by <unknown>
Chen Chen listened silently and attentively.
"Next, he lit up a match for real this time and waved it in front of the leaves of the dracaena which caused the reflected reading to take on a volatile pattern. When he put the match down, the reading managed to still itself until it eventually turned into a straight line.
"However, after repeating this bluff many times, the dracaena stopped responding to his threats as if it realized that he didn't actually mean to harm it…"
Landis smiled. "This was the experiment that inspired me. The alien plant in the story can secrete a substance which is the crystal seen in the movie. This is the method it employs for self-protection. At the same time, it can grant humans superpower, essentially assuming the role of a host in a computer while the three protagonists are the extensions. This way, the three of them could sense each other and the presence of the host."
Chen Chen's heart only sank further as he listened to Landis' explanations. He then inquired, "What's the principle theory then? Why was the alien plant able to grant humans power? What was the energy theory behind the three protagonists?"
Landis and Trunk both shot a strange look at Chen Chen. Trunk only managed to muster an awkward response. "Sorry, never really considered these factors back then."
"It's like with Superman and the Hulk. The audience only cares about the superpower, I doubt they care about the scientific theory behind the superpowers…"
Landis shrugged helplessly as well. "I suppose it makes more sense for us to leave these questions to the scientists."
There was not much Chen Chen could say about that either. He was aware that their statements were true.
The convention of superpowers had always been dictated by whatever was convenient. Even in the X-men, there was not much canonical explanation of how the X-gene gave superpowers. How was anyone supposed to figure out how the X-gene granted superpowers?
It was at this moment when another possibility came to Chen Chen.
Perhaps it was precisely because the detailed workings were not set up that there were unlimited possibilities?
Just like in Chronicle and Rise of the Planet of the Apes, anyone could recognize that the latter was more of a work of science fiction than the former. However, the USB drive accepted Chronicles but not Rise of the Planet of the Apes, why was that?
In the case of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, it was stated that it was an RNA retrovirus, which was technically not scientifically possible in reality. This in turn caused it to be rejected by the USB drive for not adhering to the rules of science?
"Strictly speaking, I wasn't the one who came up with the idea of the story, it was Trunk's concept."
As Chen Chen was pondering the matter, Landis glanced at Trunk and explained.
"That's right, I got the idea from watching Paranormal Activity. It was more of a daydream which later turned into reality after meeting Landis."
Trunk began to reminisce on the past when he thought about it. "My initial idea was of a high school boy who attained superpowers he had always dreamt of. Similar to the way bodybuilding works, it grows stronger the more he practices it."
"And you guys ended up turning the daydream into a nightmare," Chen Chen teased.
"We never really wanted to shoot a typical superhero film full of cliches. We wanted something… Something with more depth."
Landis elaborated, "What we intended to do was achieve a dramatic cinematic effect by properly constraining the protagonist's personality and family background. The finished product would be a tragic, profound film."
Chen Chen sighed silently upon hearing his remark. "One last question, does the superpower pose any threat to the benefactor? Some sort of effect such as corrupting the human's heart, being stripped away by the plant, something along these lines."
"We didn't consider that many factors when writing the first film since they're largely unrelated to the plot. We primed our focus on the character building."
Landis voiced his frustration, "By the second film, I planned to incorporate some darker traits into the plant. Sadly, I was kicked out by the company."
Chen Chen caught a glimmer of hope. "Which means that you guys didn't incorporate any form of drawbacks to the plant in the first film?"
"Yes…"
They did not understand the reason for Chen Chen's persistence in the matter but they nodded anyway.
"Excellent, please give me a moment."
Chen Chen nodded with pleasure and began typing away on the laptop.
Until ten minutes later, Chen Chen finally blew an air of relief. "In that case, I'll set the sequel to be ten years into the future."
Chen Chen began portraying. "The ending of the first film: Andrew was taken by the darkness in his heart so his cousin Matt had to stab him to death. In the end, he embarked on a trip around the world. In that case, we can begin the second film like so--:
The two of them stayed silent all the while, waiting for Chen Chen to continue.
"Over the last ten years, Matt traveled across the world but couldn't find any clue related to the crystal. They also found out that the original location where the crystal was discovered was sealed away by the police, restricted to commoners."
Chen Chen spoke in a low voice, "Matt who hasn't been able to find a single clue over the past ten years decided to sneak into the cave. However, after spending all his efforts to sneak into the cave, he discovered that the government transformed the area into an enormous underground cave…
"Another discovery was that Andrew was not dead. Apparently, despite having his chest shot through, the government saved his life and kept him in a comatose state for them to study his body.
"The government also performed a cutting operation on the crystal and had it cut into thousands of fist-sized crystal pieces. They also extracted the alien plantation within it and later discovered that the crystal pieces only contained a fragment of the plant's power. The plant itself was what mattered the most.
