London, England.
After the release of her ballet solo music video, Yulia Shulshkina's once peaceful life was suddenly thrown into chaos again.
Paparazzi trying to dig up scandalous gossip, strangers showing up unannounced offering partnerships, her family back in Moscow suddenly calling for money again, and even that imprisoned banker began causing trouble, likely feeling he had nothing left to lose. As long as some media were willing to pay, he'd say anything.
Yulia, who had long been accustomed to treating the world coldly, wasn't bothered.
This woman, who appeared cool on the outside and was equally cool within, had only one warm spot in her heart—her daughter Nina. Now, there was another warmth: the man who possessed her and provided her with all the security she needed. He had made her feel like a flower that she thought had long withered, bloom once more.
For her, no matter how much the solo dance stirred up in the public, she felt that the dance was only for him.
Following the instructions she had received, she handled minor issues by contacting the head of Westeros' London office. For anything major, she called Sophia Fessi. Regrettably, she couldn't contact him directly, so she settled for calling Sophia.
Soon, much of the noise around her died down.
Two female bodyguards were assigned to her.
In truth, she was more concerned that all the fuss might make him think she was being uncooperative. As for the remaining few who persisted, she simply ignored them.
Her family continued to ask for money, but she refused. She now sent home £100 every month, enough for her parents to live well in Moscow. Any more than that, she wasn't willing to give, no matter how much her father criticized her, her mother cursed, or her brother raged and threatened to come to London to "smash the face of this cold-blooded bitch." She just pretended not to hear.
The man regularly gave her large sums of money, but she had few expenses. She didn't even need to pay for her daughter's education. Most of it was saved.
For herself and for her daughter.
Deep down, she still had little sense of security. When he no longer wanted her, she would have some savings to live on. By then, Nina would likely be grown, and there would be nothing left to hold her back.
April 7th, an ordinary Friday.
At five in the morning in Hammersmith, she woke up in the apartment the man had arranged for her and her daughter. After washing up, she first checked on her daughter. The little girl was sleeping soundly, while the tabby cat named "Meow Meow" by Nina, lazily curled up at the foot of the bed, jumped down silently when Yulia entered and slipped out of the room.
London had many rats, so having a capable cat around was a very wise choice.
It wasn't just in this apartment where she and her daughter lived. As the steward for all of his properties in London, she managed over twenty cats scattered across his various luxury homes and villas.
She loved these proud and aloof creatures.
They didn't make noise, nor did they cling to people.
And even without their owner, they could survive on their own.
She quietly watched her daughter for a while before leaving the room and heading downstairs, where Tatiana, one of her new bodyguards, was already waiting.
Originally, it was just one maid and one guard assigned to her, but recently, two more had been added—Tatiana and Anya, both from Ukraine. Yulia wasn't the sociable type, but luckily, all the maids and bodyguards were very professional, and since she wasn't difficult to deal with, they all got along well.
After exchanging good mornings, the two left the apartment, heading for Heston, a district near Osterley Park on London's western outskirts.
Last year, the girls had moved from the city center to a small estate there.
Though the ballet lessons had continued for a year, they had been reduced to three mornings a week—Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
The seven remaining girls from last year had all survived the training over the past year; none had been eliminated. Over time, the girls—who were already exceptionally talented—had transformed dramatically in appearance, physique, and poise. Now, they looked like young ladies from aristocratic families—beautiful, intelligent, and flawless in every way.
Sometimes, Yulia envied them, and it made her reflect on her own lost youth.
She also wondered what the future held for these girls, treated like princesses. Whatever it was, she was certain it would be far better than hers.
After more than a year of teaching these girls, and given the respect they showed her, the initial awkwardness between them had long faded.
In the estate's practice room, during warm-ups, the girls chatted with her about some funny incidents regarding the music video.
In just a few days, many ballet schools in London had received a surge of applications thanks to her solo performance. BBC had even aired a feature program the night before, where a dancer attempted to mimic her solo. The girls all found the performance unbearable to watch. Additionally, some professional dancers had analyzed her performance on the show, revealing that what appeared to be a simple dance was actually incredibly difficult—something few could master without at least a decade of experience.
As they babbled on, Yulia listened quietly, occasionally responding with a faint smile. She was never one to talk much.
This made her envy the girls' openness and liveliness.
After the morning ballet class, she returned to her apartment, had breakfast with her daughter, and dropped her off at kindergarten before starting her daily work. Today, she had to oversee the routine cleaning of several of the man's properties in London. Besides her team of maids, the girls would also help.
