An Upgrade in Treatment

Since Henry was labeled as "foolish and rich," he has become significantly more popular than before. In particular, those bigwigs in the industry who think they are superior to everyone else have started to smile more when they meet Henry.

Regardless, filmmaking is a high-risk investment. The financial irregularities and complex payment methods make it difficult for outsiders to determine whether a film is profitable or not.

However, if a film like last year's "Cutthroat Island" were to be released, a box office bomb with a budget of 98 million dollars but only 10 million dollars at the box office, it wouldn't be impossible for it to bankrupt the film company.

This is why the list of the eight major Hollywood Big Eight film studios is constantly changing, and sometimes it's not even complete.

An investor capable of sharing risk is a worthwhile target for recruitment. Even better What If...? this investor is foolish enough to only provide funds without understanding how to recoup them.

Making a blockbuster movie appear to be a loss through accounting tricks is a traditional skill of Hollywood film studios.

Wall Street investors, who are often scammed, have the most to say about this. But newcomers keep jumping in, proving time and again just how deep the pitfalls of Hollywood are.

Sometimes even industry insiders can't escape the clutches of these film companies, getting scammed to the point where they don't even receive the profit sharing agreed upon in their contracts. When asked, they're simply told that they lost money, so where would the profit sharing come from?

How could a fat sheep like Henry, backed by Stark Studios and Stark Industries, who seems to be an insider but is actually an outsider, not be popular?

It's fair to say that if Henry wanted, he could have parties or banquets to attend every night. Going further, having a different encounter every night wouldn't be a big problem either.

Henry certainly wasn't going to be foolish enough to accept everything, but he wasn't going to coldly reject it outright either. If he really acted like a shut-in, hiding at home after work, believe me, he'd receive a firing letter from Tony Stark the next day.

My main task is to keep an eye on the West Coast, not to do technical work at Stark Studios. Does Tony Stark's business need a few shady characters?

Missiles are gone once they're used; you have to buy more if you want to use them again. Can you drop a camera every day?

Henry didn't deliberately try to get close to or curry favor with anyone. He simply chose who to associate with based on his own temperament. Anyway, now that there were more people inviting him, the choice had been reversed and was in his own hands.

Although most inviters still hold the attitude of "inviting you is giving you face, not coming is disrespecting you," there are actually no consequences if you don't go.

Henry thought he was seen as a simpleton by others, and he tried his best to play the role of a tech-savvy nerd. But no one really dared to see him that way.

Sony's experience serves as a cautionary tale, as Henry Brown escaped unscathed. Regardless of Tony Stark's role in this, it speaks volumes.

As for the FBI's inability to find evidence confirming that the Sony bombing was related to Henry Brown,

From another perspective, if someone does something that could easily leave a handle for others to use against them, thus sending themselves to prison, wouldn't such a person be of no value to associate with?

While the label of "foolish and rich" is certainly a reason for Henry's recent popularity, Sony's losses also tell others that this guy is not someone to be trifled with.

Like his boss, that young man who inherited billions, he was both stubborn and difficult to deal with.

However, Henry accepted Hollywood's tentative offer. This was a very good sign.

So the next step is to find this young man's weaknesses, cater to his preferences, and then you can manipulate him completely. This is how Hollywood welcomes newcomers; no one is an exception.

Sometimes, what harms a person isn't necessarily a malicious scheme or a sharp knife; it could be sweet words and seemingly sincere goodwill. Although the latter is more troublesome to execute, it is just as effective.

Therefore, those invitations that clearly looked down on people's intelligence decreased significantly. For Henry, although he still had to be careful in dealing with them, it saved him a lot of trouble.

If these banquets hosted by the core elite circles could really be like parties for college students, where all you have to do is eat and drink, and if you hit it off, you can go to the bathroom or a room together, that would be much simpler.

Unfortunately, Henry's university life before his time travel was dull and uninteresting, and after his time travel, he simply didn't have the chance to go to university at all...

Just as Henry began his charade with Hollywood's second phase, a very special invitation was delivered to the desk of the CEO of Stark Studios.

The envelope was folded from high-quality 30-pound black paper made of linen.

The sealing was a fairly traditional method using a seal and wax. But the fact that the sealing wax was gold was quite unusual. At least, the smell Henry detected wasn't the pungent chemical color; it was genuine gold lacquer seeping into the wax.

Henry couldn't decipher the emblem on the wax seal. This was United States, not Europe of the past where nobles were everywhere. If one studied heraldry, one could discern the sender's origins simply by looking at the coat of arms.

United States who do this either have Europe aristocratic ancestry or are just doing it for fun, and it's not officially recognized. Unfortunately, the latter case is more common, and it's mainly about embellishing their own image.

So don't bring up heraldry; these all have crowns on them, you'd think all the Europe royalty had come to United States.

The "To Henry Brown" inscription on the envelope is neatly written in Gothic script, a type commonly found in medieval church books. In Germany, this script remained in use until the end of World War II.

Starting in the 1980s, near Venice Beach in Los Angeles, Black gangs would wear T-shirts with this font as a symbol of identity. Later, this font was revived through hip-hop culture and became a fashion trend among young people.

So the letter was sent by some Black guy?

For some reason, Henry took a pair of surgical rubber gloves from the drawer, put them on, and then opened the envelope.

Inside wasn't a thick stack of letter paper, but an invitation made of equally high-quality materials. It also had a faint fragrance, not the kind of chemical fragrance, but a natural scent made from rose petals and other ingredients.

Apart from the machine-pressed embossed text on the paper, all the decorative patterns on this invitation were hand-drawn. Even though it appeared symmetrical, Henry could still see a noticeable discrepancy between the laurel leaf patterns on the left and right.

Since it was an invitation, it naturally included the time and place. It was the day before Easter, at an old-fashioned manor house on the outskirts of Los Angeles.

What's unusual is that the signatory isn't a specific individual, but rather a member of a Mystikos Sect (Mystikos_Sect).

He couldn't immediately figure out the origins of this Mystikos Sect, but Henry instinctively felt disgusted by the invitation.

Upon closer examination, the reason lies in the faint smell of blood, the kind that most people wouldn't easily detect.