rslcontracting Chapter 340: The Ultimate Goal of Beautiful Tragedy is to Sell Tissues
Chapter 340: The Ultimate Goal of Beautiful Tragedy is to Sell Tissues
Chapter 340: The Ultimate Goal of Beautiful Tragedy is to Sell Tissues
On the big screen, light and shadow stretched long.
That kiss arrived abruptly, an inevitability of destiny.
A Li's lips crashed into Ye Chen's.
This could hardly even be called a kiss.
There was none of the beautiful, spiraling ascent of idol dramas, nor the ambiguous pink filter of romance.
Under the high-definition lens language, the audience could clearly see, at the moment of lips colliding,
the despair and madness of trying to fuse the other person into one's very bones and blood.
A Li, played by Su Qingying, had tear-stained cheeks, kissing with no technique whatsoever.
And Ye Chen, nailed to the tree, had his eyes tightly shut, his face as pale as paper, utterly lifeless.
Except for—
that single tear.
Director Zhang Mouyi was an out-and-out "madman."
He had edited that close-up shot in without reservation.
The very instant A Li kissed him, a clear tear, extremely slowly, welled up from the corner of Ye Chen's eye, long since unconscious.
The glistening liquid slid down his pale cheek, finally, silently disappearing between their tightly pressed lips and teeth.
The screening room was utterly quiet.
Those film critics who had prepared notebooks, ready to jot down scathing comments like "forced sentimentality" or "industrial sugar," felt their throats tighten.
Old Zhou's eyes were fixed on the screen.
He prided himself on having seen countless films, having witnessed all kinds of kiss scenes: for desire, for sweetness, for runtime.
But he had never seen a kiss like this.
This was a plea for help before death.
It was also a farewell before eternity.
Old Zhou felt a tightness in his chest, struggling to breathe.
He subconsciously opened his mouth, but only an incomprehensible "gurgle" sound came from his throat.
And in the real darkness.
Jiang Ci still maintained his lazy sitting posture, only slightly turning his head to glance at the person beside him.
Su Qingying's head hung very low, almost burying itself in her chest.
The screen's faint light illuminated her reddened earlobes, red enough to seem about to drip blood.
Her right hand clutched Jiang Ci's shirt sleeve, her nails digging into his forearm through the fabric.
It hurt.
But this Best Actress clearly had no mind for anything else now; she was merely a socially mortified party witnessing her own on-screen first kiss being publicly dissected by five hundred people.
"Hiss..." Jiang Ci lightly sucked in a sharp breath, leaning back slightly, and said in a voice only the two of them could hear, "Teacher Su, time to let go, or the flesh is going to come off."
Su Qingying turned to look at him, panic in her eyes.
The unshed tears in her eyes held A Li's brokenness, along with the shame and anger of being caught red-handed.
Jiang Ci said no more, merely raising an eyebrow before turning his gaze back to the screen.
If not for the numbers wildly scrolling on the system panel, he truly looked like an indifferent bystander.
[Detecting intense emotional fluctuations!]
[Heartbreak Value +288!]
[Heartbreak Value +388!]
[Heartbreak Value +128!]
...
On the screen, the scene shifted abruptly.
The desperate kiss did not last long; the power of Ling Xi's lingering soul forcibly intervened.
A Li's body was dragged backward by an invisible, immense force.
"No—!"
Su Qingying's hoarse scream was a swan song offered to her character.
She desperately stretched out her hand, her fingertips hooking desperately onto the sleeve of Ye Chen's hanging robe.
That was her only connection to him, to this world.
The dragging force intensified.
A Li's fingernails cracked, blood mixing with the red fabric, becoming indistinguishable.
"Riiip—"
A harsh tearing sound, delivered through the top-tier surround sound speakers, felt like a blunt saw viciously grating on everyone's nerves.
The sleeve tore.
A Li fell heavily, clutching only that half-torn piece of red cloth in her hand.
She stared blankly at the torn cloth in her palm.
And at this very moment, the forcibly suppressed silence in the screening room finally broke.
"Wah..."
The first uncontrollable sob came from the back corner.
Then, the sounds of sniffles, suppressed sobs, and rustling from searching bags rose and fell.
