Boston.

In the wealthy district of West, in the western suburbs, on the estate where Ulyana Meretskova lives.

It's January 27th, and it's a new week.

In the dimly lit morning bedroom, Ulyana lay on her side, looking at the two attendants she had brought from Ukraine, Kaja and Irina, wearing light nightgowns and dressing men beside the big bed, and said softly: "If you don't like Anna and Nick, I'll send them back to Ukraine." ”

"Isn't that the only one left in Boston, is that okay?"

"I'm ......" Ulyana paused and softened her voice, "I'm okay." ”

In fact, she didn't like the two oil bottles around her, and she almost blurted out just now, but fortunately she stopped in time.

Simon glanced at the woman who was five months pregnant on the big bed but became more and more angry regardless of her figure and temperament, and took advantage of the two women next to her to bring her shoes, sat down on the edge of the bed, reached over, and said lightly: "Let them stay, it's okay to accompany you." ”

Ulyana twisted her body to let the man follow, nodded and said, "I listen to you." ”

Although he was in the mood, after putting on his shoes, Simon only told the woman that she could sleep a little longer, and left the bedroom.

When the man left, Ulyana said to the two attendants who were left behind, "Help me prepare some hot water, and I'll take a shower." ”

Kaja Saponova, who had a blonde face and blue eyes as a standard Slavic girl, said softly: "Ma'am, aren't you sleeping for a while?"

"When Simon is gone, it's all my bedtime. ”

Ulyana said, raising her hand slightly, and Irina Dachenskaya, who was the female guard, hurriedly stepped forward and carefully helped the woman up.

After the pregnancy became more and more obvious, Ulyana asked the two attendants she brought from Ukraine to sleep with her in the master bedroom, of course, a small bed placed next to her, and help her turn over at any time at night and so on. Last night, the men stayed here, and Ulyana not only didn't let them avoid them, but took the initiative to pull the two women who were both of the best looks and figures into the big bed to please someone.

It seems to be working well.

Of course, in order to prevent the two girls around her from having any other thoughts because of this, after some things last night, Ulyana drove them to the small bed in the corner of the bedroom again, and spared no effort to call the two girls in the morning. Coming from a noble background, she knows that these seemingly inconspicuous little methods are actually very effective, because people will always unconsciously adapt to their position.

Simon has always paid little attention to the careful thinking of the women around him, and after a routine morning exercise, as soon as he sat in the restaurant, Girl A sent him a stack of materials that had just been baked.

After several months of private tandem layout, the new technology bears led by the Tiger Fund and the Mellon family finally made a force today.

The first is the article that was intercepted by Simon a few years ago: "Shocking Conspiracy, Ponzi Scheme of the Internet Industry!"

According to current feedback, there will be a total of 17 local newspapers on the east and west coasts today, but the major newspapers such as the New York Times, the Boston Globe, and the Los Angeles Times are not participating, mainly local newspapers such as the Pittsburgh Tribune, controlled by Richard Mellon Scaife. There are also a number of news sites and well-known bloggers who publish the article, again excluding the most influential portals. ”

Girl A said, seeing her boss looking at the list of newspapers that were expected to publish an article, her slender fingers signaled to the two companies circled in red in advance: "These two belong to the Hearst family, Scaife is related to Hearst, he wants the Hearst family to publish this article in the San Francisco Chronicle, there is no consent, but two local newspaper platforms are still provided." ”

Simon just nodded slightly, continued to look at the following information, but said, "What about our side?"

Below, Egrett has made headlines with the headline "The Coachman Who Tried to Tear Down the Railroad," which is the general direction of attacking conservative forces in their attempts to curb the new tech industry, as well as a more targeted counter-article refuting the Ponzi scheme of Scaife's press release. ”

Simon was noncommittal and continued to look through the various circulars compiled by Girl A.

Alison waited for a moment, and couldn't help but say, "Boss, actually, the effect of releasing the evidence of Scaife's behind-the-scenes manipulation of this matter should be more direct, why not do it?"

