[Chapter 957: The Reaction]
After reading the draft of the feature article from Forbes magazine word for word, a slightly dazed Drew turned her head and stared at Eric for quite some time, as if searching for something unique about him. Finally, she blurted out, "Eric, how about we buy another plane?"
Eric playfully tapped her on the forehead and laughed, "So, you're planning to start an airline?"
Drew just blinked and replied, "It's $136.88 billion. I suddenly think maybe we should hire a few more bodyguards."
"No need," Eric shook his head. "We can just have Natasha and the others put up a sign outside the gate that says 'Tonight, Miss Drew Barrymore personally guards the money with a Gatling gun.' I bet nobody would dare to come near."
"Ha ha," she chuckled, then became serious and said, "That's a good idea. I'll get someone to buy a Gatling gun and keep it at home tomorrow. Hmm, maybe two, one for each of the twins."
While ordinary people couldn't typically purchase heavy weaponry like Gatling guns, it was no issue for top-tier billionaires. Among the people Eric knew, many had a fondness for collecting military hardware like tanks and cannons.
"Be careful, those things are not to be taken lightly," he advised before getting up. "I'm going to make a few phone calls."
Drew nodded and watched as Eric walked upstairs. She immediately jumped up, grabbed the cordless phone from the table, and started dialing. Once connected, she began mumbling about buying a "house guardian charm."
...
Having experienced two lifetimes and accumulated all those years of wealth, Eric knew that having over $100 billion meant he could leverage a vast array of social resources, along with enhanced personal influence. Yet, he felt remarkably composed.
Moreover, he had abandoned the notion of hiding his wealth and didn't plan to keep doing so. After all, with assets exceeding billions, his legend would become mere folklore. As his fortune continued to grow, the general public would become numb to such numbers; most found it hard to even grasp what $100 billion truly represented.
Of course, there were still things that needed to be done.
In his upstairs office, Eric discussed potential issues with Chris and Buffett over the phone and instructed Kelly, who managed his assistant office, to keep an eye on media sentiment in the coming weeks and to intervene when necessary.
Eric certainly didn't want to end up with a reputation like the Rockefeller family had back in the day.
Even in the age of information overload, media outlets were increasingly consolidated in the hands of a few large media conglomerates, making media management more straightforward.
With the media resources that Firefly had, Eric could easily shape whatever media image he desired. Despite many rumors circulating about him in the industry, his media exposure remained low, leading to a public image that was quite understated and even a bit mysterious.
While paparazzi were more eager to dig into the personal lives of celebrities who preferred to stay out of the limelight, very few daring enough to track someone as wealthy as Eric did so.
In the end, news-hungry paparazzi faced substantial risks. Many affluent Silicon Valley titans had spent years taking a gossip site that exposed their homosexuality to bankruptcy. Firefly Group could certainly take down a gossip rag without needing nearly that long.
...
As night fell, Natasha came and knocked on the door. Eric wrapped up his call with Chris and went downstairs with her.
However, just as they reached the staircase and saw a black Gatling gun set up right in the middle of the living room, with Drew proudly posing atop a pile of ammunition boxes, Eric almost stumbled.
"Wow, that's a quick turnaround," he thought.
"Ha ha," Drew laughed, delighted at Eric's surprise, and patted the dark gun barrel enthusiastically. "Eric, this is an M134! Same model as Arnold's in Terminator. I just had it delivered! But that place only had this one in stock, so we have to wait if we want more."
Eric noticed the shiny rows of 7.62 mm rounds inside the open ammo box on the coffee table, feeling his scalp tingle -- it certainly looked real. With a machine gun that could shoot 6,000 rounds per minute, one stray bullet could turn anything into Swiss cheese.
Seeing Drew innocently attempt to load the bullet into the chamber, Eric quickly shook himself out of his daze. He rushed over, scooped her petite body up, set her on the sofa, and playfully spanked her three times, listening as she protested with a huffy pout that showed no remorse. He raised his hand for three more.
"Ow... that hurts," she exclaimed once he let her go. Flopping over on the sofa, she turned her face toward him with hopeful eyes and said, "Eric, we can take this Gatling gun to Palm Valley for some hunting this weekend, right? There are plenty of wild boars!"
You want to hunt? With a six-barrel machine gun? Genius!
He pressed her down again.
Smack--smack--smack--
Finally, she went quiet.
Eric plopped down on the sofa, looking at the twins standing by the kitchen door, confused. He pointed toward the Gatling in the living room and instructed, "Whoever brought this, tell them to take it back."
Drew, who had buried her face in the cushions, immediately mumbled, "Eric, we already paid for it. It's ours."
Eric instinctively raised his hand but then dropped it again. He got up and walked toward the gun, telling the twins, "Move it to the gym for now."
As Drew watched Eric and Natasha lift the gun together and head toward the gym, her cheeks flushed, and she got up from the sofa, clutching a pillow and trailing behind them. "Eric, I thought you would love this! Don't all men like guns?"
Eric looked at her helplessly and scowled, "Do you even know how dangerous this thing is? You want to keep it in the living room?"
Drew made a face. "Eric, I'm twenty-three now. I'm not a little girl anymore."
Just as he set the machine gun on the rack that Eve had brought in, Eric paused, looked at Drew's youthful face, which hadn't changed much, and felt a wave of nostalgia wash over him.
