The More Tragic I Act, the Stronger I Get — My Fans Beg Me to Stop Killing Off My Roles-Chapter 303: An Unreachable Phone Call, An Undrawn Circle

The atmosphere on the film set the next day was more oppressive than it had ever been before.

A few unfamiliar faces with solemn expressions appeared in the corners.

They wore plain clothes that stood out from the rest of the crew,

looking neither like set workers nor visiting fans.

Jiang Wen did not roar as usual to set up the scene.

He merely nodded at those few people,

then sat back behind the monitor, smoking one cigarette after another.

The scene was already set up.

It was a cluttered storage room filled with discarded items inside a drug den.

Mildewed cardboard boxes, rusty iron shelves, and a strange odor of dust mixed with decay permeated the air.

The only source of light was a thick candle, more than half burned down, sitting on the corner of a table.

The candle flame flickered silently in the enclosed space.

Jiang Ci was already in position.

He wore those thin, mud-stained clothes,

curled up in the shadow of a corner. His entire body was emaciated, as if a gust of wind could blow him over.

"Action."

Jiang Wen's voice came through the walkie-talkie.

Jiang Ci moved.

He fished out a crushed and misshapen cigarette pack from his greasy pocket.

He didn't take a cigarette. Instead, he carefully opened the pack, flattening it into a rough piece of cardboard.

Then, he pulled out the cheapest ballpoint pen.

He wanted to write.

Under the candlelight, he lowered his head, trying to leave some mark on that small piece of cardboard.

But his right hand trembled uncontrollably.

The lingering internal injuries from Jiang He's earlier torture, combined with prolonged hunger and dehydration,

had reduced this young body to a broken-down machine.

That lightweight ballpoint pen felt as heavy as a thousand pounds in his hand.

He couldn't hold it steady.

The tip slipped again and again, leaving meaningless scratches on the cardboard.

Jiang Ci stopped. He extended his left hand, using all his strength to press down on the wrist of his trembling right hand.

Veins bulged, tangled, and knotted on the back of his hand.

He tried to write again.

One stroke. Another stroke.

He wanted to write the character for "Mom".

The pen tip moved laboriously across the rough cardboard, emitting a rasping, scratching sound.

The ink flow was intermittent.

That twisted ink trail couldn't even form a complete radical.

In the script, Jiang He was supposed to think of his wife and child at this moment, a touch of warmth appearing on his face.

Jiang Ci tried to construct that happiness belonging to "Jiang He",

but no warm image could surface in his mind.

The more he tried to smile, the stiffer the muscles at the corner of his lips became,

finally twisting into an expression uglier than crying—a physiological spasm born of extreme pain.

Upon reconsideration, what surfaced in Jiang Ci's mind was not the script's wife and child.

It was Madam Chu Hong.

It was his sacrificed father, that similarly unfinished letter among his father's belongings.

It was what his father had written in the letter, hoping he could "live safely and peacefully, under the sun".

His father's image overlapped once more with the undercover "Jiang He" he was currently playing.

He gave up.

He couldn't write that character.

Looking at the tangled mess of ink on the cardboard, he suddenly laughed.

A silent laugh, one that tightened the heart more than weeping.

He released his left hand, which had been desperately pressing down his right, allowing that hand to tremble violently once more.

He began to draw circles on the paper.

One.

Then another.

With an almost masochistic obsession, he tried to draw a perfect, closed circle.

Representing reunion.

But his hand wouldn't allow it.

Every circle, at the moment it was about to close, would leave a glaring gap due to an uncontrollable tremor.

One incomplete circle after another. A fragmented life.

Promises that couldn't be kept.

A destiny that couldn't be reunited.

He stopped.

He stared at that cardboard covered in distorted circles for a long, long time.

Then, he slowly, gently, began to tear that piece of cardboard into pieces.

He didn't throw the scraps away.

Under the astonished gaze of everyone behind the monitor, Jiang Ci picked up a single scrap of paper.

Since he couldn't write it, couldn't send it, he would eat it.

Engrave this unspeakable longing, along with this destiny that couldn't be made whole, into his very bones and blood.

He slowly placed that scrap of paper into his mouth.

The rough edge of the cardboard scraped against his chapped lips.

He began to chew slowly.

On camera, Jiang Ci was still chewing.

He tilted his head back. His Adam's apple bobbed violently with the act of swallowing.

He swallowed down raw all those unsendable longings, those fragmented memories of home,

along with that destiny that couldn't be made whole.

In the corner, the few plainclothes men who had been watching in silence all tensed up simultaneously.

The middle-aged man leading them watched the replay on the monitor. Something glistened in his red-rimmed eyes.

This moment moved them more than all the previous scenes of torture.

"Push in for a close-up."

Jiang Wen's voice came through the walkie-talkie again.

"Shoot his throat."

On the monitor, that bobbing Adam's apple, each rise and fall,

each rise and fall, struck heavily on everyone's heart.

"Cut!"

Jiang Wen finally called for a stop.

Jiang Ci still sat in the dark corner, motionless,

like a sculpture whose soul had been hollowed out.

No one dared to make a sound.

After a long while, Cha Cai, played by Lei Zhong, emerged from the shadows, holding a cigarette.

He walked up to Jiang Ci and silently offered it to him.

Unlit.

Jiang Ci slowly raised his head and took the cigarette.

He didn't put it in his mouth. Instead, he casually tucked it behind his ear,

with a practiced ease that made him look exactly like a seasoned chain-smoker who'd worked on construction sites for years.

Then, just as Lei Zhong thought he was about to say something,

Jiang Ci spoke in a tone eerily calm, completely different from before:

"Don't want to smoke. Bad for the lungs."

On the periphery of the film crew.

The plainclothes police officers were preparing to leave.

Before leaving, the middle-aged man leading them stopped Jiang Wen, who was about to go pack up.

He looked at the frozen image on the monitor—Jiang Ci swallowing the paper scraps—and his lips moved.

"During my three years undercover," he said in a low voice, "I swallowed words like that too."

Jiang Wen's body stiffened.

This comment from a real hero carried more weight than any award.

The middle-aged police officer patted Jiang Wen's shoulder, his expression suddenly turning extremely grave.

"Director Jiang, that kid acts too real."

He paused, his voice dropping even lower.

"So real... that sometimes even our own people mistake him for being 'one of them'."

Jiang Wen's eyes changed sharply.

The middle-aged officer's gaze looked past him, towards the faint, hazy outline of the mountains in the distance, his tone cold and hard.

"Things aren't peaceful up in Northern Myanmar lately. Your film's making quite a stir. Be careful. Don't attract the wrong kind of 'audience' just because the acting is too real."