Chapter 434: The Story of a Playboy Whose Whole Family Suddenly Dies

Chapter 434: The Story of a Playboy Whose Whole Family Suddenly Dies

It was nearly one-thirty in the afternoon.

Modu. Menghua Music, the eleventh floor.

Zhuang Xiaodie had her arm through Wu Chen’s as they came straight up. They had been here yesterday, and plenty of people already knew Wu Chen by sight, so there was no trouble coming directly upstairs.

Wu Chen pushed open the recording-studio door.

The studio was enormous. More than a dozen staff stood or sat on the near side of the glass, gold-medal producer Yu Xiaohu and An Menglan’s assistant Liu Jing among them.

They were recording for real now.

In the booth, behind the huge pane of glass, An Menglan stood alone, one hand pressing an in-ear monitor in place, the other holding her lyric sheet as she sang into the mic.

Wu Chen and Zhuang Xiaodie couldn’t hear a thing. That took headphones.

They stopped just inside the door and went no farther; the area around the console was crowded.

An Menglan was completely absorbed. She couldn’t hear anything outside and hadn’t noticed Wu Chen come in.

Yu Xiaohu had.

When An Menglan was recording, anyone without business there was kept out of the studio. Even the company’s other vice presidents wouldn’t come in to disturb her.

So when someone walked in, Yu Xiaohu glanced over, then promptly pulled off his headphones, signaled to Liu Jing, and headed for the door.

“Mr. Morning Mist, you made it. Hahaha…” He came over beaming, voice lowered, hand outstretched.

His manner couldn’t have been more different from yesterday’s.

Yesterday he had been formal and stern at first, and afterward, though he’d never said anything to Wu Chen’s face, he hadn’t exactly looked friendly either.

Today he was warmth itself, and entirely sincere.

“Teacher Xiaohu.” Wu Chen smiled and shook his hand.

He had always had a good opinion of Yu Xiaohu.

That came, naturally, from what he had learned about the man in the thousand-year loop.

Yu Xiaohu was a producer of rare professional integrity. Early on he had spent two unsuccessful years as a singer, then switched to writing songs and achieved great success. He had only become a music producer within the last decade.

There too, he had achieved great things.

His talent and his dedication both deserved respect. Above all, though, there was his character. He had a bad temper and wore his heart on his sleeve, but his integrity was beyond question.

In the thousand-year loop, Wu Chen had never turned up a single instance of Yu Xiaohu secretly doing someone dirty. He had never once sold out a collaborator.

He wasn’t flawless, of course. His foul temper and his three failed marriages were both well known.

“Miss Zhuang.” Yu Xiaohu shook her hand as well.

Seeing he was about to say more, Wu Chen tipped his head toward the door. “Let’s talk outside,” he said softly.

“Yes, yes. Let’s not get in their way.” Yu Xiaohu nodded.

The three of them went out.

“Mr. Wu, I owe you an apology! My attitude yesterday was terrible, and I said some unpleasant things to Miss An…” The moment they were in the corridor with the studio door pulled shut, Yu Xiaohu seized Wu Chen’s hand again and apologized over and over.

That was just how he was. Right was right and wrong was wrong. He never let pride get in the way of admitting it.

“You were only thinking about the schedule, Teacher Xiaohu,” Wu Chen said with a smile.

“Mr. Morning Mist, you’re a genius! I mean it. I always say exactly what I think. Yesterday, when Miss An told me you’d written the whole album, I didn’t believe her. Now I do, hahaha… Brilliant! Your method is brilliant, Mr. Morning Mist! The more they doubt you, the bigger the sensation. It’s even buried the buzz over the leak.” The more he talked, the more excited he got, until his words were tumbling out in the wrong order.

Wu Chen understood how he felt.

Yu Xiaohu had been one of the producers on An Menglan’s debut album. In a sense, he had watched her enter the Chinese-language music world and grow, step by step, into a superstar.

For all the vast gap in status between him and her father, the two men had long been on good personal terms.

He knew An Menglan meant to formally retire.

This was her final album, her closing work, and he cared about it no less than she did.

The leak had put him under enormous pressure too.

And Wu Chen had come along as their savior.

