Zhao Zhen on the bed suddenly leaned out halfway, his head nearly hitting the ceiling, his face completely bewildered.
"Brother Ci, you... what did you do? Why do you seem like a completely different person?"
Jiang Ci didn't explain.
He just slowly picked up the Rhinoceros in Love script from the table.
He flipped to the first page.
Then, using his newly acquired voice, he softly recited Ma Lu's first line.
"Dusk is when my vision is at its worst throughout the day..."
Just this single, incomplete sentence.
Yet the entire dorm room 404 fell completely silent in that instant.
The voice was completely different from Jiang Ci's originally clear and clean youthful tone.
It was a magnetic baritone voice filled with storytelling quality and the sedint of ti.
Every syllable carried a grainy texture, scraping against the eardrums and drilling straight into the heart.
Zhao Zhen and Chen Mo were completely petrified.
The two of them stared dumbly at Jiang Ci, not moving a muscle.
After a full ten seconds.
"Gulp."
Zhao Zhen swallowed hard with difficulty, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down.
"Bro-Brother Ci..." he stamred, his voice having changed pitch, "you... did you, like, take vocal lessons while working on that film set?"
"This voice... you could directly do voiceovers for art films with this!"
Chen Mo, anwhile, suddenly pushed up his glasses, his eyes behind the lenses shining remarkably bright. Like Columbus discovering the New World, his tone was filled with academic fervor.
"More than that! This isn't just a change in vocal quality! Brother Ci, your breath support, your articulation thod... everything has changed! This is voice building completely based on character logic! How did you do this? This defies scientific explanation!"
Jiang Ci slowly closed the script.
He paid no attention to his roommates' shock.
At this mont, his heart finally had the most definitive answer about the spent 1000 points of Heartbreak Value.
Worth it!
So worth it!
This voice was his most powerful weapon against Xia ng's icy "technical theory."
He no longer paid attention to Zhao Zhen, who was still making a fuss beside him, or Chen Mo, who excitedly wanted to perform an acoustic analysis on him.
Jiang Ci reopened the script, his gaze calmly settling on the dense lines of text.
This ti he wasn't simply "feeling."
He began to truly "study and read."
He discovered that Ma Lu's madness wasn't hysterical, nor was it without traceable origins.
This character's lines were filled with philosophical speculation and poetic murmurs.
"My eyes carry love, just like my forehead bears the mark of a slave."
"How can I make you understand how I love you? I silently endure, drinking the bitter wine, letting it surge through my bloodstream."
Relying solely on that "feeling" catalyzed by the system couldn't sustain it.
It required the actor to build a complete and precisely repeatable emotional ladder for this madness.
Jiang Ci's mind once again conjured Xia ng's cold, elegant face and her emotionless assessnt.
"Soone who has bitterly waited for his beloved for five hundred years... his body mory should be tense."
"Your sorrow is emotion, floating on the surface."
For the first ti, he admitted from the bottom of his heart.
She was right.
In films, a close-up shot, a perfectly tid gaze, paired with tear-jerking background music, was enough to break viewers' hearts.
But on stage, in that space that magnifies everything about the actor.
He had to build a complete set of "body logic" and "voice logic" for Ma Lu's sorrow and madness.
Thinking this, he stood up and walked to Chen Mo's desk.
"Pen and notebook, lend them to ."
"Huh? Oh, oh!"
Chen Mo was montarily stunned, then flusteredly pulled out a brand new notebook and a pen from the book pile and handed them to him.
Jiang Ci took the paper and pen and returned to his seat.
He turned on the desk lamp.
The orange-yellow halo of light enveloped him.
Then, he began deconstructing every line of Ma Lu's.
["Dusk is when my vision is at its worst throughout the day..."]
He wrote this line in the notebook.
Then, annotated beside it in parentheses.
(Emotional motivation: Loneliness, fatigue, farewell to daylight, welcoming the night. Subtext: My world is losing its light.)
(Voice performance: Primarily breathy voice, slowed pace, drawn-out endings but not weak, creating a sense of emptiness.)
(Body logic: Shoulders slightly slumped, core tightened, but spine not completely relaxed—a habitual stiffness ford after prolonged waiting.)
He marked the stressed syllables, breath points, and rhythm changes for every major line.
He analyzed Ma Lu's emotional progression and logical transitions in every scene.
He even began considering whether Ma Lu's body should be stretched out or curled up when saying "You are my warm gloves, cold beer"? Should his voice rise or fall?
The more he analyzed, the more astonished he beca.
And the more excited.
He finally understood how to create "heartbreak" more efficiently and precisely.
The night gradually deepened.
In the dorm room, only the rustling sound of Jiang Ci turning pages and the scratching of pen tip on paper remained.
Zhao Zhen and Chen Mo lay in their beds, tossing and turning, neither able to sleep.
From ti to ti, both of them would lean out from their bed edges, watching the figure writing furiously under the lamp as if looking at a monster.
Their worldviews were undergoing unprecedented violent impacts.
That amazingly talented Brother Ci...
How did he suddenly beco such a study nerd?
Soone more talented than you who also works harder than you is truly terrifying!
He totally deserves to beco famous!
...
Early the next morning.
Jiang Ci woke to the alarm clock sound.
He had faint dark circles under his eyes, but his entire person was unusually clear-headed, his ntal state remarkably good.
1:30 PM.
Jiang Ci arrived at Rehearsal Hall No. 1 half an hour early.
Pushing open the door, the spacious rehearsal hall's wooden floor was polished enough to reflect human figures.
A tall, slender figure was already there.
Xia ng.
She was wearing a black practice outfit, her long hair tied into a neat ponytail.
Facing the huge mirror on the wall, she was doing the most basic vocal and physical warm-ups, over and over.
"A—o—e—"
Xia ng heard the door opening, glanced at Jiang Ci through the mirror, then imdiately withdrew her gaze and continued her warm-up.
Jiang Ci didn't mind either.
He silently walked to the other side of the rehearsal hall, put down his bag, and also began stretching his ligants and moving his joints.
Neither of them spoke.
In the huge rehearsal hall, only Xia ng's standard vocalizations and the faint sounds of their clothing rubbing could be heard.
Quiet, and clearly demarcated.
Until exactly 2:00 PM.
The rehearsal hall door was pushed open on ti.
Students began arriving in succession, with Liu Guodong's figure following closely behind.
Holding a thermal cup, he walked in with an unreadable smile on his face.
His gaze swept over Jiang Ci and Xia ng, then he nodded.
"Everyone's quite punctual."
He walked to the center, placing the thermal cup on the nearby table.
"Before we start, let's hear your understanding of the characters."
Liu Guodong's gaze didn't look at Jiang Ci, but directly settled on Xia ng.
"Xia ng, you go first."
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