novelraw Chapter 361: Depicting Happiness Through Heartbreak
Chapter 361: Depicting Happiness Through Heartbreak
Chapter 361: Depicting Happiness Through Heartbreak
Jiang Ci did not speak.
He gave a slight nod in Feng Gang's direction, which served as his answer.
Then, he turned and walked toward the center of the stage, toward the corner made from a few pieces of old furniture, temporarily built and named "home."
Lin Wan's heart clenched tight once more.
She wasn't worried that Jiang Ci was "seeking death"; rather, her instinct as a creator told her that Jiang Ci was constructing a "worldview" completely detached from Feng Gang's script, one that belonged to him alone.
He wanted to overturn the vague proposition of "happiness" and redefine it with a concrete, personal image.
This was crazy, but if successful, its artistic impact would be devastating.
Jiang Ci did not walk toward the chair prepared for the protagonist.
He first went to the side of that square wooden table with peeling paint.
The table was very old, with wood splinters curling up at the edges, marks from knife chops on its surface, and round burn marks of varying depths left by hot pots.
He reached out, his fingertips slowly, almost painfully slowly, tracing over the rough grain.
From one end of the table to the other.
There was no deliberate performance in that movement; it felt more like checking if a long-unseen old object was still intact.
After this action, he pulled out the chair and sat down.
He did not perform the anxiety of waiting as Feng Gang had requested, nor did he show the slightest hint of anticipation.
He simply sat quietly.
His body relaxed, his back slightly arched, his whole person sinking into the chair as if he had been sitting like that for a very long time.
His gaze fell upon the empty bowl and chopsticks on the table.
His eyes were vacant.
Not empty, but a kind of vacancy that pierced through the objects before him, looking toward a faraway place.
The broadcast hall was terrifyingly silent.
Feng Gang, Elder Zhao, and Elder Qian, three titan-level figures, all wore serious expressions now.
They couldn't understand Jiang Ci's opening, but an intangible pressure had already enveloped the entire venue.
Jiang Ci finally moved.
He picked up that pair of bamboo chopsticks.
The tips of the chopsticks had been worn smooth and white, clearly used for many years.
He didn't pick up food with them, but unconsciously twirled them in his hand.
The bamboo chopsticks rolled rhythmically between his fingers.
Suddenly.
He stopped twirling and raised his hand.
With the tip of a chopstick, he lightly, casually tapped the rim of the porcelain bowl with its blue-edged peony pattern.
"Ding—"
An exceedingly clear, crisp sound pierced the silence of the entire broadcast hall.
At the moment the bowl rim was struck.
A faint, extremely faint smile appeared at the corner of Jiang Ci's lips.
The smile was shallow, not even a complete smile,
yet it was pristine, untouched by dust.
There was no ecstatic joy of happiness, no excitement of a long-awaited reunion.
Only a kind of satisfaction that bordered on naivete.
Yet, the moment the three judges present saw this smile, their hearts tightened.
The thermos cup in Zhao Dingguo's hand shook, scalding tea spilling onto the back of his hand, yet he remained completely unaware.
Qian Wenhai abruptly took off his reading glasses.
Feng Gang even sprang up from his director's chair, staring intently at the magnified face on the monitor.
They had gone mad.
From that smile, they saw a child with a topknot,
declaring triumphantly and crisply for the first time as he clumsily took chopsticks from his mother's hand and tapped his rice bowl.
They saw countless dusks, the call of "dinner's ready" coming from the kitchen after a day of exhausting work.
They saw time flowing mercilessly, the person who once tapped the bowl and chopsticks no longer there, leaving only that unchanging "ding" in memory.
A kind of hollow ache left in the heart because happiness was too precious, too fleeting.
Jiang Ci didn't know what kind of impact his performance had on others.
He only vaguely remembered when he was very young, how lively the house was during the New Year, how his father would lift him overhead, while his mother busied herself in the kitchen.
Before the meal started, he loved tapping his little bowl with his chopsticks; that crisp sound meant the best meal of the year was about to begin.
That was the feeling of anticipation for home.
Jiang Ci put down the chopsticks and stood up.
He did not mimic the reaction of "hearing a cough," nor did he walk toward the kitchen.
Because his performance had already ended.
The entire process took less than a minute.
He did not speak a single line, nor make a single superfluous expression,
but what he had portrayed already contained all the waiting and longing in the script, and even more.
The broadcast hall remained deathly silent.
Lin Wan stood at the side stage, her fingertips cold, yet her palms sweating.
Looking at the solitary figure at the center of the stage,
she finally truly understood another meaning of the phrase, "The core of tragedy is to tear apart beautiful things for people to see."
—Jiang Ci did not tear apart beauty. He simply let you glimpse, for one second, the beauty you once possessed, and then personally closed the door.
Professor Qian Wenhai's voice was the first to ring out.
He wasn't wearing his glasses, his reddened eyes betraying his earlier loss of emotional control.
He rubbed his eyes forcefully, then looked toward the young man at the center of the stage.
"He's not performing happiness!"
Elder Qian's voice suddenly rose sharply, carrying a touch of the excitement of having been exposed.
"He's reminding us! Reminding all of us, how many moments of happiness we once possessed, and have even completely forgotten!"
"This isn't acting..." Elder Qian slapped his thigh heavily, his hand trembling, "This... this is heart-wrenching!"
"Exactly!"
Feng Gang, as if meeting a kindred spirit, stood up from behind the monitor, his face ecstatic.
He rushed over to Elder Qian in a few steps, grabbing his arm and shaking it excitedly.
"This is exactly what I wanted! Exactly this flavor!"
An abnormal flush colored Feng Gang's face, excited like a child.
"The Spring Festival Gala can't just be about haha laughter! Can't just be about everyone being nice and friendly!"
He waved a hand, pointing at Jiang Ci on the stage, his expression as if he were displaying a masterpiece for the ages.
"It also needs this! This kind of nuclear weapon that can make people laugh through tears!"
The atmosphere of the entire broadcast hall was ignited by Feng Gang's fervor.
Only one person was the exception.
Elder Zhao Dingguo from the Drama Association.
From beginning to end, his brows remained tightly furrowed.
He admitted that Jiang Ci's performance was master-level, a textbook example that could be written into teaching materials.
But precisely because of that, he felt a bone-chilling cold.
He walked over to Feng Gang, lowered his voice, and spoke word by word.
"Old Feng, have you gone mad?"
Feng Gang's fervor was interrupted; he looked at his old friend, puzzled.
Elder Zhao stood up, those eyes weathered by time,
gazing calmly at Feng Gang,
that calmness itself carrying the weight of a thousand jun.
"Right before the zero-hour bell tolls, when every household is waiting for reunion, you're going to show this to the entire nation?"
His voice trembled.
"Do you want to put a stone in their hearts just as the dumplings are being dropped into the pot in thousands of homes, before the New Year's firecrackers are even lit?"
"This doesn't fit the 'joyful and auspicious' tone of the Spring Festival Gala!"
Elder Zhao's voice grew increasingly stern.
"This will cause a broadcast incident!"