Chapter 388: Shen Qingyuan's First Layer of Disguise is Torn Apart
The elderly gentleman who shouted “Morse code” was still trembling.
Several young people nearby initially wanted to retort, “Old man, are you seeing things?”
But seeing the old man’s resolute and agitated expression, the words on the tips of their tongues were swallowed back.
What if it was true?
What if that pervert who fed cake to dogs and used a scalpel to cut steak was actually…
Once the seed of doubt was planted, the original image of the “elegant villain”
suddenly became blurred and filled with a sense of mystery.
On the screen, the scene transitioned.
A rain-swept Shanghai street, late at night.
Shen Qingyuan, soaked through in a black trench coat, held no umbrella.
He stood under the hazy yellow halo of a streetlamp, stagnant water rising above his leather shoes.
The sound of rain, and the faint tango melody drifting from a gramophone.
He raised his hands, his left arm curling around empty air, his right hand resting gently, holding nothing in his embrace, yet it seemed as if he was embracing the love of his life.
He began to move, stepping, spinning, pausing.
At that moment, viewers who had wanted to mock “the pervert’s having a fit” suddenly found themselves unable to open their mouths.
Rainwater trailed down Jiang Ci’s overly pale face,
the look in his eyes devoid of the fawning and cunning he showed when facing the Japanese invaders.
This was the final frenzy of a man about to be abandoned by the world.
Li Li, sitting next to Jiang Ci, had been angrily munching on popcorn, but now her chewing unconsciously slowed to a stop.
“Gege…” Li Li mumbled softly, her voice tinged with confusion, “He looks… really unhappy?”
Unhappy was an understatement.
It was a loneliness that seeped from the very bones.
At that moment, the pale blue screen before Jiang Ci’s eyes began to scroll frantically.
[Heartbreak Value +66]
[Heartbreak Value +88]
[Heartbreak Value +99…]
The frequency of the value increases was rising exponentially.
The plot advanced.
The female lead, Gu Wanbai, finally discovered Shen Qingyuan’s true identity.
In that moment, Gu Wanbai on the screen covered her mouth, weeping with heart-wrenching sobs.
And in the theater, waves of sharp intakes of breath echoed.
“Holy shit… really, holy shit…” The middle-aged man in the front row who had cursed the loudest earlier
wiped his face roughly, “I’m such a bastard, what did I even call him earlier?”
The moment the misunderstanding was cleared was the moment tragedy descended.
Jiang Ci silently pulled out two packs of tissues he had prepared earlier from his down jacket pocket.
He opened one pack first and, with utmost naturalness, stuffed it into his mother Chu Hong’s hand.
Chu Hong’s fingers were ice-cold, an anomaly in this heated theater.
Then, he handed the other pack to Li Li.
Li Li was staring blankly at the screen. Seeing the offered tissues,
she instinctively tried to push them away, stubbornly saying, “What? I’m not going to cry! Even if he is undercover, the way he treated Gu Wanbai before was still scummy…”
“I won’t cry for him either!”
Jiang Ci didn’t speak, just pressed the tissues into her hand, giving her a “you’ll need these” look.
On the big screen, light and shadow interwove, arriving at the climax of the entire film—the Paramount Ballroom.
This was not a dance hall; this was an execution ground.
When two military police dragged a blood-soaked Shen Qingyuan into the frame,
the last remaining sounds of eating in the entire theater completely vanished.
The white suit had turned a dark crimson, his left leg bent at an unnatural angle.
Shen Qingyuan did not scream in agony.
He even used the soldiers’ grip to stagger upright,
his bloodied hands meticulously straightening the crooked bow tie at his neck.
Watanabe, playing Major Takahashi, wore a look of feline cruelty,
splashing a full glass of red wine onto Shen Qingyuan’s face.
The wine, like blood, dripped from his chin.
“After you, Mr. Shen.”
Takahashi pointed to the innocent girl trembling with fear in the center of the dance floor.
“This is the last dance of your life.”
Jiang Ci heard a very soft sob from beside him.
