The More Tragic I Act, the Stronger I Get — My Fans Beg Me to Stop Killing Off My Roles-Chapter 315: Fifty Thousand in an Anonymous Envelope

After shouting, Jiang Wen threw the loudspeaker heavily to the producer Old Zhang beside him.

He turned and dove straight into that exclusive entourage van.

With a bang, the car door slammed shut, cutting off everything outside.

The crew members looked at one another, their faces sharing the same bewilderment and exhaustion.

The wrap order had been given, but no one could immediately pull themselves out of the emotions from just now.

Jiang Ci huddled alone in a corner of the film set, far from the crowd.

He leaned against a big tree, head bowed, his face hidden from view.

He had heard Jiang Wen’s roar.

There was none of the usual fury in that shout, only a dull, irritated pain from being stung hard by reality.

Jiang Ci took his phone out of his pocket.

The screen lit, he unlocked it, and opened the banking app.

A string of densely packed zeros lay quietly on the screen.

It was the sales share from Vogue and the belated box office dividends from The Legend of Han and Chu.

Having debuted barely over a year, this figure was astronomical beyond what he had once dared to imagine.

Money.

Numbers that didn’t feel real.

Jiang Ci slid his finger across the screen.

In his mind, the image of the little girl tilting her head to offer candy replayed over and over.

The child had been both shy of strangers and eager for closeness.

Familiar.

A familiarity buried deep in his memory.

He remembered being very small, not long after his father had left.

The house had always been very quiet, his mother sitting by the window in a daze for entire afternoons.

At those times, there would always be some uncles in plainclothes, smelling of tobacco and sweat, coming to the house in turns.

They brought fruit and meat, awkwardly played with him, and told him stories he could not understand.

Once, an uncle with a long Taoist Priest scar on his arm

had held him on his knee, rummaged in his pocket for a long time, and pulled out a candy whose wrapper had been pressed and slightly melted.

That uncle unwrapped the candy and shoved it into his mouth, his rough big hands ruffling his hair.

The uncle said nothing, just looked at him.

Back then Jiang Ci could read the uncle’s meaning, the same feeling as that child’s expression.

Jiang Ci turned off his phone screen.

He stood, brushed the dirt from his pants, and walked toward the closed entourage van.

Inside the vehicle, smoke hung thick, stinging the eyes.

Jiang Wen tugged irritably at his hair, his weathered face full of malice.

The stronger the artistic sense in the lens, the heavier the reality slammed back into the heart at this moment.

That mud-smeared little face and those tear-filled eyes kept flashing in Jiang Wen’s mind.

He looked less like a director and more like an executioner,

using the camera as a blade to flay those already fragile pieces of reality again and again.

Knock, knock.

A moderate knock sounded at the door.

Jiang Wen opened the car door, about to curse, but saw who stood there.

Jiang Ci.

He still wore that gray-streaked old coat from the drama, his whole being radiating fatigue.

Jiang Wen swallowed the obscenity he had on the tip of his tongue.

He assumed Jiang Ci had come to talk about the script, or had become too deep in character and needed psychological guidance.

Leaning against the door, he blew an impatient puff of smoke.

“Something?”

Jiang Ci did not beat around the bush.

“Director Jiang, I heard you say just now that you were going to donate to the village.”

His tone was flat.

Jiang Wen raised one eyebrow, said nothing, and waited for him to continue.

“I want to add an extra amount.”

Jiang Wen’s hand holding the cigarette froze midair.

He looked him up and down.

In Jiang Wen’s impression, this kid lived like an ascetic out of step with the times.

His clothes were always basic, and he had no desire for material things.

Jiang Wen squinted and flicked the cigarette butt away.

“How much?”

Jiang Ci extended his right hand and spread five fingers.

There was dried mud on his fingers and dirt in the nail crevices.

“Five hundred thousand.”

Jiang Wen stared at that hand, all expression draining from his face.

Then he thought, this kid earned eight figures or more just from The Legend of Han and Chu’s box office shares.

Still, he was curious about his motive. Actors of his age rarely did something like this without it being announced via their agency or studio.

Jiang Wen shifted his gaze from the hand back to his face.

“Why?”

This was not a director’s question to an actor.

It was an elder’s appraisal of a young man.

Jiang Ci gave no lofty reason.

He lowered his eyes, avoiding Jiang Wen’s gaze.

“The look in that child’s eyes reminded me of how a friend looked at me when I was little.”

He paused, then added, “A friend… I would never see again.”

After speaking, he raised his head again. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

“I have only one request.”

“No signature, no publicity. Transfer the money directly into the crew’s account and say it’s a donation from the entire film crew.”

He did not want this to turn into a loud stunt, and he did not want those children to bear the burden of a specific name when accepting help.

Jiang Wen did not answer immediately.

He just looked at Jiang Ci, for a long, long time.

He wanted to find traces of pretense, vanity, or calculation on the young man’s face.

But he found nothing.

Only calm and a weariness beyond his years.

In the end, Jiang Wen nodded and squeezed out a word between his teeth.

“All right.”

Jiang Ci nodded as well, said nothing more, and turned to leave.

Watching the thin figure disappear into the dusk, Jiang Wen closed the car door.

Darkness and smoke once again shrouded the cabin.

He sat back down and lit another cigarette.

The sentence Jiang Ci had said replayed in his mind.

“The look in that child’s eyes was like a friend I saw when I was little.”

A jolt ran through Jiang Wen’s chest.

That phrase “a friend I would never see again,”

mixed with Jiang Ci’s face and the file note “his father died in the line of duty as a narcotics officer,” detonated in his head.

The thought crawled up Jiang Wen’s spine.

Damn.

This was an actor with blood and bone.

Jiang Wen abruptly stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray.

Every cell in his body stirred.

That night.

In the shabby guesthouse where the crew was staying,

Jiang Wen shut himself in his room and refused all interruptions.

A stack of storyboards lay scattered on the table.

He didn’t glance at them and swept them all to the floor.

He pulled from his backpack a brand-new, still-sealed hardcover notebook.

Tearing off the plastic, he opened to the first page.

Blank pages waited under the dim light, ready to be given a new fate.

Jiang Wen picked up a pencil sharpened to a point, his hand steady and unshaking.

He stared at the blank and let out a low, inscrutable chuckle.

“Jiang He…”

He murmured.

The pencil tip struck the paper hard, leaving a deep mark.

“I will make you… bloom the most tragic flower in this blackest mire.”