The More Tragic I Act, the Stronger I Get — My Fans Beg Me to Stop Killing Off My Roles-Chapter 162: Surgical Performance

The Public Relations Director read it out loud in confusion, completely unable to understand what it meant.

Lin Wan surveyed her team.

"From this moment on, abandon all comment control and post deletion."

Her words made everyone abruptly lift their heads.

Was this... surrender?

The Public Relations Director's face instantly turned deathly pale. "Sister Wan, we can't give up! If we give up now, Jiang Ci will truly be nailed to the pillar of shame!"

"Who said we're surrendering?"

Lin Wan extended a finger and forcefully tapped the paper on the table.

"We are not whitewashing him."

"We are creating a school of acting for him."

In the entire meeting room, everyone looked at their boss with eyes that said she was insane.

Finally, the Public Relations Director couldn't hold back any longer and was the first to speak.

"Sister Wan! Please calm down!"

"What kind of time is this! The label the other side is pinning on us is 'mentally ill'! And now you're doing this... isn't this adding fuel to the fire?"

"This is equivalent to publicly admitting that Jiang Ci is the 'mentally ill' person they're talking about!"

"Correct."

Lin Wan nodded, admitting it straightforwardly.

Facing everyone's incredulous gazes, she stood up.

Her voice was decisive and powerful.

"But from today onward."

"'Mentally ill' is no longer a slander."

"It is a school of acting! An academic theory that, in order to reach the truth of a character, does not hesitate to use a scalpel to dissect both oneself and the character!"

She paced to the floor-to-ceiling window, looking at the city lights outside.

"They say Jiang Ci's understanding of characters is cold-blooded, bizarre, and devoid of humanity?"

"Fine! Then we'll tell everyone!"

"This isn't cold-bloodedness, this is 'absolute rationality'! It's an actor, in order to restore a character one hundred percent, actively stripping away all the emotional sentiments belonging to the 'actor themselves'!"

"They say Jiang Ci's acting is 'psychotic'?"

"Then we'll define it!"

"Tell the audience, 'surgical-style acting' requires an actor to be like a surgeon! When facing a character, besides learning to immerse oneself, one must also know how to dissect!"

"To reach the very core motivation of the character!"

The few people in the Public Relations Department felt their worldview was being pressed to the ground by their boss and frantically reshaped.

Could it... really be done like this?

The Public Relations Director's mouth hung open, his mind a complete blank.

He had been in the industry for over a decade, having handled no less than eighty, if not a hundred, crisis PR situations.

Yet he had never imagined that this kind of "self-detonation" method could be used to counterattack.

Lin Wan turned around, looking at her subordinates who were completely frozen, and issued her final directive.

"Public Relations Department, immediately contact all the film critics, acting department professors, and KOLs in the cultural field that we can reach!"

"Package this theory into the most avant-garde, cutting-edge academic viewpoint and throw it out there!"

"Publicity Department, make graphics! Make videos! Edit out all those crazy shots of Jiang Ci, from General Gu to Ma Lu in his graduation play!"

"The copy should be—'He killed himself, so the character could live forever.'"

Lin Wan's gaze swept over each person.

"Remember."

"From this moment on, Jiang Ci is not mentally ill."

"He is the founding master of the 'surgical-style acting' school."

The Public Relations Director and his team members were utterly stunned.

"What are you all still standing around for?" Lin Wan's voice pulled everyone back to reality.

The Public Relations Director gave a start.

The boss is crazy! Then we'll go crazy with her!

"Understood!" He slammed a fist on the table. "I'll go contact those old pedants right away! We must blow this theory sky-high!"

Just as the team was scrambling into action, Lin Wan's personal phone rang.

It was a number she hadn't saved a name for, but one she was extremely familiar with.

Film Emperor, Qin Feng.

Lin Wan walked to a quiet corner and answered the call.

"Screenwriter Lin." The voice on the other end carried suppressed anger. "I've seen what's happening online."

"This is simply outrageous! They are destroying a good actor!"

Qin Feng's voice was full of the heartache and anger befitting a senior.

"I've already had my team prepare. I'm going to post on Weibo immediately to say a word for Jiang Ci!"

Given Qin Feng's status in the industry, if he personally stepped in, it would be enough to instantly reverse a portion of the public opinion.

Lin Wan felt a warmth in her heart.

But she still spoke, politely declining this kindness.

"Teacher Qin, thank you. But right now, it's not the time yet."

Qin Feng was taken aback on the other end. "Not the time? If we wait any longer, that kid's acting career will be ruined by this bucket of dirty water!"

"Directly jumping into a mudslinging fight will only drag you into this muddy water as well."

Lin Wan analyzed calmly. "They'll say you were bought by our company, and might even fabricate even nastier things to attack you."

