novelraw Chapter 354: The Movie Emperor's Breakthrough Kill
Chapter 354: The Movie Emperor's Breakthrough Kill
Chapter 354: The Movie Emperor's Breakthrough Kill
Jiang Ci didn't move, not even a twitch of his eyebrow in response to those words.
He remained the calm intruder, slowly and deliberately tearing open the greasy paper bag.
Under Gu Zhiyuan's nearly broken gaze, he picked up a youtiao and took a bite.
"Crunch."
The crisp sound was especially jarring in the silent trash-filled room.
Gu Zhiyuan watched Jiang Ci.
That radiant young Film Emperor was standing amidst a pile of rotting garbage, expressionlessly chewing on the cheapest fried dough stick.
His face held no emotion whatsoever. He didn't look like he was in a loser's doghouse,
but rather, standing in his own bright, clean kitchen, enjoying an utterly ordinary morning.
This posture gripped Gu Zhiyuan's throat tighter than any pity, making him feel more ashamed than ever.
Jiang Ci ate very slowly. After finishing the entire youtiao, he even pulled out a tissue and meticulously wiped his fingers.
Only after doing all this did his gaze shift from the paper bag, casually sweeping across the dilapidated room.
Finally, his eyes settled on a dusty coat rack in the corner.
Hanging there was a suit.
A cheap suit, old-fashioned in style and yellowed in color,
its cuffs frayed and its shoulder cut laughably oversized.
That was the battle armor Gu Zhiyuan had worn ten years ago, when he went to collect the only trophy of his life.
He had haggled for half a day at the wholesale market to buy it.
Gu Zhiyuan followed his line of sight, his heart clenching violently.
That was the last shred of dignity he had sealed away in the deepest recesses of his memory, unwilling to touch it again.
Under Gu Zhiyuan's stunned gaze, Jiang Ci walked over.
He took off the expensive windbreaker he was wearing and casually tossed it onto a pile of miscellaneous junk nearby.
Then, he reached out and took down that old suit, reeking of mold and dust.
"What are you doing?!" Gu Zhiyuan instinctively roared in a low voice, his voice hoarse.
Jiang Ci paid him no mind.
He put that oversized old suit on over his own clothes.
The fit was utterly wrong.
He didn't start performing immediately.
He closed his eyes.
One second, two seconds.
When he opened his eyes again, those clear eyes were already veiled with the dust of life.
Immediately after, his originally straight back seemed to be crushed by an invisible weight,
slowly slumping, becoming slightly hunched.
His center of gravity lowered, his knees unconsciously bending slightly, revealing a posture of fatigue from long-term standing.
The clean, bright luster instantly faded from that pristine face, replaced by a desperately forced, ingratiating expression.
He was no longer Film Emperor Jiang Ci.
He was Chen San.
He was every small person at the bottom, trampling their dignity into the mud for a single opportunity.
Gu Zhiyuan stood frozen in place, watching the Jiang Ci before him who seemed like a completely different person, momentarily speechless.
Jiang Ci didn't look at him.
Facing the empty space ahead, he forcefully squeezed out a sycophantic smile,
rubbing his hands together, continuously bowing and scraping,
clumsily adjusting the collar of the ill-fitting suit, his movements comical and ridiculous.
"Director Wang, Director Wang, look... do I... do I work?"
His voice had changed, carrying a plea and a tremor of fear of rejection.
"Just one line, really, just one. I don't want money, just a boxed meal will do..."
As he spoke, he used his sleeve to wipe sweat from his temple that didn't exist,
his smile forced even deeper, the muscles on his face somewhat stiff.
Gu Zhiyuan watched him, his breath catching.
This scene was too familiar.
It was precisely the scene in the script where Chen San humbly begged the Assistant Director for a role with lines.
But what Jiang Ci performed was a hundred times more cruel than the written description.
That feeling of tearing one's self-respect to shreds and offering it to someone else, still fearing they might disdain it,
filled the small room with suffocating oppression.
Right then.
Jiang Ci's performance to the empty air suddenly halted.
His head, without warning, jerked violently to the side.
As if he had really been slapped hard across the face.
The room was abnormally quiet.
Gu Zhiyuan's heart tightened.
He saw Jiang Ci's smile stiffen for only a second.
Then, that smile uglier than crying was forced out again.
Jiang Ci slowly turned his head back, even actively leaning the other side of his face forward.
"Director."
He spoke, his voice even softer, even more humble than before.
"Calm your anger."
"This side of the face, the lighting is better. Hit this side for a louder sound."
These words struck his mind like a thunderbolt.
His brain went "buzz," exploding into blankness.
This wasn't a line from the script!
This was his own memory!
Five years ago, at that business dinner, trying to secure investment,
this was something he personally experienced when that greasy, obese Producer publicly humiliated him.
He had never told anyone about it.
It was a scar he buried in his heart, left to fester in his gut.
Now, Jiang Ci had dug it out alive and displayed it before him in a way so calm it was cruel.
Gu Zhiyuan shuddered all over.
Looking at Jiang Ci's face that "seemed to be smiling but was actually bleeding,"
he felt as if his soul had been violently torn open.
At this moment, Gu Zhiyuan finally understood. Who was Jiang Ci playing? It wasn't Chen San at all.
He was clearly playing that failed idealist he had personally buried long ago—Gu Zhiyuan!
The performance ended.
Jiang Ci put away that posture of humility ground into dust, straightened his hunched back.
The suffocating murkiness and cowering clinging to him vanished without a trace.
He became that calm young man again.
Gu Zhiyuan trembled, hugging his head, his shoulders shaking violently.
Suppressed sobs leaked from between his fingers.
Right then, a piercing cell phone ringtone shattered the oppressive atmosphere filling the room.
It was Jiang Ci's.
Gu Zhiyuan froze, lifting his bloodshot eyes to look at Jiang Ci.
Jiang Ci, however, didn't even glance at the phone. He just looked at him calmly, then reached out, gently swiped the screen, and pressed mute.
Gu Zhiyuan trembled, his hands groping on the cigarette butt-strewn floor, finally picking up a pencil that had been stepped on and broken in half by someone.
He lunged at the table, grabbing that crumpled script.
Then, using all his strength, he viciously drew a circle in the selected director column.
"Shoot!"
A roar suppressed to the extreme burst from Gu Zhiyuan's throat,
hoarse, desperate, yet carrying a kind of reckless madness.
"I'm going to film this damned world for them to see!"
The roar echoed in the cramped room, vibrating painfully in the eardrums.
After roaring, Gu Zhiyuan breathed heavily, gasping.
Jiang Ci watched him quietly, waiting until that frenzied energy subsided slightly and his eyes refocused.
Only then did he leisurely take out his phone, glance at the missed call, and dial back.
Lin Wan's nearly hysterical voice exploded from the receiver:
"Jiang Ci! Have you lost your mind? Someone online leaked that you're in that Gu Zhiyuan's residential area. Paparazzi have the stairwell completely blocked now!"