The More Tragic I Act, the Stronger I Get — My Fans Beg Me to Stop Killing Off My Roles-Chapter 284: The Red Carpet is Also a Trap

Kyoto National Film Center.

The camera flashes lining both sides of the red carpet merged into a continuous sheet, turning the rainy night bright as day.

Jiang Ci stepped out of the entourage van.

His dark red velvet suit intruded abruptly into the clamoring scene.

The screaming from both sides of the red carpet stopped dead.

A strong sense of detachment made him utterly out of sync with all the fervent expectations around him.

Jiang Ci ignored the flashes and the hushed whispers that followed the sudden silence.

He simply followed the procedure, moving forward step by step.

Behind him, Qin Feng walked onto the red carpet.

The Film Emperor wore a composed deep-blue suit,

his smile gentle, his interactions with the media nearly flawless.

Some reporters smelled gunpowder and, tearing at their throats as if desperate to stir up trouble, shouted at the top of their lungs.

“Teacher Qin! Teacher Jiang Ci! Stand a bit closer to the center!”

“Give us a stare-down! Let’s see whose aura is stronger, the King of Han or the Hegemon!”

“Take a shot! Just one! Let’s give the Hongmen Feast a proper ending!”

The heckling spread quickly, and the whole red carpet area boiled over again.

Qin Feng’s smile remained warm and unflappable; he waved to the media,

walking forward at an unhurried pace, ready to complete this staged “century reconciliation.”

However, Jiang Ci, who had already reached the front, unexpectedly stopped.

He paid no attention to the shouts on either side, and slowly turned around.

His eyes cut through the web of flashlights and settled on Qin Feng behind him.

Qin Feng extended his hand, preparing to fulfill the media’s expected “century handshake.”

Just as his hand reached halfway.

Jiang Ci took a half step backward.

A tiny, almost negligible distance.

Qin Feng’s hand hung frozen midair.

For a moment, Qin Feng’s pupils contracted.

It wasn’t the anger of being offended, but more like the brief dazed look of a top chess player

who sees an opponent play an utterly unexpected,

yet exquisitely dangerous, move.

The thrill of matching skills replaced his perfunctory smile,

but that emotion was so fleeting it was instantly wrapped up by his consummate acting,

transforming into a perfectly measured awkwardness and bewilderment at being publicly slighted.

He lowered his gaze slightly; that brief bow

was both Liu Bang’s feigned weakness and Film Emperor Qin Feng’s silent digestion of Jiang Ci’s “attack.”

When he raised his head again, he had become that warm, slightly flustered, even ingratiating elder from Pei County.

Not a single line was spoken during the entire exchange.

The heckling from the reporters along the red carpet faded away without anyone noticing.

Silence fell over the venue, followed by the dense, suffocating sound of camera shutters.

At that moment, several white-haired elders who had just stepped onto the red carpet also came to a stop.

A reporter thrust a microphone at them,

and the leading Professor Li pushed up his glasses,

lowered his voice, and said to his companion, “The aura is wrong… this isn’t actor interaction, this is Xiang Yu humiliating Liu Bang!”

A nearby professor who specialized in ritual etiquette turned pale,

pointed at Qin Feng’s frozen hand, and said in a low voice, “Xiang Yu is the host, Liu Bang is the guest and also a minister. If the host does not extend his hand, the guest extending his first is presumptuous!”

“But Xiang Yu stepping back that half step completely tramples that ruler-subject status underfoot!”

The etiquette professor’s expression changed; his voice took on some agitation.

“This young man, he has brought the murderous intent and humiliation of the Hongmen Feast directly onto the red carpet! We are witnessing a living history lesson!”

Everyone understood.

On a red carpet barely a hundred meters long, they had just witnessed a silent, oppressive Hongmen Feast.

Jiang Ci did not linger another second.

He turned and continued toward the autograph board.

Qin Feng slowly withdrew his hand, pulling a smile more painful than tears toward the cameras, and hurried to catch up.

The red carpet entered its climax.

A low-key black sedan pulled up, and Gu Huai stepped out.

As a special guest, his arrival sparked another round of excitement.

Gu Huai ignored the shouts from the media and did not linger long at the designated photo spot.

He walked straight through the crowd toward the figure who was signing at the autograph board.

Jiang Ci had just finished the last stroke.

Gu Huai came up beside him.

He reached out and, in front of all the cameras and as if oblivious to everything, straightened Jiang Ci’s slightly crooked bow tie.

The motion was light, but the shutters around them suddenly fired several times more rapidly.

Then he patted Jiang Ci gently on the shoulder.

The premiere officially began.

On the brilliantly lit stage, the creative team took their seats one after another.

Wei Song took the microphone and, trying to drag the atmosphere from online revelry back onto the track of historical drama, used his most heartfelt tone.

“The Legend of Han and Chu took five years from preparation to today.”

“We crossed the Gobi, we trod the sands…”

Wei Song spoke passionately on stage,

but from the corner of his eye he caught sight of a bespectacled young man in the audience

covering his mouth, his shoulders shaking violently from suppressed laughter.

The young man’s companion was furiously poking at a photoshopped image on his phone showing a “Hegemon ruler caliper” gag.

Wei Song felt as if his heart had been stabbed by that picture; the muscles at the corner of his eye began to twitch violently,

a helplessness and anger like playing instruments to an unappreciative crowd surged to his temples.

He immediately forced that fury down and tightened his mouth.

Laugh, then. Laugh as much as you want now.

He hastened his speech, almost brutally truncating it, and handed the stage back to the darkness.

He could hardly wait to see how those laughs would turn to cries when Wu River’s blood stained the screen.

The host came onstage to bridge segments, but the atmosphere remained strange.

Finally, the interaction portion ended.

The host announced loudly, “Now, please enjoy the epic production The Legend of Han and Chu!”

The bespectacled young man who had been shaking to hold back his laughter

was about to snark to his companion, “Here comes the main feature, time to nitpick,”

when the theater lights suddenly went out with a thunderous click.

The abrupt darkness felt like a giant hand clamping down on everyone’s throats.

The joke stuck in their mouths.

The light from phone screens was unnerving.

Laughter, chatter, all the noise were swallowed whole by the dark.

The bespectacled young man felt as if thrown into a deep sea,

left only with the slightly hurried breaths of his companions.

The lightheartedness and pleasure born of meme-play were being rapidly siphoned away by the hush,

and a solemn oppression began to rise from the depths of everyone’s hearts.

The giant screen slowly brightened.

A scarlet dragon emblem glowed quietly in the boundless black.

Jiang Ci sat in the front row, calmly watching that swath of red.

From that second on.

No one could laugh anymore.