Chapter 519: Xu Weilai’s Death**

Chapter 519: Xu Weilai’s Death**

He jumped off a building?

An Menglan’s rich, magnetic voice carried little fear or grief. Instead, it was laced with a complicated emotion. And that abrupt statement, without any explanation…

“Xu Weilai?” Wu Chen asked.

“Yes. I only just heard. It happened a little over ten minutes ago. They’ve taken him to the hospital for emergency treatment, but I doubt…” An Menglan trailed off. Her meaning was clear: he probably couldn’t be saved.

He might have died the moment he hit the ground. Taking him to the hospital was simply a necessary procedure.

Wu Chen knew an extraordinary amount about Xu Weilai, but even during his thousand years in the time loop, he had never seen the man in person. Since beginning his new life, he hadn’t met him either. He hadn’t even discussed him with anyone.

He had never mentioned that name to An Menglan, and she had never brought it up to him.

Yet Wu Chen had named him immediately.

An Menglan knew Wu Chen would understand whom she meant.

Because something had already happened to that man yesterday.

After the leak of An Menglan’s new album and the scandal alleging that she had cheated with Morning Mist, Wu Chen had arranged for Peng Wei, the country’s top paparazzo, to strike back at the people behind it.

The revelations about Zhou Shenglong, Hezhong Media’s biggest superstar, had unleashed an online storm no less fierce than the scandal involving Morning Mist and An Menglan. But there was a difference. Although Morning Mist had burst onto the scene with astonishing talent, he was still a newcomer. Whether his career was destroyed would not shake the capital behind the Chinese-language music industry.

An Menglan, meanwhile, was a formidable figure in music, but she had long been semi-retired. The leak of her “farewell album” was no small matter, yet it wasn’t enormous either.

Even by the most generous estimate, the losses would amount to a little over a hundred million.

Zhou Shenglong was another matter entirely.

He was the most prestigious accomplished male actor in the entire entertainment industry, a guarantee of box-office success. He had spent decades building a career and an intricate network of relationships and financial interests. He also owned a small stake in Hezhong Media. In the entertainment world, he was practically a member of the investor class himself.

And because he had remained at the very top for so long, his endorsement contracts alone were worth an astronomical sum.

He was also the face of Hezhong Media.

At any gala or awards ceremony, no matter whose agent tried to secure the center position for their client, the organizers only had to say, “Zhou Shenglong will be attending.” The other side would promptly fall silent and stop competing. The center position would belong to Zhou Shenglong.

Even An Menglan couldn’t compete with Zhou Shenglong on that front.

Both were superstars of the highest standing, with enormous influence. An Menglan was arguably even more popular among young people.

But Zhou Shenglong had debuted much earlier. He was more than ten years older than An Menglan and was her senior. Even if they attended the same event, the center position would still go to him.

Across the entire entertainment industry, only one kind of person could compete with Zhou Shenglong for that position: the veteran artists who rarely attended galas or award ceremonies at all. Even then, it was hard to argue that their artistic contributions, fame, or influence exceeded his.

Zhou Shenglong’s acting ability was genuinely beyond reproach.

The one advantage those veteran artists might have over him was age—or rather, seniority.

People respected their elders in the profession.

And a man at the very pinnacle of the entertainment industry had been destroyed by the scandal Wu Chen arranged to expose. Destroyed utterly, in a single stroke!

The higher you climbed, the harder you fell!

Zhou Shenglong had built his public image around being a good husband and a good man. The more deeply the public believed in that image, the more viciously it turned against him when the scandal broke.

Hezhong Media suffered enormous losses as a result.

Its share price had plunged for several consecutive days. Counting today’s decline, nearly ten billion had been wiped off its market value. Of course, the stock market could be irrational, and that loss was only on paper. Once the storm had passed, the shares would rise again—at least recovering most of what they had lost.

But Hezhong Media had lost more than numbers on the stock exchange. It had lost actual money.

For example, Zhou Shenglong’s upcoming film and the television series he was currently filming: all the investment in them, including advance publicity and promotion, had gone to waste.

The endorsements were worse.

Because Zhou Shenglong was so widely known, because his career had lasted so long, and because of his image as a good man, everyone considered him exceptionally reliable. As a result, he had a remarkable number of endorsements.

They were all major domestic brands, or even international ones.

Celebrity endorsement contracts carried penalties for breach. And a breach did not merely mean refusing to cooperate with promotional work. It also included scandals involving the celebrity.

