Chapter 565: She Likes Girls!

Chapter 565: She Likes Girls!

Wu Chen took the phone and listened for a moment before replying, “Mm… Escort her up. Make sure the paparazzi don’t notice. Decide among yourselves how best to handle it. Mm… All right.”

With that, Wu Chen ended the call and handed the phone back to Li Ruobing.

“What’s going on?” Li Ruobing asked, setting the phone aside and picking up her knife and fork again. “What did you do?”

“Your bodyguards called this morning saying they’d spotted suspicious people outside—paparazzi,” Wu Chen replied in a casual tone. “You were asleep, so I answered. While I was at it… I made a few arrangements regarding Menglan being hounded by them.”

“Mm…” Li Ruobing nodded, understanding.

Nearby, An Menglan was taken aback. Wu Chen had already started making arrangements this morning? She hadn’t even mentioned the issue to him yet.

“So who’s coming?” Li Ruobing asked.

“You’ll see in a moment,” Wu Chen said with a smile.

Li Ruobing’s bodyguards were consummate professionals. They were specifically trained in moving a target up or down a building without drawing eyes, using tactics like picking deliberate quarrels or luring watchers away. As a result, it took them less than five minutes to escort their guest to the door of the presidential suite.

Knock, knock!

“I’ll get it,” Wu Chen said, rising to answer the door.

Li Ruobing and An Menglan both turned to look. Wu Chen opened the door, exchanged a few quiet words with someone outside, and then a woman dressed to conceal her identity stepped in. Wu Chen closed the door behind her.

The newcomer took off her sunglasses.

Li Ruobing and An Menglan both froze for a moment. They knew her—and, in a way, they shared the exact same connection to her…

It was Zhuang Xiaodie!

Zhuang Xiaodie took off her sunglasses and scanned the living room, pausing when she saw the two women by the window.

That morning, she had received a Weixun message from Wu Chen.

He had told her to dress inconspicuously, drive her usual car, and come to this hotel at this specific time.

She didn’t know the reason, and she hadn’t asked for details.

She never expected both Li Ruobing and An Menglan to be here. No wonder the bodyguards who had escorted her up looked so familiar…

“You all know one another, so there’s no need for introductions. Xiaodie, have you eaten?” Wu Chen asked as he walked toward the window.

“I have,” Zhuang Xiaodie replied.

“Then take a seat. We’re almost finished,” Wu Chen said. Indeed, they had practically finished their meal.

As he sat back down by the window, Li Ruobing asked, “Why did you call Xiaodie over…?”

“I’ll explain after we finish eating,” Wu Chen replied with a smile.

A little over ten minutes later.

Gathered on the living-room sofa, Wu Chen laid out his plan to the three women. It didn’t actually involve him or Li Ruobing; it mainly required An Menglan and Zhuang Xiaodie to act out a scene. After hearing him out, both women froze, exchanged a look, and suddenly blushed.

“Is this really reliable…?” Li Ruobing asked, doubtful of Wu Chen’s plan.

It wasn’t that she doubted his competence; he had already laid out the entire scheme, and from this point, things would have to unfold on their own. Li Ruobing was clearly worried about unintended fallout or the situation spiraling out of control.

“When the time comes, posts will be deleted across the entire internet. The more you try to cover it up, the more convinced netizens will be that it’s real! Her fans will start defending Menglan like crazy—especially her most active female fans!”

“Then… footage of Menglan in the living room will also leak onto the web through unofficial channels. It won’t come from any official media outlet or studio, but it will definitely spread…”

“That will serve as corroboration!”

Li Ruobing still looked hesitant. God only knew what else might break online afterward; that part would be completely beyond Wu Chen’s control. “Besides… Xiaodie holds shares in Menglan’s company. Sooner or later, someone will expose that online, and people will dig into Xiaodie’s background. So…”

She glanced between the two of them. “Neither of you has a problem with this?”

“None at all.” Zhuang Xiaodie shook her head, entirely unconcerned. So long as Wu Chen arranged it, anything was fine with her!

An Menglan, on the other hand, looked as though she found the plan brilliant! The gloom lingering between her brows vanished without a trace, and her whole face lit up. “That line of thinking… is pure genius!”

“Then that’s what we’ll do,” Wu Chen decided.

Seeing that both agreed, Li Ruobing had no choice but to pick up her phone and give her bodyguards a series of instructions.

Around 2:30 p.m., An Menglan, dressed in heavy disguise, left the hotel under the escort of several bodyguards. The departure appeared exceedingly cautious throughout, but photos were taken all the same.

Around 3:40 p.m., Zhuang Xiaodie, likewise bundled up to hide her identity, left the hotel flanked by the remaining bodyguards. She also appeared to move with immense caution, but was photographed just the same.

Thus, only Wu Chen and Li Ruobing were left in the hotel suite.

For a time, the two indulged in their private world, doing what lovers ought to do.

Starting at 4:30 p.m., however, Li Ruobing kept her eyes glued to her phone, refreshing Weibo as if waiting for some earth-shattering news!

The big news arrived right on schedule!

