Chapter 449: Public Execution! You call this pre-arranged? |
On the massive screen, light and shadow flowed.
The image split into two.
On the left was Park Tae-hyun’s highlight moment from Seoul Love.
Rain poured down; he wore a bespoke high-end overcoat and knelt in the downpour, crying in agony.
Rain slid down his perfect jawline, tears like broken strings of pearls, each bead crystal clear.
The lighting technician had given the best frontal light, making his sorrow look as aesthetic as an oil painting.
Fans on site let out suppressed sobs, their hearts breaking.
On the right, the tone changed dramatically.
No flattering lighting, no delicate makeup.
Jiang Ci lay in the muck, his face smeared with dark brown dirt, a bit of blood-stained frosting cake hanging at the corner of his mouth.
He was smiling.
The whites of his eyes were streaked with red, his pupils dilated.
It was the despair of dignity trampled into mud and then ground underfoot.
There were no tears, yet it felt suffocating.
Placed side by side, the two performances were like a fully renovated show home confronted with a ruin fresh from war.
One was a performance presented for the audience.
One was the truth ripped from the chest.
Park Tae-hyun sat in the front row, adjusting an expensive tie.
He wasn’t looking at the big screen at all.
His gaze kept flicking to the chairman of the judging panel.
Ten minutes before the ceremony he had even received a text from his father: [Don’t worry, it’s arranged. Tonight is your home turf.]
Park Tae-hyun smiled with confidence.
He had already rehearsed his walk to the stage in his head countless times—first hug the director, then blow kisses to fans, finally deliver a speech in three languages.
A perfect script.
On stage, Jeon Do-yeon lowered her head and opened the just-torn envelope.
As a Cannes Best Actress, her professionalism was unquestionable.
But when she read the name, her eyes suddenly sharpened.
She instinctively glanced at Park Tae-hyun seated dead center in the first row, already perched at the edge of his seat, ready to stand.
Then she looked to the shadowed corner where Jiang Ci sat, head bowed and picking at his nails.
Her expression was complex.
But that hesitation lasted only 0.1 seconds.
Jeon Do-yeon adjusted her breath and leaned toward the microphone.
That name rolled off her tongue, crisp as if breaking a rule, and echoed through the hall.
“And the winner is—”
Park Tae-hyun planted his hands on the armrests, pushed with his knees, his body lifting three centimeters off the seat.
A fake smile that screamed, I’m surprised but it’s me, clung to his face.
“—Breaking Ice, Jiang Ci!”
At that moment, time seemed to freeze.
Park Tae-hyun’s smile hardened on his face like cheap cement.
He was suspended in midair.
He couldn’t get up.
He couldn’t sit back down.
The pose looked ridiculously like the embarrassment of finding no toilet paper in a public restroom.
Worse, the broadcast director cruelly switched the camera to his face.
On the big screen, Park Tae-hyun’s pale, iron-blue, terrified expression was magnified several times.
The venue went silent.
Fans holding “Tae-hyun Victory” light boards stood with their mouths forming O’s, their boards dropping to the floor with a clack.
The home-field advantage?
The prearranged outcome?
Where was the backstage deal?
This script was wrong!
After three seconds of awkward silence—
“Awesome!!”
A rough shout broke the quiet.
In the third row, Hollywood producer David Smith, white-haired and influential, shot to his feet.
He threw his hands above his head and applauded wildly.
The Korean film people who had been waiting to see Park Tae-hyun’s reaction were also won over by the raw acting and stood up as well.
In this industry, talent is hard currency.
When a gap is so vast that no backstage deal can cover it, submission is the only option.
“Damn…”
Jiang Wen, sitting beside Jiang Ci, had red-rimmed eyes and slapped Jiang Ci on the thigh.
“Wake up! Time to work!”
The slap jolted Jiang Ci awake.
He snapped out of that half-dream state and blinked up, bewildered.
“Dinner is ready?”
Jiang Wen snorted at the wording and shoved him hard. “Eat my foot! Go claim the prize!”
Only then did Jiang Ci come to.
He rose.
Hands in his pockets, he walked into the aisle.
Passing the front row,
Park Tae-hyun remained frozen in that bizarre half-squat.
Jiang Ci paused.
He glanced at Park Tae-hyun with the look one gives a performing monkey on the street.
Then he reached out and lightly patted Park Tae-hyun’s shoulder.
“Excuse me.”
Park Tae-hyun’s legs went weak, and with a flop he collapsed back into his seat.
That single sit-down completely crushed the “perfect public persona” he had spent ten years building in Asian entertainment.
