Simon and Jennifer left Melbourne on July 11 and headed for a forest lake in Tasmania's mid-west, the spot sitting almost exactly at the center of Simon's private land.
The nearest road was thirty kilometers away, so the only way in was by helicopter.
His assistant had paid out of her own pocket to build the cabins. Three in total, one for Simon, one for her, and one for the rest of the staff. She even built a helipad. Transporting materials alone cost a fortune. There was no power or running water in the wilderness, so they relied on generators and natural water sources. Communication was limited to a satellite phone.
It was already an isolated life. Once the snow buried everything, it became total separation from the world.
Stepping out of nonstop work and into this place, Simon's first feeling wasn't comfort.
It was anxiety, a sharp sense of losing control.
Fortunately, Simon had lived through something no one else in this world could understand. The weight of a dozen lifetimes let him adapt quickly.
His assistant, on the other hand, switched between corporate iron-woman and homey little sweetheart as naturally as breathing.
She brought only a few books and a sketch folder.
In the daytime she had Simon teach her to draw. She skated on the frozen lake outside the cabin, wearing a girlish white down jacket, moving with the practiced ease of a woodland sprite.
At night they nestled by the fireplace. With her clean, gentle voice, she read aloud to Simon: Proust's In Search of Lost Time, a thick book.
Or Yeats's poems.
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made...
Afterward she even suggested they should name the little lake. Maybe call it Innisfree Lake.
Simon refused.
When she made a rare, wounded little pout, he said it should be called Jenny Lake instead.
Her pout didn't fade. She demanded to know which Jenny.
Simon said firmly it was obviously the Jenny in front of him.
She had also brought a Korean copy of The Nine Cloud Dream.
She never forgot Janet's old joke. She wanted to know the story and insisted Simon tell it to her himself.
And then she fell in love with the Grand View Garden's romances and tragedies, its blossoms and snow, its reunions and separations.
Even when fierce curiosity flashed in her eyes, she never asked why Simon knew such a difficult, obscure language.
She just kept asking question after question.
She even forced herself to memorize a poem from the book.
The pronunciation wasn't perfectly consistent, but the cadence was remarkably correct.
'If a youth diligently studies the Confucian classics and serves his country as a minister of state or a general when he is grown into a man, he may dress in silks with an official seal upon his jade belt. He may look upon beautiful colors with the eyes and listen to beautiful voices with his ears. He may enjoy beautiful girls and leave an honorable legacy for his descendants. But a Buddhist monk has only a small bowl of rice and a cup of water. We read the sutras and meditate with our 108 mala beads hanging upon our necks. It is a lofty and profound endeavor, but it is terribly lonely. Though I may become enlightened, though I may master all the doctrines of the Mahayana path and sit in my master's seat to succeed him, once my spirit parts from my body in the flames of the funeral pyre, who will remember that a person named Hsing-chen ever lived upon this Earth?"
In the end, she couldn't help asking, as if it were nothing at all, whether the character in The Nine Cloud Dream really existed.
Simon said it didn't.
It was nothing but a dream.
She clearly disliked that answer. Her lips pressed into a stubborn line.
Simon coaxed her, and the little mood finally vanished.
She was very satisfied with Old Monk ending, and declared that if Simon ever stopped liking her, she would find a decent man and marry him.
When she said it, the look in her eyes even carried a threat.
Threatening him.
So she was "dealt with" harshly.
Every time, she was obedient.
She discovered something, and complained that a lot of the dirty little details Janet had told her turned out not to exist at all.
Simon laughed and said they could exist.
And then.
They really did.
When everything calmed again, she went back to reading In Search of Lost Time.
Simon listened patiently, and absentmindedly, on a blank margin of his The Nine Cloud Dream, he wrote down a line he had just heard:
A man's life is but a fleeting moment.
...
She smelled food and lazily opened her eyes.
This was the bedroom. There was no food here, only the scent clinging to the man who had come in from the kitchen.
She couldn't help sniffing softly, but she was too lazy to move.
