The ink on the contract was worth exactly ₹18 Crores.
Vihaan sat in the air-conditioned boardroom of a major television network, his face perfectly neutral, while Sanjay’s hands trembled slightly as he packed the documents into his leather briefcase.
The satellite TV premiere rights for Shantivan had just been sold for a record-breaking sum for a non-starrer film.
Sitting across from them was a senior executive from Yash Raj Films, who had facilitated the meeting.
The YRF executive leaned forward, steepling his fingers.
He looked at Vihaan not as a twenty-year-old kid, but as a literal money-printing machine.
“Vihaan,” the executive smiled warmly.
“Yash ji is incredibly impressed.
The industry hasn’t seen a return on investment like this in a decade.
YRF would like to host a success party for Shantivan this Saturday at the Taj Lands End.
A proper celebration.
You and your entire team are the guests of honor.” It wasn’t just a party; it was a statement.
YRF wanted to keep the golden goose close.
Vihaan understood the game perfectly.
“We would be honored,” Vihaan replied, shaking the man’s hand.
Two hours later, the entire cast and core crew of Shantivan were crammed into the main office at Malhotra Motion Pictures.
Rajkummar, Taapsee, Sunil, Rasika, Gopal, and Anand were all there, looking slightly nervous.
The film was a massive hit, but they were still technically on their original, low-budget indie contracts.
Vihaan stood at the head of his father’s desk.
“You all trusted me when this studio was literally a day away from being auctioned,” Vihaan said, his voice echoing in the quiet room.
“You worked 14-hour shifts in the heat.
You gave me your absolute best.” He picked up a stack of white envelopes from the desk.
“Sanjay,” Vihaan nodded.
Sanjay began distributing the envelopes.
Rajkummar opened his, pulling out a cheque.
His eyes widened so far they almost popped out of his skull.
Taapsee gasped, covering her mouth.
Sunil Grover stared at the numbers, completely speechless.
Vihaan hadn’t just given them a pat on the back; he had given every single actor and crew member a massive, life-changing bonus from the profits.
The room erupted.
People were laughing, hugging, and wiping away tears.
Vihaan raised his hands to quiet them down.
“Save the tears.
You need to go shopping.” The room went silent.
“Shopping?” Rajkummar asked, his voice cracking.
“Yash Raj Films is throwing us a massive success party at the Taj this Saturday,” Vihaan grinned.
“Buy some good clothes.
Look presentable.
Because this weekend, you aren’t struggling theater actors anymore.
You are stepping into the absolute top tier of Bollywood.” Saturday night was a blinding storm of camera flashes.
The red carpet outside the 5-star ballroom was lined with aggressive paparazzi screaming for attention.
Vihaan walked in at the center of his cast.
Rajkummar wore a sharp, tailored black suit.
Rasika looked stunning in an elegant designer saree.
Taapsee walked with the fierce confidence of a newly minted star.
They looked like royalty.
The moment they stepped inside the ballroom, the sheer scale of the event hit them.
This was the inner sanctum of the Hindi film industry.
Yash Chopra and Uday Chopra were mingling near the center.
The new generation of upcoming superstars—Ranbir Kapoor, Anushka Sharma, and Deepika Padukone—were chatting near the bar.
Heavyweight directors like Siddharth Anand and Vijay Krishna Acharya were deep in conversation.
Anil Kapoor was laughing loudly at a joke.
Vihaan navigated the room with the grace of a seasoned veteran.
He wasn’t starstruck; Namit had seen these people a hundred times from the shadows.
But now, they were looking at him.
“Vihaan Malhotra.” The deep, resonant baritone cut through the ambient noise of the party.
Vihaan turned.
Standing there, towering and commanding, was the Shahenshah of Bollywood himself—Amitabh Bachchan.
Vihaan immediately folded his hands respectfully.
“Amitabh sir.
It is an absolute honor.” Amitabh placed a warm, heavy hand on Vihaan’s shoulder.
His eyes carried a deep, nostalgic warmth.
“I worked with your father, Vihaan.
Bade Miyan Chote Miyan…
and later, Black.
Rajesh was a man of immense passion.
He understood the soul of cinema.” Amitabh looked around the lavish party, then back down at the young director.
“What you have done for his studio…
it is remarkable.
You are good, beta.
Keep growing your name, keep making honest cinema, so that your father can be happy up there in heaven.” “I will, sir,” Vihaan said softly, genuinely moved by the legend’s words.
As Amitabh walked away, a witty, unmistakable voice chimed in from Vihaan’s left.
“He’s right, you know.
But he forgot to mention one thing.” Vihaan turned to see Shah Rukh Khan flashing his trademark dimpled smile, holding a glass of water.
“Shah Rukh,” Vihaan smiled.
