Chapter 414: Teacher Morning Mist

Chapter 414: Teacher Morning Mist

The Bentley Continental wasn’t a car Wu Chen usually drove, and An Menglan had never seen him in it. But it had Donghai plates…

She watched it come. A few steps led down from the building’s entrance, and she descended them. When the other executives saw her move, they edged forward too, craning their necks.

Who on earth was it? Who could make An Menglan lay on a welcome this grand and this solemn, with the company’s entire senior management turned out?

An Menglan, after all, was far more than a superstar singer.

Of all her identities, that one was secondary. So was owning a music company. What mattered was that she was the eldest daughter of the An family of Xiangjiang, heiress to a fortune of hundreds of billions.

Glare washed across the Bentley’s windshield, but An Menglan could just make out Wu Chen behind the wheel, and a young woman in the passenger seat. The others had never seen Wu Chen and couldn’t tell who it was.

He looked… young?

Soon.

The Bentley Continental reached the curb a little over twenty meters from the entrance, swung straight in, crossed the parking area in front of the building, and stopped broadside a few meters from the foot of the steps.

“We’re here. Out you get,” Wu Chen said to Zhuang Xiaodie, unbuckling his seat belt.

They both got out.

Wu Chen’s door faced the entrance. As he stepped out, An Menglan came another couple of steps toward him, and every other executive did a double take. He was far too young.

“Teacher Morning Mist, you’re here.”

“Miss An.”

They greeted each other and even shook hands, very formally. The dozen-odd executives behind An Menglan were thrown completely.

Morning Mist?!

Teacher?!

The amateur singer Morning Mist, who had lately blown up online with “Antidote for the Soul”? It had to be him. The executives were sure, because a few days earlier, before leaving for Donghai, An Menglan had said in a meeting that she was going to sign Morning Mist.

A young man arrives in a car with Donghai plates and is greeted as “Morning Mist.” He was the one who sang “Antidote for the Soul,” no doubt about it.

But.

Teacher?!

Why was An Menglan calling him Teacher? If Morning Mist had been forty or fifty, much older than she was, it would have been fine, whether as a courtesy or a mark of respect.

But he didn’t look old at all. He was in his twenties at most. There was no way he was older than she was.

The faces of the dozen-odd executives had all gone a little strange as they looked at him. They simply couldn’t make sense of it. An amateur singer… on what grounds?!

Even if he really was outstanding.

Surely not so outstanding that An Menglan herself held him in awe? In the entire Chinese-language music world, the people An Menglan truly looked up to could be counted on her fingers.

Something worth noting: An Menglan still hadn’t told anyone who had written the lyrics and music for the new album demos she’d brought back yesterday. A blind comparison didn’t call for it.

She had even deliberately kept it from the songwriters she was close to. When they asked, she gave no straight answer. Mostly because the truth was too outrageous. Seven songs written back to back, on the spot? Saying so would mean explaining, and few would believe it.

More important still, she had signed a contract giving Wu Chen fifty percent of the net revenue.

She dreaded that coming up. If the company’s other songwriters heard about it, what would they think?

Just after Wu Chen and An Menglan had finished their formal handshake and greeting, Zhuang Xiaodie, who had gotten out on the other side, came around the front of the car.

“Zhuang Xiaodie,” Wu Chen said by way of introduction, then gestured toward An Menglan and smiled at Zhuang Xiaodie. “I don’t need to introduce her, do I…”

“Miss Zhuang, hello. It’s nice to meet you.” An Menglan held out her hand with a smile. She knew about Zhuang Xiaodie; Wu Chen had told her. This was simply the first time they’d met.

Just as she had once imagined, the girl was a true beauty. And of all Wu Chen’s women An Menglan had seen so far, Zhuang Xiaodie had the best figure.

“Hello, Miss An. Hello.” A little excited, Zhuang Xiaodie shook her hand.

An Menglan had fans everywhere. The celebrities Zhuang Xiaodie liked most were all actors, since she studied acting herself, but as a young woman she naturally listened to music too, An Menglan’s included. She counted as a fan.

Handshakes. Pleasantries.

