Chapter 259: I’ll Ask Him

Chapter 259: I’ll Ask Him

“Mom, I’m going to the restroom,” Song Xuan had said quietly to Wu Yurong.

She picked up her bag, stood, and went out, pulling the door shut behind her.

There was hardly anyone in the corridor. Only Chu Yan, standing guard by the door.

Song Xuan started toward the restroom.

Ring-ring-ring…

Her phone rang. She stopped and dug it out of her bag.

An unfamiliar number.

She could guess it might be another entertainment company or talent agency.

She had been weighing whether to sign with one.

She could not possibly abandon her studies to debut outright, and Wu Yurong would never allow it.

Singing was her hobby.

But that did not mean she could not sign with a company.

If she wanted her songs to reach further, to be sung more widely, professional promotion by an entertainment company was indispensable.

Song Xuan did not care whether she made money. Her family had far too much of it. Singing was something she did for fun.

Still, since professional operation mattered, if she signed with anyone it would have to be a major company.

Some well-known music companies had called over the past few days.

None of them had struck Song Xuan as big enough. If she signed, she wanted the very top tier.

Ring-ring-ring…

The phone was still ringing.

She thought a moment, then answered. She did not have the habit of cutting people off unanswered. It was rude.

“Hello?” she said, lifting it to her ear.

“May I ask if this is Miss Song Xuan’er?” A woman’s voice came through, richly magnetic.

“Speaking. And you are…?”

“I’m An Menglan. I apologize for calling out of nowhere.”

“An… An Menglan?!”

Song Xuan reacted as though struck by lightning.

She froze, startled, then flooded with excitement, and nearly cried out.

She clapped a hand over her mouth just in time.

Her whole face lit, and with the delight of a small girl she actually bounced once where she stood.

An Menglan.

Ancestral home Jiangkou City, Guang Province. A Chinese-language singer out of the Xiangjiang Special Administrative Region. A diva of the new generation.

At seventeen she debuted as champion of the Xiangjiang Song Contest. That same year she took seven major music awards, Best New Artist and Best Single among them, and the following year she successfully defended her Best Female Singer crown.

At nineteen An Menglan entered the mainland scene. With that magnetic voice, her range of vocal styles, and a high register nothing could touch, she swept across the whole of the Chinese-language music world at speed.

She racked up award after award and was crowned a diva.

That same year she was invited to sing at the New Year’s Gala.

At twenty, just as her career reached its first summit, An Menglan withdrew from public view without warning. It was said she had gone to Aodeli to study music further.

At twenty-two, after two years away from the Chinese-language scene, she formally returned and released her third album, Dream.

She swept everything again. Dream, the album’s title track, reached a saturation that year close to brainwashing. It played in every street and alley across the country.

At twenty-four, after a full year of touring, An Menglan vanished from public view once more. This time, though, she never announced a retirement.

An Menglan had her own music company.

Reports said she had shifted behind the scenes and meant to build her future career on running the company and on finding and developing new talent.

In the Chinese-language music world she carried many titles.

“Queen of Love Songs.”

“Iron-Lung Diva.”

Her range was extraordinarily wide, sweet at the low end, clean and crystalline at the top. She was one of the very few female singers people described as having been handed her voice by Heaven itself.

In truth, these past two years, with An Menglan out of sight, her popularity had slipped somewhat. Measured against the female singers who had exploded out of talent shows in the last couple of years, her fans were far less active online.

But her name recognition among the general public remained extremely high, and the number of her die-hard fans was astonishing.

And everyone understood that the moment An Menglan released a new album, she would sweep the field again.

The standing she had already built in the music world was not something the current crop of newcomers could measure against.

She simply seemed to have lost the wish to sing.

Yet even now An Menglan was still regarded as a new-generation diva of the Chinese-language music world, the leading figure among the new generation of female singers.

She had only kept a low profile for two years, after all.

She was twenty-six this year.

Song Xuan knew an extraordinary amount about An Menglan. She even knew her bazi.

The reason was simple.

Song Xuan was An Menglan’s fan. More than that—very nearly an obsessive one.

