Zenith of Desire: The Hollywood Incubus

Should I rewrite and re-edit the Chapters from the beginning ch1, reducing the bloated word count and removing repeated lines to attract more readers? I am currently doing that for future Chapters and have been doing so since last month. Of course, you won’t see it because those are advanced Chapters.

That’s why I’m not writing anything new until I catch up with the the work I already fixed. But aside from that, should I do it for all the Chapters, re-editing two to five Chapters every day?

What do you think?

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The Asian Financial Crisis had brought sovereign nations to their knees. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) was currently gutting the Korean economy. The Japanese banking sector was suffocating under mountains of bad debt. In Seoul, citizens were literally donating their personal gold jewelry to the government just to help pay off the national sovereign debt.

When people are desperate for food, and when titanic conglomerates are bleeding cash and facing imminent bankruptcy, absolutely no one in the regulatory ministries cared where the lifeline of US Dollars was coming from.

Regulators conveniently looked the other way. They did not look deeper into the complex web of shell companies operated by *Scarlet Capital Japan* and *Scarlet Capital Korea* *Zenith Trust,* *Scarlet Capital USA.* Furthermore,

Japanese and Korean relations with the United States were very cooperative, and precedent already existed—major American firms were buying distressed Asian assets left and right.

For the unlisted private entities in China—like Huawei and Lenovo—the strategy had been even more brilliant. Marvin had deployed his Chinese proxy teams under *Scarlet Capital China*. They didn’t buy standard stock; they established obfuscated Private Equity agreements, Strategic Joint Ventures, and Variable Interest Entities (VIEs) to bypass foreign ownership restrictions entirely. These companies were starving for developmental capital, and Marvin had stepped in as their invisible, silent savior.

He would have to continuously inject capital in future funding rounds to prevent his shares from being diluted, but the Zenith Trust possessed the liquidity to maintain the stronghold.

All positions were currently held at cost. The mark-to-market values were hovering at or only marginally above their cost basis, accurately reflecting the December capitulation in the Korean and Taiwanese markets following the harsh IMF program commencement.

But Marvin wasn’t looking at the current valuation. With this surgical allocation executed at the crisis lows, the Demon had successfully secured massive minority stakes across the entire vanguard of Asia’s future giants. He had established controlling-level influence in several mid-sized firms, positioning himself for massive upside potential.

He was turning roughly $1 billion of leveraged capital into multi-billion-dollar, intergenerational wealth that would fully mature within a single decade.

Marvin read the document twice. His computer mind perfectly cataloged every single decimal point and percentage.

Then, he set the printed pages down on his desk and looked out the large window. The last of the 1997 lights was doing exactly what the December light in Los Angeles does at four-thirty in the afternoon—rapidly cooling from a harsh, bright yellow toward a deep, bruised amber.

The steep walls of Laurel Canyon caught the low angle of the dying sun in a way that made the dry, drought-starved grass on the ridges look briefly, brilliantly golden before the light was completely swallowed by the shadows.

He thought about the document. He didn’t think about the math—the numbers were intimately familiar; he had been orchestrating their trajectory for months. He thought about the totality of what the document actually represented.

He thought about the architecture of it. He traced the sequence of decisions that had led from a quiet, seemingly innocent conversation on a November evening with an seventy-one-year-old man in a Pasadena study, directly to a monolithic portfolio of the most consequential technology, automotive, and entertainment companies in the Eastern hemisphere. He had acquired the future of human technology at prices that merely reflected a temporary, fleeting panic that was already ending.

And then, Marvin thought about what the document did *not* contain.

The document did not contain the astronomical value those equity positions would command in 1998, in 1999, or in 2000. It did not contain the eventual, sky-rocketing price of Samsung Electronics when the global recovery that Marvin had calculated as inevitable finally played out through the normalization of Korean corporate credit markets. It did not contain the staggering valuation of TSMC when the explosive global demand for semiconductor manufacturing would accelerate through the late 1990s, dominating the decades that would define the internet economy.

It did not contain the future price of Toyota and Sony when the Japanese market eventually recalibrated to the undeniable reality that the two companies’ operational quality had never actually been impaired by the asset bubble’s unwinding.

The document was merely a snapshot.

And the magnificent, world-conquering picture it was a snapshot of was not yet fully complete.

At exactly five o’clock on December 31st, Marvin picked up the landline on his desk. He dialed his grandfather’s private number.

