Xiao Jingxi had, of course, realized something was wrong. So this entire plot was just about tormenting him alone! What leading man? He was nothing but a clown.
Recalling the painful experience of the previous play, when everyone else had earned their own shining moments on the Hot Search while nobody paid him any attention, he made a decision that defied his ancestral teachings.
He was going off-script! He was cutting loose! He wasn't going to play by the rules anymore, either!
"I'm not your son!"
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
Several pairs of eyes onstage swung toward him at once. The audience below was startled too, curious about what he would say next.
Xiao Jingxi was overjoyed. Sure enough, all the attention had instantly shifted to him.
So he drew a deep breath and, standing tall and proud, bellowed at the top of his lungs:
"I'm-"
"Mother Earth's son!!!"
Boom!
The very moment Xiao Jingxi shouted those words, Lai Bingxuan and Qiu Chengye fired a cannon blast at him. Amid world-shattering special effects, Xiao Jingxi tumbled all the way over to Xu Shuangrong.
The two lay side by side, their eyes peacefully closed.
The narrator improvised, "The Crown Prince and the Female Hero: deceased."
[?]
[By the time I realized what I was watching, it was already too late.]
[I'm convinced Lai Bingxuan and Qiu Chengye fired that shot straight from the heart.]
[Hahahahahahahahaha.]
[So that's the end?]
Just as everyone thought this play, in which the entire cast was slacking off, would end like that, the Crown Prince lying on the ground suddenly opened his blood-red eyes.
The narrator gasped, "The Crown Prince has turned into a zombie!"
If the narrator hadn't mentioned it, the audience would almost have forgotten this story was set in an apocalypse.
The zombified Crown