Simon and Jennifer left Melbourne on July 11 and arrived at a forest lake in central and western Tasmania, right in the middle of Simon's private property.
Because the nearest road is thirty kilometers away, the only way to reach it is by helicopter.
The female assistant spent all her own money to build three wooden houses, one for Simon, the two of them, and the rest of their entourage. They also built a helicopter landing pad. Just transporting the building materials cost a lot of money. Naturally, there was no water or electricity in the forest. They can only rely on generators and natural water sources, and communication can only use satellite phones.
It was already a very closed living environment, but when the heavy snow covered everything, the surrounding area was completely isolated from the rest of the world.
Suddenly leaving his busy work and coming here, Simon's first feeling was not comfort, but anxiety, a strong sense of being out of control. Fortunately, Simon has a special experience that is different from anyone else in this world, which is equivalent to the accumulation of more than ten lives, allowing him to adapt quickly.
The female assistant can easily switch between a strong woman in the workplace and a young woman at home.
When I came here, I only brought a few books and a picture folder.
During the day, he asked Simon to teach him how to draw, and he also skated on the frozen lake in front of the hut. He wore a girly white down jacket and looked as skillful as an elf.
In the evening, we snuggled together by the fireplace and read to Simon in a clear and elegant voice. Proust's "In Search of Lost Time" is a very thick book.
Or the poetry of Yeats.
*…
*I'm going to get up and go to Innisfree Island.
*Build a hut out of soil and branches.
*I want nine rows of bean racks and a bee nest.
*Listen to the singing of bees in the forest and live alone in a quiet place.
*Then I will have peace.
*…
After reading it, I also suggested giving the small lake in front of me a name, or maybe just call it Lake Innisfree.
Simon refused.
The female assistant said in a slightly resentful expression that she rarely made that she should be called Jenny Lake.
The female assistant's resentment did not dissipate, so she asked Jenny.
Simon firmly said that of course it was Jenny in front of him.
I also brought a Chinese original copy of "Dream of Red Mansions".
The female assistant Janet had never forgotten the joke she made at the time. She wanted to know the story about the attack and asked Simon to tell it to her in person.
Then I fell in love with listening to the romance, joys and sorrows in the Grand View Garden.
Even though strong curiosity occasionally flashed in his eyes, he never asked why Simon knew such a difficult and obscure language.
Just kept asking all kinds of questions.
I also worked hard to learn to recite a poem from the book.
There is no fixed pronunciation and a very standard accent.
*It's full of nonsense,
*A handful of bitter tears.
*Duyun is an author crazy,
*Who understands its taste
Finally, I couldn't help it, and asked Simon casually, if there really is a three-life stone
Simon said no.
Just a story.
Obviously dissatisfied with this answer, the corners of his mouth pursed again.
Simon comforted him, and then his little mood disappeared.
She was very satisfied with Xi Ren's ending and threatened that if one day Simon doesn't like her anymore, she will find a good man and marry her.
When he said this, he looked at Simon with a threatening look.
How dare you threaten.
So he was severely 'tackled'.
Very compliant every time.
I discovered something and complained about the many dirty little details that Janet told her. It turned out that none of them were there.
Simon smiled and said this is possible.
Then.
It really does exist.
Calm down and continue reading "In Search of Lost Time" to Simon.
Simon has been listening patiently. Inadvertently, he also wrote down a sentence he heard in the blank space of the Dream of Red Mansions book in his hand: Always try to keep a piece of sky outside your life.
Smelling the aroma of food, I lazily opened my eyes.
This is the bedroom. There is naturally no food around, just the sticky smell of the man coming in from the kitchen.
Still couldn't help but twitch her little nose, but lazily refused to move.
The room was very warm, and Simon was only wearing a woolen sweater and khaki trousers. Seeing her open her eyes, Simon leaned in for a kiss.
He turned away and said, "I haven't brushed my teeth yet."
Simon didn't let her go. He kissed her on the beautiful cheek that was just waking up, and then moved to her fair neck. Not satisfied yet, he pulled down the quilt a little and moved closer to her.
Under the quilt is a perfect body that can drive a man crazy.
Not even an inch of hair.
Nephrite is warm and fragrant.
I felt Simon bit it greedily, and finally weakly stretched out his hand to push the man's head, smiling and saying, "It's so ticklish."
Simon raised his head, but put his hand in and said, "Get up now, or should I sleep with you for a while?"
Holding down the man's strange hand: "I want to get up, you go out first."
"I'll help you get dressed."
"No, I can wear it myself."
