Chapter 372: Annual Headline Preview

Chapter 372: Annual Headline Preview

Peng Wei had posted on Weibo.

The post was short: a single line of text and one image.

August 2. Headline of the Year!

The image was a crude joke graphic: a horned demon with a little red flower on its head, holding hands with a hero. There was a microphone in the upper left corner and a red heart in the lower right.

It looked extremely rough, obviously thrown together in Photoshop on the spot.

The text was simple and direct. A major scoop was coming on August 2, big enough to be the headline of the year.

The image was another matter. It didn’t spell out whose secret was about to be exposed, or what that secret was.

That was always Peng Wei’s way. And it wasn’t about being mysterious for the sake of it.

It was about leaving himself room to maneuver.

Paparazzi chased celebrity romances and dirt for one reason: money. To the public at large, a post like this was a teaser for some juicy gossip. To An Menglan, it was a threat.

Naturally, Peng Wei hoped someone would pay to buy the “explosive material” off him. So the teaser could never be too specific. If he spelled it out, promising to expose An Menglan on August 2, and then she or someone else bought the material back, what would he do?

Publish anyway? He would lose all credibility in the industry.

Not publish? He would have broken faith with the public, a devastating blow to the reputation he had spent years building.

Hence the vague teaser. If the scoop was bought, he could simply swap in a story about some other celebrity on August 2.

An Menglan stared at the tablet.

The post had only been up for a few minutes, but it was already drawing heavy traffic. There were over a thousand comments. At this rate, it was certain to hit Weibo’s popular feed and trending searches before the day was out.

Most people might not grasp the image right away.

But An Menglan understood it at a glance.

And she wasn’t the only one.

When she opened the comments, she found that some “helpful netizens” had worked it out too and were already breaking the image down.

The demon stood for “Demon King.”

The microphone meant a singer.

The red heart meant romance, or a scandal.

The hero was male, so the demon was female.

The little red flower on the demon’s head backed that up.

Put it all together and you got an explosive romance scoop about a Demon King–level female singer.

In today’s Chinese-language music scene, only one female singer was hailed as a “Demon King.”

The Great Demon King herself: An Menglan.

Demon King diva dating someone? An Menglan?!!

An Menglan?!!

Peng Wei’s clout-chasing again. No way it’s our Goddess An.

Anyone trying to stir shit can get lost.

An Menglan saw her own name in the comments. Some sharp-eyed netizens had already guessed.

Still staring at the tablet, she walked back to the sofa and sat down, her head bowed over the screen the entire time.

“What did Peng Wei post?” Wu Chen asked.

She looked up at him and handed over the tablet.

He took it and looked. His eyebrows rose slightly.

Beside him, Li Ruobing rested a hand on his shoulder and leaned over to read the post on the screen too.

Meanwhile, Song Xuan took out her phone, opened the Weibo app, looked up Peng Wei’s account, and started reading as well.

“August second. That’s still a week away,” An Menglan said, a note of worry in her voice.

She knew exactly why Peng Wei had set the reveal a week out. He was leaving a week for negotiations.

“A week.” The corner of Li Ruobing’s mouth curved up. She shot Wu Chen a glance and teased in an exaggerated tone, “Looks like my Mr. Wu is about to make headlines.”

Of one thing Li Ruobing was certain: Wu Chen would never let himself end up in the news.

He had too much riding on him now.

The Ding family. The Li family.

So many plans. So many relationships.

Exposure like this would obviously work against him.

So Peng Wei didn’t stand the slightest chance of publishing.

Li Ruobing wasn’t worried in the least.

An Menglan, on the other hand, remained deeply anxious.

“Mr. Wu, what exactly do you intend to do about this?” she asked him again.

She was genuinely rattled. To Peng Wei, this might be nothing more than a romance scoop. To An Menglan, it was a scandal.

Because Wu Chen had a girlfriend.

“Peng Wei will call me. When he does, I’ll have a proper talk with him,” Wu Chen said, smiling at her. “Miss An, I know what you’re worried about. Honestly, I want to avoid exposure even more than you do. The fewer people who know about this, the better. So… if I can’t handle it, I’ll let you know in advance.”

An Menglan pressed her lips together, then nodded.

If that was how he put it, there was nothing more she could do.

