Huayu: I'm reborn, but you still force me to be a scumbag?

Chapter 531 One cannot step into the same river twice.

There was a few seconds of silence on the phone.

Then, Chen Bicheng's disdainful voice came: "You're just bragging to me."

Chen Nuo didn't want to explain further to the post-60s real estate boss who hadn't had much schooling. "Okay, that's it. I'll hang up if there's nothing else."

Originally, this was not something he wanted to do, nor did he think it was anything special. He was just saying a few words to his father because he couldn't stand his arrogance and was just responding to his father's moves. He wanted to hang up the phone and pack up to leave right then and there.

Chen Bicheng didn't respond, but instead asked, "...What's your rush? We haven't been in touch for a long time, what's wrong with talking to your old man a bit more? I don't know who used to be begging me every day, asking for 1000 yuan to have dinner with this female classmate and 500 yuan to go shopping with that one. Did your mother care about you back then? Who was your ATM? Have you forgotten now that you're all grown up? Also, you were juggling eight women at once, who took the blame for you? I almost got beaten up, you know?"

Chen Nuo said irritably, "Can you please stop bringing up these old stories, especially that 'one foot in eight boats' thing? That happened so long ago, why are you still talking about it? I've already reformed, okay?"

"Hehe, you've reformed. If you can reform yourself in this lifetime, I'll call you 'Old Man'."

"you said!"

"Yes, I said it! So what?"

Chen Nuo said irritably, "Alright, alright, just say what you want to say. I really have something to do. I need to get to the plane right away. It's at 9 o'clock."

"You...seriously, where are you going?"

"Washington, ah."

"...Which Washington?"

"Hehe, China's Washington. Remember to tell my mom when you get back that I probably won't be able to get back until around the 21st at the earliest. Bye."

"Wait a minute." Chen Bicheng's voice suddenly changed. "You really want to go to Washington, the White House, to see Obama?"

"uh-huh."

"You're not kidding me... Fine, fine, wait a minute, don't hang up, talk to me nicely later, okay?"

After saying that, he fell silent.

Chen Nuo was a little confused, but without thinking much about it, she turned on her phone's speakerphone, put it aside, and started changing her shoes.

Speaking of shoes, the leather shoes he's currently wearing are from an Italian brand called Ferragamo. The manufacturer delivered them to him a couple of days ago while he was in New York. The reason is that this Italian shoe factory offered the most money among all the brands that wanted to sign contracts with him; in other words, they were the most sincere. Currently, their negotiations with Qi Yuntian are practically on the verge of finalization. So, Qi Yuntian had the manufacturer send him a few pairs so he could try them on first. If there were any quality issues, no amount of money would justify signing the contract.

After wearing them for the past two days, Chen Nuo has to say that the shoes are pretty good.

After all, it's an old leather shoe factory, and their technology and workmanship are still quite good. If it doesn't burst or crack after a few more days of wear, he feels he can sign that 3-year, 4500 million euro endorsement contract when he returns to China. A leather shoe factory, well, it might not sound high-class, but as the saying goes, it's a money-making business, and that's not shameful.

So what if it's diapers? He was laughed at before, people said it was shameful to endorse diapers, but now Angel Baby is expanding into the Asia-Pacific international market, next to Europe, and they're even planning to develop toys, claiming to be the Mattel of China. He's suddenly become quite the figure. I hear he's been featured in several professional financial magazines in China, hailed as a prime example of a spokesperson and company developing together, which makes him very proud.

Standing up, Chen Nuo picked up his phone. Seeing that the call was still connected but there was no sound, he grabbed his suitcase and prepared to leave. He said "hello" twice, but when there was still no response, he was about to hang up.

But then, Chen Bicheng's voice suddenly appeared.

"What horse are you going to see? It's a bit noisy here, speak louder."

Chen Nuo was taken aback: "What? Obama?"

Chen Bicheng shouted, "Obama? You want to see Obama? He invited you to the White House?"

Chen Nuo said, "Yes..."