The room was warm. Simon wore only a wool sweater and khaki trousers. Seeing her awake, he leaned in to kiss her.
She turned her head away. "I haven't brushed my teeth."
Simon didn't let her go. He kissed her just-awakened, glowing cheek, then drifted to her pale throat, still unsatisfied. He tugged the blanket down a little and leaned closer again.
"Up now, or should I stay in bed with you a while?"
She pressed down on his wandering hand. "I'm getting up. You go out first."
"I'll help you get dressed."
"No. I can dress myself."
"That won't do. I have to help."
And with her soft laughter, he did. In the end, the two of them "got dressed" all over again.
Breakfast had to be remade.
The original food was stone cold.
By the time they finished eating, it was already ten in the morning.
The date was July 17. They had stayed here a full week. Janet called once or twice, mostly to needle them, but if they stayed any longer, it would be hard to justify.
It was a brilliantly clear day.
After packing, they stood outside. The assistant's reluctance was obvious. She even worried someone might break in and take over her little cabin. Only after Simon promised he would assign dedicated caretakers did she relax a little.
With the midday sun at its best, they boarded the helicopter waiting nearby.
The rotor's roar lifted them into the sky. The lake, small to begin with, shrank beneath them until it looked like a dark bead, like an old memory that would inevitably fade inside anyone's heart.
The rented Bell helicopter couldn't fly the whole way. They had to land on the northern coast of Tasmania and take a boat back to Melbourne. By the time they reached the villa outside the city, it was already after four in the afternoon.
Simon called a few people close to him. He planned to rest one more night and start work tomorrow.
Then Anthony Johnston called and told him to come to the family estate for a party. It turned out today was Norman Johnston's birthday, and the whole family would be there.
After spending a week away with Jennifer, Simon didn't believe the Johnstons didn't know. Feeling guilty, he didn't refuse.
Jennifer felt even guiltier, and didn't dare go with him.
He arrived at the estate at dusk.
The party was lively, with plenty of guests.
Aside from Patrick Johnston shooting Simon a knowing look, no one reacted in any special way to where Simon had been for the past week.
The socializing lasted deep into the night. When the guests finally left, Simon meant to go as well, but the old man kept him there. The words were casual, as if to say, this is home, you have a room here. But Simon understood. The old man was displeased about the week Simon had just spent.
So Simon could only stay.
Back in Melbourne, there was no sleeping in. He woke at seven sharp the next morning.
He left the bedroom, walked down the hall toward the stairs. As he passed one room, Veronica Johnston opened her door and stepped out. Seeing Simon, she froze, instinctively raising a hand, only to drop it again.
Simon stopped too. Seeing her defensive reflex, he frowned.
At his frown, Veronica raised her hand again, as if wanting to explain, but she only managed a hesitant, "I…" and couldn't continue.
Simon didn't speak either. He turned and walked toward the stairs.
Veronica stood there, staring after him until he disappeared, then finally stepped out.
After breakfast, Simon and Anthony Johnston headed into Melbourne to Johnston Holdings headquarters.
Even after moving Cersei Capital's headquarters to New York, the Melbourne office still retained a team after last year's Japan operation. For this oil play, in order to reduce outside penetration into the details, the Melbourne team was participating as well.
In fact, because Cersei Capital had built an enormous and complex set of crude futures positions across New York, London, and other markets through multiple accounts, and had recently begun participating directly in spot trades, only a handful of people, Simon and Janet among them, truly knew the firm's exact exposures. Even inside Cersei Capital, very few had the full picture.
Cersei began building long positions in late June, when international crude was still above $14.
In less than a month, crude prices had already fallen to $13, the lowest level Simon remembered.
Ignoring the profits from their short positions and counting only the recent longs, Cersei's mark-to-market loss in under a month already exceeded $1.6 billion.
And because Cersei kept increasing its long exposure while reducing shorts, if crude did not rebound as expected and instead slid toward $10 a barrel, as many institutions predicted, then not only would the earlier short profits be wiped out, even the principal could be at risk.
