The lethality of Jiang Ci's words was even more terrifying than that divinely inspired tear.
Using a simple, silly, and utterly irrefutable thod, it instantly deconstructed the "god-tier live performance" that had just condensed top-tier acting skills and emotional tension into a joke... about crying because there was no food to eat.
Xia ng's lips moved slightly, as if she wanted to say sothing.
But looking at Jiang Ci's face, etched with the sincere expression of "That's exactly what I think, hit if you don't believe it," she couldn't utter a single word.
"Pfft—"
Soone, sowhere, was the first to fail to hold back and laughed.
That laugh was like a switch.
The tense atmosphere in the entire Rehearsal Hall instantly collapsed.
Students, one after another, flushed red from stifling their laughter, wanting to laugh but not daring to, their shoulders shaking uncontrollably, their expressions completely unmanageable.
Liu Guodong covered his face and let out a pained groan.
In his lifeti, he had taught so many students: geniuses, fools, acting fanatics.
But soone like Jiang Ci... he had genuinely never seen before.
He even began to wonder if it was ti for him to retire.
This generation of young people, he truly couldn't understand them.
anwhile, elsewhere.
Just as Jiang Ci was driving the entire Rehearsal Hall crazy with one sentence, online, a "mass deification movent" about him was raging like wildfire.
A marketing account with the ID "Senior Industry lon Farr" keenly caught the scent of traffic.
Looking at the two trending topics "Who is Jiang Ci" and "Jiang Ci Palace Conspiracy," and then at the discussions in the comnt sections about "Broken Feeling" and "tragic temperant," inspiration instantly exploded.
He closed the door, drew the curtains, brewed a cup of instant noodles, casually found so "mosaic" and photoshopped pictures, and began his "literary creation."
An "exclusive in-depth exposé" article, thousands of words long, was produced overnight.
The title of the article was filled with a sense of tragic destiny from the start—"Deep Dive into Jiang Ci: The Genius Strangled by Fate, Why Does It Always Rain in His World?"
The beginning of the article, in a poetic tone, depicted a lonely childhood.
"According to inford sources, Jiang Ci's childhood was not as glamorous as people imagine. His parents divorced early and each ford new families. Little Jiang Ci beca an extra person, forced to shuttle between relatives' hos for shelter, witnessing the fickleness of human relationships."
The writing style of this exposé was highly inflammatory.
It didn't use a single word like "miserable," yet it vividly portrayed an image of a lonely, desolate childhood yearning for affection.
Next ca the struggles and dreams of his teenage years.
"In pursuit of the distant dream of acting, he had a huge argunt with the grandfather who was his sole financial support for school, and resolutely left that isolated small town. When he left, he had only five hundred yuan and a thin layer of clothing on him."
"In the basents of the capital, he slept on moldy mattresses and gnawed on cold stead buns. He saved the money from collecting scrap for a whole year before he could afford the cheapest second-hand guitar. That guitar beca the only light in his dark world."
"He once waited eight hours in the biting wind for a bit part with two lines."
The latter half of the article took lodrama and tragedy to the extre.
"Just when he thought life was finally looking up, fate dealt him another heavy blow. The girlfriend he had supported with all his savings got into a prestigious foreign university, but before going abroad, she broke up with him."
"The reason: she didn't want her life to be dragged down by a penniless poor guy."
"That day, it was raining heavily in the capital. Soone saw Jiang Ci sitting alone on a park bench, from dawn until dusk. Rain and tears blurred his handso face."
This article was practically a compilation of all the tropes from eight o'clock soap operas.
It perfectly explained the source of that innate "Broken Feeling" and "lancholic temperant" about Jiang Ci.
Once this "exposé" was posted, riding on Jiang Ci's trending popularity, it imdiately spread like wildfire on Weibo.
#JiangCi'sMiserableWorld#
This hashtag, dripping with tragic overtones, was forcefully pushed into the top five trending searches by netizens.
