Chapter 1: The Prodigal Son

The morning sunlight fell on the straight road, illuminating the English letters all over the street. Ronald, reeking of alcohol, stood in front of a newsstand, staring intently at a copy of the Los Angeles Times.

The date on the newspaper was marked as January 5, 1998.

Ronald rubbed his haggard face and ruffled his bird’s nest-like hair. In fact, ever since he woke up in a bar at dawn, he had realized something had happened, and now he was completely sure.

He had come from the other side of the Pacific, more than twenty years in the future, to Los Angeles in 1998.

To be precise, this was Burbank, a satellite city of Los Angeles.

“Morning, Mr. Anderson.” The newsstand owner greeted him proactively. “Want a paper?”

Ronald nodded, bought a copy of the Los Angeles Times, and walked toward the entrance of a small office building nearby.

“Isn’t that Ronan Anderson?” A plump middle-aged woman came out of the newsstand. “Look at how down-and-out he is! What a prodigal son—Old Anderson’s fortune and company were all squandered by him.”

The newsstand owner tugged at the woman. “Lisa, don’t talk nonsense.”

The middle-aged woman muttered, “But it’s true.”

All these words drifted over, but Ronald paid them no mind. They weren’t wrong—the previous owner of this body had indeed fallen into dire straits.

Arriving in front of the office building, he easily found the name “Sandy Sea Entertainment” among the hanging plaques. Ronald didn’t go in immediately, but stared silently at the golden company plaque.

After drinking with advertising clients, he had staggered home drunk, lay down, and upon waking, found himself in a Los Angeles bar on the other side of the Pacific, having become this guy named Ronan Anderson.

Was it because of the identical-sounding name?

From waking up at dawn until now, his chaotic thoughts had gradually become clear.

Having read plenty of time-travel novels, accepting all this wasn’t too hard.

On the other side of the Pacific, he was all alone—apart from a decent job, he didn’t have much to worry about.

Ronald lowered his eyelids as Ronan Anderson’s memories surged in his mind.

This guy could be summed up in one sentence: ambitions as high as the sky, but a fate as fragile as paper.

Ronan Anderson came from a good family. His father, Old Anderson, was a millionaire who founded Sandy Sea Entertainment in the 1980s, mainly engaged in film production.

The company was very small, focusing on producing B-movies released directly to video. Old Anderson was a typical conservative, never touching projects with investments over a million. In the ten years since its founding, the company’s works remained obscure, but he still managed to accumulate a considerable fortune.

A little over a year ago, Old Anderson and his wife went hiking in Utah’s geological park, encountered a landslide, and both perished. The company and the family fortune all fell into Ronan Anderson’s hands.

At nineteen, Ronan Anderson dropped out of USC’s film school and took over Sandy Sea Entertainment.

The company was small, and Ronan Anderson held all the shares.

The young man’s ideas were extremely radical. He wanted to turn Sandy Sea Entertainment into a big company, completely rejecting Old Anderson’s business strategy. He staked almost all the company’s and his own cash, the insurance payout from Old Anderson and his wife, and even mortgaged the family home to raise a huge sum of six million dollars to produce a bloody action film called “Desperate Survival.”

This was an era when action movies were all the rage—even someone like Nicolas Cage, known for art films, had transformed into an action star.

Unfortunately, in early October last year, “Desperate Survival” was released in North America, but was pulled from theaters after just four weeks.

Its North American box office barely reached $800,000. After the distributor deducted various fees, Sandy Sea Entertainment’s share was negligible.

The film flopped in North America, and no one was interested in its overseas distribution rights.

In the following two months, Sandy Sea Entertainment’s cash flow broke down, banks came to collect debts, employees resigned one after another, and Ronan Anderson found himself on the verge of both personal and corporate bankruptcy.

This young man with sky-high ambitions collapsed instantly and began frequenting bars to drown his sorrows.

And then he ended up here.

“He’s not even named Ellison, yet he dropped out to invest in making movies.”

Ronald really didn’t know what to say. Judging from the memories left behind, the guy did have talent—he could even be called a top student at USC’s film school.

Especially in screenwriting, he had considerable skill.

The script for “Desperate Survival” was written by Young Anderson himself.

But talent and success are by no means the same thing.

Too idealistic, too impulsive.

He actually invested almost all his capital into such a high-risk venture as filmmaking.

With Ronald’s years of industry experience, the best way to invest in movies is to use other people’s resources to make a profit.

Of course, that’s also extremely difficult.

In his previous life on the other side of the Pacific, Ronald graduated from a second-rate drama school and had always worked in fields related to film and television production.

He started as an assistant on set, and through hard work and various means, stepped over countless competitors to become a small-time producer. As online video became popular, he moved to Penguin Video, overseeing some content production and operations.

Looking at the Sandy Sea Entertainment plaque, and thinking of all the film knowledge and operational experience in his head, Ronald suddenly smiled.

Hollywood, the internet—there’s a lot to be gained.