Chapter 410: A Major Mistake

Chapter 410: A Major Mistake

“The audio for the new songs has leaked!” An Menglan said, then repeated in bitter self-reproach, “It’s my fault. It’s all my fault.”

“Hm? The audio? Leaked?” Wu Chen blinked.

Of course he knew what an audio leak meant. What he couldn’t understand was how An Menglan could have made such a basic mistake.

This truly counted as a “major mistake.”

An audio leak could do enormous damage to an album that hadn’t been released yet.

Before a new album came out, there would be a promotional warm-up to build attention and push fans’ anticipation to its peak. After release came a still broader campaign, publicity everywhere, driving the buzz even higher.

Then, riding that momentum in one push, the album would storm the charts and chase sales.

No song, however good, however much fans loved it, could stay fresh forever.

So once the audio leaked and fans, or the wider internet, heard the songs early, many of them would have lost much of their anticipation and the thrill of novelty by the time the album officially came out, and they would pay it less attention.

That meant neither its chart performance nor its sales could reach their full potential. They would fall well short.

In the end, it would hit the album’s revenue.

Hit it hard.

The more popular the singer, the bigger the impact. And the longer the gap between the leak and the official release, the greater the damage.

If the audio leaked now and An Menglan didn’t release the album for another six months, it would be far too late. Her fans would have played every new song hundreds or thousands of times. They’d be sick of them.

Forget the charts.

Sales would be hopeless too.

Then there was licensing. If the buzz had already passed by the time the album officially came out, there would be no counting on serious money from copyright and licensing fees.

Normally, when a superstar like An Menglan released a new album, every major music platform would bid astronomical sums for exclusive distribution rights…

Once the songs had leaked, exclusivity meant little. That money would shrink by a huge amount.

“Mr. Wu, I’m truly sorry!” An Menglan apologized again.

For her personally, this wasn’t actually a big deal. Losing some money was a minor problem.

But it wasn’t only her problem now.

Wu Chen had written the lyrics and composed the music. They were his songs.

More important still, the two of them had signed a contract giving him fifty percent of the net revenue. If the album’s earnings dropped sharply, it didn’t matter much that she would earn less. What mattered was that she had made him earn less, had cost him money that should have been his.

It felt as though she had screwed him over.

That was the real reason for her guilt and her apologies. She knew that, given the relationship between them now—one they had to keep hidden—he wouldn’t hold it against her or make her pay him back.

But that didn’t stop her from blaming herself. She was already thinking about how she could make it up to him on her own initiative.

“Where did it leak?” Wu Chen asked after a moment’s thought.

“It suddenly turned up online. It’s already spread everywhere. Sister Jing just told me. It’s all over the internet tonight. I’ve had people take it down wherever they can, but there’s just too much of it…”

“Let me look…” Wu Chen said.

He held the phone in front of him, minimized the call, and opened Weibo.

He saw it at once.

“An Menglan New Songs Leaked” had already shot to number three on the trending list.

And it was climbing toward number one.

The whole internet was watching.

He opened a random post sharing the leaked audio. Since he was still on the call, he couldn’t play anything, so he didn’t. He skimmed the comments instead…

Some said the songs sounded great.

Some cursed whoever had leaked them.

Others cursed the poster for sharing it and demanded the post come down.

An Menglan’s fans were fiercely protective of her.

Yet judging by the buzz, the leaked audio had already racked up an astonishing number of plays. The people defending An Menglan and the people listening to the songs overlapped enormously.

They were all her fans. Anyone who knew fan culture understood how much harm a leak could do to a singer. But as fans, they still couldn’t resist listening.

Wu Chen skimmed a little longer, then raised the phone to his ear again. “I’ve seen it…”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Wu,” An Menglan apologized once more.

Wu Chen understood her state of mind. She simply felt she had done something wrong and let him down. He didn’t try to comfort her, because he knew that the more he reassured her, the more he acted as if he didn’t care and it was no big deal, the guiltier someone with her personality would feel.

