The More Tragic I Act, the Stronger I Get — My Fans Beg Me to Stop Killing Off My Roles-Chapter 275: Brother Ci Is Suspected of Having Severe PTSD
When consciousness surfaced from a chaotic deep sea, Jiang Ci opened his eyes.
What greeted his vision was an unfamiliar, intricately carved rosewood ceiling adorned with complex cloud patterns.
The air lacked the mingled scent of dust and boxed lunches typical of a film set.
There was only the faint, expensive fragrance of fine wood.
He sat up.
His first reaction was: where are the cameras?
His gaze swept rapidly across every corner of the room.
That blue-and-white porcelain vase in the corner—could it be hiding a pinhole camera?
That bedside lamp with its extremely artistic design—were there audio recording devices behind the lampshade?
No.
There was nothing.
This wasn't a film set.
Then where was the clapperboard? Where was the director?
An immense sense of emptiness, like a reef exposed after the tide receded, instantly seized him.
Barefoot, Jiang Ci stepped onto the cold, smooth solid wood floor.
He walked to the huge floor-to-ceiling window and pulled open the heavy curtains.
Outside was an impeccably manicured Chinese-style courtyard, complete with rockeries, flowing water, and lush greenery.
It was terrifyingly quiet.
A sense of disoriented panic began to spread from his limbs.
The third day of forced leave.
The withdrawal symptoms were getting worse.
Jiang Ci felt like a doll from which all the stuffing had been pulled out, leaving only an empty human skin.
He couldn't bear this void.
He needed stories, needed conflict, needed to fill himself with the tragedies of others.
After wandering in circles around the vast courtyard, he finally stopped.
Not far away, a gardener in work clothes was squatting in front of a flower bed,
holding a large pair of shears, "snip-snip-snip" as he trimmed the dead branches from a cluster of roses.
Those dry, lifeless branches,
were mercilessly cut off, falling onto the fertile soil.
Jiang Ci's footsteps halted.
In his mind, Shen Qingyuan's face flashed uncontrollably.
That man whose wings were gradually clipped away by the organization,
ending up alone, walking towards an inevitable death.
How similar.
Jiang Ci just stood there, not far behind the gardener, motionless.
His gaze was locked onto those shears, onto those discarded dead branches.
Half an hour passed.
Gardener Old Li felt a chill down his spine.
That gaze fell on his backbone, carrying a bone-piercing coldness, making him extremely uncomfortable.
Summoning his courage, he cautiously glanced back.
He saw that young man, rumored to be the boss's distinguished guest, standing behind him, staring at him without blinking.
The young man was good-looking, just that his face was completely devoid of color.
The most terrifying thing was those eyes.
Within them was an undissolvable sorrow, and a kind of... pain that wanted to bear everything for him.
Old Li's shears clattered to the ground.
It's over.
That was Old Li's only thought.
He remembered the company physical last week, which he skipped because he found it troublesome.
Could it be... he had some incurable disease?
Even the boss was alerted, specifically sending this young man who clearly had a story, to notify him in a roundabout way?
The more Old Li thought about it, the more scared he became. His face paled, his lips trembled, and he shakily got up from the ground, running towards the direction of the butler.
A few minutes later, the butler received a frantic, incoherent distress call from gardener Old Li.
Hanging up the phone, the butler wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and immediately dialed Lin Wan's number.
"Director Lin, Mr. Jiang's condition... is very off."
"He just stood in front of a rose bush that Old Li had already finished pruning for over half an hour. The way he looked... it was like he was holding a funeral for that flower."
Spark Media, President's Office.
Listening to the butler's cautious report over the phone, Lin Wan wasn't worried. Instead, she breathed a sigh of relief.
She knew it.
Lock up a madman, and he'll just use his own way to turn the whole world into his stage.
"It's fine, let him vent." Lin Wan's instructions were clear. "That's his unique way of metabolizing, expelling the emotional garbage from his last role."
"Just keep your distance, don't disturb him, and don't get scared by him."
After hanging up, she looked out the window and muttered to herself.
"Good, this means Shen Qingyuan is leaving his body."
Lunchtime.
The chef was specially hired by Lin Wan from a five-star hotel, top-notch skills.
Today's lunch main course was top-grade lobster air-shipped from Australia,
prepared simply by steaming to preserve the ingredient's freshness to the maximum.
When the servant brought that plate of lobster, its entire body a bright red, to the table,
Jiang Ci had just picked up his chopsticks.
That glaring red was like a red-hot needle, violently stabbing into his retina.
He even experienced auditory hallucinations.
A crisp sound of glass shattering.
A phantom pain spread across his palm, as if being pierced by sharp fragments.
The image of Shen Qingyuan crushing the wine glass exploded before his eyes.
Wine and blood mixed together, dripping onto the floor.
It was also this shade of red.
A violent spasm twisted his stomach.
Jiang Ci put down his chopsticks, suddenly covering his mouth as a wave of physiological dry heaving surged up his throat.
"Sorry, not very hungry."
He pushed back his chair, and under the stunned gazes of the chef and servants,
he only served himself a bowl of plain rice porridge, drank it expressionlessly, and then went straight upstairs.
In a corner of the dining room, Sun Zhou had been hiding there observing.
He took out the small notebook he always carried, his expression grave as he wrote down a line.
"August 20th, sunny. Ci-ge appears to have severe PTSD, showing strong stress reactions to red objects, accompanied by symptoms like auditory hallucinations and phantom pain. Requires close attention."
Afternoon.
Boundless emptiness assaulted him again.
Jiang Ci found a new "toy" in the second-floor study.
A massive bookshelf covering all four walls, filled with thousands of hardcover books,
from literature to history, philosophy to art, everything you could imagine.
But they were arranged with absolutely no order, in complete disarray.
This successfully triggered one of his passive skills.
As if he'd found an outlet, he moved all the books from the shelves, piling them on the floor.
Then, he began a monumental project.
He didn't sort them by title, nor by author or category.
He chose the most obsessive, and most fitting for his current state of mind, classification method.
Color.
From pure white, to cream, to light yellow,
then to orange, red, purple, blue, green, finally ending in the abyssal pure black.
He reorganized hundreds of books according to the color of their covers, in the most precise chromatic order.
Placing them back on the shelves, one by one.
When the last philosophy book with a pure black cover was tucked into the corner of the shelf,
Jiang Ci took a few steps back.
Looking at those four walls, he thought of his own life.
From brilliance to silence, from light descending into darkness.
A "gradient of sorrow."
Only at this moment,
did that heart, restless from emptiness, gain a sliver of satisfaction from the imposed order.
He could finally catch his breath.
Night fell.
A black entourage van silently drove into the courtyard, stopping at the entrance.
The door opened, and Lin Wan stepped out.
She had changed out of her sharp business suit,
wearing a simple white T-shirt and jeans, a hint of fatigue on her face.
But in her hands, she was carrying a black box, about half a meter square.
The box was well-sealed, completely black, its material indistinguishable,
yet it emitted a metallic chill and was not light.
Holding that box, she walked briskly into the living room.
Jiang Ci was sitting on the sofa, watching a boring variety show on TV,
trying to numb himself with those fake laughs.
Hearing footsteps, he turned his head.
Lin Wan placed that black box heavily on the coffee table in front of him, producing a dull thud.