She could sing all of An Menglan’s songs. A few years back she had gone to her concerts and sworn to be her fan for life.

And with Song Xuan’s family background—

she knew more about An Menglan’s background than the general public did.

Huaxing Entertainment, currently one of the top three entertainment and media companies in the country, was a wholly owned subsidiary of Xiangjiang’s Huaxing Group.

Huaxing Group was a diversified conglomerate with businesses spanning finance, real estate, hotels, media, film, and more. It had five listed subsidiaries alone.

Huaxing Entertainment was only one piece of it.

Huaxing Group’s total assets exceeded one hundred billion yuan.

An Menglan’s father was named An Huaiguo.

An Huaiguo was currently the head of Huaxing Group’s board.

An Menglan was his youngest daughter, the treasured jewel of the An family.

Her backing in the entertainment industry could fairly be described as reaching the heavens.

But she had not become famous because her family pushed her. Anyone who understood music and vocal technique knew how terrifyingly gifted An Menglan had been when she debuted already at the summit.

She was a “Demon King”-like presence.

Nearly every era produced one singer with absolute dominance.

An Menglan was one of those singers. She should have become the most dominant female singer of the Chinese-language music world in this era.

She had chosen not to.

Precisely because of her family, An Menglan had entered the music world partly as a passion project. She had gathered nearly every honor a singer could win, then toured for a full year to her heart’s content. Having fulfilled her musical dream completely, she moved behind the scenes.

Song Xuan had idolized An Menglan for years. This was her idol.

To take a call from her without warning left Song Xuan too excited to speak properly.

“Yes, it’s me. Miss Song, are you all right?” An Menglan’s voice came again.

She had plainly heard the small odd sounds at the other end.

“I… I’m f-fine… M-Miss An…” Song Xuan tried to master herself, but she was so happy, so excited, that her voice shook.

“Here is the situation, Miss Song. I’ll be direct. I’ve listened to your song, and I like it very much. I don’t know whether you’ve signed with a company. If you haven’t, I’d like to invite you to join mine. Do think it over. If it’s possible, we can meet and discuss the details in person.” An Menglan’s phrasing was quite formal.

“I… yes… I can…”

Song Xuan was so excited that she agreed almost too eagerly.

“I didn’t expect this to go so smoothly.” An Menglan sounded a little surprised.

Then she went on. “In that case, might I trouble you with one more thing, Miss Song? You and Mr. Morning Mist are friends, I believe? I wonder whether you could introduce us, or give me his number. He’s extremely talented, and I’d like to—”

“Yes! Of course! I’ll—I’ll ask him. Right now! I’ll call you straight back. Just a moment, it won’t take long.”

She agreed at once again.

She ended the call first, spun around, and ran back toward the private room.

At the door she shoved it open and burst straight in.

“Senior—” she called as she came through.

And her voice stopped dead.

The excited Song Xuan stood there stunned.

Even her excitement drained away by half in an instant.

Her eyes stretched wide as she stared into the room.

She saw Wu Yurong sitting in Wu Chen’s lap, her arms around his neck, the two of them turned toward the doorway together.

Wu Yurong had not had time even to stand.

They had been seen.

The air seemed to freeze in that instant.

Song Xuan was stunned. Wu Yurong was dumbfounded.

Who came back from the restroom that fast? It had not even been a minute, had it?

Panic churned in Wu Yurong’s chest. Her thoughts raced as she tried to think of an explanation.

Nothing came.

There was no explaining this.

Wu Chen looked at Song Xuan, glanced at Wu Yurong, then looked back at Song Xuan.

He was perfectly calm. A sudden turn like this was no problem for him. He could handle it.

Silence.

A full ten seconds of it.

Apart from Wu Chen, the other two might as well have been rooted in place. Neither moved.

Ring-ring-ring…

A phone rang.

Wu Chen’s.

Still perfectly calm, he took it out as naturally as anything, glanced at the screen, answered, and lifted it to his ear.

“What’s happened?”

“He killed himself,” Old Dao’s voice said.