The More Tragic I Act, the Stronger I Get — My Fans Beg Me to Stop Killing Off My Roles-Chapter 267: The Final Gunshot Before Dawn

When the two words "The Abyss" slipped silently from Jiang Ci's cracked lips, every expression on Watanabe's face froze.

A pure, intense horror seized him.

It wasn't because of the codename itself, but because of the massive web it represented, a web he had woven with his own hands that now trapped him utterly.

He had thought himself the hunter, savoring the prey's struggles within the trap.

Only now did he realize with a chill that he had been the prey—manipulated from beginning to end.

This man before him, the "traitor" he had always despised and tormented, was the true chessmaster.

All of his moves, every plan he had arrogantly conceived, had been cooperating with the other's staging of a meticulously designed performance.

Bone-deep terror, paired with the humiliation of being thoroughly mocked, instantaneously devoured Takahashi's reason.

The hand that held the gun began to tremble violently, and he stepped back half a pace without thinking.

This tiny motion brutally exposed the collapse within him.

He stared into Jiang Ci's eyes of pity, searching for a trace of falseness.

But he found nothing.

"Ahhhh!"

He let out an inhuman scream that shattered the hollow waltz playing over the Paramount Ballroom, an utterance drenched in hysterical madness.

He slammed the trigger.

Flame spat from the muzzle.

Jiang Ci did not flinch, nor did he dodge.

Dragging his shattered left leg, he adopted a resolute posture,

and, facing that lethal bullet, he thrust his chest forward to meet it.

This was not suicide.

It was an embrace long awaited.

An embrace of release, an embrace of victory.

Behind the monitor, Hou Hsiao-hsien lurched forward,

the reflected blast of light in his clouded eyeballs pushing him into a razor-focus state.

On camera, the bullet tore through Jiang Ci's body, the force hurling him backward.

A bloom of blood opened on the chest of his white suit.

Yet his eyes never left Takahashi.

Through the smoke, past death itself, he fixed his gaze on that face twisted by fear.

There was the mockery of a victor.

The prop blood pack on Jiang Ci ruptured, blood quickly spreading,

dripping from his coat hem to pool on the polished floor in a widening, crimson lake.

Deprived of his last support, his body collapsed heavily backward.

He strained to turn his head, eyes searching the chaotic crowd,

finally locking onto that pale, unbelieving face in the corner.

Gu Wanbai.

Looking at her, Jiang Ci's battered face broke into an exceedingly gentle smile.

In that smile were relief, apology, and endless longing.

He lifted the hand stained with blood, extending it with great effort through the pooling gore, trying to touch the lover he had deceived with his life and protected with his life.

One centimeter short.

The hand lacked the strength to hold, dropping heavily and leaving a shocking streak of blood on the floor. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

With his last strength, to that void of an approaching dawn, his lips moved and he silently uttered three words.

"It's... dawn."

Light and shadow faded, consciousness sank into stillness.

Hou Hsiao-hsien did not call "Cut."

Across the set, only Watanabe's heavy, despair-laced breathing echoed in the hollow "execution ground."

Everyone was stunned by the scene's tragic, heroic, and absurd extremity.

They even forgot they were filming.

That was not Shen Qingyuan's death on screen; it was the actual fall of a living soul that had occurred a minute before.

This long silence lasted a full three minutes.

Only when Hou Hsiao-hsien's hoarse voice, altered in tone, broke the quiet did it end.

"Cut!"

The instant the word fell,

the pale blue system panel in Jiang Ci's mind began to spam wildly.

[From Wardrobe Sister Wang, Heartbreak Value +85]

[From Extra Li Xiaomei, Heartbreak Value +61]

[From Clapper Loader Liu Qian, Heartbreak Value +58]

...

[Total Heartbreak Value: +588 points]

[Congratulations host, life duration gained: 102 days]

[Heartbreak Value balance: 8,326 points]

[Remaining life duration: 7 years, 9 months, 2 days]

Jiang Ci immediately recited silently, activating Emotional Isolation.

That dying pain, the longing... and the mockery, were slowly shut off as if by an invisible gate.

But the body's memory was more honest: his heart still pounded wildly in his chest,

muscles twitching slightly from the extreme tension they had just endured.

He pushed against the floor and, with some effort, sat up from the cold "pool of blood,"

a momentary blackout passing over his vision as his soul returned, causing a dizzying sensation.

He closed his eyes and opened them again, the lights of the set reflected in his gaze,

and at last the grief belonging to "Shen Qingyuan" drained away, replaced by his usual, almost detached calm.

That stark contrast sent chills through those nearby.

One second he was a hero bleeding out his last drop to compose a tragic finale.

The next he was an ordinary actor who seemed to have merely lain down for a nap.

"A glass of water, please."

Jiang Ci's voice was a little hoarse. He did not move toward the edge of the set; he remained seated and reached toward the nearest crew member.

The hand that brought the water trembled, and the person instinctively stepped back.

Their reaction was not toward an actor,

but toward a corpse that had just staged a return to the living.

Behind the monitor, Hou Hsiao-hsien, shaking, reached into his pocket for a cigarette case, only to find it empty.

He balled the empty case into his palm and clutched it.

Watching the playback of the man's dying smile, his lips quivered as he repeated two words to himself.

"Madman..."

"What a madman..."

This shot would become one of the most heart-stopping deaths in Chinese-language film history.

On the other side of the set, Watanabe, who played Takahashi, was being supported by his assistant.

He wiped sweat from his face, but his eyes remained fixed on Jiang Ci, who had returned to calm.

For a moment there, he had truly believed he was Takahashi, dragged into hell by the specter called "The Abyss."

The fear of having one's soul seen through and crushed was something the script had never described.

Watching Jiang Ci revert from the terrifying "Abyss" back into an ordinary young man,

the collapse and madness in his gaze slowly shifted into a more complex emotion—an admixture of defeat and awe.

He did not step forward to disturb him. Instead, to his assistant he whispered in Japanese, "To be an actor born in the same era as him is both my misfortune and my honor."