Chapter 4269 4271【Magic Stone】
After hearing the news of the outbreak of World War I, Xiang Nan felt quite tangled.
But in the end he went to the battlefield of World War I and secretly collected the bodies of a large number of soldiers who died in the war.
Because he found the method of refining the magic stone from "Grandma Yaga's Witchcraft Notes".
Refining the magic stone requires a large amount of life essence, and one gram of the magic stone requires thousands of lives.
Therefore, although the magic stone is very precious and can both extend life and make gold, very few people have made it since ancient times.
It wasn’t until the Middle Ages, when the Hundred Years War between England and France and the outbreak of the Black Death caused tens of millions of casualties, that Nico Flamel was able to create a piece.
After Xiang Nan learned how to refine the magic stone, he did not try to refine it. Because it is too cruel to kill so many people just to extend his life.
But now that the First World War broke out, those who died on the battlefield were not killed by him, but died from the ambitions of the rulers. Even the entire World War I was an unjust and predatory imperialist war.
So Xiang Nan’s psychological burden is much lighter.
The Philosopher's Stone is indeed very important to him. After all, everyone wants to live longer.
So he secretly collected a large number of corpses. One hundred thousand corpses were collected at the Battle of the Marne; nearly three hundred thousand corpses were collected at the Battle of Verdun; more than one million corpses were collected at the Battle of the Somme...
They were all young, strong, and energetic young people who went to the battlefield full of ideals, thinking it was an expression of patriotism. In the end, they all became victims of rulers and careerists.
Xiang Nan then extracted the life essence contained in them and refined them into a magic stone weighing one kilogram.
As big as a fist, just one gram can give a person ten years of life. If it weighs one kilogram, it can keep a person alive for 10,000 years.
But then again, the magic stone can only make people immortal, but it cannot make people immortal. Therefore, even with the nourishment of the magic stone, people will gradually age, becoming wrinkled, senile, and dying.
Just like Nico Flamel in "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 2", although he is still alive, he is extremely old. When Jacob first saw him, he thought he was a ghost.
So the Philosopher's Stone is not perfect, Dumbledore said, "The Philosopher's Stone is not actually such a wonderful thing."
…
At the same time that Xiang Nan was refining the Philosopher's Stone, DreamWorks also released its first movie, the romance film "Herding Horses" written, directed and starred by Xiang Nan.
This is a silent film, that is, a silent film. Talkies were not released until 1927.
Silent movies mainly show dialogue to the audience through movements, expressions, and a small amount of text. Therefore, early silent movies were mostly comedies and action movies.
At that time, two major stars were born, Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Jackie Chan's films borrowed heavily from Buster Keaton's acting skills.
"Herding Horses" tells the story of a poor cowboy who falls in love with a farmer's daughter, but the farmer's daughter has already been promised to a rich man by his father.
The film is thirty minutes long and cost $20,000 to shoot. It was considered a medium-investment film at the time. In the movie, Xiang Nan added many action scenes, such as a cowboy jumping from a galloping horse to a galloping car to save people; such as a cowboy fighting with a rich man's thugs, etc.
These action scenes seemed very thrilling and exciting at the time.
On the one hand, Xiang Nan is very skilled, and in the eyes of many others, life-threatening stunts don’t matter to him at all.
For example, if you jump from a galloping horse to a car, if you make a slight mistake, you will fall off, be run over by the wheels of the car, and you will be seriously injured even if you don't die. But for Xiang Nan, this kind of thing is easy to do.
On the one hand, Xiang Nan is good at choreographing fight scenes. Fight scenes in Hollywood have never been very good. It was only in the 1990s that Xiangjiang action directors were gradually introduced.
Before this, fighting scenes ended with three punches and two kicks.
Such as "The Devil Commander" and "Fringe" starring Schwarzenegger, "First Blood" starring Stallone, "Die Hard" starring Bruce Willis, and "Lethal Weapon" starring Mel Gibson 》And so on, everything is like this.
Therefore, the thrilling action scenes added a lot to this movie. Many viewers were dumbfounded and speechless, saying that this was the most thrilling and exciting movie they had ever seen.
As a result, the first film achieved very good box office results, and made DreamWorks, Xiang Nan and Rose famous in one fell swoop.
…
Since then, Xiang Nan has continued to build his image as the number one action actor in Hollywood, making movies that are all kinds of thrilling and exciting that others can't even imagine.
For example, jumping from a tree more than ten meters high, being hit by a car and flying out, jumping directly from the fifth floor, standing on the top floor of a building and jumping to the opposite side, etc.
Such a bold and life-threatening shooting method that other movie stars would never dare to try. Coupled with his extremely handsome face, it also made him blush more and more.
Under his guidance, Rose became more and more popular.
Within a few years, both of them became the leading stars of the silent film era in Hollywood, and even became famous throughout the United States.
However, although Rose's photos spread throughout the United States, the Hockley family seemed not to have seen it and did not come to Hollywood to look for her again.
In Xiang Nan’s view, on the one hand it’s because times have changed and several years have passed. Carl and Trudy have been married a long time ago, so now that Rose is his fiancée, it would be a bit funny to ask her to marry him;
On the one hand, this is because with the outbreak of World War I, all European countries suffered heavy losses. Especially the four major European empires, the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire were all beaten to pieces. Even the royal family is gone, so what do those nobles have to rely on?
Comparatively, the United States is not at war at all. Instead, it has made a fortune by selling weapons, food, oil, etc. This has also led to the American upper class gradually becoming disenchanted with European aristocrats.
Just like in the 1980s and 1990s, many people in the mainland were obsessed with Hong Kong and took pride in watching Hong Kong movies, listening to Cantonese songs and chasing Hong Kong stars.
However, in the past ten years or so, with the rise of the mainland's economy, few people have paid attention to Hong Kong films, Hong Kong music, and Hong Kong stars. Even Jackie Chan has become synonymous with bad movies.
At this time, the Hockley family no longer cares about Rose being their daughter-in-law.
On the one hand, Rose is now with Xiang Nan, and Karl knows how powerful Xiang Nan is. No matter how rich the Hockley family is, they have no superpowers. It will not be easy to **** Rose from Xiang Nan.
So this matter ended up being nothing.