"Fck!"
Headache, a severe headache.
Leon suddenly opened his eyes and shook his head. He was now in the penthouse suite of the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas.
A faint smell of stale alcohol, strong perfume, mixed with a hint of hormones permeated the room.
"Oh my God, you finally woke up. I thought you were going to sleep until the end of the world in 2012." Megan Fox pulled open the curtains, sitting on the swivel chair by the floor-to-ceiling window.
She held a slender lady's cigarette between her fingers, wearing a black silk robe, the belt loosely tied, revealing a large expanse of fair skin.
"Damn it..." Leon shook his head vigorously and looked at the time on his watch; it was already twelve o'clock noon.
He tried his best to recall everything that happened last night.
Drinking heavily with Stallone and a group of action superstars, racing a McLaren on the Las Vegas Strip with Conor, inspiration refreshing Blinding Lights...
The memory after being sent back to the hotel by Conor was very vague.
"It seems you really got drunk last night." Megan exhaled a puff of smoke, her voice husky and full of teasing. "Consuming too much alcohol does affect a man's state. There is still time now; do you want to prove yourself?"
"What did I do last night?" Leon scratched his head, pretending to remember nothing.
In fact, he vaguely remembered that after returning to the hotel last night, Megan had been hovering around him.
The two muddledly checked into the same room and rolled in the sheets.
"You don't remember anything?" She was stunned for a moment, then smiled to cover it up. "Don't lie; you weren't like this last night..."
"How was I last night?"
"Think about it again?" Megan lowered her head and smiled, her cheeks flushed. "Look at you now; I can't imagine those dirty words came out of your mouth~"
Leon spread his hands, showing no sign of embarrassment.
He only felt his throat was terribly dry. He got up, grabbed a bottle of mineral water, and drank it in one gulp, glancing at Megan's hemline. "Sure enough, it's red..."
"Okay, it seems you really don't remember anything." Megan stubbed out the cigarette, looking helpless. "I used to think those media revelations about you were just smears, just like they did to me. Now it seems what they said is absolutely right."
"What did they say?" Leon asked casually while washing his face with cold water.
"Said you are a thorough cold-blooded animal."
"I am not, at least not when treating ladies." Leon said, "Didn't you feel my heat last night?"
Megan burst out laughing. "Do you need me to help you recall properly? You only lasted three minutes last night before collapsing on the pillow. I tried every method but couldn't wake you up."
"Is that so?" Leon couldn't hold it anymore, blushing rarely.
"Mm-hmm!" Megan nodded solemnly, her expression sincere.
"Okay, this was just an accident. I will prove myself another time."
After washing up, Leon dressed as fast as he could. Picking up his phone, he saw more than a dozen calls and messages from Bonnie and Phil.
[Are you still fooling around with that plastic surgery woman?]
[Where exactly are you? Our plane is going to be late! Don't forget we still have to shoot the MV for Heathens!]
Out of protection for their privacy, Megan didn't choose to stay in the room prepared by the UFC for Leon last night.
Instead, she asked her assistant to open another suite with her VIP card, which led to Bonnie and others searching all morning without finding the boss's trace.
The filming team led by Mike was already waiting in Los Angeles. According to the plan, Leon would meet them and go to Crescent City at the border of California and Oregon, the location of Pelican Bay State Prison.
After shooting this MV, he would return to Los Angeles, find time to meet Jeff, and sign the copyright transfer agreement for Ready Player One.
"I have to go, Miss Megan. The time we spent together last night was wonderful." Leon tidied his hair in the mirror and turned to leave.
"Wait, you're leaving just like that?" Megan was angry and surprised. She had never seen such a scumbag who pulled up his pants and ran away.
He didn't mention a single letter about the movie role.
"Sorry, my team is still waiting for me. I will make it up to you another day. The terrible situation last night will never happen again." Leon lifted her hair and kissed her neck lightly.
"I mean... about Ready Player One, how are you considering it? You said it yourself last night, this role is tailor-made for me." Megan bit her lip, her eyes almost dripping water.
"I would say something like that?" Leon questioned himself in his heart.
He preferred to believe this was a small trick played by Megan.
He was dead drunk last night; what he said and did depended entirely on her mouth.
Although this woman spoke without thinking, she couldn't have risen to become a first-line female star in the extremely involuted Hollywood without some means.
"Listen to me, baby, this movie is still in the preparation stage." Leon put his arm around her slender waist, exploring all the way down to the taillights. "Of course, I am willing to choose you, but how the role is finally decided depends on who is most suitable for the role of Samantha."
"You mean audition?"
"Of course~ You know, even though I am the investor, many things are not decided by me alone. It depends on Warner Bros.' thoughts." Leon spread his hands. "You have worked with Warner; you should know their style of doing things. But anyway, I will fight for you!"
When saying these words, he kept a serious face, throwing the blame entirely on Warner.
Megan nodded thoughtfully, completely believing this rhetoric. "I trust you forever..."
As soon as Leon arrived at the lobby on the first floor of the hotel, sure enough, he saw Bonnie and others looking anxious.