In Simon's memory, after Iraq and Kuwait's negotiations over production controls collapsed in late July, crude began rising, then doubled outright after war broke out on August 2.
Right now, the Iraq-Kuwait negotiations were still ongoing. According to Middle Eastern reports, the first-stage outcome would not come until next week. Either Kuwait would compromise and reduce production, or the talks would collapse and events would head into unknown territory.
Simon didn't believe his existence alone could prevent the war.
If anything, the internal causes of the conflict were far more complex than most people imagined. It involved not only Western oil interests, but also the still-turbulent situation in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.
Even so, to be safe, Cersei's operation was relatively conservative. By mid-July, its long exposure was still under $15 billion, and it had reserved enough funds to keep leverage under five times.
Under the plan, once all short positions were closed next week, even though Cersei's principal would exceed $5 billion, the total long exposure would still be kept carefully under $25 billion.
After spending a full day at Johnston Holdings discussing Cersei's next moves, Simon turned his attention back to film.
Batman: The Dark Knight was still filming smoothly. Simon didn't need to worry much.
Back in North America.
It had been over three weeks since Simon left on June 24.
Over these few weeks, the summer season saw multiple releases, including Die Hard 2, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Days of Thunder.
And earlier still, Ghost, which opened June 1, continued to hold steady despite the pressure of new releases.
As of July 19, after seven weeks in theaters, Ghost had already accumulated $115.06 million.
And in its seventh week, this tearjerker romance still held above $10 million for the week, bringing in $11.07 million. It had a strong chance of breaking $200 million in North America, becoming the first film of 1990 to cross the $200 million domestic mark.
By comparison, Total Recall, also in its seventh week, had reached $106.41 million domestically and successfully crossed $100 million, but its weekly box office had already slid to $4.77 million. It likely had only about $10 million of remaining upside.
As for the first film in Daenerys Entertainment's ten-film plan, Sleeping with the Enemy, after a $27.62 million opening week, its second-week drop was 33%, earning another $18.53 million.
That drop was above 30%, mildly disappointing.
However, over the next three weeks, its weekly drops stayed under 30%, at 21%, 17%, and 23%, pulling in another $14.61 million, $12.13 million, and $9.37 million.
In five weeks, Sleeping with the Enemy had already reached $82.26 million.
Its weekly box office had fallen below $10 million, but there was no doubt it would pass $100 million domestically.
Meanwhile, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which opened July 6, had a production budget raised from the original timeline's $8 million B-movie level to $20 million, and its quality was clearly stronger than the original. Combined with the prime summer slot and Daenerys Entertainment's all-out marketing, it opened with $39.78 million in its first week, far above the first-week totals of Ghost and Sleeping with the Enemy.
In just the week of July 6 to July 12, under Daenerys Entertainment's tiered revenue-sharing rules with theaters, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had already recouped its entire production and marketing costs.
However, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles still relied heavily on the popularity built by the animated series and games. The film itself was not at the phenomenon level, and a huge opening almost inevitably meant a steep second-week drop.
From July 13 to July 19.
In its second week, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles dropped 43%, earning another $22.67 million.
Two weeks brought in $62.45 million, a curve similar to Total Recall, which had opened around the same time as Ghost.
The difference was that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cost less than one third of Schwarzenegger's Total Recall. Total Recall's domestic box office only barely covered production cost, while Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles began generating strong profit as early as its second week.
Because of its strong market performance, Daenerys Entertainment quickly announced a sequel.
In the original timeline, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series declined with each installment, because beyond the IP heat, it was difficult to keep audiences deeply hooked. Many people went to the first film largely because of the popularity built by the cartoons and games.
This time, Simon did not stop the sequel from being greenlit, the way he had with the Flight Over Innocence series.
Mainly because of cost.
Unlike the Flight Over Innocence and Lethal Weapon franchises, even if Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles developed sequels, the production cost would not rise too much above the first film. And there would be no major star like Mel Gibson demanding an outrageous share of profits.
If the first film could break $100 million, then as long as the sequel didn't do anything stupid, recouping costs and turning a profit would be easy.