The More Tragic I Act, the Stronger I Get — My Fans Beg Me to Stop Killing Off My Roles-Chapter 168: Even If All of Jiangdong Pities Me and Would Crown Me King, How Could I Face Them?!

The appearance of Zhao Yingfei caused the originally noisy film set to fall into an eerie silence.

Everyone's gaze was darting back and forth between Jiang Ci and her.

A peculiar sense of ceremony, a feeling that "the main person has arrived," began to permeate the air.

The hushed whispers vanished, replaced by a breathless, watching stillness.

Wei Song emerged from behind the monitor.

The emotions on his face were mixed, impossible to tell whether he was angry or pleased.

He walked up to Zhao Yingfei, looking this leading lady up and down—the one who shouldn't have been here.

"How did you get here?"

Wei Song's voice was somewhat hoarse.

Zhao Yingfei's gaze didn't land on him; it remained fixed on that solitary, straight-backed figure in the distance.

Jiang Ci's back.

She spoke softly.

"When the Hegemon reaches his end, Yu Ji should come to see him off."

One sentence.

It sent a chill crawling up the spines of all the crew members nearby who were straining to listen, right to the base of their skulls.

Their scalps tingled.

The sense of reality from filming was instantly stripped away clean by these words.

A grand, tragic sense of fate enveloped the entire set.

Just as this desolate atmosphere was being built to its peak, Jiang Ci moved.

He walked straight through the crowd, heading towards the Props Team on the other side.

Under everyone's stunned gazes, he picked up that bronze sword meant for the "suicide."

"Clang."

His slender fingers lightly flicked the blade, producing a clear, muted ring.

Then, in an extremely calm tone, he asked the props master standing beside him, who was already dumbfounded.

"Master, is the weight distribution of this sword based on a 1:1 replica of an unearthed artifact?"

The props master: "Huh?"

Jiang Ci continued, his logic clear, devoid of any emotion.

"I want to confirm the final sense of resistance when swinging the sword, from the moment of contact to the severing of the carotid artery."

"..."

The entire set was deathly silent.

The ancient, tragic sorrow that Zhao Yingfei's words had just ignited, that epic sense of fate, was instantly shattered by his question.

Assistant Sun Zhou stood not far away, sweat beading on his forehead in anxious frustration.

It's over!

He's having another episode!

Brother! Ancestor! Look at the situation!

"Yu Ji" has come to see you off, the atmosphere is perfect, and what are you doing? You're quality-checking the murder weapon?

Are you Xiang Yu or the set's quality control manager?!

The surrounding crew members exchanged glances, their expressions shifting from shock to bewilderment, then to a twisted look of wanting to laugh but not daring to.

This... is this the legendary "surgical-style acting"?

This is way too surgical!

Even the resistance of a suicide slash has to be calculated to two decimal places?

Wei Song stood by the monitor, merely giving Jiang Ci a deep look.

Those turbid eyes churned with a wild anticipation.

Then, he abruptly turned and sat back down in his director's chair.

He grabbed the megaphone and roared out those two words.

"Action!"

Instantly.

The mournful, sorrowful strains of Chu Songs came from the massive speakers set up all around the set.

The desolate drumbeats, one after another.

Heavily pounded in the hearts of everyone present.

The camera pushed in on Jiang Ci.

One second ago, he was still the "set quality inspector" holding the prop sword, calmly analyzing technical parameters.

The moment the singing began.

The aura surrounding him transformed completely.

That sense of youthful crispness and detachment belonging to a modern young man, which had clung to him, completely faded away.

A weariness as heavy as mountains, a bloody aura belonging to a hero at his end, appeared upon him.

He lowered his arm. That bronze sword in his hand was no longer a prop.

It was the personal sword "Heavenly Dragon Breaks the City" that had accompanied him through a lifetime of warfare, drinking the blood of countless foes.

He slowly raised his head.

That Jiang Ci with the bizarre thought processes was gone.

Standing there was the Conqueror of Western Chu, whose army had collapsed like a landslide, driven into a corner, covered in blood and grime, utterly exhausted.

He was no longer Jiang Ci.

He was Xiang Yu.

There was no madness on his face, no unwillingness, only a vast emptiness born from having burned through all hope and vitality.

A heart-stopping, complete nothingness.

Xiang Yu surveyed the battlefield.

Those extras lying on the ground were no longer cannon fodder extras collecting boxed meals in his eyes.

They were the sons of Jiangdong who had followed him through life and death, now all fallen.

He lifted his head.

A choked, sorrowful laugh, suppressed to the extreme, erupted from his throat.

The laughter was hoarse and low, not like a release, more like an internal collapse, making listeners feel a tightness in their chests.

The moment his laughter fell.

His gaze moved.

It landed precisely on the most inconspicuous corner of the set.

It landed on Zhao Yingfei.

In Jiang Ci's field of vision, or rather, in Xiang Yu's field of vision.

Everything before him began to blur, to fade.

The cold soundstage, the massive lighting equipment, the tense crew members... everything was losing color, receding into the distance.

What he saw was not Zhao Yingfei wearing plain casual clothes and a baseball cap.

What he saw.

Was the woman who, in the command tent at Gaixia surrounded by the songs of Chu, danced the final "Sword Dance" for him before dying on the spot, her blood splattering.

His Yu Ji.

Her phantom stood there quietly, across time, across life and death, looking at him.

The appearance of this phantom became the final straw that broke his will.

It completed his final psychological transition from "seeking life" to "seeking death."

Defeat? It didn't matter.

Death? It didn't matter.

So, she was here waiting for him.

This moment was Jiang Ci's sacrificial performance.

It was also the destined endpoint of the character himself.

He slowly turned his head, no longer looking at her.

He opened his mouth and spoke that line passed down through the ages.

"Even if the elders and brothers of Jiangdong took pity on me and made me their king, what face would I have to see them!"

His voice was broken, hoarse.

Filled with endless regret, and finally, that pride that refused to bow.

As the words fell.

Jiang Ci did not hesitate in the slightest.

He reversed his grip on the sword.

The movement was clean, sharp, resolute.

That bronze sword he had just been studying for its "sense of resistance" swept fiercely across his own neck.

His body collapsed with a heavy thud.

"Blood" gushed forth, staining the damp soil on the banks of the Wu River.

The Hegemon had fallen.

...

"Cut—!"

Wei Song's hoarse, distorted roar finally sounded with difficulty, after a long while.

The entire set fell into an absolute, dead silence that lasted a full minute.

Everyone on set was rooted to the spot, stunned by this extreme, aesthetically devastating tragic performance.

They couldn't distinguish between the drama and reality, just staring dumbly at the figure lying in the "pool of blood."

In the corner.

Zhao Yingfei leaned against the cold wall, tears having long since breached the dam of reason, flowing soundlessly in a torrent.

She bit down hard on the back of her hand, not letting herself cry out loud.

But her body trembled violently from the immense grief, almost unable to stand steady.

What she saw was not an actor completing his scene.

What she saw was her Hegemon, meeting his death before her eyes.