"In that case, forget it. After all, he's the President of the United States. Since he invited you, you should give him face. Go ahead, my mom and I will stay here and have some more fun."

Chen Nuo said, bewildered, "I just did just that..."

Before he could finish speaking, Chen Bicheng said, "Even though someone invited you, you should still remember to bring something. When you visit, bring some fruit or something. Don't go empty-handed, or people will say that we Chinese don't know etiquette. Also, tell him to come over to our house sometime when he has time."

"I……"

Chen Nuo only managed to utter one word before Chen Bicheng chuckled and said, "Mr. Zhang, I'm sorry, I had to take a call from my son. Come on, let's continue. Where were we? Oh right, that hotel... I think we should discuss the shareholding issue again..."

Then, a female voice with a heavy Cantonese accent said, "Mr. Chen, may I ask, is it your young Mr. Chen who's going to meet that..."

The woman didn't say it aloud, but Chen Bicheng laughed and said frankly, "Yes, haha, he has some connections with Obama. Sigh, all this time, this kid is just busy doing nothing, not focusing on filming, but hanging out with all sorts of shady friends. I'm almost at my wit's end with him, but he still likes to call me, and often asks me to teach him some life lessons..."

Chen Nuo heard this much, and fearing he'd vomit if he listened any longer, he hung up the phone immediately without another word. He knew that Chen Bicheng hadn't intended to go to Vietnam to do business under an assumed name, but in reality, he couldn't hide it from anyone anyway. It was said that less than two days after he arrived, word had leaked out somewhere, and in any case, wealthy people in Vietnam knew he was his father.

It's hard to say whether his fame played a role in the recent hotel project.

To be honest, once he was abroad, he really couldn't be bothered with so many things... As long as he didn't break the law and get arrested, everything was fine.

Chen Nuo opened the door, dragging his suitcase, and saw Gulnazar also dragging a suitcase, about to knock on the door.

He was startled when he opened the door, jumped back slightly, and exclaimed, "Oh... Mr. Chen, good morning."

Chen Nuo nodded and asked, "Ready?"

"Yes, the car is already in the lobby, and Brother Linghu and Allison have already gotten out."

"Okay, let's go."

He took the lead and walked ahead, with Gulnazar following closely behind.

He asked casually, "How was it? Did you sleep well last night?"

"Good...no good. Hehe, I couldn't resist and looked at it on my laptop for a while."

"What time do you want to see?"

"……Just now."

"finish watching?"

"No, there are still two episodes left. I couldn't watch anymore when I saw my character die."

"Haha." Chen Nuo laughed, turned his head to look, and sure enough, the girl's originally big and bright eyes were now slightly red and swollen, with a lot of blood vessels in them. It was obvious that she hadn't rested well.

He asked, "So, do you think you acted well?"

"Hehe, I think it's pretty good."

At the elevator entrance, Gulnazar pressed the elevator button first, then asked somewhat shyly, "Mr. Chen, can I ask you a question? What did you feel when you first saw your movie shown in theaters?"

Chen Nuo recalled for a moment and said, "Nervous."

Gulnazar looked incredulous and said, "I don't believe it."

"Why don't you believe me? I'm really nervous."

Just then, the elevator arrived. He and Gulnazar went in together, pressed the button for the first floor, and asked, "Have you thought about your future path? If the drama becomes a hit and you become famous, do you want to continue acting?"

Gulnazar hesitated before saying, "I... I haven't decided yet. Mr. Chen, do you really think our drama will be a hit?"

Chen Nuo glanced at her. "Do you want it to be a hit, or not?"

Gulnazar quickly replied, "Of course... well, I don't know either."

The woman frowned, looking quite troubled.

Chen Nuo looked up at the numbers displayed above the elevator lobby.

28, 27, 26, 25, 24... The floors were descending rapidly.

Like time rushing by.

Ding.

In the blink of an eye, we arrived at the first floor, and the elevator doors opened.

He said, "Think about it quickly, time waits for no one."

