Chapter 426: Convinced! Utterly Convinced!

Chapter 426: Convinced! Utterly Convinced!

If Wu Chen’s scheme hadn’t already been unfolding in front of her, An Menglan would never have dared imagine it.

It was chilling.

“Hahahaha! Miss An, the trending topic on your leak has been pushed down! I asked the tech department. Attention’s falling off a cliff! The whole internet’s focused on Mr. Morning Mist’s new song now!” Yu Xiaohu was still buzzing, grinning from ear to ear.

Without noticing, he had started calling him “Mr. Morning Mist.”

Before, because of the lyrics to “Genius Superstar” and because Wu Chen had commandeered the team’s precious resources, Yu Xiaohu had disliked him intensely. He’d never said a word of it to Wu Chen’s face; that was a matter of upbringing. But inwardly, he had disliked him a great deal.

He had even half wanted to watch Wu Chen make a fool of himself.

Now he was convinced.

Utterly, completely convinced.

It could now be said with absolute certainty that Wu Chen’s new song would bring An Menglan attention. It was bound to work, and the effect would surpass anyone’s imagining.

Yu Xiaohu had watched the whole thing as an outsider.

He hadn’t known what Wu Chen was capable of beforehand, which made it hit him all the harder.

There were so many layers to the scheme. For one thing, it had already buried the leak.

The leak had broken the previous night, and as recently as that morning it had still been the number-one trending search.

At noon, a celebrity couple had officially announced their marriage, which had knocked it down somewhat.

But not buried it.

Just two hours ago, “An Menglan New Song Audio Leak” had still been number seven on trending. And that was after Menghua Music had thrown enormous resources and connections into deleting posts nonstop.

The release of “Genius Superstar” had swamped everything.

Topic after related topic had swept the trending list.

“Mr. Morning Mist’s ‘Genius Superstar,’ I sat in my office earlier and listened to it over and over for more than an hour! It’s well written! Well sung! It’s so goddamn good! Hahahahaha!” Yu Xiaohu was singing the song’s praises again.

Once you started looking kindly on someone, everything they did began to look good to you.

That was exactly what had happened between Yu Xiaohu and Wu Chen.

Never mind that the lyrics of “Genius Superstar” gave offense to plenty of musicians in the Chinese-language scene. Now Yu Xiaohu felt Wu Chen was right. The song was right. Even the insults were right.

The mood in Chinese-language music really had gone wrong these past few years. The pretty-boy idol craze had buried good work, and some famous, genuinely talented musicians had started churning out flashy, terrible songs for money, tailored to those idols’ singing, dancing, and posing.

That decline simply went unspoken.

No one dared.

Offend the idols’ fans, and the whole internet would come down on you.

But Morning Mist had courage. Nerve. And dazzling talent.

He had written all seven songs on An Menglan’s new album. With talent like that, he had every right to tear into the whole internet.

“In days of old there were heroes, chivalrous and true, who gave their lives for righteousness! Today there is Morning Mist, who… who to protect Menghua bears the world’s abuse! Splendid! Most splendid!” Carried away, Yu Xiaohu actually started composing verse.

As poetry, it was… barely anything at all.

But that didn’t matter.

He was simply overcome. He wanted to say something. However clumsy it came out, no one was going to cringe for him.

Yet those two crooked lines of “poetry” struck a chord in An Menglan.

To recover what the leak had cost, Wu Chen had pulled off an astonishing scheme. In the end, he was certain to win his reputation back. But for now, the entire internet really was cursing him.

He seemed to have done so little, yet he had handled it all with effortless ease.

Whose infamy was he bearing?

Mine?

She knew it was wrong to think that way. Recovering the leak’s losses meant recovering Wu Chen’s own losses too. He had a fifty-percent share of the net revenue, after all.

But.

She still felt he was helping her.

Her resolve wavered again.

Before she left Donghai, she had made up her mind. What had happened between them that night, the relationship itself, had been a mistake, something that could never see the light of day. She had even sworn to herself that there could never be a second time.