"However, the plant died very quickly after leaving the crystal as it was unable to adapt to Earth's climate. As a result, the government lost their means to mass-produce superpower users.
"This also explains why the government kept Andrew alive all these years."
Chen Chen continued typing as he spoke. At the end of his sentence, he turned the computer screen to face the two men. "After the plant died, the crystals which store part of the plant's powers essentially became one-time consumable items.
"Using the cut pieces, the government began creating superpowers one after another. However, their radiation exposure was one-to-several hundred of the ones of the original three protagonists, resulting in them only obtaining very weak superpowers. The capacity for growth was minimal as well, far below the ones of the likes of Andrew and the others.
"The only way to attain stronger power was to get their hands on more crystalline…"
Chen Chen took a deep breath and concluded as he got up on his feet, "Here's my setting for the second film. Please complete the second part according to the settings I provided.
"And wrap up the story of our childhood on a good note."
Chapter 133: Return to Africa |
The three movies represented the three approaches Chen Chen was going to take.
The first movie Immortal based on Resident Evil: Retribution was his first step for determining if the USB drive could disrupt timelines.
Many forms of technologies were present in the movie as well so having it in the USB drive would be as good as having the future in his hands.
For the second movie Cancer Man, Chen Chen set it in a parallel universe. This way the events in the movie should not conflict with reality. If it proved to be valid in the USB drive, cancer would be the next disease of the century to go, following Alzheimer's.
The third movie Chronicle 2 was one Chen Chen had specifically crafted for himself.
The setting that came from the author himself should be considered canonical, it als
o should not have any conflict with the first movie. Judging by these observations, it should not be rejected by the USB drive.
The third movie was the one Chen Chen was most certain that could be acknowledged by the USB drive.
Besides, cutting the crystalline into pieces as seen in the movie was the most cost-effective way for Chen Chen to dictate if the crystals were harmful to the human body.
On top of that, Chen Chen made sure to include the alien plant being killed in the story. This way, he was able to negate the threat the plant posed on the superpower users, effectively canceling out the risks.
Chen Chen also made sure to lay it out so that the effects of the crystal were additive. It did not pose a problem even if he started with obtaining tiny fragments of power. He could continue extracting them and eventually reach the levels of Andrew as seen in the movie.
Perhaps even above him.
He only wondered, what was it like to become the only person in the world with superpowers?
Since Chen Chen had little to do, he opened his phone to download Zhihu and entered the question in the query. Unexpectedly, he found several such questions.
Chen Chen created an anonymous account and wrote in the reply section:
"Good thing you asked. I'm in Africa making millions per month, just got off the plane. If you know, you know. These comments are getting toxic, I'm out."
Chen Chen took his leave after having only spent several days in North America and Cheng Cao departed with him as well. There was little point to keeping a trump card like him who had been known to be able to kill in five hundred different ways in this place.
Chen Chen had prepared to relocate several staff in the company here to substitute Cheng Cao.
After that, both of them took a flight back to Namibia.
Qian Wenhuan worked with great efficiency. Barely four months had passed since Chen Chen kicked off the Alzheimer's drug project and the Eco Science City was already taking shape.
Chen Chen was met with a dazzling view upon stepping out of Walvis Bay International Airport.
The road leading to Eco Science City was still being paved when he left Africa one month ago. Now that he had returned, he could see the newly constructed main highway opened to the public already. The roads stretched onward endlessly like a dragon reaching into the horizon. Faraway, there were several high-rise buildings under construction, reminding him of the scenery back in the Mainland.
Chen Chen had invested a hefty sum back then to recruit several cityscape designers from the Mainland. Under the joint brainstorming effort of the fleet of designers, they pushed the design of a modern concept town within a week.
The design of the town was of a vibrant architectural style with wide roads, complete with urban greenery setting incorporated with modernist philosophy. There was no lack of public facilities such as a central commercial street, central park, hospital, and schools.
A large portion of the coastal area was sectioned out for constructing villas and health centers to be situated by the Sandwich Harbor.
This was only one of the phases of the construction. Many vacant lands were sectioned out for further construction as the town grew in population. There was enough land to expand the size of the town to more than 100,000 people.
When Chen Chen stepped out of the airport, he was met with the scenery of a thriving, bustling city.
"Boss!"
Qian Wenhuan had been waiting for a while outside the airport. He was aware that Chen Chen was not a fan of large receptions, so he made sure to only bring two members of the security department. He quickly stepped up to welcome Chen Chen upon seeing him emerging from the airport.
This was a man who had stepped into a foreign land far away from home and barely managed to climb up to the ranks of business management in a medium-sized company. Now, he had broken out of his shell and completed the metamorphosis into a successful upper-class businessman.
