The More Tragic I Act, the Stronger I Get — My Fans Beg Me to Stop Killing Off My Roles-Chapter 314: "Brother Is Playing the Villain"
At that moment, a slight commotion arose not far away.
A set assistant led a group of children over from the other end of the village.
A dozen or so kids, the oldest maybe ten, the youngest only five or six.
They wore ill-fitting, faded old clothes,
their faces and hands smeared with dirt, timidly trailing behind the adult.
These were the real left-behind children the crew had found in a more remote mountain area nearby.
Their thinness from long-term malnutrition, and that instinctive mix of fear and curiosity toward an unfamiliar environment,
was something no acting technique could replicate.
Jiang Wen's voice cut through the morning haze via the loudspeaker like a blade.
"Camera Two! Push down to the lowest! Shoot from below!"
"Widest angle! I want this bus to look like a monster that can swallow everything!"
The cinematographer immediately adjusted the camera angle.
On the monitor, the already glaring yellow school bus, distorted by the wide-angle lens, became oppressive.
The art director hurried forward, carrying a cardboard box.
Under Jiang Wen's direction, he handed each child a plastic flower.
The cheapest, most saturated bright red, the children pinned them to their chests one by one.
That jarring red collided violently on screen with Jiang Ci's washed-out gray old coat.
The clapperboard snapped shut with a crisp sound in front of the lens.
"Action!"
Lei Zhong was already standing by the bus door, wearing the gentle, pitying smile unique to a philanthropist.
He waved to the children, signaling them to board.
Jiang Ci stood on the other side of the door.
His job was to "escort" these children, to send them one by one into the yellow beast's mouth.
The children filed in, tiny silhouettes passing by his side.
Jiang Ci reached out mechanically; each time he supported one, the warmth through the thin clothing felt like his nerves were being burned.
In the compartment behind him, there were crates filled with white powder that could easily snatch away that living warmth.
The extreme contrast of textures made every time he reached out feel like an invisible branding iron searing him again and again.
At that moment, the smallest-looking little girl stepped up in front of him.
She stopped and tilted her dust-streaked face up.
From a ragged pocket she took something out and pressed it into Jiang Ci's hand.
A candy, the wrapper already crinkled, edges stained with unknown dirt,
as if the girl had treasured it for a long time.
With a heavy regional accent, the girl spoke quietly and timidly.
"Thank you, uncle."
That line was not in the script.
That action was the little actor's most genuine on-the-spot reaction.
Behind the monitor, Jiang Wen lurched forward,
grabbed the walkie-talkie, and, suppressing ecstatic delight in a low roar, yelled.
"Close-up! Push for a close-up! Focus on Jiang Ci's face!"
The camera slammed in.
That dirty candy and the innocent, slightly pleading little face were magnified until they filled Jiang Ci's entire field of vision.
In that instant, every nerve in him snapped taut.
A flash of memory surged through his mind—his father's rough, callused, scarred hands,
clumsily peeling open a piece of fruit candy and shoving it into his childhood mouth.
When he bit down, his molars clenched and the cheek muscles twitched uncontrollably.
Jiang He could not accept it.
A lackey tamed by a drug lord, a drug dealer with blood on his hands,
how could he accept candy handed by a mountain child?
To take it would be to carve a seam in the cold, fraudulent shell he had fashioned.
And a devil like Cha Cai would not hesitate to pry that seam open and tear him apart.
He had to respond to that innocence with the most extreme action.
He suddenly raised his hand, not to take the candy.
Instead, he shoved the little girl's frail shoulder roughly and violently!
"What are you babbling for! Get on!"
A harsh shout.
The girl stumbled from the push, almost falling.
The candy, warm from her palm, slipped between her clenched fingers,
with a small "plop" it fell into the wet, filthy mud at her feet, becoming caked with filth.
Hurt and terrified tears flooded her big eyes in an instant.
She dared not sob aloud, only covered her mouth and staggered up into the bus.
The set plunged into a deathly silence because of this sudden scene.
Only the camera kept recording.
Lei Zhong stood to the side, half-turning his head and narrowing his eyes, like someone enjoying an intriguing beast-fight performance, his gaze seasoned with evaluative amusement.
When Jiang Ci (Jiang He) turned and met Lei Zhong's eyes,
the violent look vanished, replaced by a flattering, ingratiating smile.
He hurried to Lei Zhong's side, lowering his body to explain.
"Uncle, these brats are filthy, don't get our bus dirty."
The explanation made sense.
A newly tamed "mad dog," desperate to prove his loyalty, would naturally be concerned for his master's property.
He used this extreme "evil" to hide the "good" that was about to collapse inside him.
Lei Zhong stared, his interest slowly turning into satisfaction.
He nodded, a sign of approval for the mad dog baring its fangs.
Jiang Ci's hand hanging by his side trembled violently at an angle others couldn't see.
He shoved his hand into his pocket, fingers shaking as they dug into the seam of his trousers.
All the children had boarded.
The bus door shut with a clang, sealing the inside from the outside into two separate worlds.
Inside the compartment, the children, unaware of anything beyond, after a brief quiet, began to chatter excitedly.
They spoke the lines from the script.
"Are we going to perform in the city?"
"I heard the city has tall buildings, taller than the mountains!"
Their childish chatter, muffled through the windows, floated out.
"I heard there are lots and lots of candies in the city!"
"Really? Are they sweeter than these?"
A boy's excited voice pierced Jiang Ci's eardrum.
The hand hanging by his side trembled violently at an unseen angle.
Only after the yellow school bus completely disappeared at the end of the mountain road did the suffocating "cut!" explode from the walkie-talkie.
The sound dropped, and Jiang Ci staggered violently.
He turned and bolted toward the direction the children had gotten off.
The girl he had shoved was being led by the set assistant back toward the rest area.
She still sniffled softly; when she saw Jiang Ci rush over, she hid behind the assistant in fright.
Jiang Ci stopped awkwardly a few paces from her.
He bent down, wanting to force a smile, but the tug at his mouth looked worse than crying.
That face, moments ago full of violence and flattery,
now was only pale and clumsy with a near-pleading desperation.
He fumbled in his pockets and finally dug out half a bar of chocolate, flattened and crumpled, and held it out with shaking hands.
"So... so sorry. Brother... brother was playing the villain just now... it wasn't on purpose."
The crew watched the scene; truly, the more capable the actor, the more flawless the performance.
The little girl looked from him to the chocolate and still didn't dare to take it.
Finally, the young female clapper loader couldn't stand it any longer.
She said softly to the girl, "Baby, don't cry. Uncle is a good person, he's filming a movie. Let's accept it, okay?"
She took the chocolate and placed it in the girl's hand.
Jiang Ci staggered back two steps, no longer daring to meet those clear eyes, then found an excuse to leave.
At that moment, Jiang Wen emerged from behind the monitor holding the loudspeaker.
He scanned the crew still immersed in the earlier emotions,
and the "most authentic" actors he had paid for—the group of children.
His voice echoed across the valley through the loudspeaker.
"Wrap for today!"
He paused, lifted the loudspeaker from his mouth, and shouted to the producer Old Zhang at his side:
"Old Zhang! Contact the village! If we used their 'real things,' we have to give back some 'real things'!"
"Put a sum from the production account, in the name of the Icebreaker crew, to build a road for their village!"
"Buy new desks and chairs and books for the school!"