Once a celebrity became embroiled in a scandal and acquired a negative image, the products they endorsed could suffer serious reputational damage and even face boycotts.

The contractual penalties for that were often far higher than the celebrity’s annual endorsement fees.

As far as Wu Chen knew, the total penalties Zhou Shenglong would have to pay on his dozens of endorsements would exceed one billion.

It was a terrible predicament.

By comparison, Wu Chen’s retaliation had been exceptionally ruthless.

Although Hezhong Media had struck first in this series of incidents, it was certain to retaliate. Peng Wei had already called Wu Chen about that retaliation yesterday morning, while Wu Chen was having a meal with Wu Yurong.

Peng Wei had heard that Hezhong Media intended to release a major scandal involving the Huaxing group of companies at noon.

At the time, he hadn’t known exactly who the revelations would target.

Then noon had arrived yesterday. Wu Chen had gone with Wu Yurong to meet Wu Weidong, and they had eaten lunch together. After leaving the Wu family home, Wu Chen had found a moment to check his phone and seen that the revelations were already out.

They concerned Xu Weilai.

Xu Weilai was a twenty-four-year-old man who had officially debuted two years earlier as captain of the boy band C17, formed through the popular talent show Magical Boy Group. After the show, the huge gap between his popularity and that of the other members led him to pursue a solo career. For nearly two years, he had been one of the country’s hottest male pop idols.

Before his debut on the show, Xu Weilai had already spent four years as a trainee. At eighteen, he signed with Sanyou Entertainment Media, then still a small company.

As Xu Weilai became wildly popular, Sanyou Entertainment Media’s valuation soared. From a few tens of millions, it rose more than tenfold. Finally, a year ago, Huaxing Entertainment acquired a stake in Sanyou and became its controlling parent company.

Xu Weilai stood 184 centimeters tall, with fair skin and genuinely handsome features that perfectly matched contemporary young people’s tastes. Unlike some other traffic-driven idols who drew constant criticism, he also had a solid foundation. His singing might not be exceptional, but it was above average.

The industry therefore believed he could remain popular for years, rather than fading as quickly as certain other idols.

When Huaxing Entertainment invested in Sanyou a year earlier, it wielded considerable influence but did not offer a price that satisfied Sanyou. After several rounds of negotiation, the two sides ultimately signed a three-year performance-betting agreement.

Huaxing would initially invest and provide resources, while management control—or, more precisely, voting rights—would remain with Sanyou’s founding team.

But if Sanyou failed to meet the agreed performance targets, its founders would lose their voting rights. Being forced out of the company afterward would be entirely possible.

Accepting that arrangement was a concession by Sanyou. After all, Huaxing was powerful, and the entertainment industry’s pie was only so large. Without a powerful backer, resources would be limited and industry giants would suppress them. Even the most popular idol could fade into obscurity without anyone promoting him.

With the resources of the Huaxing group behind him, Xu Weilai had, over the past year, become so popular that even many established veterans dared not offend him lightly.

He had far too many fans, most of them teenage girls. Fans in that age group were particularly prone to making a scene. They were a force nobody wanted to provoke.

Yesterday at noon.

A well-known online media outlet, Baiyi Media, published an allegation: Xu Weilai had beaten a schoolmate so badly that the victim was left disabled.

According to the report, the incident had occurred in high school, seven years earlier, when Xu Weilai was seventeen.

Xu Weilai came from a wealthy family. His father was a local businessman in Changhuai City, Su Province, involved in the plastics and chemical industry, with assets exceeding a hundred million.

With his comfortable upbringing, Xu Weilai had earned decent grades in elementary and middle school. But his performance declined steadily once he entered high school. He quickly went astray during his rebellious adolescence and often bullied classmates by relying on his family’s influence.

In the second semester of his second year of high school, at seventeen, he overheard a classmate speaking badly about him behind his back and had someone drag the boy into a restroom to beat him.

The other boy wasn’t someone who would simply accept a beating. He called on his own friends, and the confrontation escalated into a group fight.

The two sides arranged to fight on the basketball court after school. Nearly a hundred people joined the brawl. Although nobody died, Xu Weilai personally smashed every tooth in the mouth of the classmate who had spoken ill of him, broke four of his ribs, ruptured his spleen, and caused a comminuted fracture of his right hand, leaving him permanently disabled.

