Days as a Spiritual Mentor in American Comics Chapter 5799 - 4822: Home Alone (Part 2)

Greed certainly thought of this too, but Chris can’t be blamed. Whether a commercial Hollywood film has a sequel depends on the response to the first part. Even if this movie is not entirely commercial and has certain promotional purposes, if its commercial performance is too poor, even Strange wouldn’t insist on making a sequel.

This means that when they were making the first part, they only wrote the script for the first part. Chris completely followed the feeling of the first script, trying his best to make each character brilliant, which was a demonstration of his professional ability and work ethic.

The character development in the second part conflicts with that in the first part, which can’t be blamed on the director of the first part for trying too hard. Back then, no one knew what the future of this film would be, they could only do their best. Later, to match the tone of the series, it was normal to supplement the characters’ backgrounds and adjust the settings slightly.

However, it was obvious that both Greed and Arrogant were not satisfied with this kind of portrayal, not only because it was difficult to act, but also because they feared it might ruin the brand. The second part’s performance could be worse than the first part’s, but they absolutely shouldn’t be the ones to break the reputation, otherwise, it would be a big problem.

"Has the director seen this script?" Arrogant asked. But soon he realized that this question was meaningless, the movie was already going to start shooting, so the script must have been approved, which proved Chris had no objections to this script either.

However, Greed, who knew Chris better, became active in thought. This script was indeed conventional and had no issues. As the general director of an eagerly awaited film series, Chris was under great pressure, so he would choose a more stable script to ensure his directing wouldn’t be affected by more external forces, which is completely understandable.

But Greed understood that Chris is a person with higher artistic aspirations. He would even discuss each personality trait with Shiller, and remain unfazed even in Mephisto’s Hell. His compromises must contain a lot of dissatisfaction and helplessness.

He wants to do better, but he has to compromise with reality, which is unavoidable. However, the same compromise with reality, why not compromise with a better reality?

Greed immediately made up his mind and sent Chris a message inviting him to meet, but didn’t specify a time because he knew Chris must be very busy, they could only meet when Chris had time.

Greed wasn’t in a hurry either, he had to settle Arrogant first. The reason for settling was because Greed actually didn’t have a specific residence, he usually lived in a sanatorium.

Previously, it was fine, there weren’t any real patients in the sanatorium, the environment was beautiful and peaceful, quite suitable as a residence. But now there are real psychiatric patients, quite a few patients come for weekly consultations, it’s more like a real psychiatric hospital, and not very suitable for living.

Greed had also been looking at houses recently, but wasn’t in a hurry. However, he definitely couldn’t let Arrogant live with him in the psychiatric hospital. Although Arrogant didn’t say it, Greed knew he definitely wasn’t skipping classes, he probably took annual leave and Christmas leave together to have such a long vacation.

Teaching is annoying, and after annual leave, he would face a heap of tasks to muddle through. If he didn’t rest well, Greed couldn’t imagine what the psychology students at Gotham University would face.

"I’m planning to buy a house," Greed said.

Arrogant was really surprised, he said, "What trouble are you facing?"

"Not buying for you," Greed said with a roll of his eyes, "I still don’t have my own residence, either living at S.H.I.E.L.D. or in a sanatorium."

"Then why don’t you buy one?"

"Ha," Greed almost sneered, "Why don’t I buy? You should see which city I’m in and what year it is!"

After speaking, Greed took out a property report from the drawer. He wanted to buy a house, and of course, he’d done some research. Matt introduced him to many reliable real estate agents, who gave him lots of good options. But the reason he didn’t simply buy one was actually straightforward.

As soon as Arrogant picked up the property report, he was dazzled by the string of zeros. This report, with all the pictures and text descriptions, none were as eye-catching as that string of numbers, just looking at it could make someone dizzy.

"Not afraid of your jokes, I’ve earned so much money, but trying to buy a satisfactory house in New York, there aren’t many options." Greed leaned back against the chair, feeling utterly hopeless, "My speed of earning money can’t keep up with the rising property prices in New York."

Though he said this, Arrogant knew Greed’s difficulty in buying a house wasn’t entirely due to price, there were other reasons.

Buying a house in America involves considering a lot of things. Besides the issues everyone knows about location, layout, lighting, etc., there are some attributes that seem very bizarre to people from other countries.

For example, what structure the house is. Greed’s demand, of course, is for reinforced concrete. However, for certain reasons, most high-quality finished villas are not entirely made of reinforced concrete, some even aren’t at all.

Even in those top communities in New York, even in the top luxury homes of the rich, aren’t entirely reinforced concrete structures, this has become an American tradition.

