The More Tragic I Act, the Stronger I Get — My Fans Beg Me to Stop Killing Off My Roles-Chapter 285: Public Screening of *The Legend of Han and Chu*
The moment the lights went out, the screening room was swallowed by complete darkness.
Only in the center of the massive screen, that bright red dragon logo flickered, like some kind of warning.
The air conditioning was set a bit too high.
A few female reporters in the front row wearing short skirts subconsciously rubbed their arms, which were covered in goosebumps.
No one paid it any mind.
Until—
"BOOM—!!!"
Without any warning.
A thunderous roar, like a muffled explosion, violently erupted from the four corners of the screening room.
The low-frequency rumble of the Dolby Atmos system traveled through the floor, vibrating people's hearts into a frantic rhythm.
In the third row, the bespectacled young man who was holding his phone editing a "Hegemon-brand vernier caliper" joke, his hand jerked.
The phone slipped from his grasp.
It slammed heavily onto the bridge of his nose.
"Tsss..."
He hissed in pain, just about to bend down to pick it up.
But his movement froze mid-air.
The screen lit up.
No grand aerial shots, no expository narration,
No so-called epic, melodious score.
There was only an eye.
A single eye that occupied the twenty-meter giant screen, so huge it was unsettling.
The eyeball was covered in a spiderweb of red blood vessels, surrounded by a ring of deathly gray, murky haze around the pupil.
A smear of long-dried, blackened blood crust hung from the corner of the eye.
It trailed down along the sharp contours of the cheek.
That was Xiang Yu's eye.
It was also Jiang Ci's eye.
The camera slowly pulled back.
Black and gold heavy armor, tattered and broken, hung with shredded flesh of unknown allegiance, friend or foe.
This was Julu.
From the distance came the faint, barely-there wails of dying wounded soldiers, a sound that set teeth on edge.
Jiang Ci's portrayal of Xiang Yu simply stood there.
Holding in his hand that bronze long sword that had been mocked online as an "aluminum alloy toy."
The blade was already curled and chipped, full of notches.
"Drip."
Thick, viscous blood plasma dripped from the sword tip, splattering into the mud.
He slowly turned his head, his gaze sweeping over the surroundings.
A mountain of corpses.
A sea of blood.
The bespectacled boy's mouth hung open, the red mark on his nose bridge still throbbing faintly.
But not a single word could escape his throat.
He wanted to laugh.
He wanted to quip, "That sword looks pretty light."
But the muscles in his face were stiff, completely disobedient.
Was this the same straight guy who asked if the foam sword was heavy?
Was this the same actor who earnestly lectured fans about history during the Star City roadshow?
An inexplicable chill shot straight to the crown of his head.
The scene shifted.
By the banks of the Zhang River, the wind howled like knives.
Torrential river water crashed against the shore, emitting a deafening roar.
Jiang Ci stood upon a high platform.
No sword in hand, only holding a dark, heavy wine vessel.
He looked down at the tens of thousands of Chu sons below the platform.
His wrist turned over.
The wine poured out, offered as a libation to this land about to drink blood.
"Clang."
The wine vessel was casually tossed from the high platform, rolling into the muddy dust.
Jiang Ci raised his head.
His gaze crossed the great river, nailing itself to the endless, continuous black banners of the Qin Army on the opposite shore.
Shiiing—
The long sword left its sheath.
The movement was agonizingly slow.
But at the instant the sword tip pointed towards the sky, that weary man vanished.
"Within three days!"
"If we do not break the Qin Army, we shall die together here!!"
This roar had undergone no audio polishing or enhancement.
Gritty, rough, carrying a strong, pungent scent of blood.
It exploded over the scalps of the hundreds in the screening room.
No retreat.
Only death.
In the audience, a young female film critic's nails dug deep into her palms.
It hurt.
But she forgot to let go.
She felt she wasn't sitting in a leather sofa now, but standing on that bitterly cold, wind-whipped bank of the Zhang River.
She was one of those tens of thousands of Chu soldiers forced into a corner.
With no choice but to stake their lives.
Only five minutes into the opening.
The entire screening room was utterly silent.
All the previous mockery, derision, the mentality of waiting to see a joke,
Frozen into powder by this overwhelming tide of tragic grandeur, then crushed underfoot.
An inexplicable sense of shame flooded their hearts.
Had they really treated such a hero, burning his soul in a desperate situation,
As mere after-dinner amusement?
