Chapter 470: Destiny Slapped Me Across the Face - This Role Is Too Painful |
"Lights, all of them off."
For the next scene, Jiang Wen's voice echoed through the silent workshop.
"Leave one on. That dying oil lamp over there. Crank it to the dimmest setting."
He pointed at the rusted oil lamp stand in the corner.
The assistant director opened his mouth but didn't dare argue.
Right now, Jiang Wen's eyes were filled with nothing but manic excitement.
Every light in the venue went out.
The once warm, yellow-toned workshop sank into darkness, with only that single flickering flame trembling in the void.
Jiang Ci sat on the bamboo bed, his upper body bare.
He didn't move. His gaze was locked onto the empty air, unblinking.
"Roll camera."
A Xiu (played by Lin Xiaoman) walked out from the inner room, clutching a camphorwood box thick with dust.
It was her mother's keepsake, the last savings this workshop had to its name.
She sat down beside A Jie and quickly opened the box with practiced hands.
Inside were scattered receipts, red string, and an old photograph pressed at the very bottom, its edges already yellowed and curled.
Lin Xiaoman lowered her head, her fingers gently tracing the photograph - her only remaining keepsake.
She handed the photo to A Jie.
Jiang Ci's eyes shifted.
He took the photo nonchalantly, assuming it was just a family portrait of A Xiu and her relatives.
But the moment his gaze landed on the center of the image, his entire body froze.
In the photo, a gentle woman held a toddler, barely two or three years old, in her arms.
Around the woman's neck hung a jade pendant of mediocre quality, shaped like a curled-up cicada.
Jiang Ci's pupils contracted.
He looked down at his own left chest.
There, a callus had once formed from the pendant's edges scraping against his skin, a mark that had accompanied him throughout his entire childhood.
It was the only thing A Jie had brought with him according to the script.
But ten years ago, during a brawl,
he had pawned it off himself, just to trade for two bottles of cheap liquor.
"Mute Ma..."
A hoarse syllable squeezed out of Jiang Ci's throat.
His hands began to tremble uncontrollably,
the thin photo paper letting out a harsh, grating sound between his fingers.
According to the script's backstory,
the "Mute Ma" who had given him half a dry pancake during the famine and led him away from the pile of corpses,
was A Xiu's mother.
And he, A Jie,
that thug who ran wild and bullying through this alley,
had personally led his men to smash down the doors of this workshop half a year ago, just to collect protection money for the Tiger Gang.
He remembered that day.
He had swung a steel pipe, kicked over the lame old man who was weaving a lion head,
and casually snatched an unfinished lion head frame from the counter, stomping it into pieces in the muddy water.
Back then, A Xiu had been hiding behind the curtain, staring at him with eyes full of terror and fury.
And he, he had even spat a mouthful of bloody saliva in her direction and cursed, "Damn poor bastard."
"Heh... hehe..."
Jiang Ci let out a laugh.
His laughter was low, stifled.
The bitter self-mockery of having destiny slap him backhanded across the face
twisted his facial muscles to their absolute limit.
The overwhelming guilt that crashed down on him hurt a thousand times more than Tony's steel pipe smashing into his body.
He stared at the wrecked lion head frames scattered across the room.
Every single bamboo strip, every red string - these things were supposed to be his lifeline.
But he had been the butcher who cut that lifeline.
Jiang Ci jerked his head up and looked at Lin Xiaoman beside him.
Lin Xiaoman was still making hand gestures, silently asking what was wrong.
Jiang Ci didn't answer.
He suddenly raised his right hand, and in the split second before anyone could react, he swung his arm with full force.
"SLAP!!!"
A bone-jarring, crisp sound rang out.
Jiang Ci had struck himself across the face, with no restraint at all.
One side of his face swelled up visibly in seconds, the corner of his mouth splitting open instantly.
"Director Jiang! This..." The assistant director shot to his feet, the walkie-talkie dropping from his hand.
Jiang Wen gripped the edge of the table so hard his knuckles went white, his eyes wide as saucers. "Don't move! Don't any of you fucking move!"
He saw it.
After that slap, Jiang Ci didn't cry.
His eyes were bloodshot, practically bleeding, but his eyeballs were shockingly dry.
He reached out and grabbed Lin Xiaoman's hand,
his fingers clenching with terrifying force, his nails digging deep into her flesh.
"I wanted to be human..."
Jiang Ci spoke.
Every word came out mixed with bloody spittle.
"But everything I've done... is beastly..."
He stared into Lin Xiaoman's clear eyes,
and that deep, crushing self-loathing and despair slammed straight into the hearts of everyone watching, through the lens.
At that moment, Jiang Ci had captured the ultimate "tipping point."
It was the character's resolve, after realizing he had already rotted to the core,
to tear himself apart and piece himself back together.
Lin Xiaoman was terrified by his appearance.
She could feel the burning heat in Jiang Ci's palm, and she could feel him shaking.
But she didn't push him away.
Her hands, calloused from years of weaving lion heads, slowly rose and gently avoided his swollen cheek.
A Xiu (Lin Xiaoman)'s anger and fear
was replaced in that instant by a near-maternal compassion.
She gently wiped away a single turbid teardrop that had been ten years late, rolling from the corner of Jiang Ci's eye.
It was the first tear A Jie had shed as a "human being."
"Cut——!!!"
Jiang Wen's voice was trembling.
He rushed out of the monitoring area and strode quickly to Jiang Ci.
By then, Jiang Ci had already slid down from the bamboo bed.
He didn't stand up. Instead, he dropped to both knees,
facing the silent rows of lion head frames and the shabby spirit shrine, kneeling there for a long, long time.
This kneel was for the lions he had crushed underfoot.
And for the ignorant, brutal "old A Jie" he had killed with his own hands.
"Good... good kid."
Jiang Wen looked at Jiang Ci's swollen face, wanted to say something more,
but in the end, he just pulled a crumpled pack of Hongtashan from his pocket, didn't light one, and placed it in front of Jiang Ci.
He patted Jiang Ci on the shoulder, a faint, almost imperceptible trace of respect creeping into his tone.
"If you let that fire inside you go out now, I'll skin you alive."
Jiang Ci knelt on the muddy ground, not lifting his head.
He stared at the bamboo strips scattered across the floor that hadn't been covered with paper yet, murmuring, "No need to skin me. Once this lion has drunk its fill of blood, the skin will grow on its own."
The staff members around them were busy setting up the next scene, but they subconsciously steered clear of that small patch of darkness.
They could feel that the man kneeling before the spirit shrine was no longer that goofy Film Emperor.
He had truly become a lone wolf, sharpening its fangs, waiting for its final charge.
That night, there was no wind in Kapok Alley.
But everyone could feel a bone-penetrating chill, slowly but steadily seeping out from that tiny workshop.
The oil lamp on the spirit shrine sputtered and went out completely.
But Jiang Ci's eyes, in the darkness, burned with an eerie brightness.
He was waiting.
Waiting for that black lion to finally speak.
...
Late that night, Director Jiang Wen, whose Weibo account had been dormant for ages,
posted a rare, blurry photo taken from the monitor.
In the photo, a teenager covered in blood and grime knelt in the shadows,
facing the jagged lion head bones.
The caption was only four words:
[The Lion's Soul Has Returned.]