The More Tragic I Act, the Stronger I Get — My Fans Beg Me to Stop Killing Off My Roles-Chapter 212: One Bow Wipes Out Grudges, KPI Freaks Out
Luo Yu barely slept all night.
In the dark, the glow of his phone screen stabbed at his eyes.
The file his former assistant sent felt like a belated verdict.
One after another, good scripts he had never even heard of were quietly pushed aside while he wasn’t looking.
In their place were a bunch of tacky web dramas that even he felt embarrassed about, and commercial appearances that drained his popularity dry.
Those four words, The Unknown, burned in his vision.
So the role he’d dreamed of didn't lose out to the market, it died under the “for your own good” of the person closest to him.
…
The next day.
Back on set, Luo Yu seemed like a different man.
He remained quiet, but the gloom was gone.
He even proactively greeted a few crew members.
Wen Nian, as always, wore an impeccable smile.
“A-Yu, didn't sleep well last night? You look awful, do you want to ask the Director for a day off?”
Her voice was its usual softness.
Looking at her overly concerned face, Luo Yu felt no warmth at all.
He spoke calmly.
“Nian Nian, I thought about it. After this shoot I still want to find a good arthouse role to sharpen my acting.”
The smile on Wen Nian’s face froze for a split second.
So brief it was almost imperceptible.
But Luo Yu saw it.
She immediately restored her flawless gentleness, reaching out to smooth a crease in his clothes, the gesture natural and intimate.
“No, A-Yu.”
She vetoed him in that “for your own good” tone at once.
“Those kinds of films take forever and don’t have heat, they’ll drag down the momentum you’ve worked so hard to build.”
“Trust me, I’ve planned everything for you. We stabilize your current status ranking first, there will be chances later.”
Luo Yu didn’t dodge.
He just stood quietly and watched her.
He watched her speak the exact same lines she’d used in the scene with Jiang Ci.
The last flicker of hope in his chest was extinguished.
Luo Yu didn’t say anything else. He took out his phone and, in front of Wen Nian, dialed a number.
The call was answered quickly.
“Director Wang, it’s me, Luo Yu.”
His voice was steady.
“I have something to send you, about my agent, Wen Nian.”
The perfect smile on Wen Nian’s face cracked inch by inch, blood draining from her complexion.
…
The atmosphere in the company van was suffocating.
Luo Yu’s agency boss, a forty-something middle-aged man whose presence commanded respect without a word, sat in the back seat.
He was Director Wang from the call.
Luo Yu sat across from him, expression cold.
Wen Nian had been called into the van a few minutes earlier; the gentle face she’d been wearing could no longer be maintained.
All her camouflage shattered when Director Wang handed over a printed list.
She knew she’d been exposed.
Wen Nian slowly straightened, folding away every expression.
She no longer looked at Director Wang, instead fixing her gaze on Luo Yu.
She sneered.
“Luo Yu, do you really think you’re where you are today all by yourself?”
Her voice changed, losing that soft sweetness.
“Without me, you’d still be scraping by as an eighteenth-tier nobody, playing that so-called ‘layered’ cannon fodder in garbage dramas!”
“Do you think those trending topics climbed there on their own? It was me, I paved the path for you bit by bit, I handled all the connections for you!”
“And now you go and get cocky, thinking my presence was holding you back from ascending?”
Director Wang listened with a clenched face.
Luo Yu remained unusually composed.
He looked at the woman he had loved for two years and felt nothing but a stranger.
“So that’s why you rejected those good scripts and shoved me into those trash dramas?”
“For my own good?”
Wen Nian sounded as if she’d heard the biggest joke in the world.
“For your own good? Luo Yu, have you been acting stupid?”
Her voice sharpened, tearing off the last of her disguise. “I was investing! You were my most successful project, the product I personally crafted!”
“What can an arthouse film get you? Some obscure trophy no one watches. I want traffic, commercial value, tangible money!”
She laughed scornfully. “You’re not my lover, you’re the best, most obedient stepping stone I have to get higher!”
“Without you, I might still be stuck at the eighteenth tier.”
Luo Yu finally spoke, each word crystal clear.
“But at least I was still an actor.”
“Not a product you squeeze dry and toss away.”
He was clear-eyed and resolute now.
Director Wang slapped the armrest.
“Enough!”
He pointed at Wen Nian, furious.
“Wen Nian, you’re fired!”
“The company will issue a statement immediately to terminate all cooperation with you. In addition, you seriously violated the agent contract and maliciously harmed the company’s core artist. Expect a lawyer’s notice!”
Wen Nian’s body trembled violently.
Everything she had painstakingly built collapsed overnight.
She stared at Luo Yu with no trace of love left, only rancor.
Luo Yu didn’t spare her a single needless glance.
He opened the car door and stepped out.
The sunlight outside was harsh, but he felt this was the clearest he’d seen in two years.
On set, Jiang Ci sat in a corner, engrossed in the script.
A shadow fell over his pages.
Jiang Ci looked up.
It was Luo Yu.
Luo Yu stood in front of him alone, for a long time.
Long enough that Jiang Ci thought he was being made to stand and block the light.
Finally, Luo Yu spoke, a little stiffly.
“That day… thank you.”
Jiang Ci looked bewildered.
He blinked, only now dragging himself out of the script’s world.
“Thank me for what?”
He asked sincerely.
“Thank me for finding you to act opposite me, and yet I still couldn’t find that sense of controlling everything?”
Luo Yu was stunned by that comment.
He looked at Jiang Ci’s face—so honest it seemed to ask Who am I, where am I, what do you want?—and suddenly he laughed.
The laugh had something like release in it.
He realized Jiang Ci was playing dumb.
Or rather, this guy hadn’t taken that incident seriously at all.
He had been offered a lifeline in his own way, and he’d grabbed it.
Luo Yu dropped the need for verbal thanks.
He chose another way, one actors understand.
“You did that scene very well.”
“Because… it was real.”
After saying that, he stepped back and bowed deeply to Jiang Ci.
Without a shred of insincerity.
Jiang Ci was caught off guard by the gesture; the script almost fell from his hands.
He reached out instinctively to steady it, but Luo Yu had already straightened.
“From now on, please take care of me.”
Luo Yu said that, then didn’t linger—he turned and walked toward the director’s monitor.
Jiang Ci sat there, staring at Luo Yu’s departing back, dazed for a long time.
What on earth was going on?
He’d only tried to nudge him a bit because he feared Luo Yu would mess up as the villain and ruin his KPI meal ticket.
How did it turn into this “one bow wipes out grudges” melodrama?
Jiang Ci scratched his head and bent back over the script.
But as he read, a much more serious question popped into his head.
Wait.
Luo Yu’s current state—calm, clear-eyed, wholly transparent.
How was he supposed to play the sly, vicious, jealousy-driven demon king Chi Jie now?
Without that suppressed, twisted viciousness…
Won’t my KPI be affected?
Jiang Ci stopped moving.
His expression shifted from composed to stunned,
finally settling into the blank stare of an old man on the subway staring at his phone.
