Chapter 1067: One Billion
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Lucid dreaming sounded like a shady thing. No proper research organization had done any extensive research on it. The human brain was extremely complicated, and scientists hadn’t even figured out how consciousness had come to be. Needless to say, subconscious consciousness was even less understood.
Zhang Zian clarified with Famous, “Of course, I don’t believe in this. That repeated practicing can make you forget the boundaries between dreams and reality… This is just like something out of a fantasy novel. Only w.a.n.g Qian and Li Kun would believe in something like that. But saying that repeated practice would be able to help you control the outcomes of your dreams… I wouldn’t dare deny it completely.”
“So you mean to say that there’s such a possibility?” Famous asked.
Zhang Zian hesitated for a bit before nodding. “I don’t think we can completely rule it out.”
Famous sank into deep thought.
“Even though scientists haven’t researched lucid dreaming much, there is something similar—the VR games that many fantasy books mention,” Zhang Zian added. “Both of these allow the human body to experience things that they would never be able to in real life, or to experience something that has a high cost in real life easily in VR…”
“Isn’t that great?” Famous asked. “Since a very small amount of people in the real world can take control of a huge amount of resources and wealth, isn’t it a good thing to let normal people experience power and wealth through things like lucid dreaming and VR games?”
“If it’s just once or twice, just occasionally, then it’s fine. But, in most fantasy books, most VR gamers eventually end up too immersed in the virtual world, unwilling to surface,” Zhang Zian warned. “Because of how amazing the virtual world is, the real world becomes boring to them, unappealing and unattractive. Some of them willingly let go of the real world… You can only experience VR games once or twice, but in order to be good at lucid dreaming, you have to continuously practice it, and it has a risk of addiction, causing a disappointment in reality.”
Even though some dreams helped people to calm down, dreams were just that—dreams. They were not reality, and it wouldn’t be good to be too obsessed.
Famous understood the message between the lines. “I got it. I will be careful.”
In its dream, it knew that it was dreaming, but it had always been hesitant about changing the direction of the dream. For example, there was the dream that showed up according to Old Time Tea’s memories. What was outside the scope of its memories? Was it white, unfinished pictures like an uncompleted video game, or was it a deep abyss of which you couldn’t see the end?
It didn’t know, and it hadn’t tried to find out.
But it didn’t know what had happened to cause its hesitation to decrease and its confidence to inflate drastically, pus.h.i.+ng him to venture into the unknown. For example…
In Old Time Tea’s memories, there were definitely no traces of 20th century Europe. If Famous kept walking west while in the dream, what would happen? What would it see?
If Famous had really succesfully reached Europe, in the midst of the war, would it see its young self?
No! Not its young self—it was the young Rin Tin Tin!
Famous jolted, shaking its head to wake itself up. It was too deep into the character, and it had almost mixed itself up with Rin Tin Tin again.
It had played Rin Tin Tin for too long. The movie company staff had asked it to imitate Rin Tin Tin in every breath and every step. Deng Ken often carried it to repeat how it had carried the young Rin Tin Tin out of the fire years ago… After some time, it became almost like brainwas.h.i.+ng.
The other elfins started to come downstairs too. Zhang Zian opened the curtains and windows to air the room out before picking up his phone from beside his pillow to check his unread messages.
He had been pulled into several groups and had a lot of unread messages. Nearly twenty to thirty people added him as friends every day. Some of them were customers, some of them fans of the films, some of them reporters, and some of them government officials. He had to filter through them before adding some of them as friends.
Peng Xuan had sent him several messages at around one in the morning.
Zhang Zian thought he might have some important issues to discuss, so he opened those messages first.
Peng Xuan: “Hey Zhang, are you asleep?
Peng Xuan: I have good news. Our movie finally premiered after getting delayed twice. The preliminary numbers for our box office sales are out. Guess what the number is!
Peng Xuan: Alright, guess you’re already asleep. There’s not many youngsters that sleep so early like you. I wanted you to guess, but I suppose I should just tell you directly. I’ll get insomnia if I keep it to myself.
Peng Xuan: One billion!
Peng Xuan: Isn’t it shocking? Everyone in the production crew was extremely shocked. Our budget for production and marketing wasn’t even half a billion, and a part of it was additional marketing fees that we got after the award. This is like a dream!
Peng Xuan: Alright, I’m going to sleep. My wife nagged at me several times, but I think I’ll still lose sleep tonight.
Peng Xuan: The crew’s preparing for a celebration dinner. Are you able to come?
Peng Xuan: Hope to see your reply! Tell Famous hi for me! Good night!”
Zhang Zian finished reading the messages, surprise and excitement bubbling in his heart. Even though they had all thought that the box office results wouldn’t be bad—they could see this from the number of fans coming into the shop to take photos with Famous every day, some of them even coming from miles away just to tell Famous how impactful the movie had been for them—no one had guessed that they would have one billion sales!
One billion—they could almost squeeze into the top ten movies in China for the year. For a movie with a dog as its main character, this was a never-before-seen accomplishment.
Besides, even though those results were nothing compared to extremely popular movies, the response from the overseas market was surprisingly good. Several countries had already brought the movie in. If everything went well, they could get another wave of profit from overseas.
The other messages were mostly congratulations from the production crew or other directors or producers that had wanted to work with them. Even the main producer Nie Yuan had sent him a few customary congratulations… It was fine just skimming through them, since he could just send all of them a general message back. Some of them were just fair-weather friends, after all.
After reading all of his messages, Zhang Zian had wanted to lock his phone, start was.h.i.+ng up, and tell Famous the good news too.
Right then, another message popped up.
[Game notice]: Congratulations! Your reincarnated dog has collected enough belief points and can level up now!