novelraw Chapter 100: [Final Chapter · Song of Gaixia]
Chapter 100: [Final Chapter · Song of Gaixia]
Jiang Ci returned to the hotel, with Sun Zhou following behind him. The assistant was in a state of high excitement.
He was so agitated he was practically incoherent, holding his phone with both hands, constantly refreshing various industry gossip and forum leaks.
"Qin Feng! It's Qin Feng! Ci-ge!"
"He's alive! He really accepted it! Internal news just released from Director Wei's side, the contract details are already being processed!"
Sun Zhou's voice was trembling. He paced back and forth around the room, completely unable to calm himself down.
"Do you know what this means? Half the entertainment industry has exploded! All the investors are scrambling to add funding overnight. The total budget for our show is already heading towards six hundred million!"
"Jiang Ci plus Qin Feng, what kind of heavenly combination is this! Our drama, no, *your* drama, is going to go viral even before filming starts!"
Sun Zhou grabbed his own hair, feeling that his entire life of over twenty years had been less fantastical than this single day.
Jiang Ci had zero interest in the outside clamor.
He took off his jacket and casually tossed it on the sofa, then placed that thick kraft paper envelope on the desk.The bright red wax seal, engraved with the two characters "Top Secret," exuded a chilling aura under the hotel's warm lighting.
Sun Zhou's gaze was also drawn to it. He swallowed hard, not daring to get closer.
Jiang Ci, however, was very calm.
He found a fruit knife, carefully sliced along the edge of the wax seal, and tore open the flap.
Inside was an astonishingly thick stack of scripts and a black encrypted USB drive.
Sun Zhou watched from the side, his heart pounding with nervousness.
"Ci-ge, this... this clearly has the highest level of confidentiality."
Sun Zhou consciously retreated to the side.
Jiang Ci ignored him and simply picked up the script, which still smelled of fresh ink.
His fingers flipped through it rapidly.
For the first half of the script, concerning those complex power struggles and the scheming of the old noble families of the six states, he only gave it a cursory glance.
This content wasn't much different from the historical records and various interpretations he had read before.
Wei Song and his team had polished it for five years; the script's foundation was naturally beyond doubt.
His fingers didn't linger, continuing to flip quickly towards the back.
Finally, he stopped at the end of the script.
The title of the final chapter was three characters saturated with boundless sorrow and desolation.
[Final Chapter · The Song of Gaixia].
The script lavished extreme detail in its depiction of the "Farewell My Concubine" scene.
[SCENE 1]
[TIME: Night]
[LOCATION: Chu Tent]
[CHARACTERS: Xiang Yu, Yu Ji]
[SCENE: Outside the tent, the songs of Chu are heard on all sides, morale has collapsed, wind and snow rage. Inside the tent, candlelight flickers. Xiang Yu, dressed in casual clothes, polishes the sword that has accompanied him for many years. Yu Ji sits to the side, silently weeping.]
[YU JI: (Sobbing) Great King, we... why don't we go to Wu River? The sons of Jiangdong are still there, we can rise again... As long as we live, there is hope...]
[XIANG YU: (His movements pause. He does not turn around.) I crossed the river with eight thousand sons. Not a single one returns now. What face do I have to see the elders of Jiangdong again?]
[XIANG YU: I cannot live like that scoundrel Liu Bang, clinging to life like a stray dog. I... am the Conqueror of Western Chu.]
[He turns around and walks before Yu Ji, gently wiping away her tears.]
[XIANG YU: Don't cry. The sky... is about to dawn.]
[XIANG YU: For me... dance one last time.]
[Yu Ji nods, tears in her eyes.]
[She draws the other short sword from Xiang Yu's waist and begins to dance gracefully within the tent. The light of the sword flows, reflecting scenes from their past together.]
