Volume 5: Growing Up Chapter 313 The Road Home
Tommy changed into casual clothes, put on sunglasses, and walked towards his car which was now parked in front of the Eagle's Nest gate.
"This car is very cool." Hilbert, who looked like a nerd, was leaning against the pillar next to him. When he saw Tommy walking towards the car, he stood up and spoke.
It was a four-seater hardcore convertible sports car in black and blue. There was no need to look at the interior. Just by looking at the golden goddess logo standing on the large radiator grille on the front of the car, one could understand that this mechanical monster was very expensive.
Limited to 200 units worldwide, the Rolls-Royce Terrain IV was once the world's largest, most expensive and most luxurious four-seater convertible sports car .
"The cost of modifying it is enough to buy three more of them." Tommy turned his head and looked at his son. "Dorothy said that you and your high school friends are going to visit Caltech today."
Hilbert spread his hands nervously: "They have already left. I... uh... my mother just called and said that before you remarry her, Uncle Dennis wants to help you hold a bachelor party..."
Seeing his nervous look, Tommy frowned: "I didn't plan to invite you."
"Uh... Mom left it for me to give to you before she left last night. She told you to wait until the day of the party to open it." Hilbert handed Tommy an envelope.
Tommy stared at his son and tore open the envelope with his hands.
Inside was a Newport scenery postcard, and on the back was a handwritten sentence by Otilia: "Have fun, and remember to come home for dinner the next day", and there was also a piece of Virgan, a Trojan, stuck on it.
Hilbert quietly moved closer to take a look and whispered, "Very affectionate."
"I never needed this stuff, and the price was very high." Tommy tore off the pill and threw it away, then pinned the postcard on the front of the car: "The wedding is in two weeks. All I can do is drive this car alone across America, have one last fun, and then return to my family and become a castrated old horse."
Hilbert said: "Maybe... not alone, I mean, I can go home with you, this is..."
"Have you considered studying at Stanford University?" Tommy asked a strange question when he saw his son expressed his willingness to accompany him on this long journey.
Hilbert shook his head: "No, I haven't thought about it. MIT is my only belief."
"Then stay away from me, kid."
Hilbert said frantically, "I explained to you that SSD is not suitable for me. My teacher recommended me to join the cooler Physics Honors Fraternity, which is full of students who like physics. I once tried to please you by trying to understand SSD, but I couldn't accept some of the things they talked to me about. For example, I didn't understand why, in order to join SSD, they had to stuff a hundred coins into my butt, make me stand in a horse stance, and then let another rookie swing an inflatable hammer to hit my head until my head vibrated and all the coins fell out of my butt! This is naked bullying and humiliation. When you joined SSD, your anus was also filled with coins?"
"Their way of recruiting new members is so cool now? Okay, I admit that I didn't enjoy this process. You can also refuse. After all, I think it is a bit exaggerated. The first time of that thing should be reserved for your Connie or other girls." Tommy noticed the look in Hilbert's eyes and immediately explained that he did not enjoy this way of recruiting new members back then.
"If your life doesn't start according to your plan, you will be cold and violent towards that person, right?" Hilbert mustered up the courage to say to Tommy.
Tommy raised his eyebrows in dissatisfaction. "I didn't force anyone, son. Did I make you feel cold and violent? You can still go to MIT. I'm just a little sad. After all, many resources of Stanford University will now be given to another person."
"Another child? Who?"
"Archie, your Aunt Diane's son is a few years older than you. He took a break from high school for a while, but recently he is willing to listen to my advice and go to Stanford University to study in an information engineering-related major."
"The child of the lady who played my mother in the movie? Like Phyllis, I have another half-sibling? If the descendants of the Hawke family want to compile a family tree one day, they will be at a loss. Or my sister Jenny may ask that the distribution of your genealogy never be made public."
"Don't put all your eggs in one basket. See you at the wedding in Newport, son." Tommy patted Hilbert on the shoulder, then turned around and got in the car, started the car and drove away. His final instructions to his son were heard in the wind:
"I don't belong to the Hawke family. If you open the Internet, you won't find any information about me in the past twenty years, so don't try to figure out how many brothers and sisters I gave birth to for you."
…
When Stephen Bean, dressed in black, followed the crowd out of the church, he saw Tommy leaning against the front of the car, holding a cigarette and looking at him:
"Your assistant said you were here for a funeral."
"My girlfriend's grandfather passed away." Stephen came over, ripped off the white flower on his chest, pointed at the beautiful woman in the crowd in the distance, who looked to be in her twenties at most and had an irrepressible smile on her face, and introduced her to Tommy, "Her grandfather was two years older than me. He was my senior in the Order of the Phoenix when I was in college."
Tommy took out a cigarette and handed it to him: "The smiles on those people's faces made me feel that the ones who died were not their relatives, but their enemies."
"Because I did something really stupid." Stephen lit a cigarette and looked at Tommy.
