Chapter 2: – Inspired By A Quarrel

Eric lightly placed a clunky typewriter on the desk and wiped the sweat off his forehead. He missed his past extra thin and light notebook. It had been a day since he found out about his extraordinary memory, and after twenty four hours of careful thinking, Eric had drawn a preliminary plan about his future.

He deliberately took a day off, strolled most of his day time and bought a secondhand typewriter which happened to be an essential tool to the realization of his plan.

After processing Ralph’s funeral, Eric had a few hundred dollars of cash left in his hands. Western countries having a good welfare system, it had always been a no savings policy here. (TL: Author has obviously never experienced the US’ welfare system, lol.)

Fortunately, the house was his propriety, or else, thanks to his lack of funds to pay for the mortgage, it would have been seized and he would have to sleep on the streets as a result. To buy the typewriter, Eric had to ask Jeff for a month's salary in advance.

In order to realize his own dreams, he had to first break into the Hollywood circle. Let's temporarily forget about directing or acting. After much deliberation, the most suitable job he could think of was screenwriter. Although people always said that this Hollywood era's screenwriters had a low standing, it was not actually true. It was just because a lot of the best screenwriters switched to directing and producing, which had become mainstream overseas, like in Hong Kong for example.

Placing a blank sheet of paper into the typewriter, Eric started typing the following words: Jurassic Park. That's right, the 1990s most profitable film series.

In Eric's past life, whether they had bought the pirated copy of Jurassic Park or had watched the movie in theater, they had all experienced the moment when the lifelike dinosaurs appeared on the screen, and the feeling they got then could only be described in one word: Shocking.

In his memory, the novel Jurassic Park was published in 1990 and contained about 150 000 words. So Michael Crichton had certainly not started to write it. He would simply shamelessly take the credit for it without worrying about a plagiarism lawsuit.

Eric's mouth curved slightly as he recalled the movie's events while pounding on the keyboard. What he was writing was not the Jurassic Park script, but the novel. In the past, after watching the movie, he had bought the book out of curiosity and carefully read it. Now, with his own past memories as well as his new body's, translating his past life's Chinese knowledge into English was child's play.

He wouldn't just directly write the script, because if it was given to the film company that way, there was a high chance that it would be treated as trash and thrown away. The number of screenplays that Hollywood studios received each day could basically be weighed in pounds. Also, Eric wanted the film rights of the series to be firmly under his control. If he made it into a script, and one of those film companies took a fancy to it, once they made it into a movie, they would hit the jackpot financially while Eric would maybe get a 100,000$ and a bonus if he was lucky. That kind of business that benefitted everyone but himself, Eric had absolutely no interest in it.

However, if he published the novel, the movie and television copyrights would be his, and Eric only needed to wait for the opportunity when the price offered was high enough before racking in the profits.

Immersed in his work, time flew by and night had soon fallen. Eric looked down at his keyboard, only to realize that he had unknowingly been writing for four/five hours in a row as his stomach started growling.

Eric stood up and glanced at the thick stack of paper on the desk while he stretched himself. According to his typing speed, the manuscript should be complete in one week of time. He still had to do his waiting job at Jeff's restaurant after all, otherwise, he'd starve.

Going into the kitchen, Eric made himself a simple dinner consisting of rice and scrambled eggs with tomatoes, a typical Chinese dish. There was still some cheese bread and peanut butter in the fridge but although he inherited the original guy's memory, his Asian habits were already ingrained.

After eating, Eric went to the second floor balcony and leaned against the railing as he gazed at the night around him. The apartment where he lived was a little less than 200 square meters, a two-story house with some random flowers planted in the yard. Eric's father wasn't rich and his personality was sloppy to say the least, so the duo's life had been very rough. In his memory, they had moved seven or eight times from England to Los Angeles. Eric didn’t remember why it was so as he was too young, but to be honest, even the current him couldn't make any sense of it. It was better to just forget about it.

After moving to Los Angeles, Ralph dragged little Eric to stroll the streets. In just two days, with the help of a real estate broker, they bought the small courtyard that was a complete visual mess. Eric smiled, the concept of “home care” was part of his Asian culture.

He stayed on the balcony for a while, and just as he was planning to go back and keep writing Jurassic Park, he suddenly heard a loud sound that seemingly came from glassware hitting the ground. Eric set his sights on the west side of the neighborhood, the Runkle’s house. A  40-year-old couple with three children; the eldest son was in university, the daughter at a boarding school and the youngest was only seven years old.

That couple might be experiencing a midlife crisis as they quarreled a lot these days. Although Eric had a good relationship with the Runkle family, he did not intend to go there and mediate them, they were people with restraint who wouldn’t fight violently. If he hastily ran to the other side and tried to pacify them, that'd only make things awkward.

After a few bickerings and the fuzzy sounds of a few appliances breaking, the Runkle's home door was banged open. Charles Runkle, the man of the house, came out wearing a shirt and clutching his messy hair. He turned to the woman at the door and shouted: “Enough, I’ve had enough! Damn bitch! If I hadn't moved to Los Angeles in order to marry you, I might have become a GM executive. Now look at you, my God!”

“Go to hell !” Mrs. Runkle usually always spoke in a soft voice, but this time she sounded particularly loud and sharp: “In the past, so many men were pursuing me, one is now a California congressman, another one is selling petroleum in the Middle East. Petroleum do you hear ?! The profit of a single shipment is more than what you can earn in a 100 years ! The one with regrets is this old lady. Now go sleep at your General Motors, mister "GM executive" !”

When Mrs. Runkle finished speaking, she threw a black jacket out and slammed the door.

Charlie Runkle picked it up and patted it. He stood up only to see Eric standing on the balcony.

“Sorry to disturb you, Eric.” Charlie smiled at him.

“It’s okay, Charlie… Do you want to come in?” Eric said.

Charlie shook his head: “… No, thank you, I … I'm going to go to the bar for a bit… and I'll be back in a while when Mary has calmed down.”

Charlie then nodded to Eric, started his car and drove away.

Eric returned to his room. Remembering the Runkle couple's quarrel scene, an idea flashed in his mind. As he sat at his desk and loaded a blank sheet of paper into the typewriter, that idea gradually became clearer.

Over the past two days, Eric had been pondering about what his first screenplay should be, and now he had the answer. That play was a perfect fit for him, but ah, as expected, some details needed to be worked on as the time difference had to be taken into account. However, this was not a problem, these minor details wouldn't hinder the script in the slightest.

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