"This is not possible, I must help."
As he spoke, the female assistant started moving amid the coquettish laughter, and finally the two of them put on their clothes again together.
Breakfast also had to be redone.
The original one had already cooled down.
After eating, it was already ten o'clock in the morning.
It was July 17th. I stayed here for a full week. Although occasionally Janet would make one or two harassing phone calls, it was hard to justify staying here any longer.
A very sunny day.
After packing her luggage and standing outside the house, the female assistant was obviously reluctant to leave. She was also worried that her cabin would be destroyed and occupied by outsiders. It was not until Simon promised that special caretakers would be arranged that she felt relieved.
Taking advantage of the perfect sunshine at noon, we boarded a helicopter parked nearby.
The helicopter roared into the sky, and the already small lake became smaller and smaller within the field of vision, like a long-standing memory that gradually fades away deep in everyone's heart.
The rented Bell helicopter did not have enough battery life, so we had to take a boat back to Melbourne on the northern coast of Tasmania. It was already past four o'clock in the afternoon when we returned to the villa on the outskirts of Melbourne.
I made some calls to people close to me. I originally planned to take another night off and start working tomorrow. Anthony Johnston called and asked Simon to go to the mansion for a party. It turned out that today happened to be Norman Johnston’s birthday. , everyone in the family will be there.
After living with Jennifer for a week, Simon didn't believe that the Johnston family didn't know that they felt guilty and didn't refuse.
The female assistant who felt even more guilty did not dare to go there with her.
Arrive at the mansion in the evening.
Many people were invited to the party and it was very lively.
Except for Patrick Johnston who winked at Simon, no one had any special reaction to Simon's whereabouts in the past week.
The entertainment lasted until late at night. When all the guests left, Simon originally wanted to leave, but the old man stayed. Although the meaning in his words was that there is no place for you to live at home, Simon understood that the old man still cared about him. I have some opinions on what I did during the previous week.
Naturally, we can only stay.
When you return to Melbourne, you can't sleep in and wake up on time at seven o'clock the next day.
After leaving the bedroom, walking through the corridor and heading towards the stairs, she passed by a room. Veronica Johnston happened to open the door and walked out. When she saw Simon, her figure immediately froze, and she subconsciously raised her hand, but very Put it down quickly.
Simon also stopped and frowned when he saw Veronica's subconscious defensive movements.
Seeing Simon frowning, Veronica raised her hand uneasily again, as if to explain, but she just uttered the word "I..." and couldn't continue.
Seeing that she was no longer talking, Simon continued to walk towards the stairs.
Veronica stared blankly at Simon's figure disappearing at the top of the stairs before walking out of the room.
After breakfast, Simon and Anthony Johnston rushed to the Johnston Holdings headquarters in Melbourne city.
After last year's operation in the Japanese market, although Cersei Capital's headquarters moved to New York, a team was still retained here. In order to reduce the outside world's penetration of the details of Cersei Capital's operation in the crude oil market, Melbourne has The team at Bian is also involved.
In fact, because Cersei Capital has established a very large and complex crude oil futures portfolio through different accounts in various crude oil futures markets such as New York and London, and has recently begun to directly participate in spot trading, except for a few people such as Janet and Simon, even if Within Cersei Capital, few people know the company’s specific position data.
Cersei Capital began to establish long positions in late June, when the international crude oil price was still above $14.
Recently, in less than a month, international crude oil prices have fallen to US$13, which is also the lowest international crude oil price in Simon's memory.
If you don’t count the short gains from two-way positions and only count the recent long positions, Cersei Capital’s book losses have exceeded US$1.6 billion in less than a month.
Moreover, because Cersei Capital continues to increase the size of its long positions and reduce its short positions, if the international crude oil price does not rebound as expected, but instead falls to US$10 a barrel as predicted by many institutions, Cersei Capital will not only increase its long position this time, but also reduce its short positions. All profits earned by short positions will be spit out, and even the principal may be lost.
In Simon's memory, international crude oil prices began to rise after the breakdown of negotiations between Iraq and Kuwait on oil production control at the end of July, and doubled directly after the war broke out on August 2.
Now, the negotiations between Iraq and Kuwait are still continuing. According to news from the Middle East, the first phase of the negotiations will not appear until next week. Either Kuwait will make a compromise and reduce crude oil production, or the negotiations will break down and things will happen. Toward an unpredictable situation.
Simon doesn't think that war can be avoided just because of his appearance.
In fact, the internal causes of this war are much more complicated than most people imagine. It involves not only the interests of European and American oil groups, but also the still volatile situation in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union at this time.
