“Hey, Eric, steak at table nine.”
“Oh, okay.” Eric agreed, and awkwardly brought the two steaks to the couple by the window. After finishing the incident, he returned to his original position again, leaning on the counter to continue in a daze.
The time is July 13, 1988, the third day of rebirth, at an Italian restaurant in North Hollywood, Los Angeles. Eric turned his head to look at the faint figure displayed on the glass window not far away. He was about 1.8 meters tall, with an angular face, a high nose bridge, and short blond curly hair. This is who he is now.
A few days ago, Eric was still in the magic capital on the other side of the Pacific Ocean in 2014, working as an advertising director. At the age of 24, he graduated from the director department of a famous film and television academy in China. He is determined to be a famous international director. After ten years of struggle, he finally understands that reality is too cruel. With his solid professional skills, he has become a famous film director in the magic capital circle. An advertising director is famous, isn’t it? He got married at the age of 35, and his son was born a year later. He finally settled down and replaced the ideal package with milk powder money. At a class reunion a few years later, he was drunk by a group of classmates he had not seen for a long time, and then fell asleep in the memory of the past.
Like the beginning of all thriller or not-thriller stories, you wake up to something different. He finds himself back 25 years ago as a high school student named Eric Williams, who just graduated from high school this year, and…
“Eric, are you okay?” A chubby hand placed on Eric’s shoulder and patted it lightly. Eric turned to see Jeff Jones, the restaurateur.
“Sorry, Jeff, I’m lost again.”
“It’s okay,” Jeff rubbed his hands together, as if thinking about what to say, and continued, “I’m sorry about Ralph, but life has to go on, doesn’t it? Take it easy, Ai Rick.”
Ralph Williams, Eric’s father, is an accomplished Italian chef who has worked at the restaurant for many years. Despite his great cooking skills, Ralph has a nasty hobby—drinking. According to the memory left by the original owner of the body, Ralph’s hobby may be related to the mother Eric has never met. In the words of later generations, this is also a man with a story. It’s simple, a month ago, Ralph died of acute alcohol poisoning from an overdose.
“Thank you, Jeff. If it weren’t for your help, I really don’t know what I would have done,” Eric said, and Eric’s life was thrown into chaos after Ralph’s death. Originally, Eric had already applied to the University of California, but Ralph’s death made Eric’s hope of going to college in vain. Even a public university requires a tuition fee of about $20,000 a year, not counting other expenses. As Ralph’s boss and friend, after Jeff talked to Eric, Eric started working as a waiter in the restaurant. After all, as Jeff said, life has to go on.
“Ralph has worked here for so many years, this is what I should do. But there is only so much I can do, and the rest can only be done by your own efforts.”
Eric nodded gratefully, watching Jeff turn away, remembering what he just said, and fell into deep thought. In the dark, since an unscrupulous **** sent him to Hollywood more than 20 years ago, if he has been working as an obscure restaurant waiter, he will definitely be **** to death.
After just understanding his situation three days ago, Eric was once excited, but after the excitement, he became confused. In his previous life, as a top student at a film and television academy, he failed to realize his ideals and finally bowed his head to reality. What’s more, now, he has neither a diploma nor a background. Even if he goes to the film company to apply for the lowest position, he may not be successful.
After a busy day, Eric drove out of the Italian restaurant in a Ford sedan left by Eric’s cheap dad. After Ralph died, Eric once wanted to sell the car to subsidize his family, but after receiving the job as a waiter, he stayed. After all, the United States is a country on wheels. There are no cars, and many things are inconvenient.
When passing by a cinema, Eric saw the poster of “First Blood 3” pasted at the entrance of the cinema. Against the background of snowy mountains and helicopters, Stallone, who was in his golden age, was wearing a vest and showing off his energy. The muscles that make female fans scream. Somehow, Eric parked the car in the parking lot not far away, and asked about it. Just when a game was about to start, Eric bought a ticket and walked into the cinema.
Because it was not prime time, there were only about thirty or forty people in the 200-seat auditorium. Eric found his seat and sat down.
Soon the screening room fell into darkness. After the title, the plot of the movie officially began. Colonel Towen invited Rambo, who was living in seclusion in Thailand, to join him on a mission in Afghanistan, but Rambo refused him. After Colonel Torvin is trapped, Rambo re-arms to save his friend…
In a previous life, Eric had seen all of Stallone’s movies, and most of them more than once. The reason why he bought a ticket to enter the venue is because Eric remembered Stallone’s experience and also remembered his former self. In the ten years of struggling, whenever he wanted to give up, he would use some more inspirational stories to motivate himself, including Stallone’s legendary acting career.
The plot of the movie continued, Eric took back his swirling thoughts and focused on enjoying the movie. Gradually, Eric, who had relaxed his body and leaned on the back of the chair, straightened up. Because he discovered one thing, because he had seen this movie before, whenever the plot progressed, Eric would subconsciously think about what would happen next, and then he made a miraculous discovery, with his thinking , the next movie picture will be clearly displayed in his mind, that is to say, he actually remembers every scene, every line, and even every soundtrack of the whole movie.
Gradually, Eric became excited, then closed his eyes, randomly selected a Cameron’s “Titanic” and began to recall, the result is still the same, he can recall every bit of the film seconds of footage. Picking a few movies I’ve seen again, it’s still the same. Thoughts flew, Eric tried to recall some movies that he had only heard of the name but had not seen~IndoMTL.com~ Miracle did not appear, it seemed that he only remembered what he had seen, but it was enough.
When he was just reborn, Eric also thought about taking some of the movies of the later life as his own. However, after all, he was a professional director in his previous life. Of course, he knew how difficult it was to operate. At most, he wrote some similar movies. Just a script. But now, after finding that all the memories of the previous life are clearly contained in his mind, Eric knows what it means. As long as he has the conditions, he can almost perfectly copy the classic movies he has seen in the previous life.
Because of excitement, Eric’s cheeks were hot in the dark, and his fingers were slightly numb. In the end, Eric finally couldn’t help it, slapped it on the armrest of the seat heavily, and blurted out: “Fuck!”
The pain in the palm brought Eric back to reality. Looking at the dissatisfied eyes cast by several audience members around, Eric smiled shyly. The 100-minute movie passed quickly, and Rambo successfully rescued his friend, waved his sleeves again, and hid his merits and fame.
However, Eric, who was sitting in the dark, obviously did not notice these, but was thinking about a lot of things. He didn’t have such a good memory in his previous life. Like an ordinary person, he had to read an article many times before he could recite it, and he had to listen to a song many times before he could sing it. Apparently, it was some unscrupulous… oh no, a great treasure from a lovely god.
Walking out of the movie theater with a huge ambition to reach the pinnacle of life, Eric hurried home. He knew that with such a huge resource in his mind, if he failed like he did in his previous life, it would really be better for him to choke to death with a basin of tap water.