Chapter 11: My Name is James Bond
William's intuition was sharp. He felt something bad was about to happen, but he didn't expect that just as he was taking steps to protect himself, he would walk right into the trap set by Claudio and John at the hotel entrance.
"Quick, John, that's him! The young man coming out now is William Devonshire! Get the shot." Claudio and John had only been lying in ambush for a few minutes when they saw William and his entourage walk out of the hotel.
John Taylor, who was already prepared, raised his camera and began shooting non-stop. *Click, click, click.* He fired off more than a dozen shots in a row.
As soon as he walked out of the hotel, William felt someone watching him. He turned around and saw two paparazzi hiding behind a flower bed. One of them was aiming a camera at him and taking pictures relentlessly.
William frowned as he was being photographed. He was annoyed and subconsciously wanted to fire an ice spell to freeze the paparazzi in place.
But as he raised his hand, he remembered he was at the entrance of a hotel. Using magic in public would cause a huge scene. Thinking of this, he instead forced a smile and waved at the paparazzi.
At that moment, Anthony spotted the photographers. "Who are you? No pictures allowed!" he shouted, telling one of his interns to stop them and demand they delete the photos.
But John was a senior paparazzi and Claudio was an ex-special forces soldier. They had sharp eyes. The moment they saw the lawyer's group coming towards them, they took off, sprinting across the street, jumping into their car, and speeding away. They had no intention of getting tangled up with lawyers.
Their skilled photography, decisive escape, clear route, and quick movements left William stunned. *Are all English paparazzi this professional?* he thought. He had just wanted to say hello and offer them some money for the photos. But now that the two had run off, his chance to solve this problem with money was gone.
He still didn't know that his entire meeting had been recorded. If he had, he would have definitely made the Hilton Hotel pay. He wouldn't find out until the next morning.
"The paparazzi have noticed me," William said to Anthony with a frown. "We have to speed things up. We need to handle the company shares this afternoon."
Anthony thought for a moment and said, "Mr. Devonshire, our only option now is to buy a pre-registered company in the British Virgin Islands. If we're willing to spend the money, we can get it done in an hour or two."
William immediately decided, "Okay, let's do as you say."
"Please follow me, Mr. Devonshire." Anthony led William to a business car and they went directly to the UK Companies Registry.
Half an hour later, William spent 10,000 pounds to buy an offshore company registered in the British Virgin Islands. He then transferred sixty percent of his shares in his UK-based "Devonshire Industries" to this new offshore company. He also had Anthony set up five more offshore companies for him. He planned to distribute the sixty percent stake among these six companies, with each holding between eight and twelve percent.
He would do the same with any other companies he established in the future. In 2000, unlike the US Internal Revenue Service, the UK government couldn't collect taxes from its citizens worldwide. This way, William could pay less than half the tax he otherwise would. At this time, the UK's basis for collecting taxes was primarily tied to UK bank accounts. Funds that never entered the country were currently outside the government's reach.
While waiting, William got bored and started thinking about what he'd do with the 100 million pounds. He remembered articles he'd read in his previous life about Jack Ma and Tencent. But in terms of sheer growth rate, it seemed even they couldn't compare to Ding Lei of NetEase.
"Why not wait for the Nasdaq to rebound and then buy some NetEase stock? At its lowest point, it was only $0.58 per share. If I hold it for more than ten years, I could make thousands of times my investment. That's better than Jack Ma or Tencent. When Tencent goes public in '04, its market cap will be less than five billion Hong Kong dollars. I can buy some then. A ten-million-pound investment could be worth eight billion in a decade. It's like picking up free money."
"Being reborn is the best. If you don't take advantage of these bargains, you'd be letting yourself down."
As for Jack Ma, he was the master of fooling others; no one could fool him. There were no bargains to be had there now. All the initial shares had already been divided up. To get a bargain, one would have to wait a few years for Yahoo to divest its shares, but as William was now a British citizen, he didn't know if Jack Ma would even consider him.
