novelraw Chapter 147: This Melody Strikes to Kill—And Crush the Soul!
Chapter 147: This Melody Strikes to Kill—And Crush the Soul!
Early March, the lingering chill of spring still lingered.
After completing the location shooting in the Gobi Desert, the main crew of "The Legend of Han and Chu" finally withdrew and relocated once again to the film and television city on the outskirts of the capital.
Unlike the desolate and barren northwest, the sets here were more intricate and also more oppressive.
A giant military tent, a one-to-one scale replica belonging to the Hegemon Xiang Yu, had already risen from the ground.
Black banners fluttered and snapped in the artificial wind, a murderous aura hitting them in the face.
During the morning routine meeting, the atmosphere was even more somber than the weather outside the tent.
Wei Song stood at the forefront, his face serious as he scanned the familiar faces in the conference room.
Qin Feng, Liu Hanyu, Chen Chun... all the core actors from Group A were present.
Jiang Ci and Zhao Yingfei sat side by side, an empty seat between them. Neither spoke.
"Five days."Wei Song held up five fingers, his voice devoid of any emotion.
"In five days, we begin filming the emotional core of the entire series—"
He enunciated each word clearly.
"The Farewell My Concubine."
This was not merely a scene.
It was the endpoint for the character Xiang Yu, falling from the altar of divinity and returning to a man of flesh and blood.
It was also the final, brilliant aria for the character Yu Ji, blooming with her life's last radiance.
Wei Song didn't give them much time to digest this.
He signaled his assistant to close the conference room door.
The heavy curtains were drawn, cutting off the last sliver of light from outside.
The entire conference room was instantly plunged into darkness.
Wei Song wasted no words. From his briefcase, he solemnly retrieved a black external hard drive and connected it to the conference room's multimedia system.
"I had Teacher Li Jun visit the top ancient music experts and composers in the country."
Wei Song's voice was unusually clear in the quiet room.
"It took nearly two months, with over a dozen drafts being repeatedly scrapped."
He paused, his gaze sweeping over everyone present—Qin Feng, Liu Hanyu, Huang Shengqiu—finally settling on the faces of Jiang Ci and Zhao Yingfei.
"This is the score we specially commissioned for 'Yu Ji's Sword Dance.'"
He pressed play.
There was no expected plaintive lingering melody, nor any overture.
The music began.
Thump...
Thump... thump...
At first, it was an intensely oppressive drumbeat.
One beat, then another.
Dull, and faint.
The drumbeats grew slower and lighter, just as everyone thought they were about to fade away completely.
A low, somber Peking opera chant rose, ethereal and sorrowful.
Not from one person.
It was hundreds, thousands of men, singing in the same ancient, mournful tune.
"The Han soldiers have taken our land, Chu songs rise from all sides."
"Our King's spirit is spent, how can this lowly concubine live on?"
It was precisely the lost "Chu Songs" that Li Jun had painstakingly sought.
The singing held only despair, and an unwillingness to rest even in death.
It was the souls of the eight thousand Jiangdong warriors, trapped at Gaixia, making their final lament to their Hegemon.
The temperature in the conference room seemed to drop several degrees.
Amidst this suffocating, tragic chorus, a solitary, lonely bone flute sound suddenly pierced through all the noise.
The flute's melody was heartbreakingly beautiful to the extreme.
Finally, the flute and the chorus intertwined.
The music ended.
The three-minute-long piece was a lingering death with every second.
Inside the conference room, a deathly silence reigned.
Qin Feng, a Film Emperor accustomed to all kinds of grand scenes, seemed a bit dazed at this moment.
He clutched his ever-present thermos cup tightly.
Beside him, Liu Hanyu had, at some point, closed his eyes.
He let out a long, deep sigh, a sigh filled with compassion.
And Huang Shengqiu, with the most fiery temper, now wore an expression of ultimate shock and pain on his face.
He opened his mouth as if to say something, but not a single word came out.
A long time passed.
"Click."
A soft sound.
It was Qin Feng finally setting down his thermos cup.
"Old Wei..."
Qin Feng looked at Wei Song, then glanced at the screenwriter Li Jun sitting beside him, who also wore a grave expression.
"You... this is truly destroying someone both physically and mentally."
He shook his head, as if trying hard to shake off the terrifying influence of the music just now.
"This piece... it's not a score."
"It is itself a blade."
A blade that could precisely stab into the hearts of all the audience and then ruthlessly twist.
On the other side.
Zhao Yingfei's face was even paler than Qin Feng's.
She didn't speak.
Unconsciously, she used her slender fingertips to trace over and over again on the smooth surface of the conference table.
The movements were sometimes sharp like a slash, sometimes gentle like a sigh.
Her mind was blank, but her body had already reacted.
She seemed to have already seen that woman in blood-stained white clothes, in that military tent surrounded by Chu songs, how she danced the last dance of her life to this death-song.
This piece was what she had been desperately searching for.
The soul of that dance.
And facing her, Jiang Ci sat quietly.
His expression was the calmest of everyone present.
But beneath this calmness was a raging tidal wave of ecstatic joy.
This piece was practically a full buff for the scene of Yu Ji's Sword Dance!
He didn't even need to close his eyes to clearly foresee it.
When this music played on the big screen, the number representing "Heartbreak Value" in his system backend would increase at a terrifyingly rapid speed!
He lifted his head and looked across at Zhao Yingfei.
The girl happened to look over at that moment.
Their eyes met.
One glance was worth more than a thousand words.
They both saw the same thing in each other's eyes—a near-frantic understanding and agreement regarding the ultimate tragedy that was about to come.
Right at that moment.
Wei Song slowly stood up.
He broke the silence in the room, scanned everyone, and finally fixed his gaze on Zhao Yingfei.
"Yingfei."
His voice carried a trace of unquestionable resolve.
"How does it feel?"
Zhao Yingfei seemed startled awake, her body trembling slightly. She looked at Wei Song, her lips moved, but still no sound came out.
A nearly cruel smile appeared on Wei Song's face.
"The choreography is entirely entrusted to you."
He pointed a finger at Zhao Yingfei.
"Don't have any reservations, don't hold anything back."
"I remember, at the first Script Reading Session, the dance you performed was excellent!"
Wei Song emphasized his tone.
"That's exactly the feeling I want!"
"A dance that can make heaven and earth change color, that can resonate with the eight thousand heroic souls—a dance to break the enemy formation!"