Chapter 415: Fortune-Telling?

Chapter 415: Fortune-Telling?

An Menglan froze, then stepped quickly forward and looked down at the page he was pointing to. Of the five suspects, he had chosen the fourth.

Su Lei. Male. Thirty-one. Graduate of the Modu Conservatory of Music. Briefly an online singer, but his ordinary looks and unremarkable timbre had never drawn much attention.

Currently employed at the Menghua Music Artist Training Center, Trainee Department, as vocal coach for the first trainee class. Also deputy head of the Trainee Department.

At Menghua Music, that made him middle management.

“Him?” An Menglan looked down at the page, then lifted her head, her face blank, and stared at Wu Chen in confusion. Why him?

She remembered Su Lei quite clearly. As a middle manager, he rarely dealt with her directly; there were barely a few occasions a year.

But.

Every vocal coach at Menghua Music was vetted by An Menglan personally before joining. Other employees, and managers at the middle level and below, were handled by Human Resources, with the head of HR or a vice president making the final call at most.

Vocal coaches were different.

She had always taken them very seriously. However modest the position they started in, she interviewed each one herself and tested their abilities herself.

Su Lei had been with the company two years, and she still remembered him vividly.

Mainly because she had thought, back then, what a pity it was. His technique was superb, and he could sing anything: bel canto, folk style, pop.

But his looks really were poor. Below average. To put it bluntly, he was ugly.

And for all his technique, his natural timbre wasn’t good.

If not for that, she had even considered signing him as a singer. It really had been a pity.

Su Lei had leaked the audio?

Why?!

Actually, what An Menglan was wondering now wasn’t why Su Lei had done it. It was how Wu Chen had looked at a file and settled on him on the spot.

Was he telling fortunes?

It wasn’t scientific. It made no sense at all!

She believed he was extremely capable… That was precisely why she’d handed him the files the moment they reached the office. She knew how formidable he was. The Peng Wei affair in particular had shown her that his earth-shaking talent wasn’t limited to music. In other areas… he was extremely capable too.

But.

However capable a person was, picking out a traitor from a single glance at a file went beyond capability. That was mysticism!

She had read all five files over and over. Their suspicious point was identical: each had been the last to leave a recording studio, alone.

Yesterday, when she’d had dozens of people blind-test the two versions of the album, she hadn’t actually sent the audio to each of them privately.

Instead, she had split them across eight recording studios, where they listened simultaneously through professional headphones.

She had done it for the best possible playback. Speakers wouldn’t do. The studios had the most professional equipment, letting everyone hear every detail as clearly as possible so they could make the best judgment.

In other words, eight copies of the audio had gone out to begin with.

But audio on a computer was just a file, and files could be copied at will. That was why she’d said she had given it to dozens of people: every one of them could have copied it.

When the bodyguards investigated, they too had started from the question of who could have copied it.

The surveillance footage showed that in three of the eight studios, everyone had left together, one right after another, without a break. No one had any chance to copy the audio behind the others’ backs.

In each of the other five, though, someone had come out later than the rest, with an opportunity to copy the audio unseen. So the last person out of each became a suspect.

Leaving a studio half a minute or a minute late was actually perfectly normal. After a session, someone had to tidy up, either everyone together or whoever left last… or something might come up, like a phone call, so they didn’t leave right away with the others. All perfectly normal.

If not for the leak, none of the five would have seemed the least bit out of the ordinary.

They had been flagged for exactly the same reason, and the follow-up investigation hadn’t yet turned up anything else suspicious about any of them.

So how had Wu Chen decided?!

“Mr. Wu, you’re sure it’s him?” An Menglan blinked at him, then glanced down at the file a few more times.

Zhuang Xiaodie, beside him, leaned over to look too. None of this had anything to do with her, but that didn’t stop her from following along.

“I’m sure. It’s him.” Wu Chen smiled at An Menglan.

“Then how did you…” She slowed, the words coming in pieces. “How did you… know it was him?”

“It’s a little complicated to explain.” He glanced at his watch, then went on. “Tell you what, Miss An. Let’s bring him in first. I’ll question him, and you listen. I’ll get him to admit it. After that… we’ll talk.”

He wasn’t refusing to tell her.

Nor was he keeping her in suspense for effect.

It was just that some things, if he told her now, she might not believe. She might even send people to verify parts of it, and that would waste time.

So it was better to be direct: make the “traitor confess” first. After that, she would accept whatever he told her.

“Well…” An Menglan looked half convinced and hesitated.

It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him. She trusted him deeply.

But his way of “solving the case” was simply too mystical. Any normal person would have reacted exactly as she did.

She wasn’t Li Ruobing. She didn’t know him that well yet. Li Ruobing might not even have bothered asking. Her man was amazing. That was all she needed to know.

“You don’t believe me?” Wu Chen laughed.

“N-no, I do.” She denied it at once. She already felt she owed him so much. How could she dare say she didn’t believe him?

“All right. I’ll call now,” she said.

Click, click, click. Her heels crossed the floor. She went back behind the desk, sat, picked up the landline, and hit speed dial. It was answered instantly. “Have Su Lei from the Trainee Department come to my office. Now.”

Done.

Now they only had to wait.

“And… bring three coffees,” she added before hanging up.

After the call, she came back to the sitting area and took the armchair to one side. She reached for the file folder and went through it again herself.

A quick reread, just to make sure she hadn’t missed anything.

She hadn’t.

So what had Wu Chen spotted in Su Lei’s file that let him name the man outright?

Was the gap between her intelligence and his really that wide?

She looked up at him again and opened her mouth, then paused and asked something else instead. “Mr. Wu, do you have any good ideas for damage control?”

She didn’t press him on how he’d decided. Pressing now would make it seem as if she didn’t trust him. He had already said they would talk afterward.

“Damage control… Release the album early. The sooner, the better,” Wu Chen said, smiling at her.

They talked briefly.

The secretary soon brought the coffee and left again.

About five minutes later.

Knock, knock.

A knock, and the door opened at once. A man of about thirty in a casual shirt walked into the office. He had small eyes and a long face, and wore glasses, which did lend him something of a “teacher’s” air.

Su Lei.

“You wanted to see me, Boss?” He stopped a few steps inside and stood looking at An Menglan.

He looked as though he had no idea why she’d suddenly sent for him. A little puzzled, but very calm.

He was acting. One hundred percent.

Because it was the wrong reaction. The audio had leaked, and everyone who’d taken part in the blind test was a suspect. Even an idiot, summoned out of the blue by An Menglan, would realize he was under suspicion.

If he were truly innocent, he couldn’t possibly react like this.

No innocent person who knew he was suspected could stay completely normal before being questioned.

The more normal he looked, the less normal it was.

An Menglan didn’t think that far; she had never studied psychology. She didn’t say much to Su Lei, only gestured toward Wu Chen. “Mr. Wu— Teacher Morning Mist has some questions for you. Talk to him.”

Su Lei turned slightly toward Wu Chen. He paused for a moment, but his bearing remained perfectly proper.

“I’ll give you one chance. Either you confess, or I call Xia Xiaobin and ask him. Your choice,” Wu Chen said, looking straight at him.

Su Lei’s face changed violently.