After passing through a staircase far more dilapidated and filthy than the room itself, and enduring the strange looks from two Black men, Henry returned to his own room. After locking the door securely, he turned on the TV, but there were no programs—probably because no one had paid the bill for a long time and the signal had been forcibly cut off. He had no choice but to turn off the TV and quietly enjoy his dinner.

Chewing the hamburger tastelessly, Henry's mind kept spinning, thinking about how he should make a living next.

The stock market? Not to mention he didn’t even have any capital, it was June 2000, and the Nasdaq crash was in full swing. Besides, he had only ever been a poor student at a third-rate film academy and knew nothing about how stocks worked...

Investing? Who would he invest in with no money? He’d rather have someone invest in him...

Swallowing the food in his mouth, he tossed the remaining half of the hamburger onto the paint-chipped dining table. Henry leaned back in his chair, propping his head up with one hand, racking his brain for a way to get rich quickly.

Of course, planning to continue in the heroin and illegal firearms business like Ross was out of the question.

After thinking it over, Henry returned to the area he was most skilled in—work related to the film industry. Although he was just a student with little hands-on experience, during his studies he had analyzed countless classic Hollywood films and scripts, and had listened to many widely known movie songs.

Shifting into a more comfortable sitting position, Henry immediately dismissed the idea of songs. Listening to songs and writing them were worlds apart. For someone like him, who had never received any professional training, writing a song was impossible—he couldn’t do it even if his life depended on it.

Such unrealistic ideas would only leave him starving...

That left movies and scripts. The film academy he had attended was indeed not prestigious, but the most basic teaching was still guaranteed, and he had been a relatively diligent student. Not only was he familiar with the classic art films analyzed in class, but he had also studied many movies he was interested in during his spare time.

In an instant, an idea surged into Henry's mind: he would write the script for a future classic film and mail it to all the major Hollywood companies. The executives of the Hollywood Big Six would swarm to him like travelers in a desert who had found water, treating him as a super genius. From then on, Henry Stanton would embark on a glorious path in Hollywood, reaping money, power, and beautiful women.

“Haven’t you suffered enough this past year?” Henry suddenly laughed, muttering self-mockingly, “You’re not that naive student anymore. Can you stop having such childish and stupid ideas?”

Even as an outsider, Henry knew that Hollywood never lacked scripts. Not to mention the current Big Six, even second-tier film companies had no idea how many scripts were lying in their script libraries, just waiting to gather dust.

Many future original films had scripts that had been lying in the script libraries of major companies for years...

Henry remembered very clearly that some of the scripts later on Hollywood’s Black List had already appeared back in the eighties and nineties.

The chances of a newcomer’s script being picked up by a film company were infinitesimally small. Still, it was a path—no matter how slim the odds, there was always a glimmer of hope. Henry planned that if he could find a stable job, he could give it a try, just to test his luck.

Thinking of this, Henry stood up and walked to the window, looking out at the star-filled sky in the distance. He sighed, gave up those unrealistic ideas, and shifted his thoughts to the most practical matter: first, he needed to find a legitimate job to solve his livelihood.

Chasing dreams was his right. Henry could endure the maddening despair of prison life for it, and was even willing to do odd jobs for it.

Of course, Henry had another option: to continue his predecessor’s work.

He walked into his predecessor’s studio, which he had also cleaned up until it was spotless. The simple workbench, wooden chair, and the shelf behind them were all free of dust. On the shelf, neatly arranged, were a laptop, a Canon handheld video camera, and a Los Angeles police car radio receiver.

These were all his predecessor’s work equipment.

Sitting at the workbench, Henry opened the laptop and found some news videos shot by his predecessor. From the videos, it was easy to see that the guy mainly filmed social current events, such as car accidents, fires, and robberies. Later, lured by a huge reward, he foolishly went to film Sumner Redstone's private life.

There were not only videos here, but also instructions for using the police receiver, Los Angeles police codes, and contact information for the news directors of several local Los Angeles TV stations.

His predecessor’s job wasn’t complicated either—basically roaming the streets and alleys of Los Angeles, rushing to capture news footage of public interest, and then selling it to interested TV stations.

However, Henry didn’t plan to continue this kind of work; he was just interested in the equipment, since he could sell it for money to keep himself going.

Although he had given up those foolish ideas, Henry still had some plans. This was Hollywood, where countless people worked in film-related jobs, making it his first choice for job hunting.