……

……

Chen Nuo's G650 arrived in Washington at 4 p.m. in 2012.

As soon as Chen Nuo stepped out of the cabin, he heard Gulinazha muttering, "Really, they didn't arrange for anyone to pick them up at the airport."

This is inflation! This is definitely inflation.

Then Allison even chimed in, "We hope there will be a convoy to take us away when we leave."

After saying that, the woman got to work.

At first, she used her mobile phone, but once she got into the rented van, she simply plugged in the wireless network card, opened her laptop, and skillfully started operating it on the touchpad.

In fact, while on the plane, they had already received an email from Netflix via the G650's built-in satellite network.

The email stated that although the complete data for the first day has not yet been fully compiled, the number of accounts watching "Eagle Catches Chickens" had reached 2.4 million in the half-day from midnight to noon on the day the email was sent.

For Netflix, which currently has only 2800 million subscribers, this means that in just half a day, nearly 8.6% of users have clicked to watch, and this is not even a weekend!

More importantly, the email highlighted two metrics in red:
The continued viewing rate for E1→E2 exceeds 86%, which means that the vast majority of users clicked on the second episode without hesitation after watching the first episode.

More than 30 accounts binged all nine episodes in half a day.

These two numbers prompted Reed Hastings to add a sentence in bold capital letters at the end of the email:
"CONGRATULATIONS! Congratulations!"

Although Reed Hastings felt satisfied, Chen Nuo was not particularly pleased with the data.

For Netflix, who was inexperienced at this time, this number might have been astronomical and beyond imagination, but for him, it was not the case.

As luck would have it, when "The Squid Game" became a global hit in 2021, he happened to be staying at home and bored for well-known reasons. After watching the show, he even went to check out Netflix's data reports and real-time tracking from various media outlets at the time.

He knew very well that the Squid Game had garnered 1.11 million views within 28 days of its release! That was almost half of Netflix's global subscribers at the time.

In other words, if the same penetration rate were applied to Netflix, which had 28 million users at this time in 2012, the audience size would be at least 2800 million within 1400 days.

And now, although 240 million is only half a day's data,
But in his view, if the number of clicks on the data cannot reach more than 700 million in the next three days and cannot break through 1000 million in the first week, then there is no point in talking about A++!

Only when "Eagle Catches Chickens" reaches 1400 million views in 28 days, or even higher, can it be considered to have matched the success of "Squid Game." To surpass it...

That depends on whether "Eagle Catches Chickens" can bring Netflix a considerable number of new subscribers.

The stock market seems to share his views.

While Allison was busy processing emails, Chen Nuo casually opened the US stock market app on his phone.

Okay.

The interface has just loaded.
He saw Netflix's stock price, which showed a bright red -7%.

At that moment, he couldn't help but check the unknown caller ID.

Surprisingly, there were zero.

Tong Liya didn't fight, which was expected.

Leonardo DiCaprio was a little uneasy because Charlize Theron hadn't written to him. Theron was filming, so she was fine.

Where's Leonardo DiCaprio?

After thinking about it, he simply took the initiative to call.

The phone rang for a long time, almost until Chen Nuo was about to hang up, before the other end finally answered, panting as if they had just finished running. "Huff, huff, what's wrong?"

Chen Nuo coughed and, trying to make conversation, asked, "Are you at the gym??"

Little Li: "...No, I'm not here."

Chen Nuo asked curiously, "Then where are you running? You're running on the street in the middle of the afternoon, aren't you afraid the paparazzi will take a couple of pictures of you?"

"What's going on?"

"Nothing much, just wanted to chat with you, haha. By the way, have you seen my new drama? What do you think of it?"

"...No, you just wanted to say that?"

"Pretty much, hahaha."

"Ha~ha~ha~" Little Li laughed, mimicking him, then said through gritted teeth, "You made me get off a woman to answer your call, just to ask me if I've seen your new show?!"

Chen Nuo was stunned for a moment, then protested, "A woman? It's still afternoon, Lyon! How was I supposed to know you were so shameless! You started doing this in broad daylight..."

