Chapter 467: Flesh and Blood as Sacrifice, Welcome My Buddha... No, My Lion! |
Tony's military boot stomped down hard, but it failed to crush the wooden memorial tablet beneath it.
Because at that critical moment, Jiang Ci's hand twisted sharply,
the back of his hand facing upward, forcefully wedged between the boot's sole and the spirit tablet.
That stomp landed solidly on flesh.
"Ugh-ah!!!"
Jiang Ci threw his head back, his throat unleashing an inhuman, beast-like wail of agony.
【Body of Steel (Basic)】activated instantly, neutralizing enough impact force to shatter a palm bone.
But the excruciating pain judgment, the system "thoughtfully" retained.
Pain signals flooded every single nerve ending in his body.
Tony felt something off under his boot, hard as a steel plate,
but by now he was driven by the feral rage Jiang Ci's bloodshot eyes had provoked.
"You don't wanna live, huh? I'll grant your wish!"
Tony roared, kicking Jiang Ci over, the steel pipe in his hand raining down blows like a storm.
The dozen or so stuntmen surrounding them, seeing this, stopped holding back either.
This was already a "real fighting" scene,
and with the added humiliation of Jiang Ci's earlier "sissy" insult, these seasoned fighters went all out, brutally.
"Thud! Thud! Thud!"
The dull thuds of impacts echoed densely through the rainy night.
Jiang Ci didn't fight back at all.
He curled up like a boiled shrimp, taking every hit on his back,
both hands clutching that mud-smeared spirit tablet tightly against his chest.
Even when the steel pipe struck his spine,
even when boots kicked his ribs, his only movement was to tighten his embrace.
No one knew how long it lasted.
Tony got tired of beating him.
He panted heavily, looking at the lump of mangled flesh that had stopped moving on the ground,
and spat a bloody gob of saliva onto the ground.
"Tough guy? I call you pathetic."
Tony snorted coldly, bent down, grabbed Jiang Ci by his torn collar, and dragged him to a drainage ditch by the roadside.
"Go wash your brain down there."
He lifted his foot and kicked.
"Splash."
Jiang Ci rolled down the slippery slope,
crashing heavily into the foul and muddy drainage ditch.
The filthy black water submerged half his face.
"That's a wrap! Let's go!"
Tony swung a leg over his motorcycle, the engine roaring.
Over a dozen bikes turned around, headlights piercing the rain curtain, and sped away.
Kapok Alley fell back into dead silence.
Only the rain remained, tirelessly washing away the sins of this world.
One second.
Two seconds.
Ten seconds...
A full minute passed, and the camera didn't move.
In the frame behind the monitor,
there was only that pitch-black drainage ditch, and that body that seemed already dead.
Hundreds of people on set didn't dare breathe too loudly.
The noise of the rain hammering the canopy pounded on everyone's heart.
"It... it moved..."
Someone let out an extremely soft exclamation.
In the drainage ditch, that dark mass stirred.
A pale hand emerged from the mud.
It was Jiang Ci's left hand, fingernails caked with black mud.
"Heh... heh..."
Rough, heavy breaths, clearly transmitted through the waterproof recording microphone, filled the entire set.
Jiang Ci began to climb.
The script said A Jie had one leg broken by the Tiger Gang.
At this moment, Jiang Ci's right leg dangled behind him like a numb, dead piece of wood.
Relying entirely on the core strength of his abdomen, waist, and arms, he slowly, bit by bit, "pulled" his heavy body out of the mud pit.
With every inch he moved, the muscles in his face twitched violently.
That was the pain of physiological limits, and also the pain deep in the character's soul.
Finally, he rolled onto the road.
The originally clean flagstone road was now covered in mess—shattered beer bottle shards, sharp gravel, broken wooden sticks.
The rain was still falling.
Three hundred meters away lay the seemingly distant "Seven Families Lion Head Workshop" at the end of the alley.
Three hundred meters.
Normally, it was just a few dozen seconds' walk.
But for "A Jie" right now, it was a path of Asura leading to rebirth.
Cinematographer Old Zhao, carrying a camera weighing dozens of kilograms, lay flat in the mud,
the lens pressed against the ground, aimed directly at Jiang Ci's face.
Mud plastered over his features, leaving only his eyes, burning with a terrifying brightness.
They were the last embers not yet extinguished under the ashes after wildfire had scorched the grassland.
Jiang Ci moved.
He didn't stand up.
Because his leg was "broken."
He just lay there on the ground, propped up on his elbows, and crawled in that direction.
Ahead lay a carpet of broken glass shards.
They were beer bottles the props team had shattered earlier for effect, not yet cleaned up.
The sharp glass shards gleamed coldly in the rain.
A normal person's reaction would be to go around them.
But A Jie's eyes at this moment didn't register these obstacles, only the place he had to reach.
Without any hesitation, his elbow pressed directly down onto them.
"Hiss—"
The clapper loader girl beside the monitor abruptly covered her mouth, tears instantly flooding down her face.
She saw with her own eyes a sharp piece of green glass sink deep into Jiang Ci's forearm.
Blood gushed out, mixing with the mud and water on the ground, drawing a shocking red line.
"Director Jiang! That's real glass! The props team didn't clean it up!"
The assistant director was panicked, grabbing the walkie-talkie to call for a cut.
A powerful hand firmly pressed down on his wrist.
Jiang Wen.
This great director was pale-faced at the moment.
Staring fixedly at the screen, his eyes flickering with a cruel fervor.
"Don't move," Jiang Wen's voice was hoarse, terrifying.
"But..."
"Look at his eyes!" Jiang Wen growled lowly. "He's atoning! A Jie is atoning! If it doesn't hurt, how does he wake up?!"
The assistant director froze.
On the screen, Jiang Ci seemed utterly oblivious to the pain.
The physical agony had become a numbing kind of indulgence for him.
He mechanically swung his arms, dragging his crippled leg.
Once. Twice.
His body scraped against the rough ground, clothes tattered, skin torn open.
Behind him, the originally muddy water road was stained into a dark red path of blood.
Even in dust, sparks can hide; even in the ordinary, legends can grow.
This road, he paved with his dignity, his flesh and blood, bit by bit.
The rain washed his wounds, carrying away the sand, but could not carry away the bone-deep despair and obsession.
Two hundred meters.
One hundred meters.
Fifty meters...
Jiang Ci's pace grew slower and slower; each movement required a long build-up of strength.
But the spirit tablet in his arms,
though stained with mud, was always held against the softest spot of his chest, never getting bumped again.
This was A Jie's fate.
Even if the whole world saw him as trash, he had to hold on to this last clean, pure thing.
Finally.
That mottled wooden door appeared in the frame.
"Seven Families Lion Head Workshop."
Jiang Ci crawled to the foot of the steps.
He had no strength left to climb that single step.
Trembling, he stretched out a bloody hand and grabbed the threshold.
He buried his head deep into that spirit tablet, his shoulders shaking violently.
"Ugh..."
A stifled sob squeezed out from deep in his throat.
It wasn't a cry; it was the dying lament of a trapped beast.
"Click."
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