I'm just trying to ride the wave of popularity!

Chapter 196 Tearing Through the Darkness of the West!
dark.

The screen plunged into nearly twenty seconds of darkness.

Screening room.

The audience stared at the darkness on the screen.

At this moment, everyone was still immersed in the scene of "survival by amputation" and their minds went blank with shock!
Suffocation, terror...

Some people clutched their hearts, some subconsciously moved their legs, while others were horrified, their backs covered in cold sweat.

If I were in such a desperate situation, would I have that kind of courage?
This question lingered in the minds of countless people, but ultimately, no answer was found.

Liu Jiasheng's fiancée, Zhang Ying, trembled slightly, her eyes reddened, her fingers gripped the chair armrests tightly, and her face was extremely pale.

For some reason, she seemed to smell a faint scent of blood, a scent that made her want to vomit, but she couldn't...

After a suffocating and desperate twenty-odd seconds.

Finally, a faint yellow light appeared on the screen, which seemed to be the last hope in the darkness filled with coal dust.

That was the lit-up phone screen.

Phone battery is down to 10%...

A bloodstained hand gripped the phone tightly, dialing the emergency number again and again.

"Beep...beep..."

The dial tone echoed in the deathly silent mine, each note like a dull knife cutting into Liu Jiasheng's nerves.

Liu Jiasheng stared intently at the screen. He saw the hand holding the phone trembling amidst the blood and coal dust, the middle finger joint, revealing white bone, pressing desperately against the screen, as if trying to channel its last bit of strength into this life-saving call…

"Help! Help!"

Rapid breathing, mixed with weak roars and coughs, echoed in the screening room.

Then, the repeated failed dialing attempts felt like a heavy hammer blow to everyone's hearts.

Liu Jiasheng's fiancée, Zhang Ying, suddenly gripped his arm tightly, causing him a sharp pain.

But Liu Jiasheng's eyes remained fixed on the screen; his heart was in his throat, and he couldn't calm down for a long time.

“It’s working!”

At that very moment, static crackled from the screen, followed by a mechanical female voice: "Hello, this is the Shanxi Provincial Mine Disaster Emergency Rescue Center..."

Upon hearing this voice, Liu Jiasheng finally felt relieved.

On the screen, a hoarse roar burst from the man's throat, like a beast with its lungs crushed, as he gripped his phone, trembling: "Help...me...the coordinates are..."

Before the words were even finished, the phone suddenly emitted a piercing "beep" sound, the 5% battery icon instantly turned red, and the signal was lost instantly!
"no no!"

On the screen, the figure screamed in despair, then frantically moved around in the cramped and suffocating space, searching for a signal, only causing more coal dust to fall.

The camera shook violently, revealing his fingers frantically typing on his phone's keyboard...

The fingernails had long since peeled off, and the fingertips dragged ten winding bloody streaks across the screen, trembling even more violently.

"Please keep the call connected, we have located you..."

A signal was finally found, and the rescue center's inquiries continued: "Which mine are you in now...?"

"I'm in the west, at the Meiyang No. 12 Mine, 171..."

"Click."

The screen goes black.

At that moment, the sound of breathing in the entire screening room suddenly stopped.

The most despairing thing in this world is giving someone hope, and then immediately extinguishing that hope completely.

Liu Jiasheng's temples throbbed, and an indescribable sense of oppression surged through his entire body.

He felt his fiancée Zhang Ying's hand gripping him tighter and tighter, and growing colder and colder.

Liu Jiasheng didn't turn his head; instead, he kept his eyes glued to the screen!

What did he see?
He saw the last frame before the computer shut down.

Blackish-red blood foam gushed from the man's gaping mouth, while coal dust seeping from the rock crevices had reached his neck, like a python gradually tightening its grip...

Then, another suffocating darkness ensued!

The camera cuts to the moment the light comes back on.

In the first shot, Liu Jiasheng sees a Novia mobile phone half-buried in a pile of coal slag in the ruins of an unknown mine. The time displayed is 18:07.

Immediately afterwards, a centipede crawled across the shattered screen, its tentacles brushing against the "Missed Call: Rescue Center (5)" notification...

In the dim light of the phone, a blurry, motionless black shadow was visible...

The head of the dark figure seemed to be buried deep in the coal dust; only a hand holding a phone remained.

The camera gradually disappeared into darkness, then lit up again.

The second shot is still in a deep, dimly lit mine, but it is empty and there is no one there, only a broken miner's lamp.

In the footage, the seeping rock top twists into a vortex, which suddenly becomes exceptionally bright and even somewhat dazzling.

Then, it would sometimes transform into the smiling faces of film festival judges, and sometimes into pairs of hands waving movie tickets...

Interspersed among the faint sounds were bursts of wild laughter.

"Keep filming! They'd be worth more if they died!"

"Art, this is art! Those sons of bitches in the West love this kind of stuff!"

"..."

Amidst the boisterous laughter, there were countless applause and cheers.

Then, the camera switched again.

This time, the noise and cheers vanished instantly, and the entire scene went dark once again.

It was still that same pitch-black coal mine.