“I saw the movie, Vihaan.
The pacing is absolutely ruthless.
Brilliant editing,” SRK said, pulling him into a casual, friendly hug.
He leaned back and winked.
“Just do me a favor.
If you ever want to make another comedy…
don’t forget me, okay?
I can do middle-class panic very well.” Vihaan laughed.
“You’ll be the first person I call, sharukh.” The rest of the night was a masterclass in networking.
Vihaan exchanged personal numbers with SRK, Akshay Kumar, and several top-tier distributors.
By the time he left the Taj Lands End, his phone contact list was worth more than the hotel itself.
It was 3:00 AM when Vihaan finally collapsed onto his bed in the Juhu house.
The adrenaline of the past three months had completely drained from his body.
He pulled the heavy blanket over himself, his eyes closing before his head even fully hit the pillow.
Sleep embraced him.
And then Agony.
Vihaan’s eyes snapped open in the pitch black.
A sharp, excruciating spike of pain injected itself directly into the center of his brain.
He violently clutched the sides of his head, his back arching off the mattress.
It felt as if invisible claws were sinking into his skull, physically tearing the bone apart and ripping his skin off inch by inch.
He opened his mouth to scream, his lungs burning— And then, just as suddenly as it had arrived, the pain completely vanished.
Vihaan collapsed back onto the sweat-soaked sheets, panting heavily, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.
What the hell was that?
An aneurysm?
Am I dying again?
“Hello Vihaan!
Or Namit!
Or Host!” A bubbly, obnoxiously energetic, high-pitched voice echoed in the dark room.
Vihaan froze.
A floating, glowing blue holographic screen suddenly materialized in the air at the foot of his bed.
“I am Moody!” the screen flashed with a digital smiley face (^‿^).
“I am your System!
This is my very first job helping a Time Traveler-Reincarnate combo!
Nice to meet you!” Vihaan stared at the glowing blue rectangle, his brain misfiring.
Wait…
what?
Who?
A system?
He opened his mouth to unleash a string of very colorful Hindi expletives.
Before he could even speak a word, a massive red ‘X’ flashed on the screen.
“Ah ah ah!
No cursing!” Moody’s voice scolded him, sounding like a disappointed kindergarten teacher.
“Cursing is done by bad people!” Vihaan just stared, utterly bewildered.
The digital face shifted into an expression of profound, arrogant pride (⌐■_■).
“Do you know how much hard work I had to do to get here?
The World Order of this timeline is too strong!
I had to fight for you in the Supreme Court of System Law!” Moody’s voice suddenly grew dramatic and highly emotional.
“They were going to send you—a freshly graduated soul—to fight with the aliens!
And the intergalactic beasts!
The Reshirams!
The Charizards!
But I stood up for you!
I fought them all and came here to be your ultimate weapon!” The screen began flashing rapidly, showcasing 3D models of terrifying futuristic arsenals.
“So!” Moody shouted excitedly.
“Where is your base?!
Should I give you a missile?
A super-intelligent AI?
A massive planetary server?
Wait…
DO YOU WANT A NUCLEAR BOMB?!” Vihaan sat in dead silence for five full seconds.
He looked at his hand.
He pinched his own arm, twisting the skin hard.
“AAoooo!” Vihaan yelped, rubbing his arm.
Not a dream.
He slowly leaned forward, reaching out toward the floating hologram.
To his shock, his fingers actually gripped the edge of the light.
He grabbed the screen with both hands and violently shook it up, down, and around like an Etch A Sketch.
“Hey, hey, hey!
Stop shaking me!
I am getting dizzy!” Moody shrieked, the text on the screen jumbling into a mess of pixels.
Vihaan stopped and glared at it.
“Who the hell are you?!” “I told you, I am a System!” Moody puffed up its digital chest proudly.
“I give you rewards when I think you need them, and I am your new best friend!
Now, point me to the villain bosses!” Vihaan reached out and physically flicked the center of the screen.
Thwack.
“Ouch!” “Shut up and listen to me,” Vihaan said, rubbing his temples.
“I think there is a massive problem here.
I am reborn.
I time-traveled.
Yes.
But I am in a completely safe, normal, slice-of-life world.
I am just a guy making Bollywood movies.
There are no intergalactic beasts.
There is no Charizard.
There are no alien overlords.” The glowing blue screen froze.
The digital eyes blinked once.
Twice.
“No…
aliens?” Moody’s voice wavered.
“No.” “No…
epic battles to the death?” “Just box office battles,” Vihaan sighed.
Realization struck the system like a physical blow.
Moody finally understood why the Supreme Court of System Law had yielded so easily.
They hadn’t lost to him; they had played a massive prank on the rookie system, sending it to a peaceful, non-combat world.
