Chapter 569: I Lived with the Principal

Due to a 13-hour time difference between the two locations, Los Angeles local time is 13 hours behind Beijing time; departing at 9 p. m. means arriving at Los Angeles International Airport around 10:30 a. m. the next day.

This was the first time in five years the two had set foot on Los Angeles soil again—it felt like yesterday!

"Wow! Sunny weather, so comfortable!" Liu Tianxian spread her arms wide.

Los Angeles weather is like this: dry with little rain, consistently sunny, with an average high temperature of around 23 degrees.

The average low temperature is around 13 degrees.

The weather here is similar to Kunming in my country—not too hot, not too cold, just right.

Fang Hong felt like he had entered another world: everywhere were unfamiliar characters, white people with blond hair and blue eyes, and black people with dark skin.

Occasionally spotting an East Asian made him feel warmly familiar, like meeting an old hometown friend in a foreign land, eyes welling up.

But he wouldn't even greet them—how could he tell if they were Japanese or Korean?

Shi Zhi Mao was fine; she had lived here for many years, and even after returning home for a few years, she still retained some Western habits.

"So many years have passed, and this place hasn't changed much," Shi Zhi Mao sighed.

It's only been four or five years—what change could there be?

"Sister Shi, I heard you lived here for many years—is that true?" Liu Tianxian asked.

She was dressed casually: a knit sweater, still jeans, and a large pair of sunglasses—no one here knew her.

We foreigners find Westerners hard to tell apart, and Westerners find us equally indistinguishable.

"I lived here for about fifteen years, studied here, and even worked at Pixar for several years," Shi Zhi Mao said.

"Wow, wasn't that Steve Jobs's company before?" Liu Tianxian exclaimed, having heard a little about it.

"Yes, Steve Jobs once made animated films—Toy Story was the world's first fully computer-generated animated feature film, a huge success that helped Pixar go public, and when Disney acquired it, it was worth $7.4 billion," Shi Zhi Mao recounted her former company's history.

Pixar is now a Disney-owned animation studio, but before Disney bought it, it was Steve Jobs's company—he acquired it back in 1986 for $10 million.

So Steve Jobs bought it for $10 million and sold it to Disney for $7.4 billion—massive profit!

"Looks like talented people excel at everything," Liu Tianxian sighed—this remark was directed at Fang Hong.

"Of course. I'm a director, but I'm also great at the internet, gaming, and running companies," Fang Hong puffed himself up.

"Prove it—make me a groundbreaking smartphone," Liu Tianxian said.

"I can't," Fang Hong shook his head.

"Exactly—he changed an era, led an era; you just followed it," Liu Tianxian said, with some logic.

Though she usually showed no interest in such things, her mind was sharp and she understood the situation well.

"I was just born too late—if I'd been born decades earlier, there'd have been no room for Steve Jobs—he'd only be dimmed by my brilliance," Fang Hong bragged.

"Pfft!" Liu Tianxian waved her hand, ignoring his boasting.

The group dragged their luggage out of the terminal—crowds surged everywhere, noise was deafening, and announcements occasionally blared in English.

They stood by the roadside, where traffic flowed heavily outside.

"Didn't we tell Yu Xian to wait? It's already this late and he hasn't shown up," Liu Tianxian checked her wristwatch.

Before boarding the plane, they had agreed on a specific arrival time and asked Yu Xian to wait here in advance.

"Who knows where he is? I'll call him," Fang Hong pulled out his phone—he hadn't been able to make calls on the plane.

Just as he was about to dial, a flashy big G pulled up in front of them, the window rolling down.

Yu Xian removed his sunglasses, tossed his head, and said in a theatrical tone: "Hello, handsome guys and beautiful ladies from the East—get in!"

"Why do you act like a rebellious teen?" Liu Tianxian laughed at his appearance—he wore a leather jacket with tassels.

But Yu Xian wasn't even that old—he was about her age, and already had a fortune beyond imagination.

"Rebellious? Young people here all act like this—it's called trendy," Yu Xian glanced at himself.

"Nice, very cool. And this car? Totally flashy," Liu Tianxian sized up both man and vehicle.

"Of course—I bought this car long ago, you just haven't been to the U. S. in years to see it. I've got a house too—I'll take you to see it later," Yu Xian beamed—he'd bought a car and house these past years and had never shown off to the Principal yet.

"Very good, very good," Liu Tianxian felt relieved seeing him doing well.

Though she'd heard all about Yu Xian's mansion, she'd never seen it in person.

Fang Hong and Shi Zhi Mao stowed their luggage in the trunk, then got into the front passenger seat, while the two women sat in the back.

After sitting in the front passenger seat, he sized up Yu Xian.

"We haven't seen each other in years, I know you've missed me, but you don't need to stare at me like that—what about Immortal Sister?" Yu Xian joked, still driving.

