I Acted Once, and Now They Call Me a Genius - Chapter 238

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 238
‘Tragedy……that’s what it is.’
Seo Tae-rok’s eyes deepened.
He’d often thought such things while preparing for The Traitor.
That the founding of Joseon was far more bitter and painful than he’d imagined. But that didn’t mean he thought all of this story was a ‘tragedy.’
Yet it seemed that Yi Bang-won saw it differently.
Seo Tae-rok was struck anew by how dimensional Yi Bang-won appeared through Seon-woo’s eyes. At first viewing, he’d seemed almost boyish……but when had he matured so, grown capable even of thinking to support his father’s legacy?
Seon-woo’s Yi Bang-won was not drunk on ambition.
He simply dreamed of ‘Joseon.’
Yet precisely because of that, Tae-rok harbored doubts: when Part Two came and Yi Bang-won staged the Princes’ Rebellion, killing his own brothers, how could this emotional arc be woven with that Yi Bang-won?
But,
‘……I’m probably just worrying needlessly.’
The other party was Kim Seon-woo.
When the time came, he would surely bring some acting that would astound them all.
Seo Tae-rok had come to trust Seon-woo that deeply.
Because of this,
“Cut!”
When he called cut, Seo Tae-rok’s lips couldn’t help but curve into a satisfied smile.
Seo Tae-rok approached Seon-woo directly and asked, “So this is Yi Bang-won’s emotional arc right now—understanding your father, yet unable to retreat regardless……correct?”

“Yes, that’s right.”
“……It’s fascinating. Certainly good. But if that’s the case, then the emotional arc regarding Jeong Mong-ju must naturally be affected as well……may I ask ahead of time what Yi Bang-won’s feelings are toward Jeong Mong-ju?”
This was something he had to verify.
Only by pinpointing that could he be certain whether to confirm this scene in this direction or not.
“……I haven’t quite settled on it yet. But I think it will be sorrowful. Whether to reveal that sorrow or suppress it—that’s something I need to think through a bit more.”
“I see.”
Seo Tae-rok didn’t push further.
He thought those questions might limit Seon-woo’s thinking, and besides, his directing philosophy had always been not to touch the actor until just before the first take.
Because of this, Seon-woo had time to revisit his emotions.
‘……It’s difficult.’
He’d expected as much.
Every time he burst a Color Orb and felt Yi Bang-won’s emotional arc, he’d known this situation was terribly hard on him too.
But facing Kwon Seong-min’s Lee Seong-gye directly, meeting his irritable rage……his heart could only grow heavier.
Even knowing it was all acting, it wounded him.
All these situations, all these emotions.
‘If I’d done this with Method Acting……’
He’d definitely need therapy once filming wrapped.
The emotional arc carried that much psychological damage. ……Though admittedly, he’d brought some of this disaster on himself.
‘The audience won’t have it easy either.’
Seon-woo thought.
If his heart reached them completely, the audience would surely feel quite burdened too. While that was part of what made cinema compelling, he nonetheless felt a strange apology stir in him.
At the same time, he was curious.
Just how much would Seon-woo’s Yi Bang-won be able to move the audience’s heart?
‘I wish it would release soon.’
But there was something he needed to wrestle with before that.
Namely, fully understanding Yi Bang-won’s heart when he would meet Jeong Mong-ju.
Seon-woo floated up Yi Bang-won’s Color Orb.
Bursting the orb, focusing on Yi Bang-won’s heart……he saw a tree. The leaves, having gone past their autumn crimson, had already withered and twisted, hanging on scarcely different from fallen foliage.
Autumn had come to Yi Bang-won’s heart.
……No, more precisely, he was now preparing for winter.
By killing Jeong Mong-ju, his heart would meet its complete winter.
Seon-woo wanted to express that Yi Bang-won properly. Unlike what people generally perceived and accepted, the path to Yi Bang-won’s act of killing Jeong Mong-ju contained stories far deeper than mere ambition—he wanted to express that.
‘To do that, I need to let all those leaves fall.’
He sensed what those leaves represented.
The verdant, purely beautiful vision of Joseon he’d dreamed of, his lingering attachment to that ideal, beautiful life—that would be the leaves still clinging to those branches.
Ordinarily, he’d resolve those leaves through his final conversation with Jeong Mong-ju……but Seon-woo thought differently.
“I want to settle it through conversation with you.”
“……Conversation with me, then.”
Yun Kyeong immediately grasped what Seon-woo meant.
“You want the decision to be completely made by the time you go to arrange Jeong Mong-ju’s death, don’t you.”
“Yes. So you need to drive me into a corner.”
“There you go asking for cruelty again. You’re too much, really too much. But……”
Yun Kyeong smiled wickedly.