The digital face crumpled (T_T).
Moody burst into dramatic, cartoonish digital tears, water seemingly spraying out of the edges of the hologram.
Suddenly, faint, robotic voices echoed in the room, other systems transmitting through the network.
[“Look at fool Moody!”] [“He brought a nuke to a movie set!
Ahahaha!”] [“What a loser!”] Utterly humiliated and crying violently, the blue screen shrank into a tiny dot and popped out of existence.
It completely vanished.
Silence returned to the bedroom.
Vihaan sat there in the dark, the faint hum of the AC the only sound in the room.
He blinked.
“…What the actual fuck is happening in my life?” He stared into the empty space where the crying hologram had just been.
He processed the absurdity of a magical system wanting to nuke Bollywood, looked at the clock reading 3:30 AM, and sighed heavily.
“Is this important right now?” Vihaan mumbled to himself.
He rubbed his tired eyes.
“No.
Sleep is more important.” He fell back onto the mattress, pulled the heavy blanket all the way over his head, and immediately went back to sleep.
——————————————— Sunlight streamed through the thin curtains of the Juhu house, painting warm golden lines across Vihaan’s face.
He groaned, rolling over and burying his face in the pillow.
The exhaustion of the previous night’s party still clung to his bones.
Slowly, the memories of the Taj Lands End, Amitabh Bachchan’s blessing, and Shah Rukh Khan’s witty banter filtered back into his mind, bringing a genuine smile to his face.
Then came the other memory.
The blinding pain.
The crying, holographic blue screen wanting to nuke Mumbai.
Vihaan let out a dry, raspy laugh, rubbing his eyes.
“What a weird fucking dream,” he muttered to himself, his voice thick with sleep.
“Too much champagne.
Or maybe I’m just losing my mind from the stress.” He threw the heavy blanket off his legs and swung his feet over the edge of the bed, stretching his arms high above his head with a satisfying pop of his shoulders.
“GOOD MORNING, HOST!” A blinding blue rectangular screen popped into existence exactly two inches from his nose, complete with a massive, high-definition digital smiley face (^▽^).
“AGGHH!” Vihaan reeled backward in sheer panic.
He lost his balance completely, his heel catching on the bedframe, and he tumbled backward, crashing hard onto the wooden floor with a heavy thud.
For a second, the room was silent.
Vihaan lay on his back, staring at the ceiling.
The pain shooting up his tailbone was very, very real.
The fear evaporated, instantly replaced by a blinding surge of morning irritation.
Vihaan scrambled to his feet.
He didn’t think.
He didn’t process the impossibility of a floating hologram.
He just saw the source of his pain, pulled his arm back, and threw a solid, furious right hook straight into the glowing blue screen.
Smack!
To his absolute shock, his fist didn’t phase through it.
The screen had physical density.
It let out a cartoonish squeak (>_<) and flew backward through the air, crash-landing onto the center of his mattress like a thrown tablet.
“Ow!
Ow!
Ow!
System abuse!
Hostility detected!” Moody’s high-pitched voice screeched from the bed.
The digital face shifted into swirly eyes (@_@).
“Why did you punch me?!
I was giving you a morning greeting!” Vihaan stood over the bed, panting slightly, his fist still clenched.
“Because you gave me a heart attack!
And I thought you were a hallucination!” Moody righted itself, floating a few inches above the pillows.
The digital face pouted (¬_¬).
“I am not a hallucination.
I am a very real, very elite System.
Though…
I suppose I deserve the punch,” Moody muttered, its voice dropping into a depressed whisper.
“I realized my mistake last night after you went to sleep.” Vihaan crossed his arms.
“Explain.
Because I still don’t understand why a weapon of mass destruction is sitting on my bed in Mumbai.” Moody let out a heavy, synthesized sigh.
“I read the reincarnation file wrong.
The Administration Department has terrible handwriting!” A file folder icon appeared on the screen, opening to show chaotic scribbles.
“I was supposed to be assigned to a guy named ‘Namit’ who reincarnated into an interstellar warrior in Sector 7-G to fight space bosses!” Moody explained, crying pixelated tears again.
“But instead of ‘Namit who reincarnated to fight,’ I got ‘Namit who reincarnated into Vihaan.’ I went to Namit-to-Vihaan, not Namit-to-Space-Commander!” Vihaan pinched the bridge of his nose.
“So, a clerical error.” “A massive one!” Moody wailed.
“Do you know how embarrassing this is?!
The Supreme Court of System and Law tried to warn me!
They were looking at me with such pity in their digital eyes.
They kept saying, ‘Moody, are you sure you want to send a low-level, recently graduated movie director to fight the great alien beasts?'” Moody’s screen flashed red in anger.
