roles Chapter 287

[ … words ]

On the screen, inside the great tent where blizzards and mournful songs intertwined.

Jiang Ci, portraying Xiang Yu, finally uttered the line that was already predestined.

“Yu Ji, do you have any regrets?”

In the theater, the previously rising and falling, suppressed sobs came to a strange, eerie halt at this moment.

The audience below held their breath, awaiting that final verdict.

Zhao Yingfei, portraying Yu Ji, shook her head with heartbreaking sorrow.

On that face streaked with tears and bloodstains, she managed to pull out a smile of the utmost pride.

“This concubine follows the Great King, without regret in life or death.”

The air in the theater froze.

The suppressed sobs instantly spiraled out of control, transforming into widespread, choked weeping.

In the third row, the bespectacled young man from earlier felt as if he’d been punched square in the gut.

Tears welled up without warning, cascading madly down his cheeks.

His glasses lenses fogged up instantly. Flustered, he took them off,

haphazardly wiping them with his sleeve, his movements utterly disheveled.

The companion beside him, who had been constantly poking at his phone screen,

was now also crying, shoulders heaving with each sob, his whole body curled up in the seat.

The earlier joy of playing with memes had now completely transformed into sharp, piercing pain, striking straight to the heart.

The camera gave a close-up of the long sword in Yu Ji’s hand.

Under the flickering candle flames, the blade gleamed with a chilling light, a tiny nick clearly visible.

It was a mark left from the recent clash with armor.

Only at this moment did the audience in the theater truly realize.

That was a warrior’s weapon, a true, blood-drinking instrument of death.

Zhao Yingfei’s “Dance to Break Formations” began once more, sword energy crisscrossing.

Every swing of the blade carried the desperate, frenzied resolve to sever Destiny itself.

The dance reached its climax.

Zhao Yingfei spun, the blade of the long sword in her hand lightly tracing across her own arm.

The movement was too fast, too decisive.

On the screen, a streak of blood, enhanced by special effects, instantly bloomed, staining her plain white dance attire crimson.

“Ah!”

A wave of low gasps erupted in the theater.

This glaring splash of blood instantly ratcheted the tragic tension of the entire scene to its peak.

In Jiang Ci’s mind, the system notification tones were no longer delivered one by one, but merged into a sharp, urgent, nearly out-of-control torrent of alarms.

[Collective Extreme Heartbreak Alert! Heartbreak Value +55!]

[Intense Empathetic Heartbreak Alert! Heartbreak Value +68!]

[Devastating Tragic Resonance Alert! Heartbreak Value +82!]

On the screen.

Jiang Ci’s Xiang Yu finally moved.

He rushed in from outside the tent, arriving belatedly,

and from behind, wrapped his arms tightly around the figure intent on seeking death.

The force of that embrace was so immense that even through the screen, the audience could almost feel the dull sound of bones being squeezed.

Xiang Yu’s trembling back occupied the entire frame.

Countless viewers at this moment suddenly remembered the figure from hours earlier on the red carpet,

the one who had taken a lonely half-step back, refusing to shake hands with “Liu Bang.”

So, it wasn’t arrogance.

It was loneliness.

And now, he was about to lose even the last warmth he could embrace.

The Yu Ji in his arms, taking advantage of his moment of distraction, drew the short sword from his waist, the one symbolizing “farewell.”

The blade swept across her neck.

Zhao Yingfei’s body went limp in his embrace, slowly collapsing.

Blood gushed forth,

staining her plain white dance attire,

and also staining Jiang Ci’s arm, the one still trembling slightly as he held her tightly.

He did not let out a heavenward roar of grief like in other dramas.

He lowered his head, gazing at the face in his arms rapidly losing its color,

his entire body trembling violently, uncontrollably.

Finally, two tuneless syllables were forced from his throat.

“Yu Xi…”

He could no longer utter the words “What can I do with you?”

Because at this moment, this man had lost everything.

Any words were superfluous.

Right then, all the score, the Chu Songs, and the sound of wind and snow in the film suddenly stopped.

The theater plunged into absolute silence.

Only the heavy, suppressed sound of Xiang Yu’s breathing remained on the screen.

This extreme negative space left everyone feeling suffocated.

The sorrow within the theater fermented wildly in this terrifying silence, until it completely swallowed everyone’s reason.

In the back row, the young female film critic who had been scribbling furiously in her notebook earlier could bear it no longer.

She abruptly stood up from her seat, covered her mouth, and rushed out of the screening room, heedless of everything.

She needed a place to weep openly,

she could not endure this suffocating feeling of watching the most beautiful thing in the world

being destroyed inch by inch before her eyes.

In the corner of the very last row of the theater.

Director Wei Song stood quietly, his figure completely hidden by the darkness.

He watched the stumbling, fleeing back of that girl,

watched the bespectacled young man in the front row who had long since dissolved into tears,

watched the entire audience in the theater, utterly submerged in grief.

He slowly took off his glasses, pressing his knuckles hard against his burning eye sockets,

a uniquely creator’s cruel satisfaction, a mix of heartache and gratification.

Laugh.

Why aren’t you laughing now?

The corner of his mouth twisted slightly in the dark.

First row.

Jiang Ci watched the large screen calmly, his mind calculating rapidly.

The Heartbreak Value output from this “Farewell My Concubine” scene was a full thirty percent higher than the system’s estimated peak.

It seemed that Zhao Yingfei’s near-out-of-control “immersion into the role” at the time was the most crucial catalyst.

For future life-extending endeavors, he’d have to enshrine this “tear-jerking effect amplifier.”

Finally, after a long silence, the image slowly faded to black.

Only the silhouette of Xiang Yu holding Yu Ji, sitting desolately amidst the wind and snow, remained on the screen.

A line of black-red subtitles slowly emerged.

Gaixia, a great rout.

After a brief black screen, the image lit up again.

The sky was bright.

The location had shifted to the banks of the Wu River.

Jiang Ci’s Xiang Yu, covered in bloodstains, holding the bronze sword that had accompanied him his entire life, stood alone by the turbulent river.

Behind him were his few remaining, battered soldiers, and the Wu River Village Head, desperately urging him to cross the river.

The camera gave a close-up of the sword in his hand.

It was precisely that “controversial sword” he had held during the Star City promotional tour, the one that ignited online laughter.

And then.

Xiang Yu on the screen made a move that stopped the hearts of the entire audience.

He held the sword in one hand, casually weighing it up and down.

That movement.

Was identical to Jiang Ci’s from the promotional tour, when he asked Zhao Yingfei, “Is this sword lighter than that day?”

Deathly silence fell over the theater.

The bespectacled young man’s pupils dilated to their absolute limit.

That was Xiang Yu, before the end of his life, feeling the weight of his sword one last time.

It was the witness to all his glory, all his battles and campaigns, his proof as the Conqueror of Western Chu.

That online meme, the source of widespread revelry, had now transformed into a resounding slap,

striking the face of everyone who had once found amusement in it, burning with shame.