Chapter 5

Night fell.

The Los Angeles night was eerily quiet. Despite the bright lights outside the window, there was always a cold, almost cursed feeling in the air.

In the villa, Brian stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, gripping his phone tightly. The screen showed the international dialing interface, but he forcibly suppressed the urge to contact his family back in Germany.

"Can't let anyone know. This secret goes to the grave with me," Brian muttered under his breath.

He knew all too well how paranoid the surveillance-obsessed American government could be. If they discovered anything unusual, he'd definitely end up as a lab specimen. Having been reborn, safety came first.

He casually tossed his phone onto the couch and headed into the kitchen.

He microwaved a slice of pizza and some beef, then walked over to the expensive wine cabinet and opened a bottle of ice wine. He'd loved this type of wine in his previous life, though back home any ice wine under 500 yuan was fake stuff mixed with sugar water.

Looking at the amber, syrupy liquid in his wine glass, Brian took a satisfied sip.

Pressed and brewed in minus 8-degree cold, the perfect blend of sweet and sour on his tongue—truly worthy of being called "liquid gold."

Full and content, Brian headed straight to his study.

The computer screen lit up. At the top of a blank document, he typed: "Dark Fairy Tale, Act One: The Sleeping Curse."

The image of Angelina Jolie's prominent cheekbones and weird horned look popped into his mind, and Brian couldn't help but grimace: "Ugly as hell!"

But his fingers flew across the keyboard.

The little fairy Maleficent and the human boy Stefan were childhood sweethearts who fell in love, but Stefan was completely consumed by greed. To claim the throne, he cruelly cut off Maleficent's wings. In despair and vengeful fury, Maleficent cast that sleeping curse on the princess.

Brian closed his eyes and used the most primitive and clumsy method. Scenes from the movie he'd watched in his previous life froze frame by frame in his mind, and like a ruthless stenographer, he precisely recreated the scenes, characters, and dialogue in words.

Over the next few days, Brian lived a completely routine life.

Apart from going out to meet with lawyers and accountants about the mortgage loan, and occasionally dealing with calls from his parents and his agent Charles's pestering, he was practically buried in his study.

But he quickly discovered that converting the high-definition images in his mind into detailed text was far more difficult than he'd imagined. After several days of working his ass off, he'd barely completed a third of the script.

Fortunately, the soul fusion with the original "Brian" brought huge advantages. Obscure English vocabulary came naturally to him, and occasional bursts of new inspiration made the bare-bones script incredibly rich.

To nourish this drained body, he ordered all three meals from upscale restaurants—prime steaks with pizza, fresh fruit salads, accompanied by several glasses of ice wine.

Money flowed like water, but the results were immediate.

A few days later, the Brian in the mirror was a different person. His previously paper-white complexion now showed a healthy flush, his gaunt, sunken cheeks had filled out, and those lake-blue eyes were almost piercingly bright.

His spirit, energy, and vitality were at their peak.

One afternoon, in the small garden behind the villa.

The sunlight was perfect. Brian lay comfortably in a lounge chair surrounded by exotic flowers and plants, wearing sunglasses. On the small round table beside him sat hot coffee and delicate pastries.

Listening to the crisp bird songs in the trees, Brian couldn't help but smile with extreme satisfaction.

He'd discovered something unusual about his body.

Not only had his thinking become unprecedentedly active, but his memory had reached a level where he could go toe-to-toe with top geniuses! His vision and hearing far exceeded normal people's, and even the strength in his muscles was growing day by day.

Every morning when he woke up, his body surface would be sticky, with sweat mixed with foul-smelling black grime dirtying the entire bedsheet. But once he took a hot bath and cleaned it off, that feeling of complete renewal and refreshing lightness was simply addictive.

"These are the perks of being reborn..."

What made this coward most relieved was that now when he entered the memory tunnel to extract works from his previous life, he no longer experienced the terrifying side effects of fainting and nosebleeds.

"Buzz buzz—"

The phone's vibration broke the afternoon peace.

Brian answered, and immediately his agent Charles's excited, voice-cracking roar came through:

"Brian! We're rich! Seventeen Magazine just offered $300,000! They want you to write full-page blog articles for them!"

"Three hundred thousand gets you this excited?" Brian sneered, ruthlessly mocking him. "You're a bloodsucker."

"Hey! That's not fair!" Charles shamelessly argued on the other end. "I'm the one who brought you from New York to Hollywood! Of course I have to look out for you!"

Brian rolled his eyes. "You're really shameless. I really want to fire you right now."

"Save it, buddy. You've already fired me four times. Your threats don't work on me." Charles laughed triumphantly. "Those sentences you've been writing on your blog lately are absolutely killer! Several newspapers are already competing to report on your talent!"

Listening to Charles's self-congratulation, Brian grinned mischievously: "Alright, save that kind of flattery for your big-assed secretary with the nipple rings."

The other end went suddenly quiet for a second, then exploded with an angry curse: "What the fuck! Did you sleep with her?! That little bitch!"

"Relax, I guessed." Brian reminded him gleefully. "Be careful, Charles. If your office affairs get exposed in Hollywood, you'll be ruined."

Charles coughed awkwardly twice, then switched to a sleazy tone: "It's all consensual... Besides, I really can't give up that little bitch's big ass. You have no idea how great it feels!"

"Shut up, you old pervert. Do something for me." Brian cut off his crude talk. "Find me a housekeeper who can cook at least four types of cuisine, and a professional fitness trainer."

Charles paused, somewhat hesitant: "A fitness trainer is easy, but finding a housekeeper who can cook four cuisines and has good English skills won't be easy."

"Doesn't need to speak English, just needs to cook four cuisines and do housework." Brian's tone was firm. "Age doesn't matter, but must have a clean background check."

Hearing the relaxed requirements, Charles immediately patted his chest: "No problem! I love America—here, as long as you have money, there's nothing that can't be solved! Also, get ready for tomorrow. Come with me to meet the deputy editor of Seventeen Magazine to sign the contract!"

Hanging up, Brian took a sip of coffee, a sharp gleam flashing in his eyes. Three hundred thousand dollars—this was just the beginning.

...

Meanwhile, at CCA Agency in Hollywood.

After hanging up, Charles leaned back in his executive chair, a rare look of relief on his fat face.

He thought back to those early days. Back then, he'd shamelessly stuck to Brian until he finally became his agent, and strongly encouraged this genius to move to Hollywood. How glorious it was at first—the movie rights to the bestseller sold successfully, signed with a top publisher, and he, Charles, rode those coattails into CCA, the world's largest talent agency.

But who could have imagined that for over a year, Brian seemed to have lost his talent completely, unable to write a single word. His fame evaporated like bubbles, and in Hollywood where only commercial value mattered, he was quickly forgotten.

Watching Brian lose his will, spending his days drowning in cheap alcohol and various women, Charles was anxious but helpless. They'd had countless huge fights over his attempts to intervene, and their relationship grew increasingly strained.

Even his secretary advised him to give up on this washout, but Charles didn't.

He admitted he was sleazy, shameless, a profit-driven bastard, but he had an almost blind intuition—Brian was a real genius, and given time, he would definitely make a comeback!

So he swallowed his pride and went around looking for work for Brian.