“But a Senior System had just stolen the good cultivation world from me!
By system law, if a senior takes your spot, the junior isn’t allowed to complain!
So I just blindly accepted this file to prove I was tough!
And now…
I’m stuck on a planet that doesn’t even have laser swords!” The screen dropped onto the mattress, looking utterly defeated (T_T).
Vihaan looked at the glowing blue rectangle.
It was arrogant, loud, and incredibly annoying.
But looking at it sulking on his bed, he actually felt a weird twinge of sympathy.
It was just an employee who had screwed up their first day on the job.
Namit knew exactly what that felt like.
Vihaan let out a long breath, sitting down on the edge of the bed next to the screen.
He reached out and gently patted the top of the hologram.
It felt smooth, like warm glass.
“Hey,” Vihaan said softly.
“It’s okay.” Moody looked up (._.).
“It is?” “Yeah.
No problem,” Vihaan smiled, leaning back.
“Actually, I think it’s better this way.
No aliens trying to eat us.
No space bosses.
You don’t have to fight a war.
We can just be friends.
I’ll help you figure this world out, and you help me.
Right?” Moody’s digital eyes widened (☆_☆).
“Friends?
You want to form a Host-System friendship pact?” “Sure.
But to do that, I need to know what you can actually do.
What is your specialty?” Instantly, Moody shot up into the air, spinning like a top.
Its energetic, bombastic personality returned in a millisecond.
“Oh, Host!
You have no idea how powerful I am!” Moody boasted, puffing up (⌐■_■).
“I have an unlimited armory!
I can summon nano-tech armor!
Intercontinental ballistic missiles!
A Helicarrier!
Nuclear warheads!
Hydrogen bombs!
Space lasers!
Rocket boosters!
Just point at a country, and I will erase it!” Vihaan laughed, a genuine, loud, comedic laugh.
“Moody, I make movies,” Vihaan said, wiping a tear of amusement from his eye.
“If I drop a hydrogen bomb, my box office collections will drop to zero because everyone will be dead.” Moody stopped spinning.
“…Oh.
Good point.” “So,” Vihaan continued, tapping his chin.
“Do you have anything simple?
Something that could actually help me make movies, or grow my business in this world without destroying the planet?” Moody went silent.
The screen displayed a loading hourglass (⏳).
“Let me rummage into my secondary inventory…” Moody mumbled.
“Searching…
filtering out lethal weapons…
filtering out world-ending tech…
oh!
Wow.
Okay.
Yes!” The screen shifted, displaying a high-tech glowing list.
“Well,” Moody said, sounding surprised at its own inventory.
“I do have some non-combat support items!
Look!” Vihaan read the list floating in the air: Human TalentsIllusion Matrix11-Dub AISun ServerAuto-Tech Blueprints Vihaan stopped breathing.
He stared at the list.
Illusion Matrix?
11-Dub AI?
A quantum server in 2008?!
As a filmmaker, Vihaan’s brain was already running a million miles an hour.
The Illusion Matrix meant he would never need to build a physical set again.
The 11-Dub AI meant perfect dubbing across every language in India without paying voice actors.
The Sun Server meant he could theoretically launch his own streaming platform a decade before Netflix took over the country.
“Moody,” Vihaan whispered, his eyes wide.
“This is a goldmine.
This is better than a nuclear bomb.” “Right?!” Moody suddenly vanished, turning into a ball of blue light that zipped around Vihaan’s head before reappearing in front of him.
The digital face had a mischievous, anime-style grin (◠‿◠).
It spoke with an exaggerated, dramatic Japanese accent.
“I checked the data of this world, Host!
With my help, you will become the absolute biggest influencer, the greatest mogul of this entire era, my friendo!” Vihaan grinned.
“I like the sound of that.” “However!” Moody suddenly crossed its digital arms.
“You cannot get these high-tier items for free!
You have to earn System Points by completing missions, increasing your fame, and crushing your industry rivals!” “Fair enough,” Vihaan nodded.
He knew how this worked.
“What’s my first mission?” “Hold on, hold on!
Before that, we must unlock your Newbie Gift Package!” Moody announced, virtual confetti exploding across the screen.
“Usually, I just hand out a basic starter pack,” Moody continued, doing a terrible attempt at an evil villain laugh.
“He he he he…
but since you, my Host, managed to make a wildly successful movie entirely on your own before a great, senior king like me even woke up…
I have decided to heavily upgrade your reward!” A massive, golden digital treasure chest materialized in the center of the room.
It glowed with a blinding light, shaking violently as if something massive was trying to break out from inside.
Vihaan shielded his eyes, his heart racing with anticipation.
“And your upgraded Newbie Rewards are…” Moody shouted over the glowing hum of the chest, as the golden lid finally began to burst open.