Seven days was still plenty of time, as far as she was concerned. If all else failed, she would throw a huge sum at the problem. However outrageous Peng Wei’s asking price, she would buy those photos back.

“Let’s talk about our collaboration instead. Relax. Forget about the paparazzi,” Wu Chen said with another smile.

“All right.” She nodded.

“You two talk.” Li Ruobing abruptly stood and picked up her handbag. “I’m off.”

“To the office?” Wu Chen looked up at her.

“To Jinfu. I set it up with Qingying yesterday,” Li Ruobing said.

She had no interest in sitting around listening to Wu Chen and An Menglan talk music. And she really had made plans with Su Qingying yesterday. The partnership between Huancai Fashion and Jinfu Group was already underway. It might be the weekend, but that didn’t stop Li Ruobing from choosing to work.

“Dinner together tonight,” she told Wu Chen.

Then she bent down and kissed him on the cheek.

She turned and left.

After she was gone, Wu Chen and An Menglan talked about nothing but their collaboration and music.

Song Xuan was still there. When she heard that Wu Chen had written eight songs for An Menglan the day before, she was amazed.

Before they knew it, it was ten in the morning.

An Menglan mentioned that she wanted to record song demos.

Song Xuan immediately offered her place. She meant her own home, the villa where she lived alone.

She had a recording studio there. Whatever equipment a professional studio had, hers had too. She had spent more than ten million yuan building it. But recording wasn’t a one-person job, and Song Xuan preferred working at friends’ studios, so she didn’t use the one at home very often.

After the paparazzi incident, Song Xuan’s home was clearly a good choice for privacy and security.

Once decided, they acted. None of them were the type to drag their feet.

They left the hotel together and headed for Song Xuan’s place.

…

Noon.

Lüyuan Business Tower, Nanhui District, Modu.

In his office, Peng Wei was shutting down his computer, about to head out for lunch.

Ring, ring…

His phone rang.

He glanced at the caller ID: President Zheng, Donghai Guangyue.

Peng Wei answered at once, smiling. “Boss Zheng, any news?”

“Yes. I’ve found something,” Zheng Shaoqing said.

His voice was hoarse, and there was something odd about his tone.

“That fast?” Surprise crept into Peng Wei’s smile.

He had only reached out to Zheng Shaoqing three hours earlier, and he hadn’t told him much, since the two of them weren’t especially close. He’d spent a while on idle pleasantries before asking for a favor and handing over Wu Chen’s phone number.

Peng Wei knew that, with Zheng Shaoqing’s local clout in Donghai, tracing a phone number to its registered owner and pulling up everything under that person’s name wouldn’t be difficult.

He just hadn’t expected it to be so quick.

His opinion of Zheng Shaoqing went up a notch. The man was a good friend to have, getting things done this efficiently. If something good came along in the future, Peng Wei could bring him in more often, make some introductions, help set up a few deals.

With Peng Wei’s connections in the entertainment world, brokering a partnership for a midsize entertainment company was easy enough.

It was exactly why entertainment-company bosses were happy to treat paparazzi like him as friends.

“Background stuff is pretty easy to check. I had a friend look up his household-registration information…” Zheng Shaoqing still sounded strange.

Then he changed tack. “Boss Peng, do you… have some kind of problem with this Wu Chen?”

“The kid’s way too damn cocky,” Peng Wei said.

He left it at that.

“Boss Zheng, what did you find? Does he have some kind of background? What does his family do?”

“Background… no, not really. His family’s just ordinary…” Zheng Shaoqing hesitated.

“What’s going on, Boss Zheng? Why are you hemming and hawing? We’re brothers here. What can’t you tell me? If you found something, just say it.”

Peng Wei deliberately put on a chummy tone.

“It’s not that I can’t tell you.” Zheng Shaoqing paused.

When he spoke again, his voice had dropped without his seeming to notice.

“Here’s the thing, Boss Peng. If there’s been some misunderstanding between you and Mr. Wu, you’d best clear it up. You really don’t want to… get into a conflict with him.”

His tone had grown extremely guarded.

Peng Wei froze.

He took a moment to process it, and still couldn’t make sense of it.

In what capacity was Zheng Shaoqing calling Wu Chen…

Mr. Wu?

Did they know each other?!