novelraw Chapter 148: Shocking! Jiang Ci actually secretly learned this in the lounge...
Chapter 148: Shocking! Jiang Ci actually secretly learned this in the lounge...
Wei Song announced the meeting was adjourned.
But none of the core actors from Group A moved.
In the meeting room, the projection screen was still frozen on the name of that piece of music.
"Eight Thousand Souls."
It weighed heavily on everyone's heart.
Qin Feng, Liu Hanyu, Huang Shengqiu...
These veteran actors who had spent half their lives toiling on film sets all wore the same grave expression on their faces at this moment.
Zhao Yingfei hadn't spoken a single word from start to finish.
She stood up and silently left the meeting room.
She walked steadily, completely ignoring everyone's gazes and the hushed, oppressive discussions around her.Her assistant hurriedly chased after her, wanting to say something.
"Yingfei-jie..."
Zhao Yingfei stopped walking and glanced back at her.
It was a calm and hollow look.
That glance made the assistant's heart turn cold, and all the words she had prepared got stuck in her throat.
Zhao Yingfei didn't linger any longer and returned alone to the temporary restroom arranged for her by the crew.
The door closed.
Then came the sound of the lock turning.
The assistant knocked on the door for a long time, but there was no response from inside.
Anxious and flustered, she took out her phone and called Zhao Yingfei's agent for help.
On the other end of the line, the agent's voice was unusually calm.
"Leave her be."
"Let her be alone for a while, she'll be fine."
The assistant was stunned. "But..."
"No buts," the agent cut her off. "She needs this."
Elsewhere.
Sun Zhou witnessed this bizarre entire process and then saw his own artist, Jiang Ci, still sitting in his original seat.
He stared expressionlessly at his phone screen, as if everything that had just happened had nothing to do with him.
An intense unease seized Sun Zhou.
He anxiously moved closer to Jiang Ci, lowering his voice.
"Ci-ge, Teacher Zhao... she looks like she's in a bad state!"
"That music is too sinister, won't something happen?"
Jiang Ci didn't lift his head. His fingertips lightly swiped across the phone screen as he browsed information about a newly opened property development in Star City.
His tone was as calm as if he were discussing the day's weather.
"It's fine."
"She's found the feeling."
Sun Zhou was taken aback.
"When she comes out, Yu Ji will come alive."
Sun Zhou was completely choked up by this cryptic statement.
He felt his artist's train of thought had evolved to a dimension he simply couldn't comprehend.
What did 'come alive' mean?
Why did that phrase sound so creepy?
Sun Zhou's worry intensified, a tremor entering his voice.
"What do you mean 'come alive'? Ci-ge, don't scare me!"
"If she really gets too deep into the role, and does something rash..."
Jiang Ci finally looked up from the floor plan of that three-bedroom, two-living-room, double-balcony apartment.
He glanced at Sun Zhou.
The look in his eyes was calm, a kind of calm with a certain certainty that Sun Zhou couldn't understand.
"She's not thinking of doing something rash."
"She's had an epiphany."
Jiang Ci's explanation, far from reassuring Sun Zhou, made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.
What epiphany?
Sun Zhou didn't dare ask further.
Looking at Jiang Ci's overly young face, which always carried an air of detachment,
He suddenly felt his own artist seemed even more sinister than that "Eight Thousand Souls" music.
Under Sun Zhou's alarmed and uncertain gaze, Jiang Ci put away his phone.
He didn't disturb any of the veteran actors still immersed in their emotions, nor did he spare another glance at Zhao Yingfei's tightly closed door.
He stood up and walked straight to another independent restroom arranged for him by the crew.
Similarly, he closed the door.
Completely isolating himself from the outside world.
In the hallway.
Sun Zhou looked at the two tightly closed doors, one on the left, one on the right.
He just felt a cold wind blow down the back of his neck.
He couldn't help but mutter to himself.
"One had an epiphany, and the other went into seclusion..."
"These two... they wouldn't really start thinking of themselves as Xiang Yu and Yu Ji, preparing to 'die together for love' in front of the camera in five days, would they?"
As soon as this thought surfaced, Sun Zhou himself shuddered.
That was too crazy.
Inside the restroom.
Jiang Ci was completely unaware that his assistant's mind was currently staging an annual suspense-horror blockbuster.
The first thing he did after closing the door was pull up the system panel.
【Remaining Lifespan: 1038 days.】
The lifespan balance had decreased a little more.
His gaze lingered on the number for a moment before sliding to his personal information section.
【Acting Skill: Emotional Isolation LV1 (Passive)】
He needed this.
Only by maintaining the absolute clarity of "Jiang Ci" could he better portray those roles destined for destruction.
He needed to extend his life.
He needed to earn money to buy a big house for Madam Chu Hong.
He needed to live longer and go further on this path of the "King of BE Aesthetics."
Therefore, he couldn't go mad.
At least, not before someone yelled "cut."
Jiang Ci glanced at that skill, feeling somewhat more settled.
Then, he tapped open his phone's photo album.
It was completely empty.
He opened the front-facing camera.
On the screen appeared a face belonging to himself, looking somewhat pale.
Jiang Ci faced the camera and began trying to move his facial muscles.
He attempted to make a "smiling" expression.
However, the person on the screen only stiffly twitched the corner of his mouth.
It was less of a smile and more like a painful spasm.
Jiang Ci: "..."
He remembered Lin Wan's teasing question on the phone.
"You... you still remember how to smile, right?"
Looking at it now, that question wasn't excessive at all.
It seemed he really was almost forgetting how to smile.
He had acted in too many tragedies, grown accustomed to sinking into the despair of his roles.
To the point that "smiling," this simplest expression belonging to the ordinary Jiang Ci, had become so unfamiliar and difficult.
This wasn't a good sign.
That "Embrace the Sunshine" commercial was still waiting for him.
Jiang Ci took a deep breath and decided to try a different approach.
He turned off the selfie camera and opened a short video app.
In the search bar, he typed four characters.
"Healing Smiles."
Countless videos immediately popped up on the screen.
Some showed people holding kittens or puppies, smiling with faces full of adoration.
Some showed people glancing back with a captivating smile on a sunlit grassy field.
There were also various tutorials teaching how to practice a "standard smile," showing eight teeth.
Jiang Ci scrolled through these videos with an expressionless face.
He felt he wasn't learning how to smile.
He was observing a form of performance art he completely couldn't understand.
He tapped on a video with the highest view count.
In the video, a sweet-looking girl was explaining to the camera in the gentlest voice.
"First, we need to relax our facial muscles..."
Jiang Ci subconsciously followed the tutorial, trying to relax his face.
"Then, imagine something that makes you feel very happy..."
Something happy?
What instantly flashed through Jiang Ci's mind was the scene from the script where Xiang Yu burned the Epang Palace.
No.
Try another.
He thought of the rapidly increasing Heartbreak Value in his system backend.
That also seemed... not quite right.
Forget it.
Better think of something practical.
The image of Madam Chu Hong living in a Star City large flat.
That would work.
Jiang Ci tried hard to conjure that image in his mind.
"Finally, gently lift the corners of your mouth, letting the smile travel from your heart to your eyes..."
Jiang Ci faced the dark screen of his phone and tried again.
This time, the curve of his mouth seemed a bit more natural than before.
Although still somewhat stiff.
But at least it didn't look like he was preparing for a heroic martyrdom.
Progress.
Jiang Ci silently gave himself a thumbs-up.