More than twenty students were disciplined over the incident, and five were expelled.

Xu Weilai himself received no punishment at all.

His father used his connections and influence not only to protect him at school, but also to shield him from legal consequences.

Seven years had passed since then.

Xu Weilai’s father had long since settled all the problems with money. The disabled student’s family had also received compensation from the Xu family.

In fact, if the story concerned an ordinary person, its publication probably wouldn’t have caused much trouble. If nobody complained, the authorities were unlikely to pursue an old matter. The victim’s family had accepted money and naturally wouldn’t make another fuss.

But Xu Weilai was a celebrity—and one of the hottest stars in the country!

Strictly speaking, anyone over sixteen who intentionally inflicted injuries causing disability could be held criminally liable and prosecuted by the state. Xu Weilai should have been sentenced at the time! Paying private compensation did not make everything all right. The law did not permit such a case to be settled privately!

Top celebrities lived under the public’s magnifying glass.

The moment the story broke, it virtually destroyed Xu Weilai.

The revelations had exploded across the internet yesterday at noon.

And today… Xu Weilai had jumped off a building?

Wu Chen could not have predicted an event like this in advance. It was a matter of life and death; a single passing thought could lead to a completely different outcome.

But Wu Chen could readily imagine why Xu Weilai had jumped.

Money.

In truth, if an incident like Xu Weilai’s had merely been exposed, it might have left him mired in scandal without necessarily destroying him.

After all, it had happened seven years earlier, and many details would be difficult to verify. Most importantly, there was the victim. As long as he was paid enough to keep quiet and denied that Xu Weilai had beaten him, the matter could be contained.

There was enormous room to maneuver.

Public opinion could be manipulated online, attention diverted elsewhere. With the right arrangements, they might even rehabilitate Xu Weilai’s image by claiming he’d been maliciously smeared and the whole story was false! They could establish a new persona for him as someone who was always being targeted by fabricated accusations.

Take Peng Wei, for example. As the country’s top paparazzo, he knew about Xu Weilai’s assault, as far as Wu Chen understood. Collecting damaging information from popular idols’ pasts was part of a paparazzo’s job.

Every idol who became wildly popular would have their history investigated.

But even Peng Wei could not have brought Xu Weilai down with that story. Too many financial interests were tied to Xu Weilai, and powerful investors protected him. If Peng Wei released the allegation without irrefutable firsthand evidence, it would certainly be suppressed.

Even Peng Wei couldn’t do it… yet Xu Weilai had been destroyed all the same.

Because the force targeting him wasn’t some paparazzo. It was the giant Hezhong Media! And Hezhong Media wasn’t merely trying to tarnish a rival company’s star. It was taking furious revenge, throwing everything it had into the attack!

No matter how powerful the investors directly backing Xu Weilai might be, they couldn’t be more powerful than Hezhong Media as a whole!

Under normal circumstances, even when major entertainment companies possessed damaging information about a rival’s biggest stars, they didn’t release it. The entertainment industry had far too much filth hidden away, and genuinely clean celebrities were few and far between. If everyone started exposing everyone else, nobody would come out unscathed!

This time was different.

Hezhong’s biggest star, Zhou Shenglong, had been blown apart by scandal!

Hezhong had to strike back!

Even if that meant all-out war with Huaxing Entertainment!

That was why the revelations about Xu Weilai could never be suppressed. As public opinion intensified, the police would inevitably open an investigation under public pressure, and higher authorities would certainly order Xu Weilai blacklisted throughout the industry.

The gravest consequence was that Xu Weilai might go to prison—or, at the very least, receive a suspended sentence.

And he would have to pay an astronomical amount in contractual penalties.

Xu Weilai was so popular that he’d taken on more than thirty endorsements over the past two years.

Although traffic-driven idols like him rarely secured long-term endorsements, since their popularity might fade, and their contracts were generally renewed year by year, at the height of his fame his endorsement fees were even higher than Zhou Shenglong’s.

The corresponding penalties were just as high.

Altogether, what he owed might be no less than Zhou Shenglong’s penalties.

If Xu Weilai was blacklisted, Sanyou Entertainment would bear the other losses. But when it came to penalties for endorsements breached because of his scandal, Xu Weilai would be personally responsible for every cent.

He couldn’t afford them!

Even if his family lost everything, they couldn’t afford them!

He couldn’t bear the pressure, and he jumped.

“Is there anything online yet?” Wu Chen asked into the phone.

