The More Tragic I Act, the Stronger I Get — My Fans Beg Me to Stop Killing Off My Roles-Chapter 268: Unclaimed Bones

The filming of "The Lurker" did not stop because of Shen Qingyuan's "death."

The next day, the film set operated as usual, but the oppressive, low-pressure atmosphere in the air was even heavier than the day before.

The plot advanced to one day later.

In the early morning of Shanghai's Bund, sunlight filtered through the thin mist, creating a surface appearance of peace and tranquility.

However, inside the heavily guarded "Material Strategic Reserve Department" building located on the Bund, chaos had long since erupted.

Watanabe's office was filled with swirling cigarette smoke.

Watanabe, portraying Takahashi, had bloodshot eyes and paced neurotically back and forth in the room.

The pleasure of executing "Abyss" had long since vanished without a trace,

leaving only an indescribable restlessness and emptiness in his heart.

He waved his hand irritably, ordering his adjutant to turn on the gramophone.

He needed some music to calm his mind.

The familiar waltz tune began to play again, the same light and melodious melody from yesterday.

However, far from calming him, this music only made him more unsettled and anxious.

The pity-filled look in Shen Qingyuan's eyes just before death was deeply imprinted in his mind.

Beside the gramophone, a young adjutant who understood music was idly looking at the blood-stained sheet music on the desk,

the only piece of evidence brought back from the Paramount Ballroom scene.

As he listened, his body suddenly stiffened.

He picked up the sheet music, his fingers trembling as they traced over the staff lines, his lips moving silently as if reciting something.

The next second, he raised his head, his face filled with horror.

"Colonel!" he cried out involuntarily.

Takahashi glared at him impatiently.

"This... this sheet music..." the adjutant's voice was distorted with fear,

"It's wrong! Something's terribly wrong! The arrangement of these notes... their pauses and repetitions... this... this is a code!"

"Morse code!"

Takahashi rushed over and snatched the sheet music.

He couldn't read music, but he could understand the world-destroying terror on his adjutant's face.

The scenes from last night instantly exploded in his mind.

Before playing the piano, Shen Qingyuan had gathered the sheet music scattered on the floor and arranged it with an almost obsessive-compulsive precision, in exact page order.

At the time, he had thought it was just an eccentricity.

Only now did he understand—it was transmitting intelligence!

Not only had he killed Shen Qingyuan in front of everyone,

but he had also personally pressed the play button on the gramophone,

announcing to the world, through the most elegant and cheerful waltz, the very intelligence that would bury him.

The sheer absurdity and humiliation made Takahashi's vision go dark, and he nearly collapsed.

Almost simultaneously, a series of urgent alarm sounds came from outside the building,

followed by one violent explosion after another.

The very ground trembled.

An actor playing an intelligence officer scrambled into the office,

his voice choked with tears: "Report, Colonel! The south city, west city, north city... all of our secret material warehouses... all have been precisely destroyed!"

"The Allied bombers... it's like they had eyes!"

That waltz, originally intended to humiliate Shen Qingyuan, had become a funeral dirge played in advance for the Japanese army.

The tide of the war had completely reversed overnight.

The office fell into silence, with only that gramophone tirelessly continuing to play its cheerful melody.

Takahashi stood frozen in place, his body trembling violently.

Finally, he drew the katana from his waist.

The blade reflected his face, twisted with despair.

Before dying, he looked at the sheet music stained with Shen Qingyuan's blood on the desk,

the last image in his mind being that man's pity-filled gaze.

He died with his eyes wide open.

"Cut!"

Hou Hsiao-hsien's voice rang out.

In these scenes, Jiang Ci had no lines.

But he wasn't resting with his eyes closed; instead, he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Hou Hsiao-hsien, staring at the monitor.

On the screen, Takahashi's desperate roar and the chain explosions of the warehouses

seemed like a belated requiem being played for Shen Qingyuan.

Jiang Ci was witnessing with his own eyes the outcome Shen Qingyuan had bought with his life.

Watanabe, who played Takahashi, had to be supported by his assistant after filming the seppuku scene,

unable to detach himself from that extreme fear and humiliation for a long time.

He looked toward Jiang Ci's location, his expression complicated.

He knew that all the fear in his performance just now

stemmed from his imagination of that "Abyss," and that "Abyss" was Jiang Ci.

After Hou Hsiao-hsien called "Cut," Watanabe, who played Takahashi, remained unable to get up for a long time.

On set, only the prop gramophone was still spinning, emitting a faint friction sound.

This sound seemed to pierce through the barrier of time, overlapping with the earth-shaking sound of gongs and drums that would ring through the streets of Shanghai two days later.

People flooded the streets, waving flags, their faces radiant with the joy of having survived a catastrophe.

The city, once suppressed, erupted with astonishing vitality at this moment.

People shouted the names of heroes, celebrating the hard-won victory.

This was a montage sequence Jiang Ci had strongly suggested Hou Hsiao-hsien add.

Sun-drenched Jinling Road formed the most brutal visual **tear** with the next shot: a dark, damp, unmarked mass grave.

The camera slowly pushed closer.

In a stinking ditch filled with garbage and waste, Shen Qingyuan's corpse lay quietly.

That expensive white suit was long soaked through with mud and blood, its original appearance unrecognizable.

His body had already begun to decay, flies circling around his once-handsome face.

A passing citizen glanced into the ditch, then spat in disgust.

"Pah! Damned traitor! He got off easy!"

The cheers of victory drifted faintly from the streets not far away,

forming the world's most ironic symphony with this silent, putrid place.

On one side, a grand celebration; on the other, the dry bones of a hero.

On one side, glory under the gaze of millions; on the other, forgotten and unattended.

Jiang Ci did not appear in the shot.

He stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Hou Hsiao-hsien behind the monitor, watching this cruel scene on the screen.

The Heartbreak Value on his system panel had already begun to refresh densely.

[From lighting technician assistant Xiao Wang, Heartbreak Value +35]

[From props team Sister Chen, Heartbreak Value +41]

This was a more advanced, soul-deep sting.

Heartbreak for the sacrifices of all the nameless heroes of that era.

With Hou Hsiao-hsien's final hoarse "Cut!", the death scenes belonging to Shen Qingyuan in "The Lurker" were wrapped.

This director, who was like a tyrant on set, now clenched his fists tightly,

the veins on the back of his hands bulging, declaring the victory of a creative endeavor.

But the others in the film crew felt no joy of completion at all.

Everyone was suffocated by that ending, a huge boulder seeming to block their chests.

He Xiaoping took off her costume and changed back into her own clothes.

She walked up to Jiang Ci.

She looked at this man, the one who had personally constructed all the tragedy

and then performed the core of that tragedy to its extreme, her heart filled with mixed emotions.

"Jiang Ci," she began.

"If this film is released, you'll make the entire nation's audience hurt so much they can't sleep."

He wanted to say that what would truly sadden the audience

wasn't him, the actor, but rather, in that era,

the countless heroes like Shen Qingyuan, who willingly buried themselves in darkness for the dawn.

He was merely a storyteller.

But in the end, he said nothing, only giving a slight nod.