Simon retorted: "How much is Scaife losing now?"

"More than $150 million," Allison said, "In addition to Scaife's $300 million principal, other branches of the Mellon family have bet at least another $300 million this time." After this time, although it is still far from touching the roots, the Mellon family's control over companies such as Alcoa will definitely weaken. In addition, Scaife himself suffered the heaviest losses, and with the fact that he provoked this dispute, he would definitely be marginalized by the Mellon family. ”

"It's only half of the loss, and if the inside story is exposed now, it will probably prompt Scaife to make up his mind to liquidate the position, and I don't want him to run away. ”

When Girl A heard this, she understood, and nodded in approval.

Simon continued: "Compile a blacklist, and remove all the newspapers that published the article today, and all the advertising that we can influence. ”

Alison heard her boss's instructions and quickly jipped it down in her memo.

"In addition, no matter what the impact of this article is, it is just the beginning, and we can't just passively accept it, let the Weijia public relations team and Igrete and other companies in charge of Jinsili move directly, and finally push the Nasdaq up one level. ”

Simon was discussing with Alison when footsteps came, and when he looked up, Ulyana's children, Anna Meretskova and Nikoas Meretskov, probed into the dining room together, and saw Simon looking at them, and the siblings, who had already walked to the table, stopped, and the elder sister Anna took the initiative to greet: "Good morning, Mr. Westeros." ”

Nicholas, the younger brother who was looking at Simon's information with a curious face, also hurriedly followed.

Simon didn't know the same as the two little guys, so he couldn't help frowning slightly, waved his hand, and said, "You guys go to the restaurant next door, I'm here to talk about things." ”

The sister and brother were quite sensitive to Simon's mood changes, and when they saw him say this, their sister Anna also shrank her neck coquettishly, made an embarrassed expression, and pulled Arrival to walk out.

When the siblings left, Simon also roughly finished the information in his hand and did not continue, this matter was just the beginning, and then said: "How is Sundance?"

The 13th edition of the festival, which lasted for 11 days, ended yesterday.

The Grand Jury Prize went to the film called Sunday, directed by Jonathan Nosit. On our side, only "Two Smoking Guns" won one Best Audience Award. ”

The result was expected, Simon was not surprised, nor was he dissatisfied, but said: "The planning of the "Ghost Shadow Record" I wrote over the weekend, transfer the information to Lin Yibin, and ask him to prepare first, and talk about it in person if he has time recently." Well, C will also pass on a copy, after all, it can be promoted to iRec, at least let her sponsor a batch of the latest digital video cameras for shooting. ”

A few days ago, when he was at Sundance, Simon had the idea of starting the pseudo-documentary genre, and after deliberation, he chose the "Ghost Record" in his memory.

As for "Blair the Witch", which once created a precedent for pseudo-documentaries, it was temporarily suppressed by Simon. Mainly, the success of "Blair the Witch", in addition to the impact of the Internet virus, is actually a deception to fool the public who do not know the truth into a witch murder incident, and then attract the audience to enter the scene.

Frankly, if it was the kind of small publisher who used to do this project, the result would be nothing, but if Daenerys Entertainment did it, and then used the same method, it is likely that the result will be a class action lawsuit because of this deception, and Simon does not want to get into this kind of trouble.

Even, after the success of the former "Blair the Witch", it was not until another 10 years that another "Ghost Record" was a big hit, but the title is that "Blair the Witch" is equivalent to a film that not only created a precedent for pseudo-documentaries, but also seriously hurt the audience's enthusiasm for this genre.

In comparison, "Ghost Shadow" can be regarded as a real creation in the film genre.

This can actually be seen from the subsequent commercial performance of the two series.

The first part of "Blair the Witch" sold nearly $250 million worldwide, and the sequel released the following year, the cost increased from $60,000 to $15 million, but it didn't make a splash at all, and the two young directors of both series were short-lived, and then no influential works appeared.