It was Li Li.
The girl who had just vowed “I absolutely won’t cry” was now clutching that pack of tissues, sobbing silently,
afraid to make a sound, terrified of missing any detail on the screen.
On screen, Shen Qingyuan dragged his broken leg, step by step, towards that girl.
Each step landed on the audience’s nerves.
He extended a hand, performing an impeccable gentleman’s bow.
“Don’t be afraid.”
He spoke.
The music began.
A waltz, triple meter.
To this cheerful melody, the blood-smeared man held the girl, spinning within this Asura-like dance hall.
Excruciating pain caused cold sweat to bead on his forehead, diluting the wine stains on his face.
The camera zoomed in.
A close-up on Shen Qingyuan’s eyes.
Those eyes reflected the dazzling lights of the Paramount, the grotesque faces of the Japanese invaders,
and also… beyond the screen, the thousands upon thousands of viewers who, at this very moment, finally understood him.
“Wah…”
In the theater, someone broke down first.
“Don’t die… please… don’t die…”
Li Li had long since stopped caring about face.
She buried her entire face in the pack of tissues, crying so hard her whole body shook.
She finally understood what kind of soul that neighbor’s brother, who had slipped her an apple on New Year’s Eve, had portrayed.
But Jiang Ci sensed something unusual from the other side.
He turned his head.
His mother, Chu Hong, still sat ramrod straight.
But in the dim light of the cinema,
Jiang Ci saw that his mother’s hands, resting on her knees, were gripping the armrests tightly.
She was trembling.
Even though she knew this was just a movie, even though she knew her son was sitting perfectly fine right beside her, eating popcorn.
But the visual impact of watching a loved one suffer before her eyes,
that bone-deep understanding of the word “sacrifice,”
made it impossible for her to control the physiological tremors.
On the screen, a gunshot rang out.
“Bang!”
The innocent girl collapsed in a pool of blood.
The music stopped abruptly.
Shen Qingyuan slowly knelt on one knee, gently laying the girl down.
Then, he lifted his head.
That blood-smeared face blossomed with a breathtaking smile.
He looked at the dark muzzle of Major Takahashi’s gun, his lips moving silently.
No one could hear what he said except Takahashi.
But every viewer understood the shape of those words.
It was two words.
—Abyss.
Major Takahashi’s gaze changed abruptly.
And at this moment, the sobbing in the theater paused for an instant.
How was this the cowardly, traitorous scum?
This was an Asura who used his own body as bait to drag demons into hell!
Several more gunshots rang out.
Shen Qingyuan fell.
His gaze passed through the crowd, fixing on a point in the void,
as if seeing that silly girl who loved making cakes, or perhaps seeing the approaching dawn.
His hand moved slightly, as if trying to grasp something, but ultimately fell limp.
The screen abruptly went black.
The entire theater plunged into deathly silence.
Was it over?
Had that Shen Qingyuan, who made people hate him for half the film and then ache for him until they wanted to tear their hearts out, just died like that?
Just as the audience held their breath, unshed, preparing to fully release their emotions and wail in grief…
On the pitch-black screen, a sound suddenly came.
“Huff… huff…”
Then, a faint light appeared in the darkness.
The image became a first-person subjective perspective.
The camera shook violently, the view blurred, the edges tinged with a bloody crimson.
The audience felt as if they had crawled into Shen Qingyuan’s dying body,
the empathetic pain and suffocation washing over them.
In the blurred vision, a sky was slowly brightening.
It was the last hint of bluish-gray before dawn.
The cacophony in the ears gradually faded, but the heartbeat grew louder, slower.
Thump.
…Thump.
In this subjective shot, a bloodied hand
struggled, trembling, to rise, blocking that hint of sky light.
The fingers opened weakly, trying to grasp that beam of light.
Then, that voice belonging to Shen Qingyuan, speaking with utmost tenderness, sounded in everyone’s ears:
“Dawn… has broken.”
The screen went completely dark.
Only the words “Dawn has broken” echoed, lingering, in the theater.