Chapter 387: An Menglan’s Shock!

Chapter 387: An Menglan’s Shock!

An Menglan couldn’t untangle her thoughts at all. Peng Wei had named his price, thirty million, so she would simply pay it and that would be that. How had it flipped around? Peng Wei was going to give her thirty million? What kind of move was that?

The room stayed silent for a good ten seconds or more.

“Miss An… the thirty million I’m giving you is compensation for emotional distress…” Peng Wei said slowly, hesitant, his expression searching.

He was watching her face too. When he saw it change, he went on, “Did… did you and Mr. Wu not talk? You didn’t discuss this beforehand?”

Peng Wei thought he had worked out where the problem lay.

And only he could have. From where An Menglan stood, there was no way she could have guessed.

As she listened, her expression changed again and again.

She understood what he was implying, but she was still somewhat dazed.

“Ahahahaha… so that’s it!” Peng Wei burst out laughing. His guess was confirmed; her face had already told him everything.

“Here’s how it is, Miss An,” he began at once. “I’ve already spoken with Mr. Wu Chen. We’ve made peace. Rest assured, I will never publish the photos of you and Mr. Wu. I’ll destroy every last one!”

“I didn’t ask to meet you this time to negotiate. I came to apologize!”

“And let me say it again: I am truly, truly sorry. I disturbed you… and Mr. Wu. I know I may have caused you considerable emotional distress, so… this money, the thirty million, is your compensation!”

Thirty million was nothing much to An Menglan, but to Peng Wei it was no small sum.

But.

His goal wasn’t only to apologize.

Wu Chen had told him to handle compensation however he saw fit, and Peng Wei had generously decided on tens of millions. The apology was secondary. What mattered was building a relationship: turning an enemy into a friend, making An Menglan part of his network, one of his backers.

Latching onto a connection that powerful for a mere thirty million? More than worth it.

“We may have had a bit of a misunderstanding just now,” Peng Wei went on, looking at her. “I didn’t expect that you and Mr. Wu… hadn’t talked beforehand. I assumed you knew why I wanted to call on you…”

He laid out the misunderstanding and the broad strokes of the situation.

An Menglan had been confused before. Hearing it all, she was more confused still.

Wu Chen had already finished talking with Peng Wei?

The matter was already settled?

The two of them had made peace?

When had that happened?

What could they possibly have talked about to turn Peng Wei into this?

From wanting money to offering it.

He had gone from one extreme straight to the other.

When Peng Wei finished, An Menglan stayed frozen, her face blank, staring straight at him, her eyes a little wider than before. She thought it over, steadied herself, and only then spoke.

“Boss Peng, when did you and… Wu Chen talk?” There was surprise and doubt in her voice.

She was damn well stunned. How had things suddenly ended up like this?

It was good news, sure, but she couldn’t make sense of it at all.

“Just a few hours ago. Right here in this teahouse, in this very room!” Peng Wei smiled. “You could say Mr. Wu and I got to know each other through a clash. We talked about a lot. Mr. Wu only left a little over an hour ago.”

An Menglan took another moment, then asked, “And what did you… talk about?” She paused, then pressed, “Was it just you and Wu Chen? Nobody else?”

A thought had suddenly struck her.

Could Li Ruobing have stepped in? Or had Wu Yurong pulled some string to lean on Peng Wei?

“Nobody else. Just Mr. Wu and me.” Peng Wei smiled, paused himself, then went on, “As for what exactly we discussed… Miss An, you’d better ask Mr. Wu. It’s not really my place to say…”

Peng Wei kept his mouth firmly shut.

He didn’t know why Wu Chen hadn’t told her, or why he was keeping it from her.

Was there something she wasn’t meant to know?

Or some other reason?

Peng Wei still hadn’t worked out exactly what Wu Chen and An Menglan were to each other.

Because he didn’t know and didn’t understand, professional habit told him not to reveal a single word of their conversation. Intelligence was his trade, and he understood these things all too well. When you couldn’t judge whether something was safe to disclose, silence was the best choice.