As soon as he appeared, everyone surrounded him. Bonnie complained helplessly: "Oh my God, where did you go fooling around? We couldn't find your shadow anywhere. I had to change everyone's flight tickets."
"I had some personal matters to deal with."
Bonnie didn't bother to ask further. She kept staring at Megan at the UFC scene last night. That lustful look wished she could perform a "Red Panty Night" with Leon right at the match scene.
She could guess what happened last night with her butt.
While the plane was taxiing on the runway, Leon leaned back in the first-class seat scrolling through social media.
Suddenly he thought of something and asked abruptly, "Where is Conor? Why didn't I see that guy's figure? Why didn't he fly to Los Angeles with us on the same flight and then return to Sacramento to continue training?"
"Last night's victory declaration made his popularity soar on social media. He won the Performance of the Night and Knockout of the Night awards, receiving a $100,000 bonus from Dana." Bonnie said, "He booked a flight back to Ireland early this morning, can't wait to slap those guys who looked down on him in the face."
"This bastard..." Leon could completely imagine what was going on in his head.
A soft rice man relying on his girlfriend's relief, a down-and-out plumber, suddenly became a celebrity overnight;
A pauper with pockets cleaner than his face got a huge sum of more than $100,000. The first thing he thought of must be showing off fiercely.
Diving into the most luxurious nightclub in Dublin, the capital of Ireland, calling a group of good buddies, throwing money at a group of white girls' butts.
When the money is squandered, he will honestly come back to train.
"I warned him that doing so would make you very unhappy." Bonnie sighed. "Guess how he convinced me? He said getting rich and not returning to his hometown is like wearing a Gucci suit and wandering in front of a blind man; it's meaningless."
"This guy..." Leon shook his head, feeling he had heard a similar sentence somewhere.
After the plane landed, he smoothly met Mike's team waiting outside the airport. The convoy didn't stay long in Los Angeles and went directly to Crescent City.
After receiving a $50,000 donation, Pelican Bay Prison readily agreed to this shooting plan.
Since Leon often performed for the Democratic Party's political rallies, he encountered no obstacles from the California Department of Justice and successfully obtained a shooting permit.
"Shooting an MV in Pelican Bay Prison? How did you come up with such a crazy idea?" The expression on Mike's face was both excited and fearful. Pelican Bay's reputation was simply too notorious.
"Don't worry, those prisoners are locked in cages." Leon said, "Are you afraid of lions locked in iron cages? What's more, they are not lions at all. Most of those perverts only dare to attack unarmed women."
Jorge sitting in the passenger seat let out a contemptuous laugh. "Want to hear my story? When I was fifteen or sixteen, a series of murders targeting girls occurred in our community. You know the seventies was the most rampant era for serial killers. No one knew if the good neighbor who often dressed up as a clown to amuse children was a freak in private..."
"I encountered such a thing. That freak who attacked six women was my neighbor! Their body parts were hidden in the refrigerator... Guess what happened to that guy later?"
Old Mike swallowed his saliva with a "gulp." "Was that bastard caught? He must have been sentenced to death, right?"
"Hahaha~" Jorge shook his finger and laughed loudly: "In our community, no one knows what the law is, and few even know what the Declaration of Independence says... My gang friends and I caught that freak and conducted some interesting little experiments on him in the way of B-grade splatter films. I still can't forget his begging look, like a dog with a broken spine."
"And then?"
"Then, that freak became a pot of soup, a pile of DNA fragments..."
Old Mike didn't react at first, until he associated it with the legend of the Mexican cartel "chef" did he understand what the "soup" in his mouth meant.
Undoubtedly, that was a pot of ultra-high concentration acid soup.
During the chat, the convoy went all the way north to the border of California and Oregon, where Pelican Bay State Prison is located.
High walls and barbed wire looked particularly gloomy under the setting sun, and the air was filled with a depressing atmosphere.
The prison had received notification long ago. A row of prison guards stood at the gate.
After confirming the identity of the filming team, strict searches were conducted on each vehicle.
The warden was a tall middle-aged white man in a suit.
His belly bulged like a balloon, looking like he had consumed too many donuts.
"Mr. Leon, your arrival really surprises me." The warden chatted while introducing the situation here. "Pelican Bay never lacks interested news media, but hosting an MV shooting team is a first time... The last time I hosted film and television industry personnel was in 2004. Prison Break screenwriter Paul Scheuring consulted me about what a real maximum-security prison looks like..."
"So I am the first person allowed to shoot an MV in Pelican Bay?"
"The genuine first person." The warden complimented.
The group quickly shuttled to Area A of the prison, which mainly holds the most notorious gang members in California, and was also the originally planned location for shooting the MV.
"The average sentence of prisoners in Area A is twenty years." The warden smiled. "In Pelican Bay, old birds will joke with prisoners here saying '20 years is just a minor crime; you will regain freedom soon'..."
A huge filming team suddenly came to the isolated prison. The prisoners quickly found the anomaly and became restless one after another, peeping secretly from the small window of the iron door.
Unknown who took the lead to whistle, the next second the entire Area A was full of clamoring and cursing.