Very polite. Very formal.

An act, of course. The last thing An Menglan wanted was for her own staff to learn about her private relationship with Wu Chen.

That was part of why she called him Teacher Morning Mist. It was also simply habit, an entertainment-industry habit.

In the industry, people didn’t go by their real names. Nearly everyone used a stage name; those who didn’t were a tiny minority. Actors, singers, songwriters, writers, it was the same for all of them.

Wu Chen had come to her company to be presented as a contracted songwriter, so that was what she called him.

The “Teacher,” though, was sincere. She believed Wu Chen truly was a musician, the kind whose name would shine through the ages in the history of world music.

More small talk at the entrance.

An Menglan also formally introduced Wu Chen to a few people, the core figures of Menghua Music: gold-medal producer Yu Xiaohu, gold-medal lyricist Fang Fang, her regular songwriter-composer Yuan Lang, the head of artist management, a vice president, and so on.

Not everyone. There were more than a dozen of them.

Just the few of highest rank who happened to be standing closest.

The pleasantries over, they all went into the building together.

“Teacher Xiaohu, you can all get back to work,” An Menglan said, turning to the middle-aged man at her right.

She seemed to be speaking only to producer Yu Xiaohu, but she was really dismissing them all.

They dispersed.

The farther in they went, the fewer people remained, until only An Menglan, Wu Chen, and Zhuang Xiaodie were left. As they walked down the corridor toward the elevators, Wu Chen noticed how tense the company felt.

Employees passing by kept their voices low. Everyone seemed on edge.

It was easy to guess why. Yesterday’s audio leak…

“What’s the situation? Found anything?” Wu Chen finally asked as they reached the elevators.

“Yesterday the bodyguards went through all the surveillance footage. Right now we have five suspects,” An Menglan said, pressing the button.

As she spoke, the look in her eyes changed again. The moment the subject came up, she felt she had let him down.

“Suspects already? That’s efficient.” Wu Chen smiled. “What about those five? Did they come in today? Have you detained them?”

“They all came in.” Fatigue tinged her rich, magnetic voice. She hadn’t slept last night, except for an hour just before dawn, and hadn’t rested since. “I didn’t have the bodyguards detain anyone. Five is too many. Whoever leaked it, there should only be one. If I wrongly accused the others…”

Wu Chen understood her concern.

Wrong the innocent, and a crisis of trust would follow. The other four would certainly quit.

Among the five there were probably people who mattered to the company, talented ones. Losing them over a blowup would be a shame.

“But I did have the bodyguards go through their computers, their phone records, and so on. They’re still at it. Nothing yet…” she added.

She had handled it well.

At a moment like this, a quiet investigation was the obvious choice.

There was no need to worry about the culprit running, either. Right now, whoever had leaked the audio had to keep coming to work as usual. Anyone who suddenly took leave or resigned would all but be exposing themselves.

They took the elevator up.

On the way, An Menglan walked him through exactly how yesterday’s blind comparison had gone.

Soon the three of them reached the president’s office on the eleventh floor, the top of the building.

The office was spacious, with bright floor-to-ceiling windows. The decor couldn’t be called lavish, but musical touches were everywhere, and a piano stood in one corner.

“Mr. Wu, Zhuang Xiaodie, have a seat.” An Menglan was in a hurry. Once she’d waved them onto the sofa, she went back behind her desk.

She took a file folder from a drawer, leafed through it to check something, then came back to the sofa and handed it to Wu Chen.

“Mr. Wu, take a look,” she said.

Wu Chen set it on the coffee table and opened it. It held the five suspects. Her bodyguards were extremely capable; less than twenty-four hours after the leak, they had already pinned down their suspects and gathered a great deal of information on them.

While he read, An Menglan paced a few anxious steps beside him. “I talked it over with the bodyguards. They’ll keep investigating first. If they really can’t find anything, we’ll interview everyone who took part in the blind comparison, one by one, ask what they did afterward, and check their answers against what we’ve found to see whether anyone’s lying…”

“No need,” Wu Chen said.

He looked up at her and pointed to a page in the folder. “It’s him. Just bring him in.”