save the bachelors

Chapter 4269 4271 [Philosopher’s Stone]

After hearing the news of the outbreak of World War I, Xiang Nan felt quite conflicted.

But in the end he went to the battlefield of World War I and secretly collected a large number of bodies of soldiers killed in the war.

Because he found the method of refining the philosopher's stone from "Baby Yaga's Witchcraft Notes".

Refining the Philosopher's Stone requires a large amount of life essence, and one gram of the Philosopher's Stone requires thousands of lives.

Therefore, although the Philosopher's Stone is extremely precious and can both prolong life and make alchemy, very few people have been able to make it since ancient times.

It was not until the Middle Ages, during the Hundred Years' War between England and France and the outbreak of the Black Death, which caused tens of millions of deaths and injuries, that Nicolas Flamel was able to make a piece.

After Xiang Nan learned the method of refining the Philosopher's Stone, he did not try to refine it because killing so many people just to prolong his life was too cruel.

But now that World War I has broken out, those who died on the battlefield were not killed by him, but died because of the ambitions of those rulers. Even the entire World War I was an unjust war of imperialist plunder.

So Xiang Nan’s psychological burden was much lighter.

The Philosopher's Stone is indeed very important to him. After all, everyone wants to live longer.

Therefore, he secretly collected a large number of corpses. He collected 100,000 corpses in the Battle of the Marne, nearly 300,000 corpses in the Battle of Verdun, and more than one million corpses in the Battle of the Somme.

They were once young, strong and energetic young men who went to the battlefield full of ideals, thinking that they were expressing their patriotism. However, they ended up becoming victims of the rulers and ambitious people.

Xiang Nan then extracted the life essence contained in them and refined them into a magic stone weighing one kilogram.

A tiny gram, about the size of a fist, can give a person 10 years of life. A kilogram is enough to give a person 10,000 years of life.

But then again, the Philosopher's Stone can only make people immortal, but it cannot make people immortal. Therefore, even with the nourishment of the Philosopher's Stone, people will gradually grow old, become wrinkled, old and frail.

Just like Nicolas Flamel in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, he is still alive but has aged beyond recognition. 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 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 "The Horse Herder", which was written, directed and acted by Xiang Nan.

This is a silent film, which means it is a silent movie. Talkies were not introduced until 1927.

Silent films mainly present dialogues to the audience through actions, expressions, and a small amount of text. Therefore, early silent films were mostly comedies and action films.

Two great superstars were born at that time, Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Jackie Chan's films borrowed a lot from Buster Keaton's acting skills.

"The Shepherd" 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 her father.

So with the help of his fellow workers, the cowboy finally rescued his lover from the rich man, and the two of them rode away into the distance.

The film was 30 minutes long and cost $20,000 to make, which was considered a medium-budget film at the time. Xiang Nan added many action scenes to the film, such as a cowboy jumping from a galloping horse to a speeding car to save someone, and a cowboy fighting with a rich man's thugs.

These action scenes seemed very thrilling and exciting at the time.

On the one hand, Xiang Nan is very skilled, and many stunts that seem life-threatening to others are nothing to him.

For example, if you jump from a galloping horse to a car, you will fall down if you make the slightest mistake and be run over by the wheels of the car, which will either kill you or cause you serious injuries. But for Xiang Nan, this kind of thing is easy to do.

On the one hand, Xiang Nan is good at choreographing fight scenes. Hollywood's fight scenes have never been very good, and it was not until the 1990s that action directors from Hong Kong were gradually introduced.

Before this, fight scenes were usually ended with three punches and two kicks.

This is true for films like "Command and Conquer" and "Edward Snyder" starring Schwarzenegger, "First Blood" starring Sylvester Stallone, "Die Hard" starring Bruce Willis, "Lethal Weapon" starring Mel Gibson, and so on.

Therefore, the thrilling action scenes added a lot of color to the film. Many viewers were stunned and astonished, and lamented that this was the most thrilling and exciting movie they had ever seen.

As a result, the first movie achieved very good box office results and made DreamWorks, Xiang Nan and Rose famous.

……

Afterwards, Xiang Nan continued to build his image as Hollywood's number one action star, making movies that were full of thrills and excitement that others would never dare to even think about.

For example, jumping from a tree more than ten meters high, being hit by a car head-on, jumping directly down from a fifth-floor building, jumping towards the opposite side from the top of a building, etc.

Other movie stars would never dare to try such a daring and risky shooting method. In addition, his extremely handsome face also made him more and more popular.

Under his influence, Rose became more and more popular.

Within a few years, both of them became the leading stars of the Hollywood silent film era and even became famous throughout the United States.

However, although Rose's photos spread throughout the United States, the Hockley family acted as if they had not seen them and did not come to Hollywood to find her again.

In Xiang Nan's opinion, on the one hand, it was because of the passage of time. Carl and Trudy had been married for a long time. Now it was a bit funny to say that Rose was his fiancée and ask her to marry him.

On the one hand, with the outbreak of World War I, all European countries suffered heavy losses. In particular, the four major empires in Europe, the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Russian Empire, and the Ottoman Empire, were all disintegrated. Even the royal family was gone, so what else could the nobles rely on?

In comparison, the United States did not engage in any war at all. Instead, it made a fortune by selling weapons, food, and oil. This also led to the American upper class gradually becoming disenchanted with the European aristocracy.

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.

But in the past decade or so, with the rise of the mainland economy, few people pay 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 wanted Rose to be their daughter-in-law.

On the one hand, Rose is now with Xiang Nan, and Karl knows how powerful Xiang Nan is. Even if the Hockley family is rich, they don't have super powers after all, so it's not easy to snatch Rose from Xiang Nan.

Therefore, the matter was eventually left unresolved.