Chapter 405: The Mysterious Singer Everyone Online Is Talking About Is My Brother?!

Chapter 405: The Mysterious Singer Everyone Online Is Talking About Is My Brother?!

Wu Jiao twisted around and stared at her brother. She was already wondering whether she’d misheard. But it hadn’t been a word or two. It had been a whole sentence. How could she possibly have misheard that?

In the back seat, Chen Xue’s eyes had gone perfectly round as she stared at Wu Chen’s profile.

Both of them were floored.

“Bro, you’re saying… the person who just called you… was An Menglan?” Wu Jiao began slowly, then the words came tumbling out faster. “That An Menglan? The one on TV? An Menglan the singer? The one who sings ‘Prosperity’?!”

“Prosperity” was one of An Menglan’s signature songs and one of her great vocal showpieces. It was known in practically every household in the country.

“Yep. Her.” Wu Chen glanced at his sister and smiled.

Wu Jiao kept staring. He looked so relaxed, so offhand, even smiling… which was actually abnormal. When ordinary people knew some huge celebrity, they usually volunteered all sorts of details when they told others. There was almost always a little bragging in it.

Not Wu Chen.

He’d said it as casually as if he knew Li Ergou from the sesame-cake stall at the east end of the village.

Suddenly Wu Jiao’s expression relaxed. She pouted slightly, looking a little annoyed.

“Bro, you’re messing with me again! Stop teasing me all the time. I’m not a little kid anymore,” she huffed.

Because Wu Chen was five years older and not her own age, he really had always tended to treat his sister as a “kid.” At home he usually let her have her way, but he also scolded her when she did something wrong, and he teased her constantly for fun.

It would be no exaggeration to say that, for these two, the old saying held true: an elder brother is like a father.

“I’m not lying to you,” Wu Chen said with a smile.

“And you still say you’re not?” Her voice rose. “How is that even possible? A huge star like An Menglan, how could ordinary people like us ever have anything to do with her? And she’d call you? People online say An Menglan isn’t just a singer. Her family’s insanely rich. Worth over a hundred billion yuan…”

“Look at you.” Wu Chen cut her off with a sidelong smile. “A minute ago you were grilling me, saying I was lying to you, that I wouldn’t tell you the truth or tell you anything, even suspecting I’d done something bad… Now I tell you the truth, and you don’t believe me!”

“How am I supposed to believe that?” Wu Jiao twisted to face him, gesturing with one hand. “Fine! Bro! If this An Menglan is that An Menglan, prove it. Do you… do you have a photo with her?”

“Why would I need a photo? I can just call her,” Wu Chen countered.

“C-call her? I can’t tell from a voice. What if she just sounds like her?” Wu Jiao lifted her chin.

“Pretty rigorous, aren’t you?” Wu Chen laughed.

“Of course.” She looked a little proud of the compliment.

“Hang on.” He picked up his phone, tapped a few times, and dialed An Menglan.

He held it to his ear.

She picked up almost at once.

“Hello, Mr. Wu. What is it?” An Menglan asked directly. They had only just spoken; if he was calling again so soon, something must have come up.

“Here’s the thing.” Wu Chen smiled. “Miss An, when you called just now, my sister saw the name I’ve got you saved under. She asked about it… I told her it really was you, but she doesn’t believe me. Now she’s kicking up a fuss and wants me to prove it…”

“Ah… ha!” An Menglan understood and laughed.

She could picture exactly the spot he was in.

“Where are you now? Okay to video call?” Wu Chen asked.

“In the car, on my way to a restaurant. It’s fine,” she said with a smile.

“I’ll video call you, then.”

“Okay.”

Wu Chen hung up first. His phone plan didn’t include video calling, but Weixun did. He opened Weixun, found An Menglan’s account, and tapped it.

Video call.

She answered right away. Her strikingly sculpted features, with their faintly exotic beauty, appeared on the screen. She was alone in the back seat of a car.

“You two talk. I’m driving,” Wu Chen told her, and passed the phone to his sister in the passenger seat.

Wu Jiao took it, held it up to her face, then pulled it back a little.