The burly, tattooed big brother from earlier now had his face deeply buried in the collar of his leather jacket, his broad shoulders shaking violently.
Old Zhou completely lost his composure.
Tears, sometimes, were more unreasonable than instinct.
He repeatedly told himself: This is a formula! It's sentimentality! It's a trap!
But it was useless.
When he saw Ye Chen, alone, nailed to the tree, and A Li, clutching the torn sleeve, being swallowed by the glowing gate,
a strange, bitter sorrow overwhelmed his tear ducts.
His vision blurred.
Damn it!
He frantically raised a hand, felt the wet heat, and hurriedly reached for the pack of tissues Jiang Ci had given him.
An hour ago, he had sneered at this two-dollar item.
Now, it was his lifeline.
If his colleagues saw him crying like this, where would the face of the "Poison-Tongued King of Hell" be?
However, when his hand felt for the armrest—it was empty.
Old Zhou's heart gave a "thud."
He whipped his head around and saw the young leader of the black fans on his right,
tearing open that pack of tissues—which rightfully belonged to him—without a shred of dignity, grabbing a huge handful and smearing it on his face, crying and cursing:
"Jiang Ci, you bastard... why tear the sleeve... why..."
Old Zhou: "..."
In that moment, only Jiang Ci's words from before the screening echoed in his mind.
—"This thing in your hands could be hyped up to two hundred."
Two hundred?
Old Zhou was now willing to pay five hundred!
His hand trembling, he was just about to snatch one back from the black fan.
A pristine white tissue, however, was offered before him.
Old Zhou was stunned, following that hand with distinct knuckles.
Jiang Ci was still leaning back in his seat, holding a freshly opened pack of backup tissues, his expression calm.
"Five hundred, on the tab."
Jiang Ci coolly uttered four words, stuffed the tissues into Old Zhou's hand, then pulled out another one and handed it to the red-eyed Su Qingying beside him.
Su Qingying's body stiffened for a moment before she buried her head even lower.
On the big screen, the plot advanced to Zhang Mouyi's most proud "visual trap."
The screen split in two.
On the left was the modern era: A Li knelt under the ancient locust tree, holding the jade pendant, silently shedding tears.
On the right was the ancient era: The fully demonized Ye Chen curled up under the Divine Tree, enduring the excruciating pain of his demonic power backlashing, struggling in the mud.
Two timelines, two trees, separated by a thousand years, everything changed.
But under Zhang Mouyi's masterful direction, the two scenes overlapped perfectly.
A Li's right hand, weakly hanging down.
Ye Chen's left hand, painfully reaching out.
At the center of the big screen, the two hands, transcending the boundaries of time and life and death, "grasped" each other.
They couldn't see each other, much less touch.
But in the audience's eyes, this was an interlocking of fingers across time and space.
This sense of tragedy ground against everyone's heart.
On the screen, Ye Chen's eyes looked forward.
Enduring the agonizing pain of his demon core shattering, facing the empty space ahead, he made a promise with a hoarse, broken voice, a lie:
"Wait for me..."
"I will come to see you."
As the line fell, an extremely soft sigh sounded in the screening room.
It didn't come from the screen, but from the very center of the first row.
Jiang Ci, looking at his own image on the screen, who was promising with all his might, let out a soft sigh.
This sigh stood out amidst the full hall of sobs, yet clearly reached Old Zhou's ears.
Old Zhou wiped his face haphazardly and looked at Jiang Ci.
There were no tear tracks on this young man's face, not even an expression.
In his eyes, Old Zhou saw something deeper than tears.
It was the... compassion... revealed by a creator personally tearing apart his own most perfect work.
"It's not over yet."
Jiang Ci spoke, making Old Zhou's heart skip a beat.
"What?" Old Zhou asked, his voice hoarse.
Jiang Ci didn't answer, merely lifting his chin to gesture towards the big screen.
The scene was darkening.
Hope rose in the audience's hearts—Surely there'll be a counter-kill now? Surely they'll transcend time and space to reunite?
Even if it's a bit cliché, that's fine!
Please, Director Zhang, just direct it this once!