It’s also necessary to choose altitude and wind direction. Because American coastal cities inevitably have some flooding issues: if there’s no wildfire, there’s flooding; if there’s no flooding, there’s wildfire. Choosing too low an altitude makes it easy to be flooded; being in the wrong direction from the forest makes it easy to be affected by wildfires. In America, disaster relief is equal to everyone; whether you’re a pauper or a tycoon, they equally won’t help. Coincidentally, the insurance industry is also quite equal—it won’t compensate anyone.

So if these aspects aren’t considered beforehand, the losses will be extremely significant later.

As for community level, neighbor’s character, and the like, there’s no need to look; just uniformly consider them as vain, sycophantic psychiatric patients. All of America’s upper-class society has the same flavor.

Greed faces two major difficulties: one is that there is no ready-built house that meets his requirements, and the other is that buying land and building it himself is simply too expensive.

If Greed says "expensive," it’s absolutely not ordinary expensive. The reason it’s so expensive is because land in New York is now hard to come by. The rapid development of technology has also driven economic growth, naturally driving the land prices in big cities up.

Even before development began, land prices in New York were already very high. After more than ten years of rapid development, and it’s visibly apparent that there’s going to be continued development, the land now is exorbitantly priced beyond belief.

The money for buying a house is secondary; the key is to establish connections. Government officials, real estate agents, property managers, transaction intermediaries, sellers—all links must be fed fully for the deal to go through.

"Why didn’t you buy it earlier?" Arrogant asked. He was really puzzled by this issue. In fact, shortly after coming to Marvel, Greed was already very rich, and at that time, buying land was still affordable.

Moreover, Greed clearly knew that New York would develop rapidly afterward, so it was even more imperative to buy property early, otherwise, it would cost more money. Arrogant didn’t believe Greed hadn’t thought of this.

"Wouldn’t that be handing them leverage at the Federal Government?" Greed sighed, somewhat helplessly, "When you’re not sure you can completely suppress them, you have to act like a Saint with no personal desires. Once they know you have material desires, they will definitely use it against you, they’re very good at that."

Arrogant paused, realizing that Marvel here is different from his side. Gotham is a Black Hole that no one wants to touch, and the Federal Government would love to kick this city into the Atlantic center, they don’t care what happens here, out of sight, out of mind.

But in Marvel’s case, that’s impossible. The US Government places great importance on the East Coast; it’s a battleground fiercely contested by both parties, they have invested a lot here and will not let it go unchecked. Greed would inevitably be constrained by them in anything he does here.

And the Federal Government is indeed very good at corrupting others with materialism. To make any changes in this place of society, he must be a Saint completely free from material desires. The purpose of achieving something must be for the thing itself, not any additional benefits it might bring.

Take Greed’s previous sanatorium, for instance—it seemingly took advantage amidst the Eternal Life Factor event, but actually, the sanatorium itself was to develop the Eternal Life Factor. That means all the private property he acquired was merely to aid him in working better.

It’s the same with the farm that came later; essentially, it was to provide a platform and foothold for a certain group of people. Greed at least lived in the sanatorium, but he hardly visited the farm.

The reason Greed only earns money without spending it is this very rationale. Once he chooses to use the extra profits from development to buy something for himself, it’s very easy for the Federal Government to seize on it.

Take buying a house for example; right from the outset, government officials can set countless traps. Today one won’t approve, tomorrow another won’t pass—it’s just finding all kinds of reasons to stall you. But you can still get through by agreeing to their terms.

After spending a huge amount of cash, promising many conditions, when official approval finally passes, every real estate agent or private service provider you deal with will have prepared numerous traps and pitfalls waiting for you. Even if you manage to cautiously avoid them, they can still manipulate things at the last moment, just not letting you have your way.

Greed isn’t incapable of resisting, but the problem is, once they say, "Weren’t you the one who wanted to buy it?" they can immediately and completely stand on the moral high ground. As this is the truth, it’s easy for Greed to be defeated by his own greed. But precisely because of excessive greed, he refuses to let himself be trapped by such low-level material desires and bow down to those people.

No Shiller is truly suited to this society; even Greed, who appears to be like a fish in water among ordinary people, is the same. He transforms this society not by those common means of interest exchange but also in a way that seems utterly insane.

"Then why do you want to buy now?" Arrogant asked again, "They can similarly use this method to control you."

"No, your enemies aren’t actually important; what’s important are your friends." He suddenly self-answered, "Because you’ve changed a lot, so you will attempt to buy a house. When your friends see your change, they will certainly be pleasantly surprised, and then try everything to fulfill your wish."

"Really?" Greed seemed uncertain, "Wouldn’t that seem too... greedy?"

Arrogant chuckled deeply, "I believe they’d prefer this kind of ordinary person-style greed from you."