At this point, he glanced back at Gulnazar and said in a low voice, "...I don't know either."

"My problem? I just went to Venice a few days ago to support your new movie, and what did I say afterwards..."

I rely on!

Chen Nuo suddenly remembered and exclaimed, "You're in Greece right now!?"

"Bingo! It's midnight in Santorini right now, so what do you say?"

"Uh..." Chen Nuo said awkwardly, "To be honest, I just wanted to ask you about the stock. It dropped quite a bit today."

Little Li paused for a moment, then said, "Indeed, it fell as low as 14% during the day, and finally closed down 7%."

Chen Nuo was a little surprised and said, "You sound like you're in a good mood?"

"Haha. Stocks go up and down, isn't that normal? Please, I'm a veteran in the investment market, and I have a very good mindset. To tell you the truth, I added another $500 million during trading today."

"WTF!? Really?"

"Haha, Chen, I consider you a true friend. I believe whatever you say."

Wow.

This really touched Chen Nuo.

"Leo, don't worry, I will..."

"Stop, Chen, I don't want to hear this. Okay, is there anything else? I'm getting ready to get busy... Oh~"

"You're already busy. Leo, enjoy your night, goodnight."

Chen Nuo said sincerely.

Then I took the phone away from my ear and was about to hang up when I suddenly faintly heard a voice still coming from the receiver.

I immediately held it back to my ear, about to say "halo," but then I heard a couple talking over there.

"Did Chen call you?"

"uh-huh."

"You two are really close. He must be your best friend besides Toby, right?"

"You could say that. Okay, hurry up, continue."

"Okay, come on."

Chen Nuo felt a little embarrassed for having been eavesdropping. He was just about to hang up when suddenly his hand stopped.

All I heard was the woman on the other end saying, "What episode was that? You turned it off too quickly."

"He scared me. Episode 7."

"OK. Damn, did she die in the end?"

"I don't know, let's begin."

"Wait, why don't you tell him you're watching?"

“You know what? He’s never even been to the cinema to see one of my movies. Why should I tell him I’m watching his show?”

"Haha, Leo, you're so childish."

"No, no, this isn't naive, it's fair."

"What about stocks? Didn't you watch the TV series and say it would definitely become popular, so you bought more shares..."

"Then I definitely can't say it. Let him owe me a favor; he'll definitely need it in the future."

Enraged, Chen Nuo yelled into the phone, "Son of a bitch, Leo, FUCK YOU!"

"OMG! I'm not dead..."

Chen Nuo hung up the phone and, without saying a word, immediately added the guy to Apple's newly launched blacklist feature.

Then, when he looked up, he saw that Alison had stopped looking at the computer and was now looking at him with a smile on her lips.

"what happened?"

“I just looked at IMDb, Twitter, Rotten Tomatoes, Reddit, and checked a few other reputation metrics… Chen, you’d better take a deep breath.”

"You... tell me, what's the situation now?"

Allison pursed her lips: "First of all, IMDb."

She turned the laptop screen and saw a striking number on the IMDb page:

IMDb rating: 9.5/10. Number of ratings: 42120

Allison said, "For reference, Game of Thrones Season 1 was 9.1, Breaking Bad Season 1 was 8.9, Lost Season 1 was 8.4, and Heroes Season 1 was 8.0."

Chen Nuo said, "Wow!"

Gulnazar, who had been listening the whole time, exclaimed, "Are we that amazing?"

Allison said, "It's not just impressive, I finally understand what A++ means... Chen, this is Rotten Tomatoes, 98% critic approval rating, 99% audience score. There are 54 reviews and more than 28000 audience ratings."

"This is a film review. Take a look. These are the real evaluations from these media professionals."

James Poliwalker of The New York Times gave it a perfect score.