Tommy had a look of understanding: "You proposed to your senior's lovely granddaughter at his funeral? Were you afraid that if you proposed to his granddaughter while he was still alive, your senior would break your golf club?"
Stephen smiled with a sense of loss and nodded gently to Tommy. "Yes, although it was a little...unexpected, I did it. I can't be alone in the coffin like her grandfather. I also want to have a group of family members around my body, racking my brains to recall the few good things I have done in my life that are worth mentioning, and say them out loud in front of God. I hope that God will bless me to ascend to heaven for the good things I have done."
"Unless something unexpected happens, according to current medical standards, you will have to wait for 40 to 50 years to die of natural causes. In terms of time, you and your girlfriend can indeed create a large number of relatives and have them surround your body after you die." Tommy blew out a smoke ring. "If you include those real and fake illegitimate children, your family group can be expanded several times."
"Let's change the subject. What do you want to talk to me about? Let me know. Someone accused Caver of violating U.S. securities laws, but I didn't handle it in a timely manner. So are you going to find someone else to take care of the business so that I can retire and focus on my honeymoon? Or do you have any other streaming-related business to discuss with me?" Stephen asked Tommy.
Stephen Bean is now the undoubted king of Hollywood, or in other words, the gravekeeper of Hollywood. Countless film companies have been ruined by his Crave online video streaming. Crave is a replica of Netflix that Tommy arranged for Stephen, but it is more harmful to Hollywood than the non-existent Netflix. Because long before the Internet could achieve smooth online video playback, Stephen, under the instruction of Tommy, broke into Hollywood as a rich fool, deceived a group of people, and bought up the online broadcasting rights of 70% of the Hollywood film companies' film libraries. When the Internet streaming era came, Crave immediately started its own film and television business regardless of losses. This led to the Internet streaming era. No film company or even video company has such a rich source of films as Crave, not only American films, but also including British, French, German, Canadian, Japanese, Korean and so on.
Today, Crave has more than 340 million paying subscribers worldwide, with a subscription fee of US$9.99. Its monthly paid subscription revenue alone amounts to more than 3 billion. Although its expenses are equally staggering, this size of behemoth is no longer something that Hollywood film companies can contend with, because it speaks with intuitive data. For example, Crave's unblinking promise to produce 300 original film and television works a year, with an annual production budget of up to US$15 billion, makes it impossible for any director or actor in the world to refuse Crave's invitation.
Those traditional film companies have now become content providers for Crave.
Today, Stephen Bean has realized his original dream. His office is filled with the Grand Slam of Emmy Awards and Oscars. He has collected all the awards from these two award ceremonies.
Tommy shook his head. "The guy who accused Crave committed suicide. The Supreme Court also said that after investigation, it found that the other party's evidence was insufficient. I'm not here to discuss business, Stephen. I want to say that I'm getting married too."
"Let me guess. It must not be Sophia, because there is no need. Diane is also impossible. That silly woman has been brainwashed by you into a medieval woman. So it must be Jenny's husband's mother, the German woman who stayed in Stanford for a few years and got you pregnant? Her husband finally couldn't stand this weird life and committed suicide?" Stephen saw that Tommy's expression didn't seem to be joking, and began to speculate:
"Or Sandra Bullock's lawyer sister? She's a good match for you. She's just as much of a jerk as you. Don't say that you and she have a purely employment relationship. I know you often play pyramids with her at the Four Seasons Hotel..."
"Otilia," Tommy said to Stephen.
Stephen was stunned and looked at Tommy: "Otilia? You are kidding, right? The Otilia Farrell you hurt, the Chief Justice of the United States, Otilia Farrell?"
"Jenny's exposure in Germany will continue to increase in the next few years. It is necessary to show the public that she comes from an excellent and publicly recognized family. The family is harmonious. Her mother is a judge and her father is a small businessman. She had a happy childhood." Tommy blew a smoke ring. "I thought the resistance to remarrying and returning to the family would come from my brother, my father and even Otilia. I didn't expect that only Jenny voted against it. She felt that she didn't need my help to create a false happy growth experience."
"She still hates you." Stephen said about Jenny, his face also looked a little unhappy: "You made Jenny unwilling to return to the United States. As her godfather, I have to go to Germany for vacation to see her. Poor girl."
"Why do you hate me? I admit that I did fuck her husband's mother, but that was before I married her to the other man! And I compensated Jenny by giving her the whole of Germany to run wild." Tommy threw away his cigarette butt and looked at Stephen: "I promised Otilia that I would not mess around after marriage, so the single party that Dennis helped me organize the day before the wedding is my last chance to deal with young bodies. Remember to come and participate."
"The price of marriage is a bit high. After listening to you, I have to reconsider whether to marry my girlfriend. After all... I just turned 60, and I am not used to spending the rest of my life with her." Stephen smiled at Tommy: "I guess you will drive by to inform Jason, Jim, Pam and others and say hello to them for me."
"See you at the club retirement ceremony." Tommy got in the driver's seat, started the car and drove along the road.