Her moral line, and Li Ruobing’s existence, had left her no other choice.

Now she was wavering completely.

The impression he left on her was growing not only more dreamlike but larger, more towering.

She sat down.

She picked up her phone, brought up his number, and hesitated. There was a feeling in her now: she wanted to see him right away. To talk to him, just talk a while.

Even knowing she shouldn’t feel this way.

This time, though, for once, the habitually rational An Menglan let emotion win out over reason.

She dialed and lifted the phone to her ear.

Seeing her suddenly make a call, Yu Xiaohu guessed that at a moment like this she must be calling Mr. Morning Mist herself. He fell quiet and went to sit on the sofa off to one side.

A few seconds later, the call connected.

“Hello, Miss An.” Wu Chen’s voice came through.

“Mr. Wu, are you busy?” She drew a deep breath and asked with an ordinary smile in her voice.

“Having dinner with friends.” He smiled too. “Why? Something unexpected come up?”

“Nothing unexpected…” She paused before going on. “Mr. Wu, have you seen the news? Have you looked at what’s happening online?”

“Nope.” He laughed. “By now it should be having an effect, right?”

He could actually hold off from checking how his own new song was doing, and the storm of opinion it had set off?

And “having an effect” didn’t begin to cover it.

The internet had exploded.

“It’s… definitely having an effect.” She hardly knew what to say. She couldn’t begin to describe the frenzy online. After a moment’s thought, she smiled again. “Mr. Wu, when are you coming back to my company?”

“Tomorrow, around noon. I’ve got something in the morning,” he said.

“All right… I won’t keep you, then,” she said.

She set the phone down, gathered her tangled thoughts, and turned back to the computer.

She checked the online reaction again.

Seeing her off the phone, Yu Xiaohu got up and came back over. They picked up their discussion, and he brought up the album’s progress.

Everything was ready now.

All that remained was to release the album, and everything would turn around.

They had to move fast.

Faster.

That night, the online uproar over “Genius Superstar” raged on well past midnight. After dawn, it surged to a new peak.

—

A new day.

July 30, 2020. Seven o’clock sharp.

Dongpu District, Modu. Sixteenth floor of the Hongtu Building, inside a luxury suite belonging to Chenghai Entertainment.

Wu Chen opened his eyes right on time, gazed up at the bedroom ceiling, and smiled.

For a man who had been trapped in the same day for a thousand years, every time a new day arrived on schedule, the smile came from the heart. To him now, resetting was only a tool for dealing with trouble.

He had no wish to be reset against his will ever again.

He turned his head.

Zhuang Xiaodie was still fast asleep, her hair tousled, curled a little against his shoulder. She slept almost like a baby, utterly relaxed and at peace.

Wu Chen got up.

He didn’t wake her.

They hadn’t come here to settle in for the night until around eleven the evening before.

They had chosen this place over a hotel because today Zhuang Xiaodie would formally meet the entire staff of Chenghai Entertainment, as its second-largest shareholder and newly signed actress.

The Hongtu Building was a fifty-four-story office tower. Chenghai Entertainment held a long-term lease on the fifteenth and sixteenth floors.

Staying here was convenient. The sixteenth-floor suite had originally been set aside for the big stars the company occasionally brought in for guest appearances, so it was very comfortable as well.

The meeting, Zhuang Xiaodie’s formal debut at the company, was at nine.

Wu Chen had no plans to attend. There was no need.

That meant she could sleep a little longer, too. It was only seven.

He went to shower. A little over ten minutes later he came out in a robe and slippers, glanced at Zhuang Xiaodie, still sound asleep, and slipped out of the bedroom.

The suite had a study.

It was right next door, a small room with an enormous floor-to-ceiling window.

There was a computer inside.

Wu Chen sat down, switched it on, downloaded a word processor, and opened a blank document.

He paused and thought for a moment.

Then his fingers began flying over the keys.

He was going to write “a manuscript.”

One that could earn him several billion yuan in a short time!