After Janet got pregnant, weekends were originally supposed to be for resting.
Because he had almost left Los Angeles for an entire week previously, this weekend could not be idle at all.
At five o'clock in the afternoon, Simon finished the production meeting for The Last of the Mohicans, and after a simple goodbye to the main cast and crew, he returned to the Point Dume Estate.
Today was September 11, Saturday.
Upon returning home, he handed his briefcase to Allison, the A-girl who came to greet him, asked a question, and headed toward the seaside living room of the villa.
Janet was leaning against the sofa, her two calves draped over the D-girl's thighs, being gently kneaded by Deborah, exuding quite the air of an Palace empress. At six months pregnant, as her belly grew bigger, the woman inevitably showed the common swelling of pregnant women, but fortunately it was not serious.
Seeing Simon, Janet made a few moaning sounds, her expression revealing a bit of pitifulness.
Simon sent the D-girl away, sat in the spot Deborah had just vacated, and began to help Janet knead her calves. A man's strength was always a bit greater than a woman's. After Janet let out a few comfortable hums, she said, "It's so annoying."
"How about coming to Europe with me tomorrow, change the scenery, and rest in Italy for a while?"
Although he had just returned to Los Angeles a few days ago, Simon still had to leave again this time to head to Europe.
The closing ceremony of this Venice Film Festival was on September 16, next Monday, that is, the day after tomorrow. Daenerys Entertainment's The Piano had entered the main competition unit of this Venice Film Festival. According to the news fed back by Ira Deutchman, as expected, The Piano had already secured the Golden Lion Award.
Simon planned to attend some parties after the Venice Film Festival.
In addition, the opening of this year's Milan Fashion Week was on September 26, and Sophia also hoped Simon could attend.
In fact, both of the above were just incidental. The filming of Wonder Woman had already entered the second half, and recently it was shooting at several locations in Italy. Simon had followed the crew for a week at the start of filming in July. Now nearing the end, he planned to follow up for another week similarly.
As a project in the DC Cinematic Universe that basically belonged entirely to Daenerys Entertainment, Wonder Woman was worthy of Simon's such attention.
Janet naturally knew Simon's itinerary in advance. Hearing this, she shook her head. "I don't want to go. I've suddenly regretted conceiving this little guy. I really want to chase him out of my belly right now."
Simon smiled, continuing to knead Janet's calves with one hand while reaching over with the other to stroke the woman's round belly, saying, "It has to be at the right time. Did he kick you today?"
Janet wrinkled her nose. "He did. Only after I scolded him a few times did he calm down."
The smile at the corner of Simon's lips grew thicker. After thinking for a bit, he said, "Or, if you don't want to go to Europe, how about returning to Australia for a while? Tomorrow I can send you back to Australia first?"
Janet fluttered her eyes a few times and stared at Simon. "It's you who wants to go back to Australia, right?"
Simon was puzzled. "Why would it be me wanting to go back to Australia?"
"Hmph hmph hmph."
"What does that mean?"
Janet raised her chin, with a look as if he knew it in his heart.
Simon steadfastly played dumb and changed the topic. "What do you want to eat tonight?"
Janet suddenly threw a little tantrum, pulling her slightly hoarse little voice. "I want to sleep."
Speaking of which, Simon had always suspected that the woman used to smoke in the past.
Otherwise, how could she have such a slightly hoarse voice? It was just that Janet never admitted it, and Simon had never seen her smoke.
Without lingering on this thought, Simon immediately nodded. "I'll carry you to the bedroom. Sleep for a while first. I'll call you when dinner is ready?"
Janet's tone had even more willful coquetry. "I want to sleep on my stomach."
...
Janet's tone suddenly turned aggrieved again, repeating, "I want to sleep on my stomach."
"This, it's very difficult. Moreover, sleeping on your stomach is really too unladylike."
"Ugh, it's all your fault."
When a woman got into a mood, there was no reasoning to be had.
Simon also had no intention of reasoning with the pregnant lady. He followed Janet's tone and comforted her for quite a while before dispelling her sudden whim of wanting to sleep on her stomach.
After soothing Janet, Simon personally went to give instructions for dinner.
When he returned again, Janet had recovered her usual appearance, as if the childish behavior from earlier didn't exist.
She had Simon switch to the other side and sit, pillow her head on her man's thigh, and together they watched the crimson sunset seascape outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, chatting about small things.