The man owned 27 properties in London, including entire apartment buildings and rows of villas. Other than the few properties used for their residence, most were left unoccupied, with no intention of renting them out. As a result, she spent much of her time managing these properties each month.
And these were only the properties in London; she wasn't responsible for those in other parts of the UK.
She didn't find it troublesome, though. On the contrary, it kept her busy.
She worked until the afternoon, picked up her daughter, and returned to their Hammersmith residence by evening. As she got out of the car, a paparazzo rushed up, taking pictures and loudly asking, "Yulia, are you Simon Westeros' lover?"
She ignored him.
But wasn't it obvious? What was there to ask?
He had many public lovers.
She was just one among many, not even an important one. In fact, he had never even touched her.
Anya stepped forward to block the paparazzo, while Tatiana shielded Yulia and her daughter as they entered the house, quickly ending the minor incident.
That evening, it was just her and her daughter spending time together.
Their three-story house had a maid and three bodyguards living on the first floor, while Yulia and her daughter occupied the second and third floors. After dinner, in the second-floor living room, Yulia held her daughter in her arms as the little girl cuddled their cat, watching cartoons.
However, Nina didn't seem satisfied with the cartoon and grabbed the remote to change the channel.
As the screen flickered through several stations, a familiar figure appeared.
It was him.
Nina stopped flipping channels and pointed at the screen, her face lit up with innocent excitement and expectation. "Daddy."
Yulia felt her heart skip a beat.
Nina took after her. She wasn't particularly bright, certainly not on the level of the girls like Natalie, but at almost four years old, she was beginning to understand some things. Last autumn, after starting kindergarten, Nina had come home one day and asked about her father. On a whim, Yulia had shown her a magazine with his picture, explaining that this was her father. She also told her that her father was very busy, which was why he couldn't be with them.
At the time, Nina seemed to understand, but her attention quickly shifted elsewhere, and Yulia thought she had forgotten about it.
But apparently, she hadn't.
Tightening her embrace around Nina, Yulia turned her gaze to the TV screen. The news was about the one-year anniversary of the Rwandan genocide. The U.S. President was giving a speech, and he, along with other dignitaries, sat in the audience. Though his appearances were brief, they were striking.
Nina, nestled in her arms, watched the screen and softly called out again.
Yulia merely responded with a quiet "Mm."
She didn't say anything else.
Inside, however, she felt a sense of unease.
Such a man, standing so high above the world, if he knew she had rashly let her daughter call him "Daddy," would he be angry? Would he abandon her?
But then again, it had been a whole year since she last saw him, and Nina might never meet him.
That thought eased her nerves.
The news segment lasted over ten minutes. Neither Yulia nor Nina were particularly interested in the content, but they watched patiently, just for the occasional glimpse of that man.
Unfortunately, he didn't speak at the event, so they couldn't hear his voice.
On April 3, Simon had left North America, traveling from New York to Melbourne, then from Melbourne to Kigali, Rwanda, where he attended the one-year commemoration of the genocide. After spending a weekend in Rwanda, he traveled to Kenya, South Africa, and Angola before finally returning to Australia on April 13.
In just over ten days, he had logged more than 50,000 kilometers of flight time
.
Even during this extensive travel, the massive machine that was the Westeros system continued to operate smoothly.
On April 6, Universal Studios Osaka officially opened.
Despite all the preparations that had been made, Simon still held no absolute expectations for the park's success. His instructions to the Osaka Universal Studios team were to learn from Tokyo Disneyland's success while ensuring that Universal Studios retained its own unique features. Simon had given them a three-year period to adjust and refine their operations.
For three years, Universal Studios Osaka didn't need to focus on making a profit. Their goal was to constantly improve the park in every detail.
No matter what, Universal Studios had an even more important mission for Daenerys Entertainment: expanding the brand's influence across Asia.
As long as visitors experienced the various attractions related to Daenerys' films, the brand value would be enhanced. In the future, when these visitors watched movies, they would instinctively lean toward Daenerys' productions.
Disney films had dominated global box offices for so long, largely due to the deep brand awareness cultivated through Disney parks worldwide.
Now that Disney had been acquired by Vivendi Group and, thanks to Simon's covert interference, was destined for decline, Daenerys Entertainment's plan to establish Universal Studios globally would take over Disney's role as Hollywood's spearhead in conquering the world.
On April 7, Easter weekend began.
The final installment of the wildly successful Austin Powers comedy series, Austin Powers 3, starring Mike Myers, opened on 2,893 screens across North America.
