The More Tragic I Act, the Stronger I Get — My Fans Beg Me to Stop Killing Off My Roles-Chapter 260: I’m not taking this script!

The thick door panel completely isolated the film set's noise and heat waves.

Inside a conference room at a high-end hotel under the Hengdian complex,

the air conditioning was cranked up high, yet it couldn't disperse the stagnant atmosphere in the slightest.

Producer Zhang Wang had fine beads of sweat seeping from his forehead.

In the main seat, Yan Zheng sat upright like an old pine tree, his figure lean but his presence as steady as a mountain.

Behind him, his two young assistants wore expressions—one tense, the other feigning composure.

Jiang Ci sat opposite them.

He was still draped in that oversized military coat, covering the terrifying "wounds" from the scene.

He looked as if he had just been dragged straight out of a cold, damp interrogation room,

a lingering chill still present between his brows.

Yan Zheng didn't beat around the bush. His slender fingers gently pushed a document across the redwood table towards Jiang Ci.

On the cover were four bold, printed characters in black.

"Nameless Monument."

The script outline.

Jiang Ci reached out and picked it up; the paper felt somewhat cold to the touch.

He flipped through it page by page.

The story began with his father, Jiang Yanjun, joining the police force, recounting his outstanding merits and fearless bravery all the way.

The "Jiang Yanjun" in the script was always on the front lines, always right, and never knew what fear was.

He was like a perfect symbol, a meticulously polished, walking textbook.

In the final "Operation Thunderbolt," he covered the safe retreat of all his teammates.

Alone, with one gun, like a God of War descending, he blocked all the bullets pouring in from every direction.

Jiang Ci's gaze lingered on the script's ending.

That line of bolded text was like a tombstone.

[Amidst stirring background music, the hero slowly falls. His body forges an immortal monument.]

Jiang Ci's page-turning movements grew slower and slower.

The conference room was so quiet that only the faint rustle of turning pages remained.

The more he read, the tighter his brows, which had relaxed from exhaustion, furrowed.

The hero in this script was perfect, like a mannequin.

The father in his memory wasn't like this.

His father was a living, breathing person.

He would clumsily peel an apple for him before a mission, one that could never be peeled clean.

He would fall into a long, guilty silence on the phone after missing a parent-teacher conference.

He would secretly tuck a letter inside an old dictionary in his study, a letter never sent, filled with hopes and apologies for his son.

He would fear death. He would miss home.

He never shouted those earth-shaking slogans.

Jiang Ci closed the script outline.

"Tap."

A soft sound echoed abruptly in the conference room.

"This script, I won't take it."

Jiang Ci knew this ending might harvest Heartbreak Value.

But such a hollow symbol, he disdained to portray.

Producer Zhang Wang nearly sprang from his chair.

Yan Zheng's square-jawed face still showed little expression.

But the younger assistant beside him couldn't contain himself, his face flushing with offended anger.

"Jiang Ci, what kind of attitude is this? A script personally written by Teacher Yan—countless people would break their heads trying to get a role."

Jiang Ci ignored him.

He didn't even spare him a glance from the corner of his eye.

He just looked at Yan Zheng in the main seat and repeated earnestly.

"Too fake."

"My dad was a man, not a god."

Jiang Ci's gaze fell on the script outline on the table,

but what surfaced in his mind was the young, black-and-white photo on the tombstone that would never smile again.

"When he died, he was hit by six bullets. There was no background music, only the mud and blood of the Golden Triangle around him."

The temperature in the conference room plummeted to freezing.

Yan Zheng's assistant was left speechless by these words, his face alternating between pale and flushed.

He argued almost instinctively, "Teacher Jiang, this is artistic creation! We need a perfect heroic image to give the audience strength!"

"False perfection," Jiang Ci's voice carried a chill,

he extended a finger and tapped the script, "only makes people feel that sacrifice is something cheap."

"Jiang Ci!" Producer Zhang Wang finally couldn't sit still any longer,

he lowered his voice, carrying a pleading tone, "Calm down, this is Teacher Yan..."

Right then.

The phone in Jiang Ci's pocket abruptly lit up and vibrated.

He casually took it out.

On the screen was a push notification from a news app.

The words in the title stabbed sharply into his pupils.

[Regarding the employment of some morally deficient artists...]

Jiang Ci's finger subconsciously tapped it.

After reading the main text, he scrolled to the comments section.

That small area, segmented by data, was a carnival of humanity's ugliest depravity.

Something scalding rushed into Jiang Ci's brain.

Those twisted words seemed to come alive,

warping and deforming before his eyes, finally coalescing into grinning, indifferent faces.

He thought of the cold photo on his father's tombstone.

He thought of those uncles and aunts who visited their home after his father's sacrifice,

who had also lost husbands, lost sons,

their faces worn flat by grief and the weight of life.

He thought of those young lives forever left on the borderlines,

so that the so-called "idols" in these people's mouths could sit comfortably at home "de-stressing."

"Thud!"

A dull sound.

Jiang Ci threw the phone, screen up, onto the polished conference table.

The phone slid a distance across the glossy surface, hit the teacup in front of Yan Zheng with a crisp clink, and finally stopped.

On the screen, those comments defending drug addicts

were like the filthiest sludge, clearly visible to everyone present.

Yan Zheng looked at that still-glowing screen.

On his face, which had remained steady throughout, the color was slowly draining away, finally turning ashen.

As an older-generation cultural worker who had dedicated his life to mainstream thematic creation,

he loathed this kind of twisted public opinion more than anyone.

"Teacher Yan, look."

Jiang Ci stood up.

He pointed at the phone screen.

"This is our current public opinion environment."

"Do you think, if you make a film singing praises, these people will watch it?"

"They won't." Jiang Ci's words struck at the heart,

"They'll just find it boring, think it's preaching, then turn around and defend their 'idols,'

and mock those who truly took bullets for them!"

The two assistants behind Yan Zheng even forgot to breathe.

Every word from Jiang Ci stabbed deeply into the most awkward, most powerless sore spot of current cultural creation.

"If we're going to make it."

Jiang Ci's voice wasn't loud, yet it easily overwhelmed all the heartbeats in the conference room.

"Then don't make some grand, glorious, and righteous film."

He looked directly at Yan Zheng, whose face was ashen.

"Teacher Yan, dare to make a big bet with me?"

"Let's make a film... that gives all drug addicts and their apologists nightmares."