Promotion

What Chen Yuanguang said was true in a sense. Time travel could be seen as an overly vivid dream, and Kuala Lumpur Affairs had indeed been adapted from the images in his mind.

But neither the audience nor the host knew the truth behind it. They simply assumed Chen Yuanguang had an exceptionally wild imagination and that dreams were the source of his inspiration.

"During the film's early promotional campaign, we noticed that you were credited as a special consultant. We're all curious—what exactly did that role involve during production?" the host continued.

Lin Jia had negotiated for Chen Yuanguang to be an assistant director, but he later turned it down himself, feeling that he did not have the energy to take on an assistant director's responsibilities. He only accepted the title of special consultant.

He felt that special consultant better matched the work he had actually done. "My main task was to describe the world I dreamed of and accurately convey my understanding of the future world to the director."

The host did not ask many questions before the screening, and the film officially began.

Chen Yuanguang sat in the front row with the university leadership, including Dean Shu.

As the School of Biology was one of the university's strongest disciplines, Dean Shu was also a member of the school's leadership team.

As the film played, he remarked, "Yuanguang, I never expected you to have talent in this area as well.

"I'm very pleased that our School of Biology has produced someone as outstanding as you."

In the night, Chen Yuanguang merely replied, "Thank you, Dean."

Chen Yuanguang had heard from classmates he knew that, because of his sudden emergence this year, the admission cutoff scores for the university's School of Chemistry had risen slightly in many provinces.

Even more tellingly, the number of first-year students applying to transfer out of the School of Chemistry had dropped noticeably this year.

That was the power of having a role model.

This was the most immediate benefit to the School of Chemistry. As for the university as a whole, Chen Yuanguang was still far too young. His future was worth anticipating, and it remained to be seen on which page of the list of distinguished alumni Chen Yuanguang would someday appear.

"Senior, compared to the thrilling schemes in the film, I'm more curious about how you designed the future world.

"From the little details, I've formed a general impression of that future world. It seems like a society that could be called a utopia, completely different from the way mainstream science fiction currently extrapolates the future.

"Most science fiction today believes the future will be bleak. It has even given rise to the concept of Cyberpunk, where the gap between the upper and lower classes keeps widening. How do you view the future?"

After the screening ended, it was time for audience questions. Before the session began, the students below erupted into applause to express their admiration for the film.

Some people even shouted that it was good.

Precisely because the movie was so wonderful, many people raised their hands during the post-screening interview, eager to ask Chen Yuanguang questions.

Chen Yuanguang took the microphone from the host. "I believe the future world I depicted only offered material satisfaction. Given the productivity of that era, such satisfaction was actually very basic.

"Once productivity exploded, even purely for the sake of social stability, the lower classes would not be allowed to become unable to survive.

"Moreover, in the world I depicted, the gap between the lower and upper classes was indeed growing larger. It simply was not emphasized too much.

"In the film, even the murder victim could live in a villa, while ordinary people could only live in subsidized housing with forty square meters per person.

"AI controlled everything, and ordinary people had very few opportunities. Their odds of moving from a forty-square-meter subsidized home into a villa in the wealthy district were far lower than in modern society.

"As for the upper classes, they could extend their lifespans through hibernation technology, experience virtual reality, and use all sorts of technological means to enrich their lives.

"The technological benefits enjoyed by the lower classes, meanwhile, were about the same as ours. What I depicted was not a utopia, but despair hidden beneath tranquility," Chen Yuanguang explained.

To heighten the novel's conflict and lay the groundwork for what followed, Chen Yuanguang had adopted the logic of how Samad's world operated.

Seeing that the student who had asked the question had already sat down and that the event staff had taken away the microphone, Chen Yuanguang thought for a moment and added two more sentences.

"For humans before the Industrial Revolution, having food to eat and clothes to wear was already an extraordinary blessing. But would most people in modern society be satisfied with just that?

"Obviously not. People in the future would not be satisfied with such basic needs either. But because those basic needs had been met, they would lack the motivation to change the status quo. That is why I say it was despair hidden beneath tranquility."

"Yuanguang, Goose Factory sent me the latest news. The first day's box office exceeded one hundred million, reaching 120 million yuan."

"On the second day, the box office rose against the trend. It's at 150 million yuan now."

At around one in the morning each day, Goose Factory synchronized the newest box office figures with Lin Jia, and Lin Jia told Chen Yuanguang the next morning.

Chen Yuanguang had been quite happy on the first day. The opening-day numbers alone proved that their investment would not lose money. Of the eight million yuan, six million had been his investment.

After the second day's figures came out, Chen Yuanguang said over breakfast, "Looks like the movie is a massive hit. At this rate, it's heading for two billion."

Lin Jia replied quickly, "More than that. Rising against the trend is an excellent sign. Yesterday was Sunday, and today is Monday.

"That proves the marketing worked, and the film itself was strong enough. At least two billion in revenue.

"We invested eight million, while the film's total investment was around eighty million. If we calculate based on the minimum box office of two billion, total returns would be six to seven hundred million, and our share would be sixty to seventy million.

"After deducting twenty percent income tax, the final return would fall somewhere between fifty and fifty-five million.

"If you had listened to me and registered a film investment company in Horgos, you could have avoided personal income tax entirely.

"Even if you had set up a personal studio, the tax rate would only have been 0.5%. Why suffer through paying twenty percent personal income tax now?"

Thinking about how Chen Yuanguang had stubbornly refused to listen and had not registered a personal studio in Horgos made Lin Jia angry.

Why the moral hang-up? So many actors and directors use this method to avoid taxes. You can see Horgos in company names on movie tickets every year.

Everyone does it. It's fine. No one will come after you.

Chen Yuanguang felt there was no need. This amount of money was nothing to him, and there was no need to give others leverage over him for such a matter.

Through the history of the future, he had come to understand that having no weaknesses was often what mattered most. Only by having no weaknesses could one survive to the end.

"It feels like I achieved financial freedom a little too easily," Chen Yuanguang said with a sigh.

Lin Jia complained, "Ten million is already the financial freedom goal for many people, and you just gave it up so casually."