Meanwhile, for the box office week of March 31 to April 6, The Man from Earth, written by Simon, had grossed $10.87 million for the week, bringing its total North American box office earnings to $206.06 million.
The Man from Earth's phenomenal performance in North America had also spread overseas.
Thanks to Daenerys' powerful global distribution and Simon's personal appeal, the film had quickly surpassed $100 million in markets like the UK, Germany, and Australia. The latest figures showed the film's overseas box office gross at $135 million, and that was before it had even opened in major markets like Japan and France.
Daenerys' overseas distribution department predicted that The Man from Earth would gross significantly more overseas than in North America, potentially reaching over $300 million. Conservatively, the film was expected to gross more than $500 million worldwide.
With a production cost of $1.5 million and a global box office of over $500 million, the return on investment was simply mind-boggling.
On April 8, a Saturday.
Tinkerbell Corporation held its annual product launch event at San Francisco City Hall, unveiling several new products: the iCam-50 digital camera (with a hard disk version), the iCam-40s (with a floppy disk version), the iPlayer-10 digital music player, the iDisk-20 flash drive, and various accessories.
Broadcast, the content download platform for the iPlayer, was given a major spotlight.
Unlike the content struggles Apple had faced when launching the iPod, Broadcast, in collaboration with Daenerys Records (which had inherited Universal Records' assets), offered over 300,000 legitimate tracks across all genres right from the start. The iPlayer-10, with its 500MB capacity, could also download audiobooks, podcasts, and other audio resources from the Broadcast platform, many of which were offered for free.
As a result, the iPlayer, the star of the product launch, was met with widespread market approval.
The valuations of both Tinkerbell and Broadcast saw significant boosts due to this positive news.
After over a week of non-stop travel, Simon returned to Australia but still didn't have time to check on Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, which was nearing the end of filming. Early the next morning, Simon and Raymond Johnston, along with a small entourage, quietly left Melbourne.
First, they took a private jet to Westeros Security's base in Perth, Western Australia. From there, they traveled by helicopter and off-road vehicle through the endless red desert of Western Australia for an entire day until they reached their destination. Without the precise coordinates from military-grade GPS, Simon wouldn't have even known where they had arrived.
In recent months, BHP had secretly drilled several mine shafts, over 50 meters deep, in the Gobi Desert in the center of Western Australia, under the guise of exploration.
Meanwhile, a cargo ship had departed from Ukraine more than a month ago, after several detours, the ship's three containers had ended up on another vessel at Perth Harbor in Western Australia.
The Johnston family, leveraging their decades of influence, easily bypassed customs and transported the three special containers.
Considering the headlines about U.S. customs intercepting 20 tons of drugs, it was easy to imagine how many drugs went undetected and how many loopholes existed in the customs systems of Western countries.
In short, three dismantled nuclear warheads had made their way into the heart of Western Australia.
Each of the three warheads had a yield of 1 megaton, equivalent to 50 times the explosive power of the Hiroshima bomb.
On the day before Easter, after returning from the trip, only Simon and Raymond Johnston, who had marked the precise locations using military GPS, knew where the warheads were buried. No one else could have found the sites scattered across millions of square kilometers of desert.
Thus, the Westeros family's year-long "Sword of Damocles" plan was officially completed.
On the return journey, Raymond asked Simon if they would ever actually use such weapons.
Simon recalled a famous quote from a certain emperor in history and responded, "If the Westeros family ceases to exist, what use is the world?"
At that, Raymond flashed a broad grin, showing his white teeth, clearly pleased.
In truth, over the past year, Simon had thought about this many times.
It wasn't about regret.
Or anything else.
Great wealth requires significant power to protect it.
Simon never doubted that.
He had never considered relinquishing any of what he had gained, even a small portion. Doing so would only leave him with nothing.
But Simon had also realized that as his power grew, the Westeros family's "Sword of Damocles" was not the only sword they could wield.
The Westeros system could now fully participate in many sensitive industries.
For example, nuclear energy.
For example, biology.
For example, during his recent trip to Africa, Simon had heard about a new Ebola outbreak in northern Congo.
Compared to these, the just-completed plan felt somewhat redundant.
But since it had been completed, Simon had no intention of abandoning it.
Simon had never shared the villainous belief seen in films that humanity wasn't worth saving and that the world should be destroyed.
However, what Simon had told Raymond was not an exaggeration.
Simon had no malice toward the world, but he would never allow the world to harm him or his loved ones.
Otherwise, if the Westeros family ceased to exist, what use would the world be?
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