Chapter 3

"Alright, Charles, stop nagging. I've got a splitting headache and need some sleep."

Brian frowned, rubbing his throbbing temples hard, his tone dripping with undisguised impatience.

Charles, the chubby agent standing by the sofa, sighed and grabbed the car keys from the table. "Listen, Brian, you better behave yourself lately and stop getting into any more damn trouble! If you really think of yourself as a writer, then go write! I'll bring you pizza tonight."

"Got it. Don't let the door hit you on the way out." Brian waved dismissively with his eyes closed.

"Bang!" The villa's front door slammed shut. The sound of the engine gradually faded, and the entire house finally fell completely silent.

Brian's eyes snapped open. The sickly appearance from moments ago vanished completely, replaced by a sharp, wolf-like intensity.

He strode quickly to the bathroom, turned on the faucet, and splashed cold water hard onto his face. Then he pulled open the double-door refrigerator, grabbed a bottle of mineral water, twisted off the cap, and downed more than half of it in one gulp.

"Phew—" The icy liquid slid down his throat into his stomach, making every pore in his body relax. "Now I'm awake. Time to get down to business."

He walked briskly into the second-floor study, pulled open the heavy curtains, and sunlight instantly flooded the desk. He turned on the computer, pulled out a stack of fresh white paper from the bottom of a drawer, and uncapped his Montblanc fountain pen.

For absolute security, the moment Brian's pen touched paper, he wrote entirely in Chinese characters—his native language from his previous life.

"Hollywood bloodsuckers, let me teach you a lesson." A cold smile played at the corner of Brian's mouth as he began frantically extracting memories from his mind.

"The Bourne Identity? Matt Damon already finished that series, scratch it. Prometheus? Current special effects can't handle that, cross it out."

"Inception? Now that's a possibility." Brian's eyes lit up as he quickly jotted down the name. "Kingsman... add a bit of 007's British spy flavor, and it's definitely a super IP that could feed me for ten years!"

The pen scratched across the paper as Brian's speech quickened. "Frozen plus The Huntsman: Winter's War could be combined into a dark fairy tale epic."

"For quick money, I need scripts with small investments and high returns—Now You See Me, The Hangover, Ted..."

Finally, he heavily circled three names on the paper, the pen pressing through:

The Hunger Games! Divergent! The Walking Dead!

Just the future film and TV rights for these three novels alone would be enough for him to lie in a Beverly Hills mansion counting money until his hands cramped. As for TV series, currently only the first season of Under the Dome was complete in his memory bank, but that was enough as a foot in the door.

List complete, Brian immediately turned to the heating computer tower and opened Google search.

"National Treasure movie... nothing!"

"The Hunger Games novel... doesn't exist!"

Brian stared at the "No results found" message on the screen, then suddenly slapped his thigh hard and jumped straight up from his chair, bouncing three times around the study.

"Hahaha! Those web novel gods didn't lie to me! This is the damn butterfly effect!"

Just to be safe, he quickly browsed the headlines in four major sections: domestic, international, entertainment, and finance. A few minutes later, his anxious heart settled back into his chest. The world order, presidents, wars—nothing had changed.

"The big picture can't be reversed, but the small stuff... I'm in control!"

Brian took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He needed to get his hands on the first bucket of massive gold that could leverage capital in this world.

Instantly, he felt his soul being pulled away, sucked directly into a memory tunnel filled with images, sounds, and glowing text. Financial news from his previous life cascaded through his brain like a waterfall.

His right hand seemed to gain consciousness of its own, grabbing the pen and scribbling frantically on the paper.

"Drip—"

A warm droplet suddenly fell on the back of his hand.

Brian's eyes flew open. He touched his nose—his fingertips were covered in blood. His soul's intensity was too high; this broken body simply couldn't handle extracting such complex memories.

He grabbed a tissue to plug his nose and looked down at the memo on the desk, his eyes burning with fervor.

"March 2007, the subprime crisis shows signs; April, America's second-largest subprime lender files for bankruptcy; August 2008, the two mortgage giants' stock prices plummet, global economic tsunami erupts!"

What was written on this paper wasn't words—it was the code to hundreds of billions of dollars!

Brian immediately grabbed the paper and shoved it into the shredder at his feet without hesitation. After a buzzing sound, the paper turned into strips. But he still wasn't satisfied—he dumped all the shredded strips into an ashtray, pulled out his Zippo lighter, and flicked it open.

Flames leapt up, completely burning those secrets that could overturn Wall Street into ash.

"This kind of inside information is only safe stored in my brain."

Brian lit a Marlboro and took a deep drag, letting the smoke swirl in his lungs. "Less than a year until the subprime crisis hits. Time is tight."

He walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, looking down at the lawn outside. "This villa, plus the cash I have on hand—I'll mortgage it all. No matter what, I need to scrape together 5 million dollars!"

"The stock market's about to break 12,000 points, but that's small potatoes." Brian flicked his ash. "The real fat prize is Apple!"

He'd just checked—Apple stock was currently at a pitiful $53 per share. But he clearly remembered that in the next ten years, this stock would skyrocket to $429, a whopping 63 times increase!

"As long as I time it right and add some leverage, I'll be Silicon Valley's daddy!"

But making money aside, fame was something he absolutely couldn't lose. In the future internet age, traffic was a money-printing machine, and fan economy was king.

Brian sat back at the computer and began assessing his current situation.

A young writer who'd published two bestsellers, hailed as a genius, but hadn't produced any new work for a whole year. Worse yet, over the past year, the original owner had been plastered all over the tabloids with various self-destructive behaviors.

"Sure, my reputation's in the gutter, but at least this kind of infamy is still fame." Brian shrugged, completely unbothered.

He logged into his Blogger account with practiced ease. The last update was three months ago. The backend showed tens of thousands of followers, and the comment section had devolved into chaos.

"Brian, have you run out of talent? Just get out of the literary world!"

"Ignore them, Brian, we'll always support you!"

"You're just a pretty face living off your looks. I'm so jealous of that face!"

Reading these comments, Brian couldn't help but chuckle.

Twitter had just launched in March 2006, Facebook even earlier, but they were still far from the peak of social media explosion. These American netizens had no idea what real "internet beatdowns" looked like.

"Since you're all so bored, let me give you something to chew on. Chicken soup for the soul is too sweet—let's try some 'poison for the soul.'"

Brian's fingers flew across the keyboard, typing out three short phrases in classic Chinese Weibo style.

First post: "Another day gone. How was your day? Are your dreams even further away now?"

Second post: "Don't lose heart. As long as you're a rock, you won't shine anywhere."

Third post: "Just watch others shine. God has other plans for your mediocrity."

Click, send.

Watching the successful send notification, Brian leaned back in his chair and whistled with satisfaction.

"Let's watch these foreigners lose it. And tomorrow, I'll write a column for Seventeen magazine and cash in on this traffic wave!"