Chapter 554: A New Day—the Woman at the Foot of the Bed!

Chapter 554: A New Day—the Woman at the Foot of the Bed!

To An Menglan, the greatest fear was not, in truth, the threat to her physical safety. She could always retreat to Xiangjiang to lay low for a spell, waiting for Li Ruobing’s fury to subside before attempting an explanation. What truly petrified her was the losing her career. Music was the most important part of her life—nothing else came close!

And she firmly believed that music appreciated only by its creator could never be considered great art!

Good music was music appreciated and praised by the public!

Thus, An Menglan could not fathom the day when her music would be boycotted or outright banned. How could her beliefs survive that? Her enormous influence had always been a weapon she could wield against her father; now, that very influence was now threatened to destroy her!

The public and the paparazzi had lost their minds.

Everyone wanted to know the identity of the mysterious man to whom An Menglan had declared her love.

If Li Ruobing went public, and it came to light that the man was Morning Mist—and when that revelation was paired with the cheating scandal that had set the internet ablaze not long ago, along with the official denial issued by her agency… wouldn’t that seal her fate?

The grim label “disgraced entertainer” flashed through An Menglan’s mind!

Was that label about to be applied to her?!

Could it truly turn that catastrophic? If the scandal became big enough, it could!

Wu Chen took a couple of steps toward her chair and rested a gentle hand upon her shoulder. An Menglan immediately spun around, burying her face into his chest, her arms wrapping tightly around his waist as sobs racked her body.

“Look at you, frightening yourself. It won’t come to that.” Wu Chen stroked her hair gently. “You haven’t eaten a bite all evening, have you? Let us find a place to get some food into you first. As for the reporters outside, I’ll take care of them.”

A little over ten minutes later, two bodyguards were summoned to carry An Huaiguo away. By that point, he had passed out against the foot of the coat rack. Both men were his trusted aides; they would ensure he was comfortably settled.

An Menglan had injured her knee around noon. By now, the scrape had scabbed over; though a dull ache lingered, she could manage to walk.

She slipped into the private lounge connected to the executive office to change her clothes.

Wu Chen settled into the executive chair behind the desk and dialed a number.

“Boss Mao… Are the arrangements set?” Wu Chen asked.

“Naturally! Mr. Wu, it is rare indeed for you to ask a favor of me. I’ve spared no effort! Hahahaha!” Mao Rusong laughed heartily through the receiver. Judging by his robust tone, his health was no longer much of a problem, even if he was still recuperating in the hospital.

“Have them move in ten minutes,” Wu Chen instructed.

“Understood! I’ll give the word immediately,” Mao Rusong replied.

Downstairs from Menghua Music, every available parking spot in the vicinity was crammed full. At this late hour, the vast majority of the company’s staff had already clocked out and gone home, meaning parking should never have been this scarce… The vehicles, naturally, belonged to the paparazzi.

In the contemporary Chinese music scene, An Menglan was the number-one superstar! That was beyond dispute.

She stood as that rare synthesis of the talent of a serious performer and the appeal of an idol!

If the term “traffic star” had not taken on a distinctly derogatory bite in modern discourse, one could easily have crowned An Menglan the biggest traffic superstar of them all.

Ordinary traffic idols might briefly eclipse her during their few peak months in the spotlight, but An Menglan commanded superstar-level prominence even in the dead of ordinary life. Whenever an actual event erupted around her… the sheer volume of public mania was practically peerless!

Modu had plenty of media outlets.

Over a hundred news organizations had established a perimeter outside Menghua Music. There were clear reports online that that An Menglan remained inside the building.

Combined with the swarm of paparazzi sealing off every conceivable entrance, two to three hundred people were still holding their vigil deep into the night.

Slipping into the building was easy enough.

Especially for a group of men walking together.

Exiting, however, was another matter entirely—man or woman, every departure was watched closely, the media terrified that An Menglan might disguise herself as a man to escape. Major media conglomerates had already offered rewards: whoever secured the first photograph of An Menglan following her confession was guaranteed an instant promotion and pay raise!

Boom!

A deafening crash shattered the night air, jolting every waiting soul!

Two commercial vans had somehow smashed through the landscaped divider, and onto the pedestrian side. One rolled over violently, while the other, as though its brakes had failed completely, scraped along an entire row of parked cars!

Sparks erupted in showers like fireworks!