Irving picked up on the second ring.

”Happy New Year, Grandpa,” Marvin said, his velvety baritone radiating a calm that completely defied his physical twelve years of age.

”Happy New Year, Marvin.”

The old man’s voice carried the quality it only ever adopted on occasions when something deeply, historically significant had occurred, and he was deliberately choosing to acknowledge it without making a cheap, emotional ceremony of it. It was a quality that represented the particular restraint of a patriarch who has felt enough massive victories and crushing defeats over the course of a long life to have developed a very careful, guarded relationship with his own expressions. ”I’ve received the year-end summary from Mr. Whitfield and Sophie Chen,” Irving stated, his voice steady, though a faint current of awe vibrated beneath the syllables.

”I know,” Marvin replied smoothly, leaning back in his leather chair.

”The currency program generated over one hundred and ten point nine million dollars in pure, realized gains,” Irving recited, the numbers sounding almost absurd as he spoke them aloud. A heavy pause followed. ”On an over hundred million dollar starting position. In exactly five months.”

”Yes, Grandpa.”

”And you have deployed two hundred and fifty five million of liquid capital—leveraged up to over one billion dollars—into seventeen distinct equity positions.”

”Correct.”

”In monolithic, international companies that have, collectively, fallen fifty to ninety percent from their pre-crisis peaks.”

”Yes.”

”Because you believe they will recover.”

Marvin smiled. The Incubus hummed warmly in the quiet office, infusing his words with the weight of prophecy.

”I believe they will vastly *more* than recover, Grandpa,” Marvin purred, his voice dropping into a register of authority. ”I believe that TSMC will be, within a mere five years, the most strategically critical semiconductor manufacturing company on the face of the earth. I believe Samsung will become one of the most valuable, dominant tech conglomerates in Asia within that exact same window.”

He let his gaze drift back to the golden canyon outside.

”I believe that Toyota’s operational manufacturing system is so far ahead of its global American and European competitors in quality and efficiency that the gap will only widen over the next decade. These are not simple ’recovery stories,’ Grandpa. These are monolithic, foundational institutions. The crisis has simply handed them to us at clearance prices that treat them like failing startups. We have bought into the foundation of Asian market of the 21st century.”

A long silence echoed over the telephone line.

When Irving Meyers finally spoke again, his voice possessed a quality that Marvin had heard only very, very rarely. It wasn’t exactly pride—because Irving’s emotional vocabulary didn’t operate on standard, conventional paternal pride. It was something deeper, more primal, and more structural.

It was the sound of a powerful man recognizing, in the bloodline standing in front of him.

”You know, Marvin,” Irving said softly, his voice thick with a mixture of reverence and disbelief, ”there is a standard, acceptable version of this year’s events that a normal grandfather tells his friends and family at the country club. In that version, his grandson made some decent money trading in the currency crisis. Clever boy. Good instincts. A bright future in banking.”

A heavy pause hung on the line.

”And then,” Irving continued, letting out a long, ragged exhale, ”there is the terrifying version I am going to have to actually live with in my own mind. Which is that my twelve-year-old grandson deployed the better part of my liquid capital into the greatest, most fruitful macroeconomic trade setup of the decade... and then, instead of safely banking the massive gains and going back to simply writing his cute little novels... he used the profits to buy Samsung Electronics and the Japanese entertainment industry at the bottom of the abyss.”

Marvin chuckled softly, the sound rich, and unapologetic. ”To be fair, Grandpa,” Marvin said, his dimple flashing in the fading light. ”I am still writing the novels.”

The old man laughed. It wasn’t a polite chuckle. It was a real, full-chested, roaring laugh—the kind of laugh that costs a man something deep in his chest. It was the sound of a patriarch completely surrendering the crown to his heir.

”That’s my boy,” Irving declared, his voice ringing with fierce, unbreakable triumph across the line. ”That’s my boy. The blood of Meyers, always running.”

—

”Marvin, what in the name of All Mighty were you thinking? Why didn’t you inform me beforehand?!”

The frantic, hyperventilating voice of Jeff Raymond shattered the quiet elegance of Marvin’s Laurel Canyon home office. It was Saturday evening, mere hours after Marvin had stood on the sun-drenched steps of the Beverly Hills Hotel and fundamentally declared war on the Hollywood critical establishment.