After several hours of sitting and signing more than a dozen documents, they finally finished the company registrations and share transfers before 4 p.m. Now his Devonshire Industries was no longer technically a UK resident company, and the government could no longer collect taxes from his offshore holdings.
Thinking about the ten or twenty million pounds he'd save in taxes, William happily took Anthony and his team to a three-star Michelin restaurant in London for a celebratory meal.
He didn't enjoy the meal much and couldn't even finish his portion. He sighed, *I'm still just a country bumpkin. About to become a hundred-millionaire, but I still have a bumpkin's tastes.*
After dinner, Anthony drove William back to the Hilton before heading to his law firm. He still had many documents to prepare for the negotiations in three days. William returned to his hotel room and watched TV boredly. He didn't dare practice magic in the hotel, afraid of hidden cameras. Besides, with his system, he didn't really need to practice magic manually. The "dumb" system was incredibly convenient.
Putting on a coat, William went down to the hotel bar. He was too excited from the day's events to sleep, figuring a drink might help.
He took a seat at the bar and ordered an Irish whiskey. On the television, Chelsea was playing against another team. This wasn't the Chelsea of the post-2003 Abramovich era. The club's chairman was Ken Bates. The old man was once seen as Chelsea's savior, but that was twenty years ago.
Now, Bates had little standing with the fans. He was a standard businessman who sold many of Chelsea's stars for high prices and treated the team purely as a business. It was no wonder the fans disliked him. The team on the pitch didn't have any big-name stars. William found it uninteresting.
"Who are you favoring, young man?"
A voice spoke from beside him. William turned to see a middle-aged man holding a glass of whiskey, smiling and raising it in a toast. William stared at the handsome man, who looked incredibly familiar. *The 007 guy... what is he doing here? Is he talking to me?* William looked at the man, who looked just like Pierce Brosnan, uncertainly.
"Hey, young man, it's impolite to stare," the man said, a hint of dissatisfaction in his voice.
"Sorry," William apologized. "I just think you look familiar. My apologies. Hello, I'm William Devonshire. It's a pleasure to meet you." He still couldn't believe it was the Hollywood superstar, Pierce Brosnan.
"Alright. Perhaps we have met before. Hello, young man. I am James Bond. It's a pleasure to know you, too," the handsome, gentlemanly man said with a perfect London accent.
William knew that Pierce Brosnan was Irish; someone not born in London couldn't speak with such a standard accent. *What did he just say? James Bond? Pierce, you've got to be kidding me. You're really deep in character.*
Seeing that William was speechless again, the handsome man in front of him looked a little unhappy.
"Hey, young man, that's the second time you've been rude. If you don't wish to talk, I won't bother you." After saying that, he turned away from William and focused on his whiskey.
"Sorry, Mr. Pierce. I just didn't recognize you at first. My apologies." William ordered two more whiskeys and pushed one toward the man.
The man glanced at the whiskey William offered and nodded. "Alright, apology accepted, young man. But my name is James Bond. Do you know someone named Pierce who looks like me?"
"Don't be ridiculous. Everyone knows you're the Hollywood star Pierce Brosnan. That joke isn't funny at all," William said, rolling his eyes.
"No, I don't know any Hollywood star by that name. My name is James Bond. Perhaps I'll go back and check who this Brosnan is, if he looks so much like me."
After finishing his drink, he said to William, "Until next time, kid. I hope you remember my name when you see me again. Don't get it wrong. Good night."
William watched the man who looked like Pierce Brosnan stand up and walk out of the bar, feeling as if he'd been trampled by a herd of cattle.
*James Bond, my ass,* he thought. *The acting is a bit too convincing. Do big stars really like playing these kinds of practical jokes? 'Don't get it wrong next time'... yeah, right. Do all stars have such weird habits?*
But William, muttering to himself, forgot that this was not the world of his previous life. Here, anything was possible.