The More Tragic I Act, the Stronger I Get — My Fans Beg Me to Stop Killing Off My Roles

The brand’s female director, Director Wang, spoke in a sharp, decisive voice that shattered the awkward silence in the soundstage.

She strode over to the monitor in a few quick steps.

Everyone’s eyes instinctively followed her movement.

The cinematographer still had his camera lowered, stunned.

He looked at Jiang Ci’s face on the monitor, then at this person beside him who looked almost mad, and his mind went blank.

This—this can be used?

That smile, where is any hint of "Embrace the Sunshine"? This is plainly a farewell to the sunlight!

Director Wang ignored everyone else.

Her gaze was fixed on the monitor.

She pointed at the close-up of Jiang Ci’s face, that smile tinged with brokenness and tragic beauty.

“Who says embracing the sunshine has to be an idiot grin?”

Her voice was not loud, but it landed with weight.

She turned, scanned the photographers and her team who were staring in disbelief,

and began a speech about "reverse marketing" that would upend everyone’s professional assumptions.

“Look at the advertisements on the market now! The same fake smiles over and over, manufactured warmth—consumers are already aesthetically exhausted! Maybe we can try a different approach!”

Director Wang spoke faster and faster, her emotions growing more intense.

“Who are our target customers? Those city workers burning the midnight oil in CBD cubicles!”

“Those who run themselves ragged for a living, whose hearts are already riddled with wounds!”

“They need healing, and there is nothing wrong with that! But…”

She paused, extended a finger, and tapped Jiang Ci’s face on the screen with emphasis.

“That feeling of ‘foreseeing decay amid brilliance’!”

“That sense of ‘feeling broken within warmth’—that refined vibe!”

“This, is the weapon that truly hits the softest part of their hearts!”

“This is the healing they actually need! A resonant healing that says, ‘Oh—so you’re hurting too.’”

Sun Zhou felt his worldview being ground into the dirt by Director Wang.

You can… do it like this?

The cinematography team exchanged looks, every face a portrait of “who am I, where am I, what did I just hear?”

Director Wang, however, was completely immersed in her closed logical loop. She clapped her hands sharply.

“All previously planned shooting schemes are scrapped!”

She walked up to the bewildered cinematographer and issued new orders.

“From now on, I will direct personally!”

She pointed toward Jiang Ci.

“We’re changing the shooting approach!”

“Have him look out the window, imagine he’s saying a final goodbye to the world he loves but must leave!”

“Have him pick up that cup of coffee and imagine it’s his last supper!”

“Let him open that book and imagine it’s the keepsake left by his deceased lover!”

Director Wang’s instructions peeled away the sentimental shell of commercial advertising and exposed the cruellest, most resonant core inside.

Jiang Ci stood where he was and listened to these requests.

Inside, he was ecstatic.

Isn’t this just putting Bad Ending Aesthetics into a commercial?

The client’s requirements could actually align perfectly with the thing that kept him afloat?

Is there such luck in the world?

Assistant Sun Zhou nearly burst into tears.

He quietly approached Jiang Ci and whispered, voice trembling, “Ci… Ci-ge… is this… is this reliable? Our endorsement fee won’t be gone, will it?”

Jiang Ci, in the middle of changing clothes, glanced at him without showing anything.

He replied to Sun Zhou in three calm words.

“Trust science.”

Sun Zhou: “?”

What does science have to do with this?

Jiang Ci leisurely added another sentence.

“Trust the client’s aesthetic.”

Sun Zhou: “…”

He looked at Director Wang not far away, eyes glittering as if already envisioning skyrocketing sales, and for the first time felt profound doubt about the word “aesthetic.”

From that moment, the atmosphere in the soundstage turned bizarre.

The background had been meticulously arranged to look sunny and peaceful.

Beige sofa, warm lighting, lush potted plants, and a gigantic floor-to-ceiling window simulating blazing sunlight outside.

And the scene’s protagonist, Jiang Ci.

Every movement he made, every pause, was saturated with narrative.

When he followed Director Wang’s instructions and walked to the window to look out at that “sunlight,”

there was not a shred of warmth or yearning on his face.

It was an absolute calm.

He leaned forward slightly, his palm pressed against the cold glass; that posture was like touching the cheek of a deceased lover through icy glass.

Behind the monitor, the cinematographer’s finger pressed the shutter uncontrollably.

“Click!”

“Perfect!”

He shouted excitedly, not even realizing his voice was trembling.

This was no longer filming an advertisement.

This was shooting the final shot of an art-house tragedy!

Next, Jiang Ci sat on the beige sofa and picked up the steaming cup of coffee.

He didn’t drink it.

He simply looked down at the white steam rising from the cup, for a long, long time.

That expression didn’t look like someone savoring coffee.

It was more like looking through the coffee at a magnificent life that was nevertheless destined to be tragic.

The cinematographer had also fallen into a creative frenzy.

As if his channels had been fully opened, he kept changing angles, capturing that innate broken feeling radiating from Jiang Ci.

“Yes! Just like that! Look at your hand!”

“Don’t move! Hold that pose!”

“Perfect! So perfect!!”

Under the lens, Jiang Ci had already transcended the role of a model.

He was the male lead of an epic tragedy, having lost everything, walking alone toward the end of his life.

The strong story aura he emitted cast a tragic filter over the bright set around him.

Filming finished smoothly and ahead of schedule.

What was supposed to be a full day’s shoot wrapped up perfectly by three in the afternoon.

Jiang Ci changed back into his own clothes and quietly sat in the corner of the rest area.

In the distance, Director Wang and her team crowded around the monitor, watching the footage they had just shot.

Images flowed across the screen.

First, Jiang Ci at the window, hand against the glass.

Then, the silhouette holding the coffee cup as if cradling an entire world.

Sun Zhou nervously clutched his clothing hem, barely daring to breathe.

“My god…” a young planner on Director Wang’s team whispered, admiringly watching the screen, “this lighting and shadow, every twitch of his facial muscles looks like it’s telling a story.”

The cinematographer’s eyes were shining; he pointed at a close-up and excitedly told Director Wang, “Director Wang, look here! This look!”

“He’s supposed to be looking toward the lens, but it’s like he’s pierced through the lens and seen something none of us can see! This is sophistication! This is art!”

Director Wang wore a smile of sure victory and nodded in satisfaction.

Her team members no longer wore their initial confusion; in its place bloomed excitement and worship.

The way they looked at Jiang Ci had changed.

Jiang Ci watched that client team like they were intoxicated.

He finally became certain.

This shoot was a sure success.