Jiang Ci strode onto the stage with those uncompromising steps.
Jeon Do-yeon looked at the young man before her.
There was a wildness about him.
She handed him the heavy golden trophy with both hands.
In clumsy English she said, “Congratulations.”
Jiang Ci took it.
He held it by one handle.
He walked to the microphone but did not rush to speak.
He weighed the trophy in his hand and furrowed his brow slightly.
The hall quieted, waiting for his remarks.
Jiang Ci leaned into the mic and spoke the first sentence in Chinese.
“Pretty heavy.”
The simultaneous translator froze for a beat, then hastily rendered it into Korean: “Very substantial.”
Jiang Ci tapped the trophy’s base with one finger, producing a dull “thud thud” sound.
“Lighter than the bricks I moved on set.”
He paused, his gaze steadying.
“But a lot heavier than that gun.”
The translator was utterly baffled.
Bricks? A gun?
What did that have to do with anything?
The audience exchanged puzzled looks.
Only David Smith scribbled furiously in his little notebook, exhilarated: “Bricks! Gun! Eastern philosophical metaphor!”
Jiang Ci ignored the murmurs below.
He lifted his head and let his eyes travel past the well-dressed celebrities in the front rows until they fixed on Park Tae-hyun, who had been so sure of himself a moment ago.
Now Park Tae-hyun was shrunk into his chair, wishing for a hole to crawl into.
“Someone told me earlier that our film is too uncultured, not beautiful enough.”
Jiang Ci’s voice was low, carried by the hall’s top-notch sound system to resonate beneath the dome.
“Because we don’t have expensive suits, because we don’t have perfect makeup, only mud that won’t come clean, and blood that won’t stop flowing.”
He raised his empty hand and pointed to his face.
“But I’ve always thought.”
“True beauty has never been the refinement under spotlights.”
“It’s the struggle in the mire to reach even a sliver of light.”
“That kind of beauty doesn’t need foundation to hide, nor filters to polish.”
Silence reigned.
Countless eyes fixed on the man on stage.
At this moment, the rogue, casual edge he carried had vanished.
He exuded an oppressive force.
Jiang Ci looked down at the trophy in his hands.
The golden gleam reflected in his pupils.
“This award, I don’t deserve.”
At those words, the hall erupted.
Even Jiang Wen was stunned—what stunt was this kid about to pull?
Jiang Ci lifted the trophy slowly.
Not overhead.
He held it level, pointing westward.
That was the direction of Huaguo.
“This award belongs to those whose names are carved in stone, whose photos cannot even be made public.”
His voice was a little hoarse, yet every word bore immense weight.
“They never had a chance to stand here, to wear a suit, or to hear someone say ‘thank you.’”
“They live in the darkness so we can stand here and argue about what light is.”
“They are the protagonists.”
After saying that,
Jiang Ci stepped back half a pace.
He straightened his spine and brought his legs together.
Raising his right hand, he drew a clean arc and stopped it at his brow bone.
A standard salute.
In that moment he ceased to be Jiang Ci the celebrity in the vortex of fame and fortune.
He became Jiang He from Breaking Ice.
The narcotics officer covered in muck, chewing a blood-smeared cake yet still facing the light.
Thud.
A heavy drumbeat seemed to strike everyone’s hearts.
Silence.
The hall remained still.
Then, a second later—
“Wow—!!!”
Applause exploded.
The entire venue rose to its feet.
In the shadows, that group of Huaguo international students had long since sobbed themselves to tears.
They waved the Five-Star Red Flag; that streak of red blazed even more brightly and proudly against the gilded hall.
On the big screen, the image of Jiang Ci saluting was frozen.
Eyes resolute, posture steady as a pine.
And in the front row,
Park Tae-hyun slumped in his chair, staring up at the radiant man on stage.
He understood.
Not just tonight.
He could never beat him in this lifetime.
Jiang Ci walked off the stage, and when he brushed past Jiang Wen the two exchanged a look of mutual understanding.
As he passed the first row, Park Tae-hyun, collapsed in his seat, watched him with murderous fixation while his fingers flew over his phone screen, a sick smile curling on his face.
Jiang Ci felt a flicker but paid it no mind.
However, barely had he settled back in his seat—the trophy still warm in his hands—than several uniformed Korean police suddenly appeared at the side door of the venue.
They strode through the crowd with purpose and pointed directly at Jiang Wen and Jiang Ci.
“Mr. Jiang, someone has reported that you two attempted to bring prohibited items into the country. Please cooperate with the investigation.”