"I don't care!"

"I care." Lin Wan's voice was soft, but firm. "Jiang Ci cares too. We cannot use the method of destroying a senior's reputation to exchange for our own innocence."

Silence fell on the other end of the line.

Lin Wan knew she had gambled correctly.

Old artists like Qin Feng valued their reputation the most.

She didn't give Qin Feng too much time to think, shifting the topic and presenting her own request.

"Teacher Qin, I don't need you to speak out directly for Jiang Ci."

"I only need you... in your next public interview, or on your Weibo, to simply discuss the possibilities of acting."

Qin Feng: "What do you mean?"

Lin Wan looked at the night outside the window and slowly voiced the viewpoint that even she herself found crazy.

"For example, there is a kind of actor who doesn't seem like a person acting."

"He is more like a 'vessel'."

"Able to perfectly carry the soul of the character."

Lin Wan's concept coincided with Qin Feng's comments on Jiang Ci in *The Legend of Han and Chu* crew.

On the other end of the phone, Qin Feng clearly paused.

After a long while, he murmured with an incredulous note of admiration.

"Lin Wan... you really are a madwoman."

"But I like this madwoman of yours."

Late at night, when the hashtag #JiangCiPsychoticActing#, amidst the revelry of anti-fans and paid posters, firmly occupied a high position on the trending chart.

A long article titled *Beyond Method Acting: Jiang Ci and the Birth of "Surgical-Style Acting"*,

posted by an account with less than a thousand followers, ID named "Film Pathology Slides",

was quietly published on the most professional domestic film forum—"Light and Shadow Pagoda".

Xiao Ran's PR team discovered this "bizarre article" almost immediately.

The team leader threw the article link into the work group chat, followed by a long string of voice messages saying "hahahaha".

"They're crazy! Spark Media has gone completely insane! This is suicide PR!"

"Surgical-style acting? Why don't they call it ICU-resuscitation-style acting?"

The leader laughed out loud on the spot.

"Come on! Don't just stand around! Immediately organize people and get this hashtag trending too!"

"Yes! Promote it as a joke! Mock it mercilessly! Solidify that Jiang Ci is nothing but a sensationalist, pretentious lunatic!"

Thus, propelled by capital, an even more bizarre hashtag was born.

#SurgicalStyleActing#

As a purely mocking label, it was pushed to the lower ranks of the trending chart by countless paid posters and anti-fans.

"LMAO, it's just acting, how did it get dragged into medical terminology?"

"Please, stop insulting surgeons, okay? They save lives, you guys are just playing tricks."

"Suggest Jiang Ci quit the circle and go take the medical licensing exam, stop polluting the big screen!"

The entire hashtag became a carnival for anti-fans.

However, the direction of events began to develop in a way no one had anticipated.

That source long article, treated as a laughingstock, due to its overly "professional" and "pretentious" writing style,

began to attract an entirely different group of users.

A large number of film school students, film critics, and self-important literary youth,

with the mindset of "let me see what nonsense these idiots are spouting now," clicked into the article.

Then, they couldn't get out.

Below the forum post, the tone began to gradually split.

"Although the author's phrasing is very chuunibyou... but... the viewpoint he raised about 'actors stripping away emotion' seems kind of interesting?"

"Upstairs, I just rewatched the General Gu clips."

"Look carefully, after Jiang Ci gets injured, his physical reaction isn't pain, but a kind of... feeling of exhaustion after completing a task? Holy crap, isn't this exactly what the article calls 'evaluating the performance result'?"

"Ma Lu! And that Ma Lu from the graduation play! That smile before he crashes into the wall at the end! That's using his own destruction to complete the final expression of love! Holy shit! It really does seem like that's what's happening!"

The discussion grew more and more intense.

The arguments also grew fiercer.

Right at this moment, one person's repost completely changed the battlefield.

Hardcore film critic big V, "Film Cynic," a blogger known for his acerbic and academic style, with over five million followers, who never commented on any idol stars, reposted that article.

The accompanying text was only a sparse two sentences.

"Flowery language, laughable arguments."

"But... at least it's discussing acting itself. In this era that only looks at faces and personas, having discussion is better than having none."

This seemingly neither praising nor disparaging, even slightly dismissive repost instantly detonated the entire court of public opinion.

Even Film Cynic has stepped in?

Even though he's criticizing, this in itself represents a form of attention!

The previously on-the-fence bystanders were completely hooked by curiosity.

The public's focus, within a mere hour, underwent a shocking shift.

From "Is Jiang Ci mentally ill?" it began to turn toward "What exactly is surgical-style acting?"

A "cyber-mocking" initiated by anti-fans had bizarrely evolved into a "cyber-archaeology" academic seminar!