In the comnts section, so fans were already projecting themselves into the story.
[So Brother went through all this! No wonder there's always an unshakeable sadness in his eyes!]
[Art truly cos from suffering! I take back what I said about him being a nepo baby! He deserves it!]
[Who is that first love girlfriend! I want to doxx her! She's such a piece of work!]
Far away in the Spark dia office in Shanghai.
Lin Wan looked at the glaringly bright hashtag on her phone screen, trembling with anger.
"Who the hell wrote this?! Did they even graduate middle school?!"
She kicked over a nearby trash can with a loud crash.
The head of the PR departnt stood trembling to the side, not even daring to breathe heavily.
Lin Wan had invested imnse effort to lay the perfect groundwork for Jiang Ci as the "chosen one," the "mysterious newcor."
What she wanted was industry recognition, high-end prestige level!
Now, it was all being dragged into the gutter by this tabloid-level, lodramatic exposé article!
"Delete it!"
"Contact the platform imdiately! Get this trending topic taken down! Get this article deleted!" Lin Wan's voice was icy cold.
"Wan... Wan-jie," the PR director wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, "we already contacted them, but... it's too late."
"The reposts and read count for this article are too massive, it's already spread virally. Forcibly deleting it now would only cause backlash, making everyone think we're guilty and covering up the truth."
Lin Wan closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
She knew the director was right.
This story was too "perfect," so perfect it had already taken root in people's hearts.
Debunking it would an going against public sentint.
At the sa ti.
In a small city thousands of miles away.
Mother Jiang, wearing a pair of reading glasses, sat upright and stared intently at neighbor Xiao Li's phone screen.
With Xiao Li's hands-on guidance, she was reading word by word that "exposé long article" that had exploded across the entire internet.
She read slowly, very carefully.
Xiao Li chattered excitedly beside her: "Auntie, look, this article says Brother Jiang Ci is so pitiful, everyone's heart is breaking for him!"
Mother Jiang didn't speak.
Her expression shifted slowly from initial confusion to sheer absurdity.
Parents divorced?
She turned her head to look at the "Outstanding Model Worker" certificate her husband had won years ago, hanging on the wall.
Shuttling between relatives' hos for shelter?
She rembered her son's chubby appearance as a child, how she would cook him delicious food in different ways every day, afraid he might lose weight.
Breaking with family for his dream?
She clearly rembered personally seeing her son off at the train station, stuffing a thick wad of living expenses into his hand, telling him not to suffer any hardship.
The more Mother Jiang read, the tighter her frown beca.
Who was this written about?
Was it really her son, who had been lively, cheerful, a bit mischievous, and even a little silly since childhood?
But as she continued reading, reaching those fabricated, yet specific and realistic details of hardship, the sense of absurdity on her face gradually faded.
Replacing it was an inexplicable pang of heartache.
Reason told her this was all fake.
But maternal instinct made her uncontrollably project those painful images onto her own son.
She seed to see her son shivering with cold in an icy basent.
Saw her son standing for eight hours in the biting wind for a boxed al.
Saw him, abandoned by that never-t "first love girlfriend," sitting alone in the rain.
These images were like blunt knives, slowly cutting into her heart.
Until she saw that final line.
"According to recollections from his university classmates, Jiang Ci once couldn't afford the tuition for the next sester and went alone to hand out flyers on the street on a winter night of over minus ten degrees Celsius, his hands frozen bright red..."
Boom—
A string in Mother Jiang's mind seed to snap completely.
She couldn't hold back any longer.
Tears, without warning, welled up and overflowed.
She abruptly stood up from the sofa, startling Xiao Li beside her.
"Auntie, you... what's wrong?"
Mother Jiang grabbed Xiao Li's hand, her reddened eyes filled with anger and indignation.
She pointed at the phone screen, her voice trembling.
"Girl, teach !"
"Teach how to speak on this thing!"
"They're talking nonsense!"
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