Say nothing, and you could never go wrong.

An Menglan looked a little “dazed.”

Her eyes were still on Peng Wei, but they soon lost focus and drifted. She was lost in thought. She genuinely couldn’t make sense of any of it or follow the logic, and Peng Wei was being so cagey on top of everything.

Peng Wei picked up his cup and sipped his tea.

The room stayed silent for a full half minute.

Peng Wei could see it now: she truly knew nothing. Otherwise she wouldn’t be so absorbed, her expression shifting again and again.

Clack.

He set down his cup and said with a smile, “Miss An, let me sincerely apologize once more. I hope you’ll accept my apology. And… give me a card number. Or I could transfer the money straight to your company’s account, but that might make the bookkeeping awkward on your end. I think your personal account would be better…”

It sounded like a closing remark.

Peng Wei wanted to go.

He was genuinely anxious to get back to Modu. The huge story on Zhou Shenglong was waiting for him.

Come to think of it, thanks to his seniority, Zhou Shenglong stood on roughly the same level in the entertainment world as An Menglan. One was an actor and the other a singer, but they were superstars of comparable standing.

Yet An Menglan’s story was only a romantic rumor, while Zhou Shenglong’s was hard proof of an affair.

So the Zhou Shenglong story’s value, and the sensation it could cause, would far exceed An Menglan’s. Just thinking about chasing a story like that gave Peng Wei a small thrill.

An Menglan came back to herself, her gaze focusing on his face again.

“Boss Peng, I accept your apology.” She smiled. “But forget the money. Just don’t bother me again, and we’re even.”

With that, she stood.

She was leaving too.

She would never take that money. Accepting it simply felt wrong. She hadn’t suffered any real loss, after all; taking it would be almost like extorting the paparazzo in return. If she accepted money like that, who knew what trouble might follow?

And she truly didn’t care about thirty million.

She wasn’t merely a superstar. She was also the daughter of a family worth hundreds of billions.

“Miss An, this is only a small token of my sincerity. My apology is genuine, and I hope—” Peng Wei rose as well, still determined to give her the money.

“That’s enough. I won’t take it. Let’s leave it there, Boss Peng.” An Menglan cut him off and held out her hand.

Seeing her attitude, and that she had offered her hand first, Peng Wei stopped insisting.

“Then we’ll leave it there for now, hahahaha. Miss An really is a straightforward person. I, Peng, truly admire that!” Laughing, he shook her hand.

A few more empty pleasantries.

Goodbyes.

An Menglan left.

Peng Wei saw her out, all the way to the teahouse entrance, watched her put her sunglasses and mask back on and get into the car, then waved the Rolls-Royce off.

In truth, he was a little disappointed.

He hadn’t managed to give the money away. He’d had no intention of saving it. The apology was for show; the relationship was the real goal.

And since An Menglan wouldn’t take it, Peng Wei decided… he would give it to Wu Chen.

In fact, in Peng Wei’s mind, Wu Chen mattered more than An Menglan, because Wu Chen was the key link to his new backers. Without Wu Chen, even if An Menglan had taken his money, it would have done him no good.

The Rolls-Royce sped down the road.

In the back seat.

Once in the car, An Menglan took off her mask out of habit and sank into thought again for a long while. She considered every possibility, but all of them felt forced. Peng Wei had gone too far. He hadn’t merely agreed not to publish the photos; he had tried to hand her money by way of apology.

It was deeply bizarre.

As though Wu Chen had brainwashed him into a different man.

She couldn’t make sense of it at all.

Wu Chen… just what kind of man was he?

Liu Jing had been watching her in the rearview mirror. She had wanted to ask how it had gone, but An Menglan had looked lost in thought the whole time, so she hadn’t dared interrupt.

A good while later.

An Menglan came back to herself, took out her phone, glanced at the screen, swiped and tapped a few times, and raised it to her ear.

A call.

To Wu Chen.

A good ten seconds passed before he picked up.

“Hello, Mr. Wu. Do you have a moment?” she began with a smile.