Sure enough, nobody should be underestimated. Chen Chen had previously never held Qian Wenhuan to a high standard, he merely offered him a small chance.
Nobody expected Qian Wenhuan to make such good use of the opportunity and step up to the task. He proficiently handled everything, it was a truly impressive feat.
Do not be fooled by Chen Chen who was always either occupied with the research progress or running different operations across the global federation and take that as a sign of him being an absent manager. With the help of Little X at his disposal, he was familiar with all of the inner workings of the company.
This was how he came to be aware that the current organized structure of the company was in no small part due to the concentrated efforts of Qian Wenhuan.
Chen Chen patted Qian Wenhuan on the shoulder with a sense of encouragement. He asked while walking to the car, "What's the situation on my teacher's side?"
"Professor Wang Xi has been situated in the research center and is receiving daily treatment following the model you created. I heard that things are going quite well."
Despite his claims, Qian Wenhuan still broke out a bitter smile. "The only problem is that this old fellow keeps claiming that he can't allow his brain too much rest due to his condition. He spends the entire day trying to discuss all sorts of projects with the members of the research team. Word is that he's on great terms with most staff of the research center at this point."
Chen Chen smiled at the notion. What Professor Wang Xi mentioned about exercising an injured brain was a reference to an article on Nature.
To put it in simple terms, a research team created stroke-induced damage in the brains of mice with the use of lasers. They then began making comparisons between two separate groups of mice.
The result was this: The mice that were put into work right after their stroke displayed a higher and faster rate of recovery compared to the group of mice which were allowed three days of rest before working.
This was to say that a great amount of rest was not the best way to help a wounded brain heal. Instead, it was allowing the brain to exercise that was more efficient.
Of course, these were all merely theories put to pen and had not been practiced on humans.
"If that's what my teacher wants, then let him have it. Just make sure he doesn't get to the true secrets of the research center."
Chen Chen made a gesture and approached the car. Qian Wenhuan was one step ahead of him and opened the car door for Chen Chen to enter.
They only departed after Cheng Cao took over the place of the original driver. The original driver and the accompanying bodyguards went into the second car.
"Right, how's the underground base coming along?"
Chen Chen asked when the engine was started, "Did the Namibian government notice anything?"
"No worries, Boss."
Qian Wenhuan swiftly explained, "We had the construction workers of the underground base sign a confidentiality agreement in exchange for tripling their wages. The terms are that they would remain in the rig every 24 hours of their days, none of them are permitted to leave or make any form of contact with the outside world until the construction is done.
"In addition, we installed a large number of signal interceptors in the district along with building fences with mounted cameras ahead of time. These workers are monitored the entire day, there won't be any issues."
Chen Chen nodded. "Let's check out the underground base."
"Ok."
[ol][li data-annotation-id="ead98a48-1aca-7b5e-10ae-1af61ddc5ee5"]A search engine in China[li data-annotation-id="6f110d32-87a3-cb59-38a4-70f528f04735"]an internet gag poking fun at people faking their identity online.[/ol]
Chapter 134: Visiting the Cavern |
They entered the site of the Eco Science City very soon after.
The sight of hundreds of buildings being constructed was truly a sight to behold. Africa had never seen an operation of such scale, it even led to the birth of a new profession.
This new profession was mainly taken up by the loca
ls who had nothing better to do with their time. Their mission was to kill time by watching as the buildings were built up higher by the day. Chen Chen's crew referred to them as the "Observers".
Initially, Qian Wenhuan made sure to chase these groups out, but as time went on, he quickly realized that it was not going to stop them so he decided to let them be.
The only problem these people caused was the regular loss of various tools on the job site. The losses were not substantial, though it got irritating at one point with how often it happened.
As the vehicle came to the top of the hill, Chen Chen was immediately met with the sight of giant trucks coming back and forth by the foot of the hill. These trucks were loaded with sand, gravel, and building materials. From a distance, they looked like a fleet of hardworking ant soldiers. These passages led to the entrance of the anthills…
Namibia had never been blessed with an operation of this scale.
Right under their feet, several drilling rigs were drilling away, sending waves of tremors across the earth. Although most of the water by the shore was seawater, once they managed to break through the layer in between, they should have access to a considerable amount of freshwater source.
The only problem was that in Africa, the locals would much rather walk twenty kilometers back and forth each day for water as opposed to drawing from a well right outside their house.
This sort of phenomenon was caused by a difference in the environment.
While the outsiders looked at them in bewilderment wondering why they would rather walk the distance to get water than to dig a well, something stranger occurred to them as well - "Why dig underground for water? Doesn't the river provide enough water already?"
Very soon after, they arrived at the edges of a huge wall after having driven along a newly paved road.
The wall stood magnificently at more than ten meters tall. There were barbed wires and surveillance cameras installed on the top of the wall. Chen Chen had only seen such a structure in places like prisons.