Marvin sat perfectly still behind his desk, bathed in the soft, amber glow of desk lamp. He wore a plush, dark silk robe over his clothes, looking every inch the unbothered man. He held the receiver of the phone slightly away from his ear, allowing his agent to bleed out his corporate terror.

”We at CAA have rigorously evaluated this film, Marvin!” Jeff continued, his voice cracking with sheer panic. ”The tracking algorithms are catastrophic. It *may* have a high global box office, perhaps even scraping by to exceed $600 million worldwide if the international markets over-perform, but it is mathematically impossible for it to recoup its bloated over $200 million investment through domestic box office revenue alone! 20th Century Fox and Paramount Pictures made a historical miscalculation. *Titanic* is destined to be a colossal failure, and you just chained yourself to the anchor!”

Marvin took a slow, elegant sip of his sparkling water. ”Breathe, Jeff.”

”I can’t breathe, Marvin! You’re playing with fire!” Jeff shouted, pacing his own office miles away. ”I know you’re trying to curry favor with Fox and Cameron to secure leverage for our future endeavors, but it’s too early for you to publicly speak up for them now! Really, it is catastrophically too early.”

Jeff’s breath hitched as he dove into the unwritten rules of Hollywood politics.

”You should know that, even right now, neither Leonardo DiCaprio nor Kate Winslet—the two contracted stars of the film—have publicly spoken out to defend it from the critics during their promotional press junkets! They are doing standard, safe PR. They are smiling, waving, and keeping their heads down. In this town, when a ship is sinking, you do not stand on the bow and declare it unsinkable. If the movie bombs, the stink of failure clings to everyone who defended it. It sinks careers, Marvin! It doesn’t matter how big of a star you are. If you publicly bet your reputation on a flop, the studio heads stop taking your calls. You lose your aura of invincibility!”

Marvin leaned back in his leather chair, the handsome smirk touching his lips. He understood the industry mechanics perfectly.

”You should have waited until a month after the movie was released before you opened your mouth,” Jeff pleaded desperately. ”By then, the executives you wanted to target with your loyalty would have already been targeted privately, and the toxic media hype would have died down. At that time, you wouldn’t be scrutinized much no matter what you said. But predicting exact box office numbers? Oh, Marvin, no. That will not work. You should know that even the most seasoned, professional box office data forecasters with supercomputers can’t accurately predict the final gross of *any* movie. If they could, 90% of the movies released on the big screen wouldn’t flop!”

”Jeff—”

”Marvin, do you even comprehend what you’re doing?” Jeff interrupted, practically begging. ”You’re putting yourself directly onto the fire! You are throwing away your ’Wonder Boy’ status for a director who is currently on suicide watch!”

Jeff went on and on, detailing the apocalyptic fallout of the press conference.

But Marvin neither refuted nor rebuked him.

The Incubus possessed patience. He recognized that Jeff’s frantic ranting was not born of disrespect, but of genuine loyalty. The agent’s sole intention was to protect his client thus protecting his own job. Jeff simply lacked the transmigrator’s omniscient foresight.

”Jeff, listen to my voice,” Marvin finally commanded softly.

The velvety, resonant frequency of his baritone instantly bypassed Jeff’s panicked conscious mind and struck directly at his nervous system, forcing a sudden, unnatural calm over the agent.

”I am not standing on the fire, Jeff,” Marvin purred, his blue eyes gleaming with amusement in the dim light of the study. ”I am the one holding the match. Trust the architecture of what I have built. Go to sleep. I promise you, by next month, you will be fielding calls from every studio head in this city begging for my prophecies.”

He hung up the phone with a soft click, leaving Jeff stunned into silence.

The next morning, the Sunday papers arrived, and the mockery of *Titanic* and James Cameron continued with unrelenting force. But now, Marvin Meyers has been officially added to the slaughter.

Newspapers, glossy magazines, and Sunday morning TV talk shows never forgot to mock the sinking ship, brilliant director and the child prodigy together, happily putting them on the exact same pedestal of supreme, unchecked delusion.

Three days after its anticipated release, *Titanic*’s opening weekend numbers officially came in at approximately $28.6 million.

It was a solid number, but in the context of an over $200 million budget, it looked like a death rattle. Debuting alongside the explosive action of the new 007 film, *Tomorrow Never Dies*, the cinematic epic had entered an incredibly crowded holiday box office competing with established holdovers like *Scream 2*. While *Titanic* technically took the number one spot, it didn’t dominate the cultural conversation immediately.

*****

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