Chapter 344: Helping Wu Chen Escape His Suffering Together

Chapter 344: Helping Wu Chen Escape His Suffering Together

An unknown male singer with talent so extraordinary it might fairly be called world-astonishing, and he was being kept by a rich woman?

An Menglan could hardly believe what Song Xuan had told her. The situation was so rare she had barely even heard of such a thing, and here it was, happening in front of her.

Had it been the other way round, a wealthy woman backing him, pouring money into promoting him in hopes of making him famous, An Menglan would not have been surprised in the least. Female patrons promoting handsome young men were common enough in the entertainment industry.

But by Song Xuan’s account Wu Chen was controlled by an older woman who was keeping him out of the industry. Given the talent he had already shown, and the phenomenal online success of his first single, he would unquestionably go enormous the moment he debuted. His future was wide open.

And she wouldn’t let him debut?

Was she afraid he would leave her once he made his name?

“Miss Song, are you certain of what you’re saying? Have you met this… older woman of Wu Chen’s?” An Menglan asked, choosing her words with care.

“I haven’t met her, but I’ve spoken to her on the phone. I called Senior once and she answered. She was so fierce, ice cold. Her voice didn’t sound old, but the way she spoke was like a school discipline director. She might even be older than my mom!”

Once Song Xuan started she had more and more to say. She had already given up the most important part, so of course she wanted to lay out the rest. “…She even suspected there was something going on between Senior and me. I tried to explain about him writing songs and selling them to me, and she knew nothing about it at all. He’d kept it from her. She questioned me in incredible detail, as if she were checking my household registration. If they were an ordinary couple, how could she not know?”

“But you’ve never met her. How can you be sure? Perhaps she really is his girlfriend,” An Menglan said, thinking it over.

“Senior’s family is very ordinary. I even asked classmates at the university. Some of them knew him. He was completely ordinary at school too. There was nothing special about him before he graduated.”

Song Xuan looked at her and pressed on rapidly. “But when I met Senior before, he was driving a Lamborghini. He said it was a friend’s, not his, but the clothes he had on cost hundreds of thousands of yuan. How could he suddenly have that much money for no reason? He hasn’t been out of school long at all.”

“So when you say Wu Chen is being kept by a rich woman, that’s your guess?” An Menglan asked after some thought.

“Yes… but I brought it up with Senior. I asked whether an older woman was keeping him, and said I could help. He denied it, said no. Then I asked whether she had some hold over him, and he said no to that too. Then he changed the subject. He didn’t want to talk about it, wouldn’t explain anything, and kept saying he definitely wouldn’t debut…”

An Menglan raised an eyebrow as she listened. At first she had not much believed it. Even after Song Xuan’s account she had been only half persuaded. But hearing that Wu Chen had denied it and immediately changed the subject, she began to feel there was an eighty percent chance the story was true.

He had denied it, yes. Then refused to say more and quickly steered away.

Bare denial without explanation, followed by refusal to discuss it, was exactly how a man behaved when something humiliating had been hit upon and he wanted the subject gone.

If it truly were a misunderstanding, how could he leave it unexplained? Everyone had their pride.

Surely no man would let a misunderstanding like that stand.

Especially when the one asking was a younger woman from his own university.

An Menglan could even reconstruct what he must have been thinking. The denial came from a man’s pride. The refusal to explain, the change of subject, came because Song Xuan had hit the mark and there was nothing he could say, so he had avoided the conversation altogether.

“Wu Chen is… very handsome, isn’t he?” An Menglan asked after a moment.

“Mm-hmm.” Song Xuan nodded. “Very handsome.”

Now An Menglan was entirely convinced. Everything fit.

She had even begun to picture his predicament: writing songs in secret and selling them to a wealthy younger woman from his university in an attempt to get free of the older woman, unable to debut because the older woman had found out about it…

“Senior seems to need money very badly,” Song Xuan added suddenly. “He asked a hundred thousand yuan for a song. The first time I heard the price I thought he’d lost his mind, asking that much. Later we signed an agreement too. Fifty percent of the song’s earnings go to him…”

An Menglan nodded as she listened.