“Not yet. Huaxing will definitely try to keep it quiet for now, buy some time, and agree on a public statement. They’ll probably describe it as an accidental fall.” An Menglan’s voice was still complicated. “But once Hezhong hears, they’ll probably break the story immediately. A jump from a building… there’s no hiding that.”

Because Wu Chen was one of her own, An Menglan spoke frankly.

Xu Weilai’s original scandal had been his personal problem. For the company, it had meant financial losses. But now his jump would have a serious negative impact on Huaxing Media.

An Menglan’s conflicted feelings weren’t really about regretting his death or deciding who was right and who was wrong.

In the past, she had hardly cared about Huaxing’s affairs at all.

Huaxing belonged to the An family, not to An Menglan personally. Her music company was independent and wasn’t part of Huaxing Group. In a broader sense, it belonged to the Huaxing circle, simply because An Menglan was the An family’s “princess.”

An Menglan focused exclusively on her music.

She knew perfectly well how sordid the entertainment industry could be. What year passed without some scandal? She couldn’t be bothered to pay much attention, even when her own family was involved.

But this time was different.

Because everything had begun with the leak of her music, and the situation had escalated step by step to this point.

“Sigh…” An Menglan finally let out a sigh.

“Feeling guilty?” Wu Chen asked.

“Not exactly guilty. It’s just… a human life, after all. And…” An Menglan didn’t finish.

“You don’t need to dwell on it. Xu Weilai might technically count as one of our own, but he’s done far more than what came out yesterday…” Wu Chen left his sentence unfinished as well.

He had never met Xu Weilai, but that didn’t mean he didn’t know things about him.

And someone who had used his family’s wealth to bully classmates and even beat one of them into permanent disability—well, it wasn’t difficult to imagine what else he might have done.

Wu Chen was actually quite capable of accepting that people on his side had done terrible things.

But it depended on his relationship with them.

Li Ruotai’s record was about as dark as it could get, and Lu Guangnian had been ruthless in his younger years. Wu Chen didn’t mind either of them.

As for Xu Weilai, it wasn’t that Wu Chen was concerned about him. He simply felt nothing.

Their supposed connection as “one of our own” was far too remote.

If he’d jumped, then he’d jumped.

Wu Chen did have the ability to save him. He could reset the day, immediately make calls, and arrange for someone to watch Xu Weilai. But he wouldn’t do that. He would never spend a reset on something like this.

“Here’s what we’ll do. I’m having lunch with Xiaodie right now. I’ll come to your company this afternoon, and we can talk in person,” Wu Chen said.

“All right, then… Oh, right!” An Menglan agreed, then suddenly added, “My father called me just now, too.”

“What did he say?” Wu Chen raised an eyebrow slightly.

“Nothing much. He just asked me about Peng Wei…” An Menglan explained quickly. “I told him I couldn’t really speak for Peng Wei, that we were only cooperating. I didn’t mention you… and then we didn’t talk about much else.”

“Mm… I see.”

They exchanged a few more words and hung up.

Across the table, Zhuang Xiaodie had been listening quietly. When Wu Chen put down the phone, she asked casually with a smile, “What happened to Xu Weilai?”

Normally, Zhuang Xiaodie wouldn’t ask about Wu Chen’s business.

She asked this time because Xu Weilai was such a hot topic. People were still arguing about the scandal online. Everyone was talking about it. Even in this restaurant, Wu Chen wasn’t the only person mentioning his name.

Zhuang Xiaodie knew Wu Chen probably had inside information.

She was only asking in passing. Given their relationship, there was nothing unusual about chatting about it.

“He jumped off a building,” Wu Chen told her quietly.

“Huh?” Zhuang Xiaodie was instantly astonished.

Ring, ring…

Wu Chen’s phone suddenly rang again.

Not even ten seconds had passed since he’d ended the previous call.

This time it was Peng Wei.

Wu Chen glanced at the screen, answered, and asked casually, “An Huaiguo called you?” An Menglan’s father, An Huaiguo, was the head of Huaxing Group, a Xiangjiang tycoon with a fortune in the hundreds of billions!

“Uh… yes.” Peng Wei was clearly startled and paused before answering. Then he hurriedly added, “He just called me and told me to stop…”

Stop?

Someone on Huaxing’s side had died, yet they wanted to end the war with Hezhong outright? And the head of Huaxing himself had made the call?