Looking at "Ghost Record" again, after the global box office success of the first series of nearly $200 million, a series of sequels were launched in a row, none of which cost more than $10 million, but it was a big hit, and it can almost be regarded as a golden hen of the distributor Paramount. In Simon's opinion, this is what a new genre and a blockbuster series should look like.

However, although "Ghost Record" was chosen, the idea of the follow-up "Blair the Witch" can also be used, but this time it must no longer be promoted by deception, as long as "Ghost Record" opens up the situation and erects the genre of "pseudo-documentary" movies, "Blair the Witch" does a better job seriously, coupled with proper local publicity, it will definitely be able to attract a large number of audiences.

As for director Lin Yibin, although he later became known mainly for the "Fast and Furious" series, this director is actually a generalist who can control all kinds of genres.

"Ghost Shadow" is just an experiment after all, from the director to the actors, Simon plans to use newcomers, the actors don't say, only newcomers, so that the audience will not be allowed to play in this pseudo-documentary form, the director, on the one hand, it is a workout given by Simon to Lin Yibin, and Simon can also judge the strength and potential of this 'newcomer', on the other hand, the newcomer director must also know how to cherish the opportunity better, and at the same time it is cheaper.

Of course, since Simon is personally in charge, he will definitely not only give the budget of $15,000.

In fact, if it is really going to be released, it will cost more than $15,000 to convert the low-quality digital camera into 35mm film after the digital camera shoots, so Simon prepared $300,000 from the preparation to the completion of a 35mm copy that can be screened in theaters.

The big head is mainly in the distribution.

If the project meets Simon's expectations, the distribution fee of three to five million may not be enough, of course, only if the film is successful, Daenerys Entertainment can earn more.

After instructing this matter, Girl A wrote it down and took the initiative to report some other matters: "Chen sent an email to come, the Rose Garden villa project in Beijing over there in China has been finalized, boss, do you want to see the details?"

"Well, I'll see on the plane back. ”

"Also, on the Carlyle Group's side, Caterpillar has officially announced that it is joining the bid for the acquisition of Platinum Engine in the United Kingdom, and Mr. Rubinstein said in an email that this could increase our acquisition costs by 10 to 20 percent. ”

"What does David mean by himself?"

"The advice was to walk away from the deal if it was 15 percent over our budget. ”

Simon nodded: "That's it." ”

"Also, about the Spanish clothing company, Inditex, after a few contacts, there is a lot of interest in our investment, but the owner of Inditex, Amancio Ortega, wants to meet with you, and he wants Westeros to invest directly, not through Apollo management. ”

"You can arrange a time," Simon didn't refuse, remembering one thing, and said, "Is it agreed that Inditex will set up a factory in Rivni?"

"It's negotiated, however, the scale of the first phase of the factory will not be too large, mainly because Inditex has expanded rapidly in recent years, and its own funds are not abundant. In addition, Inditex also mentioned another thing, hoping that we can increase our support for the Rivni aviation industry, because Inditex's Zara brand is carried out by air for global new product launches. ”

"You let Komorov discuss this matter," Simon said, thought for a moment, and said, "We can further strengthen our control over the basic services of the Rivne region, electricity, railways, aviation, energy, telecommunications, etc. ”

When Simon talked about this, he remembered again a certain Li family's city on the other side of the ocean.

For Rivni, Simon had such an idea early on, intending to create a city of Westeros in Ukraine.

In order to achieve this, the key is, of course, not to control the light industry and even the service industry, which is the focus of the Rivne region, but to control the basic needs of all people in a region, such as clothing, food, housing and transportation. To put it bluntly, it is actually the development of a new rent-based economy.

If Simon wants to develop in Rivni, he must bring in a lot of other funds to promote it, and relying only on the Westeros system alone will not be able to eat everything after all, just like Inditex built a garment factory in Rivni. But as long as you control the fundamentals that all the people in a region and a city need, not just the ordinary residents, but all kinds of businesses, then Simon becomes a charter company that can reap the most lucrative benefits.