Carl was no longer in the living room. Andy washed his face in the bathroom, took a bottle of mineral water from the refrigerator, opened it, and took a few sips. The cool, slightly sweet water invigorated him.
I walked into the study, turned on the computer on the luxurious desk, sat in the comfortable executive chair, and quietly waited for the computer to boot up, looking at everything around me.
He pulled a piece of paper from his desk drawer, opened his Montblanc fountain pen, and began to list the names that came to mind on the paper.
Andy put down his pen, looked at the list of contents, and breathed a sigh of relief.
"It seems that many of them are unusable, not to mention there isn't much material to write. The Bourne series should have been filmed long ago, and Prometheus is a prequel to the Alien series, so it doesn't qualify to be written. Inception, on the other hand, is acceptable."
"Kingsman is great; they could totally incorporate all the 007 stories we've seen in the future to create a new big IP!"
"Frozen and The Huntsman: Winter's War could easily be made into a collection of dark fairy tale novellas. If we add a few other fairy tale adaptations that I've read and compile them into a book, we could make a fortune just from the film rights alone after it's published."
"National Treasure should have been filmed a long time ago, Now You See Me is a good option, but The Hangover and Ted can probably only be written as screenplays."
Andy made notes on the paper with his pen after thinking. There were only a few movies, but what made him happiest were the three novels: The Hunger Games, Divergent, and The Walking Dead. These were truly goldmines.
What drove him crazy was the list of American TV series he was following on the paper. Only one of them, "Under the Dome," was in its first season. The others were incomplete. "Person of Interest" did have a beginning and an end, but it was missing a season in the middle.
Further down are some songs, a few in Chinese, a few from Korean and Japanese, and the rest are in English, some of which are old songs and not of much value.
I opened Google, typed in "The Bourne Identity," and with the unrealistic hope that, after being poisoned by all sorts of time-travel web novels, I could expect a butterfly effect to occur.
"Ah! The online novel masters really didn't lie to me. The butterfly effect has actually occurred. There's no Bourne movie, no National Treasure either! Damn, there's Alien! Wait, calm down, I have to calm down. Let's see if there are any Hunger Games books? Haha, no. Sure enough, God is still on my side!"
He excitedly grabbed the research results sheet with only a few places crossed out, laughing and jumping around in the study.
After calming down a bit, Andy sat down again, his fingers trembling slightly as he clicked the mouse, browsing through various news articles—domestic, international, entertainment, finance—he didn't miss a single one, carefully examining each one. There were no changes; the world situation hadn't changed because of his arrival.
"The wise men of the internet were right: the general trend is irreversible, but the minor trend can be changed!"
By the way, with the subprime mortgage crisis of 2008, perhaps my dream of becoming a millionaire isn't too far off.
He rubbed his face, which was stiff with excitement, and took a deep breath. The overwhelming excitement made his heart pound.
"The future belongs to me!"
Andy excitedly clenched his fists and waved them forcefully in the air.
The excitement lasted for a long time. After calming down, he took out a new piece of paper, picked up a pen, took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and concentrated all his attention. It was as if a black hole appeared in his brain and sucked his soul in.
In his consciousness, he opened his eyes and watched as his grayish-white soul, sparking with electricity, entered a tunnel of images, sounds, and words, which he could freely peruse.
He quickly retrieved the information about the future from those online articles, and his body immediately reacted, with the rustling sound of writing echoing in the study.
As consciousness returned, Andy slowly opened his eyes, looked at the blood dripping onto the white paper, shook his head and smiled bitterly. His soul had become so powerful that his body could no longer support it. It seemed that he would not be able to enter the memory tunnel again until he had recovered his health.
Wiping away the blood from his nose, Andy picked up a piece of white paper with only a few lines of text and read it carefully: "The subprime crisis began to emerge in March 2007, the bankruptcy of the second-largest subprime mortgage company in the United States in April exposed the risks of subprime mortgage bonds, and in August 2008, the stock prices of the two major US mortgage giants plummeted, thus triggering a global economic crisis."