It was not until dusk enveloped everything that the A-girl came over to help turn on the living room lights. Under the dim lighting, the scenery outside the window completely vanished.
Dinner was already prepared. Janet was too lazy to move and was carried by Simon to the dining room.
Still habitually sitting next to Simon, eating the food specially prepared according to the pregnancy menu, Janet also brought up some serious business. "Forbes will release the new annual America's 400 Richest list next Monday. However, I already got the materials this afternoon. You can look at it later."
Simon asked directly, "How much?"
Janet started playing coy. "You look at it yourself."
Although he hadn't done a detailed tally, Simon privately would occasionally estimate his own family assets.
In any case, except for those Middle Eastern tycoon royal families floating on oil fields, for non-state-level individuals, there definitely weren't many people in the world richer than Simon.
It was always hard to avoid the theory that when money reaches a certain level, it becomes just a number.
Since topping the rich list last year, Simon had frequently had similar thoughts this past year.
However, Simon also knew that the main reason for having this idea was because of his insufficient foundation. Twenty of billions in personal wealth had not exerted its due influence.
Moreover, for Simon, whether last year's 21 billion or whatever amount this year, it was actually still not enough.
At the peak of the Rockefeller family, their private wealth accounted for 1.5 percent of the US GDP. Calculating based on the US GDP of 5.98 trillion in 1990, Simon needed to accumulate about 90 billion in personal assets to be on par with the Rockefeller family's peak.
Of course, the Rockefeller family's peak was already in John Rockefeller's later years.
Compared to John Rockefeller back then, the 23-year-old Simon this year still had far too much time. With the Westeros System's current expansion speed, surpassing the Rockefeller family was only a matter of time. Surpassing the Rockefeller family's influence in the US would probably not be too distant either.
The next day he continued to be busy all morning, and only in the afternoon did Simon board the private Boeing 767 flying directly to Venice, Italy.
There was a 10-hour time difference between Los Angeles and Venice.
Having calculated the time in advance, after experiencing about 12 hours of flight, the Boeing 767 arrived in Venice. The local time was five o'clock in the afternoon on September 16.
Simon had no plans to participate in the closing ceremony, only arranging to attend the subsequent closing banquet.
As Gucci's headquarters, with successful operation experience at the two major film events of the Oscars and Cannes, Sophia naturally would not miss the Venice Film Festival.
However, in order not to steal the spotlight from the closing banquet, Gucci's Venice Film Festival themed party had already been held two days ago on Saturday night.
Speaking of which, there was no problem in securing the naming rights for the Venice Film Festival closing banquet, but to avoid suspicion, Gucci did not do so. Otherwise, if a film produced by Daenerys Entertainment won an award, and Gucci, which also belonged to the Westeros System, sponsored the closing banquet, it would be too easy to give people certain imaginations.
Even if it was like plugging one's ears while stealing a bell, for many things, the superficial work still had to be done.
The three cities of Venice, Florence, and Milan were very close to each other, with distances of about two hundred kilometers between each, roughly equivalent to half the distance from Los Angeles to San Francisco. A private plane could reach them in one flight.
Therefore, Sophia had specially rushed over from Milan.
The woman had recently been in Milan preparing for next week's Milan Fashion Week Gucci grand show. The two planned to stay tonight at Simon's hillside villa by Lake Como in Milan.
Simon had not purchased any property in Venice.
On one hand, there was no suitable property.
On the other hand, Simon had some instinctive resistance in his heart toward this floating city on water.
As for the reason, it was probably similar to Simon's lack of interest in private yachts. The feeling of floating on water made Simon instinctively generate a certain sense of insecurity.
After arriving in Venice, after meeting Sophia and Ira Deutchman and having a simple dinner together, everyone gathered in a suite at the Lido Island Venice Boutique Hotel where the closing banquet was about to be held to discuss some recent matters at Highgate Films, while waiting for the award results continuously transmitted from the closing ceremony.
When the news came that Holly Hunter had obtained the Best Actress award at this Venice Film Festival, everyone knew the overall situation was decided.
The film festival jury might give some secondary honors like jury awards to films that could not obtain the Golden Lion for balance, but the Best Actress was not in that category.
During the process of waiting for the final news, Simon also heard another name.
Raise the Red Lantern.