It was still just a lamp, a reclining figure, a single eye peering through the cracks in the coal ash, the pupil dilating into an eerie gray-blue.

His teeth were deeply embedded in his left wrist, which was already a bloody mess, yet no fresh blood was seeping out...

The time displayed is 19:52.

The faint roar of the rescue team's drilling rig could be heard approaching from afar, and then gradually receding into the distance.

From within the rescue team, muffled yet furious voices rang out: "You're committing murder!" "...Get out of here!" "Come quick, there are people buried here! Quick, save them!"

The camera switched again. The time displayed was 20:30.

The coal seam was continuously excavated, the soil above it was constantly loosened, and then the sound of the drilling machine grew louder and louder.

"hold onto!"

"Hold on!"

"..."

Heart-wrenching cries echoed throughout the entire mine.

Immediately afterwards, a beam of light shone through the cracks in the coal mine onto a blurry figure missing a leg.

The figure remained motionless...

Amidst the bright light, bursts of excited voices rang out!

"There's someone here!"

"Quick, come here! There are people here!"

"It's him!"

"It should be him!"

"His legs!"

"Arrest all of these beasts! Arrest them all and shoot them!"

"The ambulance? Where the hell are they? Where the hell are they? Why aren't they here yet?!"

"..."

On the screen, the light grew brighter and brighter, so bright that everyone in the theater felt a little dazzled.

At that moment, the excited voice seemed to be choked by something, abruptly stopping, and then...

The dazzling lights suddenly disappeared, plunging us back into endless darkness.

A moment of silence fell over the theater. Just when the audience thought it was the end, the screen suddenly lit up with a blinding white light.

On the emergency stretcher, a mutilated body was covered with a white sheet.

The wailing of sirens rose and fell, and amidst the sirens, blurry figures covered their heads with their hands...

Bundles of blood-stained banknotes lay on the ground. The camera panned to a corner, a place unnoticed by anyone, where a stealthy figure stumbled and fell out of the coal hill in the darkness. Tripping over something, the figure then fled frantically into the darkness, disappearing into the night...

Under the moonlight, a blood-stained movie clapperboard cracked open, with two lines of text written on it.

[Scene 44, Shot 7 of "The Mine"]

[Note: This footage must be based on the most authentic mining disaster material!]

……

After the screen went completely black, a documentary-style interview scene suddenly lit up.

It seems to be at a film festival, where a blurry figure, seemingly standing on the highest stage, is excitedly giving an interview: "His performance was so real! We need more artists like him who 'sacrifice' themselves! Let us pay tribute to art! Let us raise a glass!"

The screen flickered again, showing the same blurry figure. However, this time, it was in a magnificent room, where the crisp sound of red wine glasses clinking was heard, mixed with a series of pleasant sounds.

That was a scene of raising a glass in celebration.

"This movie is very well made, but I think there are still a few things that need improvement. If you want to win the Best Director award, you need to strengthen this movie!"

"First, your miners' deaths weren't 'poetic' enough. They should have been made to write their wills in coal ash before they died, denouncing the darkness of your system..."

"Secondly, the rescue team must be corrupt and accept bribes; it would be best to arrange for police officers to collect money and bury witnesses alive!"

"Third..." The indistinct voice paused, seemingly laughing: "Third, if the miner shouts 'Long live freedom!' before he dies, accompanied by a variation of your national anthem, and remember, the death scene must be filmed for a full three minutes... then the art of the entire film can be even stronger, more satirical and profound, and you will be closer to the Best Director award. We need this kind of spirit of resistance!"

"fourth……"

In the screening room.

The voice grew increasingly muffled and dry.

Liu Jiasheng stared in shock at the highly sarcastic voices on the screen...

At that moment, a chill ran through me, sending shivers down my spine and making me break out in a cold sweat!

He was trembling violently; so far, it should be said...

Never before has a Chinese film been so insane, so satirical...

Next!

Suddenly, a series of movies flashed through his mind!

Those are the Chinese films that have won awards on the international stage since the 1990s!
Movies are no exception!

The main characters are all "thieves," "prostitutes," "corrupt officials," and "ugly"...

Every film, seemingly helping the underprivileged expose their darkness, upon closer inspection reveals that its secondary creations are unrealistic...

Basically, all the award-winning filmmakers are pandering to the West, currying favor with the West, and taking pride in Western awards...

And the true nature of some film festivals!
This is revealed in its entirety in this film…

What they need is not artistic truth, but performances that conform to their ideology!

Just as Liu Jiasheng fell silent for a moment.

The lights in the screening room came on.

The light revealed popcorn buckets scattered all over the ground, their shapes distorted from being squeezed.

Liu Jiasheng discovered that his palms were covered with crescent-shaped pinch marks, while his fiancée Zhang Ying was staring at the Easter egg scene.

On the screen, a series of texts scrolled by.

This story is entirely fictional. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

This film is not intended to target any film awards; it is purely fictional.

No one was injured during the filming of this movie.

The screen scrolled through the last set of text, then froze on the message: "[10% of the film's box office revenue will be donated to the widows of the deceased miners...]".

Movie……

End.

(End of this chapter)