Neither Andy nor Harris knew much about finance. However, now that they had the opportunity, they could find a team with expertise in economics to manage the business, and the profit would increase exponentially.
"Money, money, the key right now is US dollars. To succeed in this economic crisis, we need to get a large sum of US dollars!"
After memorizing the contents of the two sheets of paper, Andy muttered "dollars" under his breath, but his hands kept moving. He turned on the paper shredder, and even after watching the two sheets of white paper turn into scraps, he was still not entirely at ease. He found a stainless steel basin in the kitchen, threw the scraps into the basin, and lit it with a lighter.
After the paper scraps had burned completely, Andy lit a cigarette, took a deep drag, and watched the smoke drift away slowly. There was less than a year left; that should be enough time for him to raise a considerable sum of money.
If you mortgage the house now or sell it, you should be able to raise five million US dollars with the money in the bank. The stock market is doing so well right now, and it's expected to break through 12,000 points in the next few months, so you should be able to make a fortune.
I can't speak for other stocks, but as someone who deals with mobile phones, Andy is quite familiar with Apple. Apart from the sharp drop in 2008 due to the economic crisis, it rose from a few dollars in 2003 to $429 in 2012, a full 63 times increase.
Using Google to find Apple's stock price, it was a little over $53. Although it was a slight drop, he knew that such a low price would not be seen again for the next ten years.
The most prominent feature of the future world economy will be the fan economy. Whether it's Apple fans, celebrity fans, or even internet celebrities who try every means to become famous and gain fans, these fans can be converted into huge wealth.
This is Hollywood, the mecca of film, and it's not easy to gain influence here.
Although Andy is a young author who has published two books and has had some exposure, he hasn't released any new works for quite some time. In Hollywood, the world's famous arena of fame and fortune, one can become famous quickly and be forgotten just as quickly. Fortunately, Andy's various self-destructive behaviors over the past year or so have been reported by several tabloids, even with their ridicule and belittling. This makes Andy feel a sense of smug satisfaction.
In the future, those internet celebrities will do anything to become famous. They will be happy even if they are slandered or cursed by thousands of people, because no matter how strange or despicable the means, as long as they can become famous, they will be considered successful. It will just take some time to clear their name.
I opened Google's Blogger, retrieved my username and password from memory, and entered them. The last update was three months ago, and I had tens of thousands of followers. I casually browsed the blog content, but there wasn't any useful information. Looking at the comments, there were mocking, encouraging, and envious comments—all sorts of comments.
There are quite a few fans. Before Facebook and Twitter came along, blogs were the most fashionable and popular platform. It's essential to manage this space well.
Twitter was founded in March 2006, while Facebook's founder, Mark Zuckerberg, was founded even earlier. In the future, Zuckerberg will use his checkbook to acquire almost every company that could pose a threat to Facebook.
Shaking his head to clear his jumbled thoughts, he frowned slightly. "What should I write?"
Thinking of twitter, a smile slowly appeared on his lips. "I'm so stupid, if all else fails, some toxic inspirational quotes AKA ragebait should work, as long as they're original."
The clatter of keyboards and Andy's slightly wicked, smug chuckle echoed in the study.
Another day has passed.
"How was your day? Are your dreams even further away now?"
"Anything that is made of stone will not shine, no matter where it is."
"You just need to watch others have a great time; God has other plans for you."
Andy lit a cigarette with a smug look on his face, tapping his fingers on the armrest of his seat.
"Writing a blog for '7Teen' magazine should be a pretty good gig!"
"Getting paid for sharing my rants and venting of all sorts of emotional garbage with others? Who wouldn't want to do this, Heh."
He glanced at his Cartier watch on his wrist, swung it a few times in a pretentious manner, and said, "Time really flies. It's already noon. I need to go out and find a fancy restaurant to treat myself."
****
Mass Release 3/10
Reviews would truly help me.