This film, together with two other movies, obtained the Silver Lion Award.
Last year's Ju Dou had a pretty good response, and Ira Deutchman had already secured the North American distribution rights for Raise the Red Lantern in advance, planning to make another impact on this year's Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
Because Daenerys Entertainment would actively abandon the competition for major awards like Best Picture at the Oscars next year, with the public relations resources freed up, if they wanted to gain something in marginal awards like Best Foreign Language Film, it was still very easy.
Simon had neither deliberately promoted nor obstructed this matter, just letting Deutchman operate it himself.
After nine o'clock, the closing ceremony finally reached its end.
The Piano, directed by Jane Campion and starring Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, and others, smoothly topped the list and obtained the highest honor of this Venice Film Festival, the Golden Lion Award.
After the closing ceremony ended, the guests left the Film Palace and began converging on the Venice Boutique Hotel, and things gradually became lively here.
When the crew of The Piano arrived, Simon and the others left the hotel suite and went together to the banquet hall to express congratulations to the film's main creators.
The fact that Simon would appear at this film festival's closing banquet was not known to many people in advance. As the news spread, there was some commotion in the banquet hall. Even many closing ceremony guests who originally did not plan to attend the banquet also temporarily rushed over.
The turmoil in Europe or Eastern Europe would basically conclude by the end of this year along with the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
In the next few years, while continuing to integrate and expand the North American local market, a large part of Daenerys Entertainment's energy would be placed on developing the European market.
In the general direction, of course, the American government would come forward, through relevant trade negotiations requiring European countries to increase the openness of their local film markets.
Specifically for each Hollywood studio, it would require each to display their own abilities.
Daenerys Entertainment's next stage target in Europe was to penetrate the several important European film box office strongholds of the UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. Daenerys Entertainment's branches in these countries had already been established long ago.
To develop the film market, personal connections were crucial. Therefore, participating a bit more in such film festival activities only had advantages and no disadvantages for Daenerys Entertainment's senior management.
Speaking of which, it was not just Daenerys Entertainment. The entire Westeros System would next begin to slowly penetrate Europe.
The companies in which Westeros held shares or controlled, such as Microsoft, Intel, Cisco, Ygritte, and so on, their future development would all be global. To avoid these companies being frequently bothered by the EU in the future, the Westeros System must arrange sufficient chips in Europe.
Not only integrating the Westeros System into the American economy, but even into the entire world. This was something Simon had been considering all this time recently.
Establishing intertwined interest associations. In the future, if the EU wanted to make some targeted measures again, they would need to consider the consequences, whether it would damage their own economy, whether it would cause unemployment for workers in their own country, whether it would cause a reduction in their own country's tax revenue, and so on.
As his vision and experience continued to change, Simon also increasingly realized that later companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Google, who racked their brains to adopt tax avoidance measures in Europe, was not actually a very shrewd decision.
Leaving more benefit taxes for each country would definitely only bring more advantages to these enterprises' own development in those national markets.
After all, even if transferred back to North America, unless encountering targeted major tax reductions, these profits would still have to be paid in full.
Just for the sake of tax avoidance, large amounts of funds long-term stockpiled in offshore markets unable to be utilized, only able to rely on some international fixed-income investments to earn some negligible returns, was in any case a kind of waste.
However, the choice to avoid taxes as much as possible, if standing from the level of those big enterprises' professional managers, was actually understandable.
The duty of professional managers was to create and retain as much profit as possible for the shareholders.
In comparison, Simon was now standing at a different level.
The lively and noisy closing banquet continued until deep into the night. Under the socializing with countless people, Simon inevitably felt some intoxication. By the time he and Sophia returned to the villa by Lake Como in Milan, the time had already passed midnight.
Probably due to frequent rushing about, Simon had also become very easy at adapting to jet lag.
Last night he had rested after two o'clock in the morning. The next day, before nine o'clock Milan local time, he woke up.
Sophia got up even earlier, looking radiant and glowing.
At breakfast time, reading some local newspapers during breakfast.
The news of Simon attending the Venice Film Festival closing ceremony last night had already been reported by Italian local media.
Probably because of Simon appearing in Italy, today's Italian local media seemed even more bustling. It's just that the topics these media were discussing were not last night's Venice Film Festival closing ceremony, but instead the new annual America's 400 Richest list just released yesterday by Forbes magazine over in North America.