The More Tragic I Act, the Stronger I Get — My Fans Beg Me to Stop Killing Off My Roles-Chapter 53: Officially Announced as Signed
"The graduation play at Jingying?"
On the other end of the line, Sun Peiwen's voice was full of bafflement he couldn't hide.
A film person.
A young award-winning actress who already stood at the pinnacle of the industry.
She would go out of her way to care about another school's graduation performance, and one put on by undergraduates at that?
It made no sense no matter how he thought about it.
But he didn't press the matter.
He knew his prized student too well.
When she acts, she never explains herself.
But every single thing she did had her reasons.
"Fine."
Sun Peiwen agreed decisively.
"I should have a backup copy of the inter-school exchange registration documents on my office computer. I'll have my assistant organize them and send them to your email."
"Thank you, Teacher Sun."
"You little thing, don't be so polite with me." Sun Peiwen laughed and scolded on the other end, "Come back to the school when you have time. Those kids treat you like a goddess every day."
"I will."
After hanging up, the apartment returned to absolute silence.
Su Qingying walked to her study, opened the laptop she used exclusively for work emails, and sat quietly in front of the screen.
She waited.
Her patience had always been excellent, especially when confronted with a "subject" that piqued her curiosity.
In less than ten minutes, a soft "ding" sounded as a new encrypted email arrived in her inbox.
The sender was Sun Peiwen's assistant.
The subject line was official and formal—"Joint Notice on the 20XX Graduation Repertoire Exhibition of Key Art Schools."
Su Qingying opened the compressed attachment.
She precisely found the folder belonging to "Kyoto Film Academy" and clicked it open.
A long PDF list unfolded on the screen.
Thunderstorm, Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land, Teahouse...
One classic production after another swept past her eyes like thunder rolling across the sky.
Her gaze scanned the roster rapidly, searching for one name.
She found it quickly.
When her eyes landed on the play title after Jiang Ci's name, her brows tightened for the first time.
Rhinoceros in Love.
Ma Lu.
Performer: Jiang Ci.
Su Qingying's first reaction was: inappropriate.
She knew this play all too well.
Its demands on an actor were as if it required burning one’s life away.
The male lead Ma Lu is a fanatic who sacrifices everything for love; his emotions erupt, are destructive, and defy logic.
If performed too wildly, he becomes a hateful madman, a stalker.
If restrained, the role's reckless tragic core is completely lost.
This requires an actor to possess both the most extreme capacity for emotional explosion and absolutely precise self-control.
A single misstep could result in a total collapse on stage.
Su Qingying leaned back in her chair, her fingertips tapping the cold desktop unconsciously.
In her mind, the image of Jiang Ci in Three Lifetimes Tribulation appeared clearly.
The most unique and captivating trait he possessed was the "Broken Feeling."
It was the tragic beauty of someone utterly crushed by fate, yet still struggling to lift their head amid the ruins.
Not the kind of "obsession" that burns everything to ash.
What fascinated her was the look in his eyes when he gazed at the sky in the last moment of life, not the frenzy he showed while charging headlong.
This play might expose all his technical shortcomings, naked and raw, before everyone.
Her gaze slid down the cast list.
The female lead, "Ming Ming."
Performer: Xia Meng.
That name made Su Qingying's tapping fingertip suddenly stop.
She felt like she had heard the name somewhere before.
She closed her eyes and scoured her memory palace.
Fragments of memory began to snap together.
A few years earlier, at a national youth drama actors competition where she had been invited as a special judge, one girl had left an extremely deep impression on her.
Not because the performance was superb.
Because it was so perfectly "right."
Every rhythm, every blocking, every micro-expression was impeccable.
But beneath that airtight perfection lay an extreme emotional pallor.
It was heartbreaking.
After the competition, in a backstage corridor, she had overheard two veteran theater elders sighing.
One of them was an old artist she deeply respected.
"What a pity, the old Xia's spirit seems to have dwindled to nothing but craftsmanship in his granddaughter..."
Old Xia?
Those two words cleaved open Su Qingying's dusty memory.
A name long faded from the public eye yet as heavy as a mountain in domestic theater instantly rose in her mind.
Xia Zongguo.
One of the few remaining nationally certified "first-class actors" in the country.
A living fossil of the drama world.
A towering figure who had studied realist acting to its extreme and engraved it into his bones.
His existence represented an era and the pinnacle of a school of thought.
So that was it.
At that moment, Su Qingying understood everything.
She understood where Xia Meng's impenetrable "technical barrier" came from.
It was an orthodoxy taken to the extreme, a rigor bordering on ossified academic tradition.
Decades of grinding and polishing had forged that "craftsmanship."
It would never go wrong, but it would never surprise you either.
Su Qingying opened her eyes slowly and looked back at the two names side by side on the screen.
Jiang Ci.
Xia Meng.
One was a talent of the experiential school, with no backing, growing wildly on set by instinct and ferocity.
The other was born into the nation's top acting aristocracy, a scion of the most orthodox technical tradition.
One was obsessive like fire.
One was cold and hard like ice.
A genuine, investigative smile finally curved Su Qingying's lips.
This was no ordinary student showcase.
It would be a collision of living, vivid emotion against flawless technique.
This production might be even more compelling than Rhinoceros in Love itself.
She suddenly found herself intensely looking forward to December 30th.
At that moment, a frantic phone ring sliced the late-night quiet like a sharp blade.
It was her agent, Sister Fang.
Su Qingying picked up and hit answer.
On the other end, Sister Fang's voice snarled with a sharpness of shock and panic she had never heard before.
"Qingying, something's happened!"
Su Qingying's brow tightened slightly, her voice still chillingly calm, "Tell me slowly."
"Spark Media! Lin Wan's company!" Sister Fang's voice rushed and nearly broke, "They just announced it on their official Weibo!"
"The new talent they signed... is Jiang Ci!"