[(Intercut scenes: Young Xiang Yu arguing in the marketplace over a black steed, his first meeting with Yu Ji; The Battle of Julu, where he burns his boats and breaks his cooking pots, she waits in the tent; The great victory at Pengcheng, he embraces her, looking down upon the world...)]
[The dance ends.]
[Yu Ji stands still, sword planted, her eyes brimming with tears.]
[XIANG YU: Yu Ji... do you have any regrets?]
[YU JI: (Weeping uncontrollably) Your concubine has followed the Great King. In life or death, I have no regrets.]
[She gives a sorrowful smile and raises the sword.]
[YU JI: The Great King's spirit is spent; what life is left for this humble concubine?]
[The sword's edge sweeps across her neck. Yu Ji turns and falls to the ground.]
[Xiang Yu holds Yu Ji's still-warm body and lets out a mournful cry to the heavens.]
[XIANG YU: My steed will not advance, what can I do? Yu, oh Yu, what is to become of you?]
Jiang Ci read it page by page.
Sun Zhou didn't dare to breathe loudly beside him. He could feel the aura around Jiang Ci changing.
After a long while, Jiang Ci closed the script.
He didn't speak, just silently called up his system panel.
That pale blue screen, visible only to him, hovered above the script.
[Remaining Lifespan: 184 days, 5 hours]
[Heartbreak Value Balance: 140 points]
His finger gently traced over the four characters "raises sword to neck" written on the script page.
He frowned.
The script was good.
Really good.
It was a script that could move all audiences to tears.
But that was also the problem.
It was too "classic," too "correct."
The audience had a one hundred percent psychological expectation for the "Farewell My Concubine" ending.
Everyone knew Yu Ji would die. Xiang Yu would be defeated.
After watching the movie, people would shed a tear, be moved for a moment, praise it with a "they acted so well," then leave the theater, maybe discuss it for two days at most.
For a movie, that is success.
But for Jiang Ci, who needed "Heartbreak Value" to extend his life, it was far from enough.
That would only get him the baseline score.
To obtain an excess of Heartbreak Value, he had to completely shatter the audience's psychological expectations.
He had to perform a kind of "shattering" that exceeded everyone's imagination.
He couldn't just play a tragic hero everyone already knew.
He had to create a massive, lingering sense of "unresolved injustice" that would leave every audience member feeling a stifling tightness in their chest for days after walking out of the cinema, unable to let it go.
His thoughts began to wildly diverge.
Why did Yu Ji *have* to die?
Or rather, why did she have to die *that way*?
History only left behind "The Great King's spirit is spent; what life is left for this humble concubine?" and the song "The Song of Gaixia." The outcome was certain, but the process was a vast blank space.
This blank space was his biggest stage for harvesting Heartbreak Value.
The Yu Ji in the script was too passive.
Her death was a poignant, beautiful "love suicide."
But could a woman who could capture the heart of the Conqueror of Western Chu for a lifetime, whom he kept by his side through southern campaigns and northern battles, really just be a delicate beauty?
Her death shouldn't just be "love suicide."
It should be a more active, more destructive kind of "choice."
Jiang Ci's gaze slowly shifted.
It landed on the cast list, on the name following the role of "Yu Ji."
Zhao Yingfei.
This name, not long ago, had been the biggest hidden danger in his mind.
A "connected hire" forced in by capital.
But now, this biggest hidden danger had suddenly become the most crucial piece in his plan to achieve that "unresolved injustice."
He hesitated almost not at all, immediately picking up his phone and sending a message to Lin Wan.
"Sister Wan, help me look up all the information on Zhao Yingfei, the actress playing Yu Ji. The more detailed, the better."
He thought for a moment, then added another line.
"Especially her dance specialties and award history."
After sending the message, Jiang Ci turned off his phone and redirected his attention back to the script.
He took out some sticky notes and a pen from the desk drawer in the hotel room.
On the page of the script next to the one that read [Final Chapter · The Song of Gaixia].
He slowly wrote down three characters.
[Po Zhen Wu].