The More Tragic I Act, the Stronger I Get — My Fans Beg Me to Stop Killing Off My Roles-Chapter 62: She’s Falling Apart! You Call This Teaching Her to Act?

"Love itself is the only logic."

These words struck Xia Meng's mental world without warning.

Her entire performance edifice, built upon rationality, technique, cause and effect, and rules, was shaken to its very foundation in that instant.

Her expression was no longer icy, but instead showed a moment of blankness and confusion.

Jiang Ci saw the bewilderment in her eyes.

He knew the moment had arrived.

He pressed further, his voice not loud, but cutting straight to the core of her beliefs.

"Just like you, in pursuit of absolutely precise performance, can abandon all superfluous emotions."

"Tell me, is that 'logical'?"

Xia Meng's pupils contracted sharply, and she instinctively retorted, "That's different! Performance is art, it's a career…"

However, she stopped herself abruptly before finishing the sentence.

Because she realized that, within the context Jiang Ci had just constructed, Ma Lu's ethereal, intangible "love" and her own tangible, graspable "performance career" seemed… to be eerily overlapping.

It was irrational.

It was regardless of cost.

Just as the atmosphere between the two was locked in a standoff, nearly frozen solid, the door of the Rehearsal Hall was pushed open.

Liu Guodong walked in. He happened to catch the tail end of the conversation, and an astonishing brightness instantly erupted in his eyes, which always held a scrutinizing gaze.

Far from interrupting, he excitedly waved to the entire class.

"Everyone, come over! Gather around and listen!"

"Today, we're not having a performance class; we're having a philosophy class!"

Under Liu Guodong's "encouragement," Jiang Ci and Xia Meng's private discussion instantly transformed into a public debate about character understanding.

All the students gathered around, the atmosphere tense and excited.

Xia Meng forcibly pulled herself out of her brief daze. She had to defend her position; it wasn't just about defending a viewpoint, but defending the very foundation of her entire performance system.

"A career can provide positive feedback through effort, but Ma Lu's love is one-sided, hopeless. This kind of self-destructive devotion goes against the human instinct to seek advantage and avoid harm," she said, word by word, with clear logic.

Jiang Ci still refused to debate those complex theories with her.

He simply continued to guide her in the simplest way.

"What is the thing you love most?"

Xia Meng answered almost without thinking, "Performance."

"What are you willing to sacrifice for a perfect performance?" Jiang Ci's pace wasn't fast, but it carried a sense of pressing forward step by step. "Eight hours of physical training every day? Memorizing tens of thousands of lines? Practicing one breath's rhythm a hundred times over?"

Xia Meng frowned. "Those are basic skills. An actor should do them."

"Good."

Jiang Ci's gaze suddenly became as sharp as a blade.

He leaned forward slightly, closing the distance between him and Xia Meng. His voice lowered a few degrees, but his eyes remained clear as a mirror.

This extreme sense of contradiction left Xia Meng with nowhere to hide.

"What if," Jiang Ci stared into her eyes, "there was an opportunity for you to reach the pinnacle of performing arts, to become an eternal legend on stage. But the price was… making you lose all your loved ones, leaving you penniless, being misunderstood by the whole world, even… losing your life."

"Would you be willing?"

This question pierced Xia Meng's soul with precision.

She remembered her increasingly closed-off emotions for the sake of performance, the polite yet distant conversations with her parents, those countless nights spent alone in the dark, relentlessly battling her reflection in the mirror.

For the first time, she couldn't immediately give that "rational" answer.

Her lips moved, but no sound came out.

Seeing her teetering expression, Jiang Ci slowed his voice, yet every word struck at her heart.

"You see, for your 'Ming Ming'—that intangible illusion called 'perfect performance'—you are also burning yourself up regardless of the cost."

"Tell that self, the one practicing over and over in the dark until exhausted…"

"Is this right?"

Xia Meng's body trembled violently.

The sturdy wall she had painstakingly built over ten years between herself and her roles, between reality and the stage, now showed clear cracks.

For the first time, she was forced to equate her obsession with performance to Ma Lu's obsession with Ming Ming.

So, she was also a madwoman.

Liu Guodong, watching from the side, felt his heart surge with excitement, nearly crushing the insulated cup in his hand. He realized Jiang Ci wasn't teaching Xia Meng how to act at all.

He was forcing Xia Meng to see herself!

This had completely transcended the realm of acting technique; this was excavating an actor's soul!

Just as Xia Meng's mind was thrown into chaos, on the verge of collapse, Jiang Ci suddenly withdrew all his imposing aura and pressure.

He straightened up, returning to his usual air of faint detachment, and asked softly,

"Now, do you still think Ma Lu's madness has no logic?"

Xia Meng's head snapped up.

For the first time, there were clear tears glistening in her eyes.

"Excellent!" Liu Guodong exclaimed excitedly, slapping his thigh and announcing in a booming voice, "Go with this feeling! Xia Meng, Jiang Ci, you two, get on stage right now! Perform the scene where Ma Lu first bares his heart to Ming Ming! Now! Immediately!"

Xia Meng was half-pushed, half-led to the center of the stage.

Her mind was a complete blank. Every word Jiang Ci had just spoken was still echoing wildly in her ears. She felt as if she had been stripped of all her technical armor, standing naked under the spotlight. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

Jiang Ci walked onto the stage, standing opposite her.

Before starting, he leaned close to her ear, speaking in a voice only the two of them could hear:

"Don't 'act' Ming Ming. Right now, you are 'Ma Lu,' the one willing to sacrifice everything for 'love.'"

Performance, begin.

"I love you, I'm a madman…" Xia Meng uttered the first line, her voice trembling.

Her rhythm, her breath, all the techniques she prided herself on—at this moment, they all spiraled out of control.

She wanted to regain control, but found her body and emotions, for the first time, completely disobeying her.

Jiang Ci's performance was filled with aggression.

He gave tangible form to Ma Lu's scorching, obsessive, unyielding love, advancing step by step toward Xia Meng.

Every line he delivered brutally hammered at Xia Meng's newly cracked defenses.

When Jiang Ci delivered the heart-wrenching line, "How can I make you understand how I love you," he didn't perform according to the script.

Instead, he improvised—adding a line:

"Just like you, for that one second of perfection on stage, can practice ten thousand times in the dark!"

This line became the final straw that broke the camel's back.

It utterly shattered Xia Meng.

She suddenly remembered her childhood, a scene after a performance mistake where she broke down crying backstage, only to be harshly scolded by her strict parents for being "unprofessional," told that "emotionalism is an actor's worst enemy."

She remembered the days and nights spent forcing herself to become cold, to become like a machine, all to avoid making mistakes again, to gain approval.

All the suppressed grievances, pain, loneliness, and her own pure yet desperate love for performance—in this moment, they burst through the dam she had painstakingly built over ten years!

Xia Meng didn't retreat in terror as the script dictated.

Instead, she charged forward, grabbing Jiang Ci's collar with a death grip!

She was no longer Ming Ming.

She was Xia Meng.

Looking into Jiang Ci's eyes, which reflected her own frenzied image, tears poured down her face. With all her strength, she roared out a line that wasn't in the script at all:

"Is it worth it?!"

The hall fell deathly silent.

Everyone was stunned by this scene.

After shouting that line, Xia Meng's body went limp. She slid slowly down Jiang Ci's body, collapsing to the floor, curling into a ball, letting out uncontrollable sobs.

In Jiang Ci's mind, the system notification sounded once more.

[Ding! Detected deep Heartbreak Value from Xia Meng +188!]

[Ding! Life span increased by 15 days!]