The plot advanced with extreme speed, like war drums urging troops onward.
The scene cut to Xianyang Palace.
Qin Feng's portrayal of Liu Bang made his entrance.
Disheveled attire, a monkey dressed in royal robes.
He scurried about the empty great hall, stuffing golden goblets into his robes at the sight of them, his feet rooted to the spot at the sight of palace maids.
The greed and vulgarity of a street ruffian formed a devastatingly stark contrast with Xiang Yu's divine, tragic grandeur from moments before.
"This is... the Han Dynasty's founding emperor?"
Someone murmured in disbelief.
But the next second, Qin Feng's eyes changed.
At Zhang Liang's light cough.
The murky lust in Liu Bang's eyes instantly receded, replaced by a shrewdness and calculation that chilled the spine.
In the front row, Professor Li, who specialized in etiquette systems, lightly tapped his fingers on the armrest.
"Good... very good."
The old man's voice trembled slightly.
"One is in the clouds, a god; the other is in the mire, a man."
"A god is destined to fall; only those who wallow in the mud can survive."
Finally.
The main event arrived.
The Hongmen Feast.
That celebration banquet after the great victory at Pengcheng.
In the history books, this was the Hegemon's life's highlight.
On the silver screen, Jiang Ci sat on the throne.
The surroundings were a cacophony of voices, the revelry of victors, a feast for the generals dividing the spoils.
Only him.
Sitting at the highest point, becoming a solitary island.
Jiang Ci's face held no expression.
Not even those eyes had any focus.
His slender fingers idly played with a bronze wine cup.
His fingertips rubbed against the rough patterns.
Once.
Twice.
That wasn't admiring spoils of war; it was more like fiddling with a meaningless piece of garbage.
Bored.
These two words weren't spoken, yet they were deafening.
That emptiness after being peerless in the world, that loneliness of looking around with a sword in hand but finding nothing,
Flowed down from the silver screen, drowning every audience member.
The bespectacled boy suddenly felt his nose sting.
He remembered the afternoon after the college entrance exams ended.
Studying desperately, finally finished the exams, thinking he'd go crazy, wild with joy.
Instead, walking out of the exam hall, looking at the empty school gates,
His heart held only a vast, unfillable void.
What Jiang Ci was portraying was exactly this feeling.
And amplified countless times over.
That was the ultimate loneliness belonging to the God of War.
"Ah, the King of Guanzhong has arrived."
Liu Bang entered the tent.
Jiang Ci didn't even straighten his posture, didn't even look at him directly.
He merely lazily lifted his eyelids a crack.
That line, light as a feather.
Yet heavy as a mountain.
Arrogance.
Arrogance carved into the bone marrow.
Xiang Yu never considered Liu Bang an opponent.
Never.
"He isn't stupid..."
A veteran film critic in the back row took off his glasses, wiped the corner of his eye, his pen tip scratching rapidly across the paper.
"He is too high up."
"Too high to bother bending down, too high to see the dirty ants beneath his feet."
Immediately after, Fan Kuai burst into the tent.
Chen Chun's portrayal of Fan Kuai, eating raw pork, mouth full of blood, eyes like bronze bells.
Jiang Ci looked at him.
A faint glimmer finally lit up in those dead eyes.
It was the appreciation a beast shows upon seeing its own kind.
But only a glimmer.
He waved his hand, dismissing an interesting street performer.
"Sit."
One word.
Casually uttered.
Shattered Fan Kuai's ferocious, sky-piercing courage into dust.
Professor Li was so agitated his beard trembled.
He grabbed his companion's arm beside him, lowering his voice to a fierce whisper:
"This is the Hongmen Feast! This is the Hegemon!"
"They got it all wrong before! Xiang Yu didn't spare Liu Bang out of soft-heartedness, but out of disdain!"
"Why would a divine dragon guard against a rat in the gutter?"
Halfway through the plot.
The atmospheric pressure in the screening room had dropped to a suffocating critical point.
That net named "Destiny" was silently tightening.
Everyone knew the ending.
Knew Xiang Yu would die, knew this arrogant, peerless man,
Would ultimately fall in the cold wind of the Wu River.
But precisely because they knew.
Watching the man on the screen who still stood at the peak, utterly ignorant of his fate.
That sense of tragedy became so intense it made one want to cry.
Watching a flower bloom to its absolute peak with open eyes.
Awaiting that inevitable...
Scattering into mud.
