The More Tragic I Act, the Stronger I Get — My Fans Beg Me to Stop Killing Off My Roles-Chapter 67: “I’ve Decided Not to Forget Her.”

Jiang Ci held her hand.

That hand was somewhat cold and carried a slight tremble.

He nodded with a serious expression: "No problem."

But his internal monologue was a completely different scene:

"You're welcome."

"Folks, get your wedding gift money ready."

"Let the feast begin!"

As a melodious cello sound slowly rose, all the lights in the theater dimmed in response.

The audience instantly fell silent.

In that very darkness, several figures quietly took their seats in those empty seats in the first row.

One of them was slender in build, with a thin, refined face. Even in the dim light, his eyes were as sharp as an eagle circling over a solitary peak.

It was Wei Song.

A spotlight pierced through the darkness, landing precisely on the center of the stage.

Jiang Ci, playing Ma Lu, wearing a faded old shirt, sat on a worn-out single sofa and slowly raised his head.

He spoke.

"Dusk is when my eyesight is at its worst for the day..."

That voice, enhanced by the [Quick Mastery of Line Delivery (Beginner)] skill, wasn't loud, but it was filled with an indescribable loneliness and weariness.

The play entered its second act, and the dramatic tension began to climb sharply.

When Xia Meng, playing Ming Ming, appeared on stage wearing that iconic red dress, the entire stage seemed to light up.

Her performance was agile, precise, yet no longer the cold, technical display of the past.

Every movement, every glance, carried a vivid life force and a perfectly measured sense of fragility.

She and Jiang Ci's obsessive, naive Ma Lu formed a perfect dramatic tension.

In the audience, everyone was drawn into that crazy yet pure world.

They forgot they were in a theater, forgot this was a student graduation performance, forgot the actors' identities.

All they saw were two souls, madly in love, burning, colliding, and destroying themselves on stage without regard for anything else.

Even those industry veterans in the first row, accustomed to grand spectacles and long past being easily moved, now held their breath, leaning forward unconsciously, completely immersed.

Jiang Ci discovered that after Xia Meng, this "money tree," was "cured," the conversion efficiency of Heartbreak Value had plummeted, but it wasn't all bad.

It forced him to no longer rely solely on those system-granted, instant-effect techniques.

He had to invest deeper, purer emotions to pluck the deepest chord in the audience's hearts.

During a long monologue belonging to Ma Lu, the plot required him to recall his first meeting with Ming Ming, with emotions building layer by layer until reaching a small emotional climax.

Jiang Ci recited his lines, portraying Ma Lu's neurotic, self-absorbed infatuation to perfection.

However, just before the final line of the monologue, right before that emotional explosion point.

He, suddenly stopped.

He didn't say the final line.

Just like that, without any warning, he paused for a full three seconds.

In those fatal three seconds, he didn't make any superfluous movements. He just raised those eyes filled with endless sorrow and slowly, swept them over the dark, packed audience below.

In that instant, time seemed to freeze.

In the third row, Zhao Zhen felt he forgot to breathe.

Beside him, Chen Mo's brain, dedicated to academic analysis, completely crashed. All his theories, frameworks, and models turned into pale, useless paper before that one glance.

And in the corner of the theater.

Su Qingying felt as if an electric current ran through her entire body.

She felt Jiang Ci's gaze seemed to penetrate the barrier of hundreds of people, pierce through all her disguises and defenses, and look directly at the equally lonely soul she hid deepest within.

Her heart, suddenly trembled violently.

And it was also in those silent three seconds.

The system panel only Jiang Ci could see went completely crazy.

[Ding! Detected Heartbreak Value +5 from the audience!]

[Ding! Detected Heartbreak Value +8 from the audience!]

[Ding! Detected Heartbreak Value +88 from Su Qingying!]

...

A rapid series of system notifications refreshed madly in his mind!

First row.

Wei Song's hawk-like eyes shone with an almost frightening intensity at this moment.

He gripped the armrests of his seat tightly, his entire upper body leaning forward as if trying to devour that slender figure on stage, flesh and bone, into his eyes.

What he saw was a genius, offering his own soul as a sacrifice to art!

The plot, pushed by Jiang Ci's stroke of genius, soared to an even higher climax.

Ma Lu laid bare his heart, offering everything he had to Ming Ming.

Jiang Ci's performance entered a state of complete frenzy.

His lines, his movements, carried heart-wrenching agony, pounding heavily on the hearts of everyone present.

"Holy shit..."

Zhao Zhen, a 1.8-meter-plus sports student who played basketball, was now crying like a three-hundred-pound child.

Chen Mo, while crying himself, fumbled frantically to pull tissues from his pocket to wipe Zhao Zhen's tears.

In his panic, he only managed to smear his own glasses even more, blurring his vision completely.

In the corner, Su Qingying slowly took off the sunglasses that disguised her.

She didn't wipe the tear stains on her cheeks, letting the cold liquid slide down freely.

The final quarrel in the rain.

Jiang Ci and Xia Meng completely erupted.

There wasn't a single drop of real water on stage, but all the audience felt drenched.

That torrential downpour was the manifestation of the characters' emotions, washing over the entire theater and cleansing every soul.

When the spotlight focused on Jiang Ci, he used his last bit of strength, hoarsely delivering the final line:

"Forgetting is the only thing ordinary people can do, but I've decided not to forget her."

As the words fell.

The entire theater plunged into a heart-stopping, dead silence.

A few seconds later, a wave of sobs came from the female audience members.

The lights, completely went out.

The performance ended.

Jiang Ci stood in complete darkness, the unprecedented, madly scrolling notification sounds ringing in his ears.

He glanced at his life countdown.

This one stage play performance had earned him thirty days of life.

[Remaining Life Duration: 153 days, 2 hours, 15 minutes]

His total Heartbreak Value balance also reached 850 points.

The lights came on again, and the actors came on stage to take their bows.

Thunderous applause lasted for a long time.

Xia Meng cried tears of joy, hugging the other actors and Liu Guodong, who came on stage to congratulate them, one by one.

Finally, she walked up to Jiang Ci.

Under the gaze of the entire audience, under the flash of countless cameras, she didn't give him the polite, ceremonial hug she gave the others.

Instead, she tightly, embraced him.

She buried her head in his shoulder and, in a voice only the two of them could hear, trembling, softly said into his ear:

"Jiang Ci..."

"I think, I can't tell the difference anymore."