In Beverly Hills, a party was being held at the Cooper Family residence, but with so many celebrities around, several parties happened every day, and people were used to it.
Various drinks and food were laid out in the living room, and a barbecue grill was set up on the backyard lawn. It was already mid-to-late May, and the weather was starting to get hot. What could be better than drinking ice-cold beer and eating barbecue?
Everyone cheered around Eric, celebrating his recovery and discharge from the hospital.
His older brother, Joshua Cooper, leaned in and chuckled, "Not bad, right? I'm a professional at throwing parties. It's just a shame there are no hot girls; our mom is still too conservative. I really miss the team's cheerleaders."
"Eric, I told you a long time ago, you should go to San Francisco. I can introduce you to Billy Whitman. That girl will definitely be captivated by you. She's an F cup!"
Eric raised an eyebrow at his brother, who was trying to set him up: "Come on, Joshua. If Mom woke up and found two girls next to Dad, the first thing she'd do is skin you alive."
There was a reason Eric said this. Here, finding hot girls was incredibly easy. Young models and struggling minor actresses didn't mind taking on private gigs.
But some women weren't just after the pay. They knew very well this was Beverly Hills, and they knew even better Xia Li Cooper's identity. The MGM CEO was out of reach for many, which also meant a lot of benefits could be gained.
And all they had to give was their looks and their bodies. In Hollywood, this flesh was the cheapest thing. Many people were willing to trade their bodies for opportunities.
"By the way, have the people I asked you to find all arrived?"
"Yes, those little brothers are quite enthusiastic. The furthest one is in New York. He flew over last night after hearing about your recovery."
"Of course, we're best friends."
After chatting and joking with everyone for a while, Eric went to the backyard. Several young people were pairing up, chatting and messing around, leaving one Fat Man sitting alone in the corner, eating barbecue.
Eric walked over and sat next to the Fat Man. Only then did the other person look up, swallow the barbecue in his mouth, and punch him in the chest: "Eric Cooper, you scoundrel, I knew you wouldn't die!"
Eric smiled and high-fived the Fat Man: "Warren, I haven't seen you in a while. How come you seem to have gained weight again?"
Warren immediately felt the barbecue in front of him wasn't as appealing: "How could that be? I've been on a diet since graduation. I weighed myself yesterday and I've already lost 5 pounds. If it weren't to celebrate your recovery, I would never touch these high-calorie foods today."
"Really? It seems your starting weight is too high. You need to lose at least 50 pounds."
As they spoke, two men and one woman approached. Warren immediately put on a sour face and scoffed: "Haha, look who it is? My good friends who just abandoned me. You chose desire over friendship, I despise you!"
However, his sarcasm clearly had no effect. A girl with bulging muscles in her arm clenched her fist, and Warren immediately shut up.
These four men and one woman were, of course, Eric's best friends. The five university students had jointly rented a villa off-campus.
Besides Eric and the Fat Man Warren, there were the brothers Bordeaux and Billy Giese, and finally, the girl Judy Newhouse.
Warren was from Los Angeles, but his family background was ordinary. The Giese brothers came from a large ranching family in Texas.
Judy was from New York, but she had deep conflicts with her family, so she didn't like to mention her relatives.
As for why one girl lived with four strong young men, and no suggestive stories occurred.
That's because Judy was a lesbian, and a pure top at that. This could be seen from her well-defined abs. If it came to a fight, none of the four of them were a match for Judy.
On the second floor of the villa, in Eric's the room.
"Alright, tell us. What's your plan, gathering us all here?" Warren asked.
At this moment, he didn't look like the greedy Fat Man from before; a cunning glint shone in his glasses.
The Giese brothers and Judy stared at Eric. As high-achieving students with above-average intelligence, they knew very well that if it were truly just to celebrate his discharge, there was no need to go to such lengths to gather all four of them.
Especially since New York and Los Angeles spanned America. Flying all that way, for what?
"I have a plan that needs your help."
"What plan?" Judy asked, sprawling on Eric's bed.
"Right now, I have 10 million dollars, and my goal is to turn that number into 1 billion dollars within a month."
As soon as he finished speaking, four heavily breathing companions immediately appeared in the room.
Although they studied finance and had analyzed numerous examples of wealthy entrepreneurs, often seeing tens or hundreds of billions of dollars in textbooks, those were just numbers.
The amount they had personally handled, let alone 10 million dollars, wasn't even 100,000.
"OMG! Are you serious?" Warren took a few steps back, looking incredulous.
"Did I call you here to joke around?"
Although the Giese brothers came from relatively affluent families, that wealth belonged to their parents. They'd have to wait decades to inherit it, and it was uncertain if there was even ten million dollars. Both of them also widened their eyes.
Only Judy remained unperturbed, lying on the bed, sucking on a lollipop.
"10 million dollars, where did you get it?" Bordeaux asked.
Eric pointed to the room door: "My dad. Otherwise, do you want me to rob a bank?"
"What a powerful and generous man. If someone would give me ten million, no, even one million, I'd lick his ass!" Billy Giese exclaimed.
It was normal for Billy to feel this way. For ambitious people, what could be more painful than lacking initial capital? Forget licking ass, plenty of people would eat shoes.
Judy scoffed: "A bunch of spineless men. Eric, tell us your plan. I really can't imagine how to multiply that number by 100 within a month. There's no industry in the world that's that profitable, not even illegal ones."
Judy was right. The big money-making trades were already well-documented by law. For example, selling illicit substances could indeed achieve a 100-fold return.
But the prerequisite was that Eric would need a massive armed base, cultivation base, processing base, and sales network, while also greasing various palms, ensuring no government or police interference, and no middlemen taking a cut, otherwise, the profits would be greatly reduced.
This kind of thing was just a thought; it was impossible.
Eric, however, turned on the television, switching to the sports channel. The screen showed a pre-World Cup commercial for the Japan-Korea World Cup: "This is my plan: sports betting!"
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