"Texas Pig (warden's nickname), why isn't there a drop of oil in the mashed potatoes today? I really want to cut off the fat on your belly; it looks more tempting than butter!"
"Look which big shot is here? That white boy's face looks like a Hollywood actor... White boy, pass your ass over for daddies to see!"
"Ahahaha!"
The police officer beside the warden swung his baton vigorously and smashed it against the iron bars.
"Bang—"
"Shut up! Scum!"
But this degree of warning seemed to have no effect. The prisoners didn't buy it at all, laughing even more rampantly.
The warden shrugged helplessly and explained: "Such chaos is not due to our insufficient police force. The sentences of prisoners here are too long; many people don't expect to be released after serving their sentences or parole at all..."
"I completely understand." Leon said.
While the group walked through the intricate cells of Area A, a Latino man with weird letters tattooed on his head stared at the crown tattoo on Jorge's neck and made a throat-slitting threat gesture.
MS-13, this gang from the small Central American country of Guatemala, has become a security cancer causing headaches for police all over the West Coast.
Jorge bared his teeth and sneered, touched his handlebar mustache, extended his right hand, and raised his middle finger. "Go to hell, bastard!"
In another cell, a black gang member stared at Leon through the narrow window, quickly recognized his identity, and shouted excitedly:
"Street Jesus! Sht! He actually came to Pelican Bay!"
"Keep your voice down, ngga... Who is Street Jesus?" asked the prisoner in the next cell.
"Holy sht! You've been locked up here for too long, man! This white boy is a big shot outside! He is as popular as Usher!" The black prisoner kept talking. "By the way, heard he is a friend of 'Saint' Robinson..."
"Saint? When did he get involved with the entertainment industry?"
Hearing Saint's name, the prisoners' ridicule against Leon weakened a lot.
The warden was quite surprised by this and joked: "I really didn't expect to have your fans here. When will you consider holding a concert in Pelican Bay?"
Leon curved the corners of his mouth and smiled without responding. Under Mike's command, the filming team members set up simple scenery in an orderly manner and looked for suitable camera positions.
The makeup artist handed over an orange prison uniform with the number "666" printed on it.
In Western culture, this is the number representing the devil.
Seeing that the shooting was about to officially begin, Leon changed his mind temporarily. He said to the warden: "The environment here did not achieve the effect I expected. These prisoners are not as vicious as I imagined."
"What did you say?" The warden pricked up his ears, doubting if he heard wrong.
"Looking at them, I know what crimes they committed. Robbed a rich old lady? Assault with a gun? Smuggling contraband?" Leon scanned around. "Such people are also common outside the high walls. This is California, you know."
"Then what is your idea now?" The warden, who had no temper left after being roasted, pulled a long face and asked.
"Doesn't Pelican Bay hold the most dangerous criminals in the US? I heard Charles Manson is held here."
Hearing this, the warden instinctively froze on the spot, looking Leon up and down with a complicated expression.
Charles Manson is considered the most famous murderer in American history. He founded the notorious cult organization "Manson Family" during the hippie movement frenzy in the 60s.
He was accused of murdering seven people, but he himself insisted he had 35 lives on his hands.
The most famous incident was breaking into the mansion of famous director Roman Polanski in North Valley, Hollywood in 1969, and murdering his pregnant wife, actress Sharon Tate, who became famous with the movie Valley of the Dolls.
Sharon was stabbed 16 times and died. There was no property loss in the mansion.
Before leaving, Manson wrote "Pig" on the door with Sharon's blood.
This cruel murder case shocked Hollywood and was big news occupying headlines across the US.
"Is Manson not held here?" Leon patted the warden's shoulder.
"No, he is indeed in Pelican Bay." The warden, who came back to his senses, said: "He is held in Area C, where there is a group of extremely dangerous devils and lunatics. Manson is held alone in the Security Housing Unit."
Security Housing Unit (SHU), an isolation area designed specifically for the most dangerous prisoners.
SHU prisoners are locked in windowless cells for up to 22.5 hours a day, with very little activity time.
Since being convicted in 1971, Manson has spent forty years here.
"Good." Leon snapped his fingers. "Everyone pack up; we are changing the shooting location."
"What?" Old Mike stopped his movements, looking confused.
"Wait..." The warden said with a serious expression: "Area C is an extremely dangerous felon prison area. I cannot allow you to enter there for shooting."
"Look carefully at the Department of Justice document. My team is allowed to shoot in all areas of Pelican Bay." Leon patted the other party's shoulder proudly.
"This..." The warden carefully read the text on the permit; the real situation was indeed so.
"Letting them shoot is nothing..." He could only comfort himself this way.
Reporters interviewing Manson have never stopped for forty years, and Area C is not open to the media for the first time.
"What exactly do you want to do? Why do we have to see that evil Satan believer?" Old Mike complained: "Do you think letting that freak appear in the MV will be a gimmick?"
"No..." Leon's mouth corners rose forty-five degrees. "I think it would be interesting to let this guy appear in the MV in a crawling posture..."