He said that no one could have predicted that Nuo Chen, making his American television debut, would bring such a bloody and violent, stimulating work. The uncompromising violence in *Eagle Catches Chickens* is not suitable for the faint of heart, but even if you only accidentally click on the first episode, the protagonist's indescribable charisma will captivate you from the very first second. Every step of his transformation is exhilarating. Perhaps this is some kind of Eastern magic.”

"Ha, Eastern magic!" Gulnazar exclaimed excitedly. "This guy's talking nonsense. Has he even been to the East? Magic, you know. The boss said this is called a 'comfortable' approach, right, boss?"

Chen Nuo said, "Yes, but it sounds strange coming from you. Allison, continue. Nazha, stop messing around."

"Oh."

Allison continued looking at the laptop and read aloud:

"Empire Magazine, Ben Trevor, perfect score. 'Eagle Catches Chickens' is a double shock, both visually and psychologically. It doesn't just pursue gory shock, but uses extreme details and narrative tension to reveal the fragility and madness of humanity under extreme circumstances. The protagonist, Xie Jiajun, grows up in such an environment. Although he is disabled, he is brave, kind, and sincere, just like each of us. Chen Nuo once again proves that he is one of the best actors in the world when it comes to portraying ordinary people."

"Variety, Daniel D. Nord, perfect score. The plot of 'Eagle Catches Chickens' is like a series of heavy blows, striking the viewer's nerves. It allows one to see hope amidst bloodshed and feel warmth amidst cruelty. Until the last five minutes of the ninth episode, I thought it was an ambitious and almost impossible success to replicate, but the abrupt ending left one eagerly anticipating the next season. The writers deserve a perfect score."

"The Guardian, Lucy Moergan, perfect score."

"Eagle Catches Chickens" is not a traditional "survival game"; it's more like a mirror, reflecting the darkest and most hidden side of human nature. It's a shocking, terrifying, yet equally captivating drama.

"Angel Han of The Hollywood Reporter, perfect score."

The most captivating aspect of *Eagle Catches Chickens* lies in its paradox: it's both a cruel game of despair and a subtle source of tender emotional resonance. It evokes pain, yet compels you to keep clicking for the next episode. The central character is undoubtedly Chen Mo, but upon closer examination, you'll discover that every other character is portrayed perfectly, leaving a lasting impression. For example, that adorable young lady…”

"what!!!"

When Gulnazar heard Alison read this, she suddenly exclaimed in surprise, "She's talking about me?!"

“Yes, it’s you.” Allison smiled and glanced at her. “...When she died, I’m sure I wasn’t the only one heartbroken.”

Gulnazar blushed slightly, her eyes showing both shyness and barely concealed smugness.

"Okay, this is a rotten tomato."

"Finally, I also paid close attention to Twitter."

"These are some popular tweets I just screenshotted. Chen, take a look, I'm going to take a sip of water."

Chen Nuo took the notebook and placed it on his lap.

"@CinephileAnna, seriously, is this really a Netflix show? This is definitely HBO quality! My heart was pounding at 160+ the whole time, I watched it all night, and I almost fainted when I stood up. Question: If I died from watching this show, would Chen come to my funeral?" 7.1k likes, 3.6k retweets, 980 comments.

This is all a mess.

Chen Nuo looked at the other entries, and they were all pretty much the same.

If he still doesn't understand what this means by this point, then he's wasted his years as an actor.

Because his previous blockbuster movie was just like that, wasn't it? It started off as nothing special, but then it defied all odds!

Allison seemed to have the same thought as him. Her eyes sparkled as she said, "Chen, there's a saying that you can't step into the same river twice, but you managed to make Inception twice. That's a complete miracle."

Chen Nuo said, "Will two Inception movies allow me to leave the White House smoothly? That's what I really want to know right now."

Allison said, "As long as you don't make monkey noises at him, there won't be any problem."

PS:

Qidian added an audio version to my book.
Out of curiosity, I listened to a bit of it, and it almost made me laugh to death.

Go listen to the first few sentences of the first chapter.

The female anchor was really dedicated, but I think I used too few onomatopoeic words; it was too short.

^_^.

(End of this chapter)