Wu Chen listened to the praise, traded a few idle words, then asked how the album was coming along.

In truth, although An Menglan had begun formal recording, progress was still slow.

Yu Xiaohu had already adopted a method that saved a great deal of time.

On her previous albums, the band would first finish every accompaniment track for the whole album, and only then would she record vocals. After that came mixing, and finally overall mastering and post-production.

That was how ordinary music companies did it too.

This time Yu Xiaohu had changed the order. He wasn’t waiting for every accompaniment to be finished before starting on vocals.

Instead, as soon as one accompaniment was done, An Menglan would sing that song. The moment the recording was finished, it went to mixing, then straight to the post-production team.

All seven songs, the same way.

She no longer had to wait for every accompaniment before recording. Mixing no longer had to wait for every vocal. The post-production team no longer had to wait for the groundwork on all seven songs before starting.

Everyone could be working flat out at the same time.

It cut the album’s total production time dramatically.

And An Menglan’s team was highly professional, among the best in the business.

Even so, by Yu Xiaohu’s estimate, with everyone on overtime, it would still take a day and a half to two days.

And that assumed An Menglan’s health held up.

She had barely rested these past two days, sleeping just two or three hours a night. If she flagged badly enough to affect her singing, or simply fell ill, the album would take longer still.

“Mr. Morning Mist, Miss An tells me the demos you recorded earlier were done under your direction?” Yu Xiaohu asked once he’d explained.

“That’s right.” Wu Chen nodded.

“Then, Mr. Morning Mist, what would you say about—” Yu Xiaohu began.

Ring, ring…

Wu Chen’s phone.

He took it out. Mao Rusong. He gave Yu Xiaohu a smile and a gesture, have to take this, then strolled toward the far end of the corridor and answered.

“Hello, Boss Mao.”

“Mr. Wu, just now… Qi Jun called me. You… know him, right?” Mao Rusong asked straight off.

“Met him for the first time today,” Wu Chen said.

“Then… he offended you? Or Miss Zhuang?” Mao Rusong was treading carefully. He still didn’t know what had happened and didn’t dare say too much.

Seeing Wu Chen walk off to take what looked like an important call, Yu Xiaohu went back into the studio.

Zhuang Xiaodie followed Wu Chen a few steps, though not too closely.

She wasn’t Li Ruobing. She wouldn’t dare openly “eavesdrop” on his calls.

Wu Chen talked with Mao Rusong for a few minutes.

He gave him the gist. It was time Mao Rusong knew the situation, if only so he could prepare himself. The Qi brothers had already pinned the deaths on him, and they were bound to make some move in the next couple of days.

Dealing with the Qi brothers would be simple for Wu Chen, but until he had finished with them, they would still have a chance to go after Mao Rusong.

Mao Rusong was one of his own. He needed to be on his guard.

Once he’d heard the outline, Mao Rusong could only conclude that Qi Jun really was an idiot, and Qi Chenghong a complete moron.

Always stirring up trouble, getting their kicks out of humiliating young girls? This time they had kicked an iron plate.

“Then, Mr. Wu, what are you planning to…” Mao Rusong asked cautiously.

“Have you read The Last Three Days of Raya?” Wu Chen asked with a smile.

Mao Rusong froze.

The Last Three Days of Raya was a foreign literary classic in this world. It told of Raya, son of a viscount, a young, idle playboy who fancied himself a great lover. Most of the book, through flashbacks and interwoven episodes, described how he had grown up, how powerful his family was, and how utterly he answered to no one.

In the final chapter, he once again humiliated a down-and-out traveler in the street over a woman.

Then Raya died, and his family’s castle burned to the ground.

And there the book ended.

His death was startlingly abrupt.

So was the ending.

Put simply, it was the story of a debauched young playboy whose whole family suddenly died.

Mao Rusong had read it.

Wu Chen knew he had.

“Mr. Wu… I… understand…” A full ten seconds passed before Mao Rusong collected himself enough to speak.

He was stunned to the marrow.

Wu Chen wasn’t even going to give them a chance to apologize. He meant to take down the entire Qi family, a clan with over ten billion yuan in assets.

How could that possibly be done?