It had been ten years already, unexpectedly.
After spending a decade together, Drew naturally sensed the shifts in Eric's emotions. Feeling sentimental, she dropped the pillow and cautiously wrapped her arms around his, confessing, "Eric, you've spoiled me so much that I haven't grown up. You need to discipline me every now and then. Why don't you hit me a bit more?"
"Alright, fine, it's my fault," Eric smiled lightly, leaned down, and kissed her smooth cheek. "Let's go have dinner. You are absolutely not touching these dangerous things again."
"Mm-hmm," she nodded. "What about this one?"
"Confiscated. I'll take it back to Liberty City Manor as a collectible tomorrow."
"Ha ha, I knew it! You love guns! What man doesn't like guns?"
...
After tidying up the stack of ammo boxes in the living room, they finally sat down for dinner.
"Even though there are only eight episodes, this reality show filmed for a full two months, gathering over a hundred hours of footage. Kris spent all of the $5 million budget," Drew said as they finished dinner, bringing Eric up to the living room upstairs to watch a preview of Beverly Girls. She inserted the tape into the projector, turned off the lights, and snuggled into the sofa beside Eric. Suddenly, she mysteriously said, "In the first episode, we even used a little plot you once mentioned. It worked out really well."
"What plot?" Eric asked curiously.
Drew kept him in suspense, "You'll find out soon enough."
Eric turned his attention to the television screen.
...
The narrative began on a bright morning.
With rapid montage cuts and a soothing background explanation, the four girls living in different neighborhoods of Beverly Hills -- Deborah Hall, Carly Vitrock, Kristen Heyman, and Sophia Carter -- were starting a new day.
Deborah Hall, like Drew, resided in the luxurious Trousdale Estate in Beverly Hills. Through the voiceover introducing herself, it revealed that Deborah's father was a very successful real estate mogul, with a family fortune around $1 billion. Her mother was a typical housewife, and influenced by her mother, Deborah planned to find a good husband and eventually live the life of a pampered housewife.
However, she also added bluntly, "But that's only after I've had my fun."
Carly Vitrock, with her signature blonde hair and blue eyes, came from New York, the daughter of two lawyers, and grew up in the Upper East Hydee. She entered acting school at sixteen, aspiring to become an actress like Jodie Foster. Currently, she was chasing her dreams alone in Hollywood, living in her family's vacation home in Beverly Hills while her parents only visited in the winter.
The camera captured Carly rushing to get ready after waking up, as she had an audition.
Kristen Heyman sported a short haircut and favored oversized men's T-shirts and ripped jeans, looking like a tomboy mistaken for a lesbian, but she wasn't. At twenty-three, she ran a bar at the foot of Beverly Hills. The energetic, slender girl appeared sociable and talkative, not shy about her colorful past.
She had no idea who her mother was, and her father lived in Chicago, with whom she had little contact. Relying on a trust fund left by her grandparents, she had led a rebellious youth, dropping out at fifteen, having an unwed child at seventeen, getting married, fighting, using drugs, and spending time in jail. She was well-acquainted with the local rehab centers and at twenty had a revelation, beginning to travel the world. Two years later, she returned to Los Angeles and opened a bar in Beverly Hills while in a stable relationship, hoping to regain visitation rights to her six-year-old son.
Lastly, there was Sophia Carter, a typical elite offspring among American rich kids, who graduated from Stanford Law School and temporarily lived with her parents, who owned a chain of restaurants in Los Angeles. She was interning at a well-known law firm in LA.
Although they had vastly different personalities and backgrounds, the four girls shared one obvious trait -- they were all child prodigies living in Beverly Hills.
With smooth narrative shots, their distinct lives unfolded on the television screen, and even though Eric already knew the script, he was thoroughly engaged.
The greatest appeal of reality shows was satisfying the audience's voyeuristic desires. Given America's overall conservative style, many men and women, even in their teens or twenties, likely had never stepped outside their hometowns. It left them intensely curious about the glamorous lives of Beverly Hills.
The first episode of Beverly Girls quickly catered to young viewers' fantasies of life in Beverly Hills.
After a day spent filming, the four main girls gathered at Kristen's bar, with more and more handsome men and beautiful women showing up. Following a series of flashy colorful scenes, the four girls and their companions ended up in the bar game room, playing pool and getting to know one another.
Eric quickly caught on to what Drew had meant when she said she used a little plot he had mentioned before.
On screen, in a revealing minidress, Deborah Hall was playing pool with some boys and girls. Due to being behind in the score, she complained that her hair was blocking her vision. Amid a chorus of whistles and cheers from the group, Deborah elegantly lifted her skirt, slipped off her red lace panties, and used them to tie her hair up into a ponytail.
Eric couldn't help but laugh at the obviously orchestrated classic panty-ponytail scene on the TV screen.
Eric couldn't remember when he told the girl about this absolutely seductive move, but the girl confidently applied it to the reality show.
Previously, to promote Keeping Up with the Kardashians, Kris Jenner had directly let her daughter post a video online. While Eric certainly wouldn't resort to such a lowly tactic now, watching the television footage, he suggested, "Hey, Drew, have someone turn that clip into a GIF and upload it online. I guarantee Beverly Girls will be even more popular."
"Ha ha, we're already planning to do that," Drew nodded with a smile.
*****
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