“Fuck!”

“Holy shit!”

“My car!”

“My gear’s in the trunk!”

“Move, quick!”

The collision was utterly catastrophic and without warning! Over twenty parked vehicles were mangled in an instant, and the overturned van erupted into flames, triggering a chorus of frantic shouts to douse the blaze and drag the passengers free!

The urge to watch a spectacle was etched into human nature!

Particularly one of this magnitude—and these onlookers were journalists by trade!

The disaster was sensational enough to claim the front page on its own merits, staged as it was right on the doorstep of An Menglan’s company! The fodder for speculation was limitless. Malicious commentators could easily frame it as an orchestrated plot!

Yet as the crowd converged to inspect their damaged vehicles, lend a hand in the rescue, and snap photographs, they realized that the two vans at the center of the pileup belonged to local paparazzi themselves. The outfits were moderately well known in Modu, operating out of an office tower in Dongpu District.

Why had they arrived so late?

Why had they been driving so aggressively?

Racing to beat each other to the scene?

An internal feud within their studio?!

Whatever the ultimate truth, once the crash dominated tomorrow’s headlines, the paparazzi community would inevitably take the collective blame! Had they not converged to barricade the entrances and engineer an impossible bottleneck, how could such an accident have transpired? Moreover, the crowd consisted not merely of paparazzi, but reporters from legitimate media outlets!

At the apex of the bedlam…

A Lamborghini, originally bearing Donghai plates, surged out from the underground garage! Yet as it cleared the gates, it was no longer sporting Donghai tags—it had been fitted with false Modu plates!

The plates had been delivered only a brief while earlier.

Midnight. The presidential suite of a five-star hotel.

A disguised An Menglan slipped through the door alongside Wu Chen, who remained dressed in a suit. Every detail along their journey appeared prearranged; even at the hotel, no one asked for identification or required them to register. Someone simply escorted “Mr. Wu” and his companion straight up to the suite.

The living room lay shrouded in darkness, the overhead lights left off.

Yet upon a long table set beside the window, candles flickered softly over an exquisite spread… a romantic candlelit dinner.

An Menglan pulled off her baseball cap, scarf, and mask, tossing them onto the sofa as she walked in.

They took their seats.

Wu Chen uncorked a bottle of wine.

“Have a little wine, eat something, and get some proper rest,” Wu Chen said gently. “Don’t torture yourself with overthinking. I’ll handle Ruobing.”

“If you plead my case, won’t that only stoke her jealousy?” An Menglan asked, slowly shaking her head as though she had thought the matter through to its bitter end. “And if you take my side and disregard her feelings, won’t she threaten you? Or threaten both of us, using my career as leverage… What will we do then? If she demands that you break things off with me, what will you do?”

“You had best ensure Ruobing never learns what you’ve said to me tonight,” Wu Chen warned softly. “I know I can settle it—I can settle it every time—yet I would still prefer you two not clash. Problems take time to brew and time to untangle. It is entirely unnecessary.”

“I never set out to flaunt anything in her face. Where would I find the gall to pick a fight with her?” An Menglan murmured, slicing into her steak. She was well aware that she was in the wrong.

“Then you should also trust that so long as you don’t make trouble, she will forgive you,” Wu Chen smiled. “If only for my sake, she will.”

“Even this time?” An Menglan couldn’t bring herself to believe it.

If Li Ruobing yielded even on an affront like this, would she still be Li Ruobing? To what terrifying degree had this man changed her?!

“Most likely,” Wu Chen replied, deliberately injecting a note of uncertainty, smiling as he observed the subtle shifts in her expression. Fascinating! An Menglan was hardly a woman of fragile spirit.

Her terror did not stem from innate cowardice. It was born of the reputation Li Ruobing had cultivated over the years—stories about her had circulated among the elite clans for ages.

A new day. August 6, 2020.

Inside the bedroom of the presidential suite.

It was 6:37 a.m., earlier than Wu Chen’s internal clock would naturally stir him awake. Yet the sound of exceptionally light footsteps pulled him from sleep. Opening his eyes, he saw the figure standing beyond the foot of the bed and offered her a broad, beaming smile.

Clang!

Li Ruobing struck the bed’s distinctive metal footboard with her gun.

Nestled within Wu Chen’s embrace, An Menglan jolted awake, groggily lifting her head.