However, just in case, Cersei Capital’s operation this time is relatively conservative. As of mid-July, the size of the long positions established was less than 15 billion US dollars, and sufficient funds were reserved to transfer Cersei The capital leverage ratio is maintained within 5 times.
According to the plan, after all short positions are closed next week, although the principal held by Cersei Capital will exceed US$5 billion, the total size of the long positions will still be carefully maintained within US$25 billion.
After spending a day at Johnston Holdings headquarters discussing Cersei Capital's next move, Simon's energy turned back to movies.
The filming of "The Dark Knight" is still going smoothly, and Simon doesn't need to worry too much.
North America.
More than three weeks have passed since Simon left on June 24.
The North American summer season has seen the release of many new films such as "Die Hard 2", "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", and "Thunder and Thunder" in succession in the past few weeks.
Going forward, "The Love of Ghosts", which was released on June 1, still maintained a strong box office curve under the pressure of a number of new films.
As of July 19, seven weeks after its release, the cumulative box office of "The Last Days" has reached US$115.06 million.
Moreover, in the seventh week of its release, this tear-jerking love movie still has a single-week box office of over 10 million US dollars, reaching 11.07 million US dollars. It is expected that the total box office in North America is expected to break through the 200 million US dollars mark, becoming the first movie of 1990. A movie with a total box office of over 200 million in North America.
In comparison, "Total Recall", which was released at the same time, had a total North American box office of US$106.41 million in its seventh week of release, successfully surpassing 100 million US dollars. However, the single-week box office has dropped to US$4.77 million, and is expected to only have 1,000 US dollars left in the future. Box office potential of around $10,000.
"Sleeping with the Enemy," the first of Daenerys Entertainment's 10-movie plan that Simon is more concerned about, had a box office of US$18.53 million in the second week, with a box office drop of 33% after its first week of US$27.62 million.
The drop exceeded 30%, which is a bit disappointing.
Fortunately, in the following three weeks, the declines of "Sleeping with the Enemy" were within 30%, 21%, 17% and 23% respectively, and it successively collected US$14.61 million, US$12.13 million and US$9.37 million.
In five weeks, the cumulative box office of "Sleeping with the Enemy" has reached 82.26 million US dollars.
Although the box office dropped below 10 million US dollars in a single week, there is no suspense about the film's North American box office exceeding 100 million US dollars.
In addition, the production budget of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", which was released on July 6, increased to US$20 million compared to the B-level movie level of US$8 million in the original time and space, and the quality is even better than the original version. Coupled with the prime summer schedule and Daenerys Entertainment's unremitting investment in promotion and distribution, the film's box office reached 39.78 million U.S. dollars in its first week, far exceeding the first-time grosses of "The Last Day" and "Sleeping with the Enemy." Weekly data.
In just one week from July 6 to July 12, according to the tiered account sharing rules signed by Daenerys Entertainment and theaters, "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" has recovered all production and promotion costs.
However, "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" still relies heavily on the popularity brought by animation and games in recent years. The quality of the film itself is far from reaching the phenomenal level. A high start in the first week inevitably means that The box office dropped sharply the next week.
July 13th to July 19th.
In its second week of release, the box office of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" dropped 43%, taking in another US$22.67 million.
It took in 62.45 million US dollars in two weeks. This box office curve is actually similar to the previous "Total Recall" which started at the same time as "The Last Days".
Of course, the difference is that the production cost of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" is less than one-third of that of "Total Recall" starring Schwarzenegger. The North American box office of "Total Recall" can barely recover the production cost, and "Ninja Turtles" can barely recover the production cost. "Turtles" has already begun to generate handsome profits through its second week in theaters.
Due to the excellent market performance of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", Daenerys Entertainment quickly announced the development of a sequel.
The box office performance of the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" in the original space is not as good as the previous one, because in addition to the popularity of its own IP, it is actually difficult for this series to maintain too high appeal to the audience. The audience came to watch the first part, This is largely due to the popularity accumulated by the series of animations and games.
However, Simon did not block the sequel project this time like the "One Flew Over the Child" series.
Mainly because of cost.
Compared with the two major blockbuster series "One Flew Over the Child" and "Lethal Weapon", even if a sequel to "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" is developed, the production cost will not be much higher than that of the first film, and there will not be a big star like Mel Gibson. Ka demands a high share of project profits.
The first part of the film can exceed 100 million. As long as the sequel does not mess around, it will be easy to recover the cost and achieve profitability.