"Pfft! I don't care who you stare at," Liu Tianxian said dismissively from the backseat.

Of course, outwardly she acted that way—what she thought inside was anyone's guess.

"You don't know the depth of our bond—we used to bathe and massage each other together, our friendship was profound," Yu Xian was now completely relaxed, no longer shy as he once was; he'd spoken to Liu Tianxian many times on the phone and could joke freely.

Hearing this, Shi Zhi Mao couldn't help but chuckle—she couldn't imagine two grown men doing that.

But she took it as a joke and didn't believe it was true.

"I don't believe it," Liu Tianxian doubted.

"Don't doubt it—we lived together—I lived with the Principal," Yu Xian boasted—this alone would earn him extra face.

He knew the Principal's reputation was thunderous back home, but now his fame in Hollywood was equally loud.

Just because Big Hero 6 and Gravity were released, some people began noticing this mysterious figure from the East.

With technical and production prowess rivaling Hollywood, he had drawn attention.

Previously, only a few bosses knew—Universal's Donna, Warner's Lao Zha; though the Zeng family had heard of him, they'd only heard of Yu Xian, and his films were either pornographic or horror—how could they be respectable?

Even if he made money and had good box office numbers, the mainstream still didn't recognize him—of course, for Hollywood's scale, box office was just decent.

His highest-grossing film was Fifty Shades of Grey with over $500 million; no other film exceeded $400 million.

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$400 million converts to about 2.8 billion RMB.

Now the domestic market alone can almost reach that scale for a single film, let alone Hollywood, which faces the global market.

Recently, Gravity has been getting very high praise within the Hollywood circle.

James Cameron is a big admirer, saying: "I think this is the best space-themed film ever made. It's been a long time since I've seen a film like this. They say it was a Principal from Dongfang Satellite TV who delivered a story about a woman fighting for her life in zero-gravity space. The story bears no trace of artifice."

Guillermo del Toro said: "The most designed, the most elegant, the most powerful sci-fi film."

Guillermo del Toro is the one who directed Pacific Rim, and The Hobbit was also written by him.

And Gravity is still fermenting in North America and on overseas sites; very few viewers who've seen it have anything bad to say about the film.

96% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, total score 10, rating 8.7; on Metacritic it falls into the "generally acclaimed" tier.

And this version of the film is different from the domestic one — the part with the patriotic radio subplot was cut, and following the original, it was made into the female lead's fantasy.

So at the time, Liu Tianxian filmed it twice.

Doing it this way was suggested by Universal back then; overseas audiences don't really take to that kind of patriotic sentiment — you can satirize, you can criticize, but they can't grasp that kind of patriotism.

They're not citizens of your country, after all — how could they possibly empathize with you?

And censorship isn't easy to get past either; imported films aren't given the same leeway as domestic ones, and with so many countries releasing it, you can't possibly deal with every single censor.

Gravity was released in 52 countries in succession; they called it a global simultaneous release, but in reality it was only simultaneous in China, North America, and South Korea — everywhere else rolled out later, at different times.

So Fang Hong thought it over and decided to follow the original version.

"Oh-ho, so you two are the real deal!" Liu Tianxian chuckled, teasing.

"Who's the real deal with him? Back then my career had just started, right? My first film Those Years hadn't been released yet, and we had just graduated from Beijing Film Academy, so we just ended up renting a place together for the time being." Fang Hong explained.

"Oh, I see!" Liu Tianxian said she understood.

At the time she knew this man was very poor — he had no money and even borrowed some from her; she knew all about the situation.

It was just that the two of them had only just met back then, so she couldn't help too much.

"He says it and you just believe it?"

"Why do you have so much to say? Like a woman. I heard the United States has 97 genders — did someone trick you into getting a sex change?"

Yu Xian had just been about to speak when Fang Hong cut him off.

"Am I that stupid? Even if I stopped being a man, I wouldn't go get a sex change!" Yu Xian thought about being castrated and felt an ache in his balls, a hundred shivers of disgust.

"Good then, don't be so dumb as to let someone trick you into a sex change. I heard the son of a world richest man got tricked into becoming a woman." Fang Hong shared the gossip.

Talking about Elon Musk's son — he was tricked by certain people from being a man into becoming a woman; pretty tragic.

"Who? How come I don't know about this?" Yu Xian was puzzled — he hadn't even heard that Bill Gates's son had been tricked into becoming a woman.

And his son seems to be very young too, only 16, born in '99.

The current world's richest man is Bill Gates!

The two behind them were also curious — they hadn't heard about this either.

"I only heard about it — might be true, might not. That country's so messed up, who knows." Fang Hong casually changed the subject.

"Isn't that just pure blackening of the United States?" Yu Xian said.

(End of chapter)