At 5:15 p.m., more than a dozen paparazzi studios dropped the exact same explosive story almost simultaneously: An Menglan Shares Hotel Room with Mysterious Woman.

An epoch-shattering revelation!

Yet Weibo didn’t crash this time. Having undergone two consecutive days of emergency server expansion, the auxiliary capacity had not yet been taken offline, allowing the platform to absorb an even more explosive shockwave!

There were photos as ironclad proof!

Photos of An Menglan leaving the hotel! Photos of the mysterious woman leaving the hotel! The paparazzi had even snapped pictures of the two women exiting the exact same room over an hour apart… Only Wu Chen and Li Ruobing knew that the paparazzi had captured those shots solely because someone wanted them to.

Otherwise, they wouldn’t have been able to get anywhere near that corridor!

Anyone sneaking around would have been chased off by the bodyguards!

After the story had fermented for a little over half an hour, online public opinion fractured into two distinct camps. One was the “Now it all makes sense” faction: no wonder An Menglan had posted that Weibo confession and then deleted it, and no wonder she had never dated anyone—it turned out she… liked girls?

The other camp was dead set on debunking the rumor!

Fake! Pure paparazzi fabrication! The two women in the photos were wrapped up so tightly—how could anyone tell that one of them was An Menglan? And even if it really was An Menglan with another woman, couldn’t she stay in a hotel with her assistant? Or with an artist signed to her agency? A presidential suite had plenty of rooms!

The photos proved nothing at all!

Still images couldn’t prove that leaving at different times was suspicious, and what did a bunch of bodyguards in black suits, sunglasses, and masks—faces completely hidden—actually prove?

What celebrity didn’t have bodyguards?

Initially, the debunking camp had a solid, rational case!

Around seven that evening, however, a newly registered account dropped another sledgehammer onto the internet.

It was drone footage of An Menglan.

An Menglan sitting on the sofa wasn’t the main point! The crux of the matter was the table by the window: the uncleared plates, the burned-down candles, the wineglasses, the red wine bottle… Every detail proved that An Menglan had shared a candlelit dinner with someone!

Nobody shared a candlelit dinner with an assistant or an artist from their company!

You only did that with a lover!

Around 7:10 p.m., the trending topic was pulled, and a massive sweep of post and video deletions began across the web. The newly registered account was banned outright. But the story had already spread far and wide. The harder the authorities tried to cover it up, the more it looked like ironclad proof! Fans of An Menglan began posting comments like, “We won’t pry, we just wish you happiness!”, “Respect the artist’s privacy!”, and “Blessings, blessings!”

The name “Zhuang Xiaodie,” along with screenshots of shareholding records found online, began circulating. The posts were deleted, reposted, and deleted again in a relentless cycle.

Netizens’ appetite to follow the gossip surged to a fever pitch. The more they were kept in the dark, the more convinced they grew that the scrubbed information was the genuine truth! And every single detail was agonizingly logical!

By a little past eight that evening, nearly all comments under search results for the relevant keywords had been steered toward the same consensus: An Menglan liked girls! And the rumors pointed unmistakably to a young woman named Zhuang Xiaodie!

Curled on the sofa, Li Ruobing clutched her phone, avidly following the gossip.

“Convinced yet?” Wu Chen asked, sitting down beside her and taking a bite from the apple in his hand.

“It’s a genuine tragedy you aren’t in public relations. You really have the guts for this—manipulating public sentiment across the entire internet and toying with the psychology of every gossip-hungry netizen. If a single detail went sideways, the fallout would be astronomical.” Li Ruobing lowered her phone and looked at him.

“It shouldn’t go sideways,” Wu Chen smiled.

“So her trouble is considered settled?” Li Ruobing asked.

“Mm-hmm!” Wu Chen nodded. “Going forward, Menglan won’t even need to call in favors. The authorities will intervene slightly on their own. Menglan commands too much influence, and to the higher-ups, this sort of situation is inherently unsuitable for promotion. No one will dare cross that line, and the paparazzi will quiet down.”

“Brilliant!” Li Ruobing was genuinely impressed! This time, Wu Chen had even weaponized the authorities’ own established boundaries, using that “heavenly might” to suppress the paparazzi! Let’s see who dared court death now!

Crunch. Wu Chen took another bite of his apple.

“Mm… So now you can finally tell me who this woman is you’re scheming to make your ‘little assistant,’ right?” Li Ruobing asked, fixing her gaze on Wu Chen. “At this stage, keeping it from me is completely pointless. Didn’t you say we’re going to find her tomorrow morning anyway?”

“I was afraid you wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight if I told you,” Wu Chen said with a smile.

“If you don’t tell me, that’s when I won’t be able to sleep,” Li Ruobing countered.

“You won’t regret it?” A faint note of warning laced Wu Chen’s question.

“I won’t!” Li Ruobing said firmly.

“Then I’ll tell you.” Wu Chen’s smile took on a subtle edge. “It’s Xia Jinyu.”

Li Ruobing froze. An instant later, her eyes widened to their absolute limit. She sat up, then sprang right onto the sofa, standing tall as she cried out, “That lunatic?! That fraud?!”