For Wu Chen, it truly wasn’t much. Money was money; earning a few tens of millions less through An Menglan was nothing worth fretting over.

But!

It certainly had to be looked into.

Not An Menglan.

Whoever had deliberately leaked the audio.

“How did it leak? Who did you send the demos to?” Wu Chen asked her directly. It had to be the demos that leaked. She had only gotten back to Modu today; she couldn’t possibly have recorded the final versions yet.

“I… I sent them to… a lot of people… a lot…” Her voice dropped fast, as though she were too ashamed to tell him.

“A lot of people?” Wu Chen’s eyebrow went up again. That was very wrong. There was no reason to send demos to a lot of people. “Why would you… send them to so many people?”

“Mr. Wu, I was wrong.”

“Stop apologizing. Just tell me what happened.”

“I… I just… still thought my version was better…” An Menglan finally admitted it. It was hard for her to say, and the more she said, the more ashamed she sounded. She knew the main responsibility for this lay with her.

While she was explaining…

Creak.

The bedroom door opened.

Li Ruobing was back from bringing the girls their toiletries. The moment she came in, she saw Wu Chen on the phone. She didn’t know who it was, so she didn’t interrupt.

She walked around to the other side of the bed and simply untied her robe…

An Menglan was badly rattled. Wu Chen had to listen for quite a while before he understood exactly what had happened.

It went back to the argument he and An Menglan had had over how the songs should be sung.

That dispute had ended with Wu Yurong acting as judge and Wu Chen coming out the winner. An Menglan had honored the wager and said she would follow his direction in everything. But deep down, she had never truly been convinced.

People who loved music were usually serious and exacting about it.

An Menglan was exactly that kind of person.

She trusted her own instincts, and part of her wanted to win back a little face. So… on the morning after the demos were finished, still at Song Xuan’s house, she had recorded another set of album demos.

Sung her own way. All seven songs rerecorded, in one go. She had even specifically asked Song Xuan not to tell Wu Chen.

So when she flew back to Modu that afternoon, she had actually taken two sets of demos with her.

Back at her company, she’d had people do a blind comparison of the two versions.

She couldn’t even remember exactly whom she had asked, because there had been dozens of them. Every one an employee: the music teachers who coached the trainees, songwriters and composers, managers, the company’s signed singers, trainees, and so on.

Whoever happened to be in and had a moment had listened. She hadn’t singled anyone out.

She could never have imagined it.

Only a few hours after the blind comparison, the audio had leaked.

One thing was certain: the leak had come from inside the company.

But who, she had no idea.

She trusted everyone at her company. If she didn’t trust someone, she would never have kept them there.

“…Mr. Wu, I’m really, truly sorry!” When she had finished, she began apologizing all over again.

“Did both versions leak?” Wu Chen cut in.

“No. Only mine,” she answered at once.

“Mm… Then it’s not as bad as all that.” Wu Chen considered for a moment, and a smile appeared. “You don’t need to be so hard on yourself, either… Tell you what. I’ll come to Modu tomorrow and take a look at your company. We’ll talk it all through then.”

“Okay. Okay, Mr. Wu. I’ll be waiting.”

“Let’s leave it there for now. It’s late. Get some rest.”

“Okay… Good night, Mr. Wu.”

The call ended.

In the end, Wu Chen hadn’t said much, nor done much to comfort her. He knew how upset she was right now and how scattered her thoughts were. Anything more he said, she couldn’t have taken in. It would only have made her feel worse.

Saying nothing was the best choice.

“You’re going to Modu tomorrow?” On the other side of the bed, Li Ruobing had stopped smoothing night cream onto her face. Leaning against the headboard, she turned to look at him.

She hadn’t much cared whom he was talking to. Not until he said, “I’ll come to Modu tomorrow.”

It was very sudden.

He hadn’t mentioned it before. This was clearly a spur-of-the-moment decision.

“Yeah. Something’s come up with An Menglan,” Wu Chen said.

“An Menglan?!” The look in Li Ruobing’s eyes changed instantly.