Chapter 138: Premiere
They had their doubts about Chen Chen’s final claim.
Ever since the dawn of mankind, there had been two things that countless men would willingly spend their whole lives pursuing.
One was power, the second was resources.
However, there was no such thing as definite power in the world. Therefore, the worship for power eventually took on the form of a “community” strength.
With the roots of early society taking shape, the concept of communal strength evolved until the concept of “authority” was birthed.
Resources, on the other hand, were indispensable for human beings to ensure both their survival and continuous reproduction in ancient times. This included animal pelts, stone tools, prey, and even women to a certain extent.
Under harsh conditions, you stand a chance to live a better life than others and reproduce if you obtain more resources.
As the structure of human society grew ever complex, the embodiment of resources slowly morphed into abstract subjects such as money. Still, its essence remained the same.
This was to say that authority and money were the two things that modern human society seek above all else.
With authority, one would be able to establish one’s position over millions. With money, one would be able to easily obtain things that regular people could only dream of.
Whether it was wealth or authority, upon reaching a certain stage, one would be able to be exposed to the corresponding circles and obtain secrets that regular people would never discover in their entire lifetimes.
These secrets concerned the security and interests of the political system and were only known to a selection of people for a certain period.
This included matters of politics, economy, military affairs, finances, technology, and many other information that the Federation could not risk disclosing.
Take finances for example. By knowing ahead of time of a failure of a certain project of a certain company, one should be able to determine that the company’s stock should experience a drop in a few days.
Or in the case of technology, by knowing of a successfully deployed product ahead of time, preparations could be made to antic.i.p.ate the changes the new gadget could cause in the market.
Having access to these pieces of information offered a substantial advantage whether it was for profit acc.u.mulation or risk aversion.
From the perspective of the ones on top who were in charge of this confidential information, regular investors were merely livestock ripe for slaughter.
At this moment, what Chen Chen was doing was breaking the information to these royal families ahead of time. It was a secret that could not be obtained by any other parties in the Federation.
The moment AD-001 made its debut, it was the acetylcholinesterase inhibitor drugs or NMDA receptor antagonist drugs on the market. Perhaps it could be international pharmaceutical companies such as Novartis, Johnson & Johnson, Biogen, Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Roche, Merck, and so on...
More than two decades of patented technology and investments totaling above 600 billion U.S. dollars was going to turn into nothing but sc.r.a.p papers.
When that happened, what sort of ground-breaking revolution was going to occur in the international pharmaceutical market?
There was a good reason Chen Chen chose to disclose this information. He was going to use the resources available to him to section out a network for himself.
Should they believe what he told them, they should know to act accordingly upon being approached by pharmaceutical markets for investment to avoid losing everything three years later.
It was not a big deal even if they chose to not pay mind to it. By the time everything unfolds three years later, these people present here should be able to verify the validity of the information they had received ahead of time. With that, it should boost the prestige of G.o.d’s Forbidden Zone when they disclose similar information again.
Soon enough, G.o.d’s Forbidden Zone would become a unique network for relaying useful information. This was the reason Chen Chen had disclosed insider’s information to them...
Back to the present.
Several days later, the first group of family members of the Disciple Council concluded their successful treatment. The flames of life had been reignited for this group of elder members averaging at above sixty-five-years-old as they had returned to their state thirty years ago.
They had experienced a similar recovery in terms of physical fitness as well. Their physical capabilities had returned to the state of their younger self. It was practically the same as regular thirty-year-old adults.
It was as if the pa.s.sage of time had been reversed.
After escorting them to the plane one by one, Chen Chen recognized that this marked the end of the scouting phase for the eleven families.
Next up, he was going to have to prepare to welcome the head of family and core members of the respective families.
This was also a sign of the eleven families officially taking the side of G.o.d’s Forbidden Zone. There should be no signs of conflict for a short period to come.
Chen Chen was not too worried about the potential leak of the existence of G.o.d’s Forbidden Zone.
First of all, with Little X monitoring the Internet, it was extremely easy to spot any activities directed at him.
Secondly, so what if there was some minor leak somewhere along the lines? This was not some sort of terrorist organization after all. At most, the outside world would see it as several organizations providing mutual aid, similar to a freemasonry system. The entire world knew of the practice of freemasonry anyway, so what?
Besides, Chen Chen also had the relevant qualification certification for conducting clinical trials. No matter how you look at it, Blacklight was a perfectly legitimate biotechnology company. There was no way someone could say that qualification certification for clinical trials issued by Namibia was not standard enough.
As long as the deeper secrets remained hidden, n.o.body could threaten Chen Chen. The worst that could happen was some international criticism that could be easily silenced by enlisting the help of the navy.
Over the last few days, the movie Chen Chen shot had also officially pa.s.sed North America and the Mainland’s screening process. They would be premiering across the two continents and it should take some time for the other continents.
However, the reception was a little controversial.
Deadly Crisis: A Shocking Scheme garnered a rating of 40% on the tomatometer on North America’s renowned film critic site, Rotten Tomatoes. This meant that out of all the professional critics reviewing it, sixty-percent of them gave it a net negative review.
The popcorn meter on the other hand was rated by audience voting. The average score for Chen Chen’s movie was 2.5 out of 5.
As for IMDB, they gave the movie a rating of 6.0 which was a borderline pa.s.sing mark.
“Getlost: I can’t believe this is a Hollywood movie. Apart from the all-star cast, acceptable cinematography, and the all-too-familiar car chase scene, its plot was complete garbage!”
“PSYCHO: Oh G.o.d, this movie is about an idiot who’s being hunted down by an even more idiotic force. It’s like both sides are competing to see who can be the bigger idiot. Voila, the idiot took the crown. Safe to say that this is the worst movie I’ve watched in my entire lifetime!”
“Kill: I think it’s alright. The female protagonist is hot, the scenes are explosive. With all these big-name cast, it was worth the ticket price!”
“Carpenter Qian: So, the story hasn’t even concluded right? Where did the villain come from? Was the director sleepwalking when he made the movie?”
“Douban Reviews: This here is a good old Hollywood cla.s.sic, I’m going to give it five stars... What? This is shot by a Chinese man? Hehe, that explains why it’s so bad, I’ll give it a one-star to balance things out.”
Most people went to the theaters for the all-star cast and ended up dumbfounded by the actual movie itself. In the first week, the total box office of Deadly Crisis: A Shocking Scheme was only 10 million U.S. dollars. 7 million in North America and 3 million in the Mainland.
“Looks like it’s a botched investment.”
Chen Chen helplessly sighed upon reading the many criticisms on review sites. He added to the pile of comments himself:
“Chenchen: Dumb director.”