Jiang Wen didn't turn around.
He reached back and crushed the half-smoked cigarette hard against the iron railing,
crimson sparks bursting.
He walked back to the monitor and sat down.
No praise, no reassurance.
He just pressed the replay button.
On the screen, that spine-chilling embrace played over and over.
The young man's gaunt body crashed into the drug lord's broad embrace,
that sense of total surrender, defenseless attachnt, the tragedy radiating through the screen.
Jiang Wen picked up the notebook on the table and flipped to a new page.
He took a thick black marker and heavily wrote four characters on the paper.
Soul Collapse.
At the sa ti, outside the isolated border ruins, China's internet was being swept up by another storm.
At exactly 8 PM, the digital issue of Vogue magazine went live on schedule.
The cover: Deity in the Ruins.
In the photo, the young man stood amidst real architectural ruins, wearing a boldly cut sheer suit.
Half his face was covered in shadow, his eyes a scorched earth barrenness, gazing coldly beyond the lens.
The lush, vibrant red rose in his hand was the only color in this gray, decaying world, yet it seed about to be crushed by his own hand the next second.
This photo detonated across social dia.
"Holy shit! What is this ceiling of broken feeling! I'm dead!"
"A god with broken wings, fallen to the mortal world... Teacher Chen Man is my goddess! This is art!"
"That look in his eyes... I feel like he's not looking at the cara, but through it at , begging to give him release."
"Not just the cover, go look at the inside pages! Every single one makes want to both destroy him and kneel to kiss his feet!"
"Help! It's bad enough he stabs us in movies and plays, but even a magazine shoot stabs us! Jiang Ci! Are you not going to rest until you've stabbed us all to death!"
In a corner of the film set.
A sour, rancid taste surged up Jiang Ci's throat. He leaned against the wall, retching violently.
That embrace just now had drained the last of his strength.
His stomach was completely empty, leaving only a burning hunger.
He rinsed his mouth and squatted down unceremoniously, his face sallow and sared with gri.
He pulled his phone from his pocket, expressionlessly opened Weibo,
trying to use electronic information to distract from the churning, burning sensation in his stomach.
Trending at number one was his own na.
#Jiang Ci Ruins Deity#
He tapped in. The screen jumped to that cover image, ticulously retouched by a top-tier team.
The version of himself in the photo was aloof, fragile, carrying an inhuman divinity.
Jiang Ci scrolled expressionlessly, zooming in on each retouched photo of himself, examining them carefully.
Just then, a whirlwind ca rushing over.
"Bro! Bro! Record broken!"
Sun Zhou stumbled over, holding a tablet, nearly tripping over a cable and eating dirt.
He rushed up to Jiang Ci, practically spitting as he reported.
"The single-category sales record for Vogue! We broke it! In just one hour! One hour, bro!"
He shoved the tablet in front of Jiang Ci, his voice trembling with excitent.
But his gaze involuntarily shifted from the tablet screen, from that "Ruins Deity" deified by the entire internet,
slowly moving to the real person before him, who had buried his face in his knees, thin as a skeleton.
That sense of absurd disconnect doused all his exhilaration.
Sun Zhou's lips moved a few tis. All those words of praise about "deification" and "top-tier,"
not a single one could co out, finally transforming into a nasal murmur: "Bro... you've lost weight again."
Jiang Ci ignored him, scrolling on his phone, his gaze landing on the comnt section.
He had no concept of sales figures, but he was quite interested in the netizens' comnts.
His finger stopped on a highly upvoted comnt.
"Am I the only one who noticed his waist? *Heavy breathing noises*, who could resist this!"
"Feels like I could wrap one hand around it... a slender waist is easy to push down, the ancients didn't lie!"
Jiang Ci frowned.
He put down his phone, extended a dust-covered hand, and touched his sunken abdon, hollowed out from deliberate dieting.
There used to be the outline of abs there.
He muttered very softly.
"Looks like I need to drink protein powder when I get back."
Lei Zhong walked over, carrying a bottle of mineral water.
The impact of that scene earlier was too great; he needed to confirm he was still living in the real world.
He handed the water to Jiang Ci, squatted beside him, and cleared his throat.
"Kid..." He nudged Jiang Ci with his elbow, not too lightly, not too heavily,
"That bit this afternoon... what were you thinking? You acted so real, anyone who didn't know would think you really saw as your lifeline."
Jiang Ci unscrewed the cap, took a gulp of water, then looked up.
He looked at Lei Zhong and answered in a serious, academic tone.
"In that situation just now, Jiang He's spiritual world had already collapsed."
"After experiencing the extre tornt of withdrawal symptoms, that bowl of porridge Cha Cai gave him beca the only cornerstone for rebuilding his world."
He paused, organizing more precise language.
"In that mont, you were my entire world."
There wasn't a hint of jest on Jiang Ci's face; his eyes were terrifyingly clear.
"So, you're not my father. You're sothing even more important than that."
The smile on Lei Zhong's face froze.
The other bottle of water he was about to hand over clattered to the ground.
He looked into Jiang Ci's clear, earnest eyes.
This kid... wasn't joking.
He really thought that way!
"Everyone, attention!"
Not far away, Jiang Wen's roar shattered the bizarre atmosphere.
Everyone instinctively straightened up.
Jiang Wen walked out from behind the monitor, scanned the area, and finally fixed his gaze on Jiang Ci.
"Tomorrow's scene, the: hosickness."
His words landed heavily on everyone's hearts.
After enduring this series of inhuman tornts, the the was actually this?
Jiang Wen offered no explanation.
He looked at Jiang Ci and added, word by word.
"What I want isn't the kind of hosickness where you cry looking at the moon. I want what a man licking blood off a knife's edge would think of in the dead of night."
"Would he think of the bowl of noodles with gravy his mom made, or the crooked butterfly bow his daughter tied."
"I want this kind of hosickness, filled with the warmth of life, vivid."
These words were for everyone to hear.
But Jiang Ci knew this was the director giving him a separate assignnt.
This was also the only "soul" he had fought for, alongside screenwriter Yan Zheng on that rainy night, for the character of "Jiang He."
The prototype for Jiang He was his father.
He understood better than anyone what truly sustained a real narcotics officer in their most desperate monts.
It was never grand slogans.
It was those most insignificant, yet most scalding, mories of "ho."
Jiang Ci stood up.
He looked at the director not far away and said nothing.
But Jiang Wen, from that thin young man's still-calm face, read a certain promise.
He knew tomorrow's scene was set.
Jiang Wen turned and roared at the set assistant behind him: "Wrap! What the hell are you all standing around for!"
The crowd began to disperse.
Lei Zhong watched Jiang Ci's retreating back, then looked down at the overturned water bottle on the ground.
He instinctively touched his own heart; it was still pounding wildly.
Reviews
All reviews (0)