And froze.

Her eyes went huge.

Her face flushed red in an instant.

With excitement.

“Hi, Miss Wu.” On the screen, An Menglan smiled and lifted a hand in greeting.

“M-Miss An, h-hi…” Wu Jiao stammered. She was nervous, and then all at once she couldn’t hold it in.

“Ahhh!!” She let out an excited shriek and swung around so Chen Xue could see the screen. “Xiaoxue, look! Look, quick! It really is An Menglan! My brother knows An Menglan! Ahhh!!!”

“Ahhh!!” Chen Xue saw and shrieked too.

An Menglan had an enormous fan base. Someone like Song Xuan was a die-hard. Wu Jiao and Chen Xue were a rung below that, but An Menglan was still one of their very favorite female singers.

Teenage girls got excited easily.

Still driving, Wu Chen raised a hand and dug at his ear with his pinky.

In the closed space of a car, two girls screaming really was piercing.

“Is that your friend?” An Menglan had seen Chen Xue too, and greeted her with a smile. “Hi!”

“Hi, hi! Hi, Miss An!” Chen Xue answered, glowing.

Both girls were flushed, as thrilled as if they’d hit the lottery jackpot, practically bouncing in their seats. An Menglan simply kept smiling, entirely unruffled.

She had seen this far too many times. To her, their reaction was perfectly normal.

Someone like Wu Chen, who had acted completely ordinary the first time he met her, was the abnormal one.

“This is my best friend, Chen Xue. We’re best friends,” Wu Jiao told the phone.

“Really? That’s lovely,” An Menglan said with a smile.

“Miss An, you’re so beautiful! Wow! An Menglan! An Menglan is actually video calling me!” Wu Jiao looked overwhelmed with excitement and happiness. Even her ears had gone red.

“You look a lot like your brother, Miss Wu.” Seeing that Wu Jiao was too excited to collect herself, An Menglan smiled and offered a new topic.

“Of course. We’re real brother and sister.” Wu Jiao smiled too and glanced at Wu Chen, then asked the screen at once, “Miss An, how did you meet my brother? How do you two know each other?”

“You don’t know?” An Menglan asked instead.

“Know? Know what?” Wu Jiao blinked.

“Your brother…” An Menglan slowed and thought for a moment.

Wu Chen hadn’t told his sister. Every song he posted online was anonymous; he left no trace of himself at all. In other words, he didn’t want anyone to know who Morning Mist really was.

But.

He had started this video call and handed the phone to his sister himself.

So he obviously wasn’t trying to hide it from her. He just hadn’t had a chance to tell her yet.

“…Your brother is extraordinarily talented,” An Menglan went on after a few seconds, smiling. “Right now, he and I are working together on my new album. He’s writing songs for me…”

Wu Jiao went blank again.

“My brother? Writing songs? My brother can write songs?” Three questions, all really the same one.

“Yes. You really didn’t know?” An Menglan laughed. “That big hit lately, ‘Antidote for the Soul’? Your brother wrote it. He sang it too. Lyrics, music, vocals, he did all of it himself.”

“‘Antidote for the Soul’? My brother? He’s Morning Mist?!” Another three questions. She was completely, utterly floored.

Of course she knew “Antidote for the Soul.” It was the song she’d been listening to more than any other lately.

By now it had blown up online to the point of crushing every other song. It was being sung everywhere. And the internet was overflowing with theories about who the singer Morning Mist really was, rumors flying in every direction.

Wu Jiao turned, shock all over her face, to look at Chen Xue.

Chen Xue’s face held exactly the same shock. They stared at each other.

Then, together, they both turned to Wu Chen, who was driving without a word.

“Wu Chen… Morning Mist… Wu Chen… Chenwu… It’s Wu Chen backward!” Wu Jiao muttered rapidly. She saw now where the name came from, but she still couldn’t believe it.

This…

She simply couldn’t imagine it. The mysterious singer the entire internet was talking about was her own brother?!

“Bro, is it really you?” she asked, wide-eyed.

“Yep.” Wu Chen smiled. “I told you. Your brother is bursting with talent!”