novelaction Chapter 329: A Drop of Heart's Blood, a Bloodstained Medal
Chapter 329: A Drop of Heart's Blood, a Bloodstained Medal
Chapter 329: A Drop of Heart's Blood, a Bloodstained Medal
The comment section under Spark Media’s official Weibo had already fallen.
The tide of public opinion reversed completely in an instant.
“Sorry… I apologize for my earlier trash talk, I really was out of line.”
“Cortisol 98… I looked it up, that’s a number you only get from long-term extreme pain and intense pressure… How on earth did he survive that?”
“Who reported him, stand up and show yourself! You weren’t trying to smear him, you were trying to kill him!”
“So he didn’t fake withdrawal symptoms at all, he actually suffered a real withdrawal episode that he forced himself through?!”
The former little haters were collectively silenced.
Countless passersby, shocked by this brutal truth, poured into the comments and left waves of “so heartbroken” and “salute.”
The hashtag “Jiang Ci PTSD” surged back to the top with even more terrifying heat.
Inside the apartment, Sun Zhou’s cheeks flushed with excitement.
“We won! Ci-ge! We won! Director Lin’s move to cut the root of the problem—she’s basically a god!”
Lin Wan’s call rang at the perfect moment.
Jiang Ci put it on speaker.
“Starting today, for fifteen days.”
Lin Wan’s order carried no emotion.
“You, are grounded.”
“Sun Zhou, I’ll send you a ‘weight-gain plan.’ Three meals a day, two snacks, one midnight meal, follow the meal plan strictly.”
“I’ve hired a nutritionist and a private chef, they’ll deliver on time every day.”
“If Jiang Ci doesn’t get his weight back to the standard line within this half month, both your monthly and year-end bonuses are cancelled.”
Sun Zhou shivered, snapped to attention, and shouted into the phone, “I guarantee we’ll complete the task!”
Jiang Ci finally reacted, slowly raising a hand.
“Reporting.”
Lin Wan paused on the other end, “Speak.”
“Can… we add one more serving of grilled cold noodles?”
Silence filled the line.
Then Lin Wan’s suppressed, towering rage ripped through the receiver:
“You still dare to crave street food?! Jiang Ci, do you want to go underground and meet your father right now?!”
The call was mercilessly cut off.
Jiang Ci stared at the dim screen and sighed softly.
Capitalists really are ruthless.
Over the following half month, Jiang Ci lived the most degenerate yet most regimented life of his acting career.
The only exercise he had was wobbling from the bedroom to the living room and then back to the bedroom.
Tom and Jerry on the TV had been on loop for three cycles.
Under the top-tier nutrition team’s feeding, his weight rose visibly by the day.
The hollows on his cheeks caused by hunger filled out,
and flesh finally hung on his frame, no longer that precarious skeleton.
Mid-December, the day before the Xiamen Golden Rooster Awards ceremony.
Lin Wan knocked on the apartment door accompanied by someone.
The visitor was Tony, an acknowledged “master” in the fashion circle,
his wildly tailored rose-pink suit announcing his eccentric aesthetic.
When he entered, his gaze scanned Jiang Ci from head to toe,
and he said, “Oh? It’s you? The kid who nearly quit the industry after torturing himself like that?”
Behind him, assistants opened massive garment trunks, and a row of spring-summer haute couture instantly lit up the room.
From silver tassels encrusted with rhinestones to exaggerated peacock-feather shoulder pieces, each piece screamed flamboyance.
“I’ve heard your story.”
Tony held up a silver tassel jacket and gestured against Jiang Ci,
“We need ‘rebirth’! ‘Nirvana’! A phoenix rising from the ashes! It must shine, it must dazzle, we must make everyone see that you are back!”
Jiang Ci still wore his SpongeBob pajamas,
half a piece of tiramisu dangling from his mouth as he mumbled a reply,
yet his gaze lingered on the lavish outfits for a second.
Tony frowned, “Get rid of this ridiculous sleepwear, let me see your body stats.”
Obediently, Jiang Ci walked into the bedroom and came back without his shirt.
The living room fell instantly silent.
Tony’s flamboyant smile froze.
That body, despite half a month of feeding, still could not be called robust.
Muscle lines were not exaggerated, yet every inch held a cold, hard sense of strength.
A few faint scars were branded across his abdomen, medals left by Icebreaker.
But that was not the most shocking thing.
It was Jiang Ci himself.
He stood quietly, cake’s sweet greasiness still on his mouth, yet his aura was calm and dark.
Those gorgeous clothes suddenly looked cheap against a body steeped in story.
Tony’s professional instinct told him this was not a phoenix’s rebirth; this was an ancient blade that had drunk blood.
To lace an ancient blood-drinking sword in lace?
His aesthetic certainty wavered violently,
and only after a full thirty seconds did he snap back, “Withdraw everything! Take it all away!”
Assistants scrambled to stow away the priceless couture.
Tony grabbed his phone and dialed a transcontinental number.
“It’s me, Tony.” His voice was taut. “Immediately, right now, contact the Paris headquarters. I want to retrieve from the archive the piece numbered ‘Abyss’!”
“Yes, the matte black set! Airfreight it over! I don’t care how you do it, by sunrise tomorrow it must be in Xiamen!”
After hanging up, Tony looked at Jiang Ci and, for the first time, used a nearly reverent form of address.
“Mr. Jiang, please wait here.”
The next morning, the suit named “Abyss” was delivered to the hotel suite.
Top-tier fabric, impeccable tailoring, presented in a matte black that seemed to swallow all light.
Jiang Ci put it on.
The suit added no color to him; instead it stripped away every pretense,
leaving only a lonely, powerful core.
Lin Wan watched from the side and realized with a start that in only a few months,
the boyishness on Jiang Ci had been completely soaked through with a sense of solitude.
He stood there with a presence that rivaled any veteran actor who had weathered decades.
Tony approached with a velvet box and carefully opened it in front of Jiang Ci.
Inside lay a vintage brooch.
A platinum base set with a pigeon-blood ruby.
The red was rich and deep, striking against the pure black fabric.
Tony’s trembling hand pinned the brooch to the left lapel, over the heart.
“Blood Medal,” Tony murmured, “this is the real ‘rebirth.’”
A drop of heart-blood.
It was the red that Jiang He had protected in the rainy night’s mud, the scalding spray from the explosion.
It was also a blood-stained medal bought with actor Jiang Ci’s life.
Jiang Ci looked at himself in the mirror.
Strange, yet familiar.
He tried to move his facial muscles, wanting to force a servile, flattering smile that belonged to Ah He.
But no matter how he tried, he could no longer produce that rotten-to-the-bone expression.
In the end, he had to give up.
That afternoon, accompanied by Lin Wan and Sun Zhou, Jiang Ci arrived at the airport.
They went through the VIP channel, but outside the channel stood a dense crowd.
Hundreds of fans, somehow having learned the flight information, had already been waiting.
They stood quietly, spontaneously forming a neat line behind the cordon line.
Each face wore a solemn expression.
When Jiang Ci’s figure appeared, the crowd stirred lightly, then quickly quieted.
They only looked at him.
The airport noise felt cut off by an invisible wall.
No screaming, no chants, only dozens of devout gazes.
Sun Zhou felt his scalp go numb.
Jiang Ci stopped, looked toward that silent crowd from a dozen meters away.
He bowed to them deeply.
At last someone in the crowd could not hold back and cried out excitedly.
Jiang Ci straightened, turned, and walked into security without hesitation or regret.
Behind him, a rolling chorus rose.
“Jiang Ci! We’ll wait for you to come back!”