Hell-Level Actor: Winning the Audience’s Emotions and Ascending to Godhood

When I realized I’d been transported into an eerie opera troupe, I found a blood-written note inside my costume: “Step onto the stage, and you become whatever you perform. Play the wrong role, and you’ll be erased on the spot.” As a scholar, I could summon souls with a stroke of my brush. As an executioner, I could slay real ghosts with a swing of my blade. But the seats below were filled with anything but people. They applauded with twisted smiles, cheering every real death. I became the troupe’s biggest star, yet hidden in my costumes were fifty blood pacts: the last notes left behind by the fifty actors before me, after their roles devoured even their names. Then, for Farewell My Concubine, the System ordered me to play both roles at once: “Tonight, you will play both the self-sacrificing King of Chu and Yu Ji, who dies for love.” Below the stage, all the “audience members” slowly peeled off their human skins, revealing blood-red eyes. “We’ve finally been waiting for this performance. Nothing makes a better show than actors killing one another.” I smiled, my hand steady as I drew my sword. They didn’t know I’d secretly changed the script yesterday and added a new role for myself: “Now, I’m the director of this play.” Let’s see, in this living hell, who’s really pulling whose strings.