“It’ll be interesting, won’t it.”
Her eyes sparkled.
Already her mind was running through simulations of how to perform it.
Though that simulation didn’t proceed quite so smoothly.
‘You’ve…… really grown in caliber, haven’t you, Seon-woo.’
And the caliber Yun Kyeong spoke of was naturally not an actor’s caliber as a celebrity.
She meant caliber as a performer.
More precisely, his screen presence.
Compared to when she’d first met him, Seon-woo’s presence had changed at its very grain, so to speak.
Honestly, seeing him again now made her wonder if this was truly the Kim Seon-woo she’d known. The person had gained a far deeper heft to him.
No, it wasn’t merely a matter of weight. His expressions, his emotions, his entire aura……everything felt richer.
Like a flower bud finally in full bloom.
‘Has he matured……well, he didn’t exactly seem immature before, but.’
Could this kind of change really happen so quickly?
Had something special prompted it? She had no idea. In truth, there was no need to know such things.
What Seon-woo had asked of Yun Kyeong was simple.
To strip away Yi Bang-won’s final hesitation. Not to embrace him gently, but to push him toward the cliff’s edge. So that he would have no choice but to leap.
Of course, not to harm him.
Because leaping off the cliff was his only path to survival, she had to become that harsh to save him.
Yi Bang-won and Yun Kyeong were such a tender yet merciless couple.
And Yun Kyeong loved that immensely.
“What did Father say?”
When filming began, Yun Kyeong’s voice seemed to breathe more vividly than usual—and that was precisely why.
Calm, clear, and keen.
A voice prepared to sever all that needed severing.
From her bearing alone, Seon-woo felt the leaves on Yi Bang-won’s tree beginning to fall, unable to hold on.
“……Father wishes to take Po-eun with him.”
“And what does the general think of this?”
A curious thing.
All her words were grounded in affection for Yi Bang-won. Yet in this moment, that affection becomes burdensome. For affection carries expectation, and expectation brings responsibility.
As Seon-woo looked at Yun Kyeong……Yi Bang-won looked at Yun Kyeong and felt it.
This must be what Lee Seong-gye felt when he looked at him.
“Hah……”
Seon-woo laughed.
But there was a difference between him and Lee Seong-gye.
“Father is still my heaven.”
“……Then, do you mean to simply watch that heaven crumble?”
“No, I cannot allow that.”
Lee Seong-gye had no intention of answering Yi Bang-won’s expectations, but Yi Bang-won did not feel the same.
He would answer hers.
Yi Bang-won shook his head.
“I must support it. I must hold it up before it falls. Father has upheld my world all my life……and now, I shall.”
It’s felt.
On the tree growing in Yi Bang-won’s heart……the final leaf flutters and falls.
That leaf was innocence. It was lingering attachment.
The path to founding Joseon that he’d thought only sweet……he now accepted was merely bitter.
And so,
“……Young-gyu.”
“Yes, General.”
“Let us go.”
When Seon-woo finally rose from his seat, those watching—Yun Kyeong and the staff—all found themselves receiving the same impression without meaning to.
Cold.
As if the very chill of winter emanated from Seon-woo.
And Seo Tae-rok, witnessing this, felt his eyes burn.
Words that Seon-woo had always spoken came to mind.
That he intended to express the Four Seasons through Yi Bang-won.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t understood that.
But he’d also harbored doubt. The approach was sound, but expressing a character’s transformation with such dimensionality was genuinely quite difficult.
And Seon-woo had done it.
The spring of that boy—bright only, intoxicated by the sweet dream of Joseon—gave way to summer with the monsoon rains of losing his mother, and seeing his broken father’s portrait, he entered autumn as the verdancy faded.
And now, imperceptibly, the winter cold that surrounded that boy released all his leaves from his hands.
A loss too unbearable to endure.
Merely facing Yi Bang-won, the cold he felt seemed to pour in. The very air one breathed grew chill.
But the most terrible part was……they knew what future awaited Yi Bang-won ahead.
The Purge of In-laws and the Princes’ Rebellion……only a future stained with blood awaited him.
Spring would never come to Yi Bang-won again.
His winter would last forever.
Whether knowing this or not, Yi Bang-won moved forward.
Like a moth diving into flame, without hesitation.
Watching such a Seon-woo, Seo Tae-rok thought:
‘He kept his word.’
Seon-woo had shown through Yi Bang-won a seasonal sense even greater than what Tae-rok had envisioned.
The way spring became summer, became autumn, was astoundingly natural. The solitary, sorrowful emotion now hovering around Yi Bang-won pierced the heart all the more because one remembered how brightly he’d shone with the light of spring once.
Winter had come.
A winter so perfect that one could wish for nothing more—and therefore, all the more sorrowful.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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