Chapter 463: An Menglan “Gives Herself Away”!

Chapter 463: An Menglan “Gives Herself Away”!

A phone ringing out of nowhere really did kill the mood.

No telling who was calling.

Li Ruobing said nothing, though. She lay there lazily, unwilling to move. She knew Wu Chen was busy and always had some “big matter” to attend to. She was not the kind of woman who threw tantrums or played spoiled to keep her man from his business.

Wu Chen reached for his phone and glanced at it. Caller ID: An Menglan!

“Hello, Miss An.” He shifted to sit back against the headboard as he answered.

At the words “Miss An,” Li Ruobing’s eyelid twitched. She sat up, leaned against him, and tilted her head to listen.

“Mr. Wu, we’ve found out who leaked the audio,” An Menglan said, her tone very grave.

Wu Chen had identified the first leaker on the very day he went to Modu: Su Lei, a vocal coach at Menghua Music!

But Su Lei had only sold the demos.

He had sold them to Magic Cube, one of the country’s top few paparazzi studios!

And Xia Xiaobin of Magic Cube Studio, by paying Su Lei for the demos, had only spent money. Buying them created no value in itself.

That wasn’t to say paparazzi studios never broke celebrity stories on their own.

Catching stars cheating, catching them behaving badly, snapping all sorts of dirt.

Often, even when no one was paying, a paparazzi studio would leak something to raise its own profile and its influence in the entertainment industry.

To raise its value for the next exposé, or rather, the next job!

But the leak of An Menglan’s new songs was different. No studio would ever use something like that to build its name, because it was illegal!

Leaking another company’s trade secrets to the public carried enormous legal liability!

Magic Cube had spread the audio across the internet anonymously, through paid commenters. It wouldn’t dare let the public know it was responsible.

It wouldn’t dare. The whole outfit could be arrested!

Which meant… Magic Cube was only a middleman. Once it had the leaked audio, it must have found a buyer. Someone paid Magic Cube, and Magic Cube then leaked it anonymously!

“You found them? Who?” Wu Chen asked with a smile, then added offhandedly, “Hezong Media?”

“It was Hez— Mr. Wu, how did you know?” An Menglan sounded startled.

After pinning down Su Lei and Xia Xiaobin, she had brought a great deal of her family’s resources to bear, tracing the chain link by link before finally reaching a manager in Hezong Media’s publicity department.

Everyone involved knew it was illegal.

So Hezong Media hadn’t dealt with Magic Cube directly. It had put two layers of middlemen in between!

And even now, though An Menglan’s side had followed the chain to its end and confirmed it was Hezong Media, they had no evidence that could implicate the company.

Yet Wu Chen sounded as though he’d known all along.

“Just a guess.” Wu Chen laughed. This time he really had guessed. He hadn’t had the energy to look into it himself.

“Your new album can generate too much value. Everyone knows leaking unreleased audio is a serious criminal offense that can put you away for more than ten years. Not many would dare do it and also have a reason to. Hezong Media was the obvious suspect.”

“Just a guess?” An Menglan sounded a little doubtful.

It felt to her as though he was brushing her off, not wanting to explain the details.

She had seen something of his uncanny side by now, though nowhere near as much as Li Ruobing had.

He really had guessed, but she couldn’t help suspecting he’d pulled some strings, used some method, and found out with uncanny skill.

“Really, just a guess.” Wu Chen laughed, then asked, “You don’t have direct evidence against Hezong Media, do you?”

“No…” An Menglan slowed a little.

He’d gotten that right too! It really didn’t sound like guessing.

“That’s fine. Even if you did, someone would step forward to take the fall. There’s no point going to all that trouble to bring down some minor player at Hezong Media…” Wu Chen said with a smile.

He meant it.

If he personally ran a full investigation, he could certainly bring down someone important at Hezong Media and plunge the company into serious crisis.

Hezong Media might be one of the country’s top entertainment-media giants, with connections and influence behind it to rival a great family.

Wu Chen could still make it pay dearly! A whole batch of people would go to prison. Its share price would crash!

He hadn’t done it for a simple reason. He really couldn’t be bothered to put the effort into this. It would be too complicated, a waste of his time.

The audio leak could be closed here.

It would end with Xia Xiaobin of Magic Cube going to prison and Peng Wei’s Wave Studio swallowing Magic Cube.

As for Hezong Media… Wu Chen would use another, simpler and more direct method to make it pay a painful price no one could imagine.

He had long since made arrangements on that front, and Peng Wei would play a major part.

He knew too much.

So he usually took the optimal route rather than wasting time on a more complicated one.

“Oh, and Mr. Wu, about our scandal. We’ve traced it to a middleman so far…” An Menglan moved on to the rumor.

The morning before, the Morning Mist–An Menglan scandal had exploded across the internet!

That same morning, Wu Chen had given her two suspects, Chu Jie and Lü Sicheng. Like Su Lei, they were people inside her company who dared sell major inside information.

He’d told her to have her bodyguards grab them and force confessions out of them.

In fact, the afternoon before, while Wu Chen was still driving back to Donghai, An Menglan had called him again.

Both men had confessed to information they’d sold in the past, and Lü Sicheng had even admitted that he was the one who sold word of Morning Mist’s visit to the company.

Now they had traced the buyer as far as a middleman.

“No need to keep digging. Since it’s confirmed Hezong Media was behind the audio leak, they’re probably behind the scandal too. Evidence will be hard to find, and there’s no point catching one or two minor players to take the fall…” Wu Chen said.

“Mm… all right!” An Menglan agreed.

Li Ruobing, listening beside him, twitched the corner of her mouth without meaning to, recalling the dinner a few days earlier when An Menglan had kept insisting it was impossible, kept giving her word, and the two of them had even made a bet.

And now… she was this obedient? Whatever Wu Chen said went!

“One more thing. Hand Lü Sicheng over to the police now, and put out a public statement saying he leaked information about Morning Mist and made up the scandal about the two of us. That’ll calm things down online…” Wu Chen went on.

“All right, Mr. Wu,” An Menglan said.

Li Ruobing glanced sidelong at Wu Chen, the corner of her mouth curving slightly, her expression subtle. She had warned An Menglan in advance, and yet An Menglan was still this docile with him. She hadn’t expected that.

If An Menglan could really stay this obedient, Li Ruobing would no longer consider her much of a threat.

“So… are you at home, Mr. Wu?” Business seemingly done, An Menglan seemed to want to chat a little.

“Yeah, at home,” Wu Chen said.

“We still haven’t signed our producer contract. When will you be back in Modu, Mr. Wu?” she asked.

“If I go, in a few days.” Wu Chen smiled. “A friend of mine is getting married tomorrow. I have to be there.”

They chatted a little longer.

As a woman herself, Li Ruobing could vaguely sense that An Menglan seemed to have a great deal she wanted to say to him, a strong urge to pour her heart out.

“Mm… Oh, Mr. Wu, you haven’t told Miss Li about us, have you?” An Menglan asked suddenly, cautiously.

Wu Chen’s eyebrow went up.

He hadn’t! And Li Ruobing wouldn’t ask! But right now Li Ruobing was sitting beside him!

For An Menglan to say that was practically…

“Miss An!” Li Ruobing spoke up all at once. She took Wu Chen’s phone and held it to her own ear. “What’s going on between you and my Mr. Wu that I’m not allowed to know?!”

Her tone was ice-cold! There was even something faintly sinister in it!

But only Wu Chen could see her face.

Li Ruobing was smiling!

An Menglan had given herself away!