Another piece falling into place.

He wanted to make money writing songs and dared to demand an outrageous price, yet refused to debut and earn far more. For a man from an ordinary family that made no sense.

This was a chance to become a superstar. A chance to cross class lines and rise above everyone.

It was not as though he could not sing. The song he had performed was still burning up the internet, and everyone in music circles was talking about him.

Why was he so set against debuting?

Only Song Xuan’s explanation made sense of it. It gave every unreasonable thing a reasonable answer.

“Then why don’t you help him?” An Menglan asked her, smiling. “Given your mother’s position in Donghai, it should be fairly easy, shouldn’t it?”

“I do want to save Senior from this awful situation!” Song Xuan said at once. Then she paused, and her voice turned troubled. “But he won’t talk to me about it, so I don’t know what to do… With his talent, he shouldn’t have to live like this!”

“No. With his talent, he shouldn’t.” An Menglan sighed with her, the regret plain in her voice.

She cherished talent. The more she cherished it, the more its waste pained her.

“Miss An, do you think… that older woman might have some hold over Senior?” Song Xuan asked.

Once a person had fixed on an idea, they wanted agreement more than anything. Song Xuan was somewhat in that state now.

She firmly believed Wu Chen was being kept, and controlled, by an older woman.

“Possibly…” An Menglan sighed.

She was not contradicting Song Xuan. She simply knew that people with enormous money and power often needed no hold at all to control someone.

At its simplest, a contract with a trap buried in it was enough.

Song Xuan came from money herself, but she was still in school and had nothing to do with her family’s affairs, so in this she clearly understood less than An Menglan did.

Before they knew it they had talked until half past ten.

Ring, ring…

Song Xuan’s phone.

She took it out, looked, and answered sweetly. “Mom.”

“Have you picked up Miss An?” Wu Yurong asked.

“Yes. We’re at the hotel already. We’re talking now.”

“Good. Let me see… I’ll be there at twelve. The restaurant downstairs…”

“Got it, Mom. I’ll arrange everything.”

They were settling lunch. It had been arranged in advance: Wu Yurong was coming to meet An Menglan in person and discuss her daughter signing with the company.

The call ended.

“Miss An, my mom is coming at noon. We’ll have lunch together,” Song Xuan said, turning to her.

An Menglan nodded. She thought a moment, then asked, “Miss Song, have you told your mother about Wu Chen’s situation?”

“Tell her? I don’t think that would be wise… something like this…” Song Xuan looked uncomfortable.

She had been willing to tell An Menglan because she hoped An Menglan could help Wu Chen debut. Telling her own mother was another matter. For the sake of his reputation alone, Song Xuan did not dare raise it lightly.

And there was a more important reason still.

“…My mom won’t let me date anyone before I graduate from university,” Song Xuan told her. “If she gets the wrong idea and thinks there’s something between Senior and me, then helping him could make everything worse!”

An Menglan nodded to show she understood.

Before coming to Donghai, knowing Song Xuan’s mother was Wu Yurong, she had made a point of having someone look into her. So she knew that Wu Yurong’s way of operating was… rather frightening.

Wu Yurong could fairly be called the most powerful woman in Donghai. In the city’s male-dominated business world she held an extraordinarily distinctive, elevated position. Even with her own exceptionally prominent family background, An Menglan approached Wu Yurong with caution.

She could also understand something of Song Xuan’s feelings toward her mother.

“Miss An, could we help Senior escape this together? I’ll do everything I can to persuade him, to get him to agree to debut. But there are some difficulties I’d need you to solve…” Song Xuan looked at her pleadingly.

An Menglan looked back at her. A brief pause, then she smiled and nodded. “All right.”

“Then I’ll call Senior right now and arrange a time…” Song Xuan could hardly wait. As she spoke she picked up her phone again.