Chapter 533: He’s a Madman!

Chapter 533: He’s a Madman!

An Huaiguo fixed the young man before him with an extraordinarily stern gaze. It was not ordinary severity, but the chilling intensity of a police officer looking at a criminal, a powerful figure looking at someone he considered a threat, or a big shot preparing to lecture someone. It radiated crushing pressure—a pressure he was entirely confident he could exert!

Wu Chen did not lock eyes with him in a rigid contest of wills.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t withstand An Huaiguo’s stare. Rather, he deliberately chose an effortless, uninhibited demeanor.

“Tsk!” Wu Chen casually picked up one of the photographs on the table and studied it. The scene captured was unspeakably compromising. Even throughout his thousand-year time loop, Wu Chen had never laid eyes on this specific photo, for the event it depicted had not occurred before July 7.

Yet Wu Chen knew it would inevitably materialize after July 7.

Once you completely unraveled a man’s nature and methods, you could foresee with absolute precision what he would do in circumstances that had yet to unfold!

For instance, a man might have an ingrained habit of snapping commemorative photographs during certain kinds of occasions.

“You people who have been wealthy for a long time act in ways ten, even a hundred times more outrageous than ordinary people could ever imagine. Ordinary life no longer offers enough sensory stimulation, so you…” Wu Chen drew out the syllable languidly, set the photograph down, and met An Huaiguo’s eyes with an easy smile.

His words held a double edge, heavily hinting that he knew precisely what An Huaiguo himself had done, without quite spelling it out.

The veiled, lingering threat sent an icy shiver down the spines of Peng Wei and Shang Yunlu. Neither of them even dared look at An Huaiguo’s face.

The most terrifying aspect of a man like An Huaiguo was that so long as he avoided any transgression involving national security, absolutely no one could touch him!

In that regard, he was even more intimidating than the heads of the prominent mainland clans. Xiangjiang’s power structure was exceptionally rigid and stable, practically free from internal attrition. Provided An Huaiguo did not actively seek his own ruin, any other error, any offense—even those costing human lives—remained a mere “minor inconvenience”!

Nothing could genuinely pose a threat to him.

One might ruin his public reputation and incite the masses to revile him, but compelling the police to arrest him or having him sentenced to a prison cell was completely out of the question. That was the singular invulnerability enjoyed by Xiangjiang’s financial oligarchs.

Wu Chen’s earlier leverage, built around Hezhong Media’s corporate dealings, might have had the power to devastate An Huaiguo’s entertainment ventures on the mainland. While it was an outrageously reckless gamble, if Wu Chen truly possessed the means to execute it, it was an actionable, negotiable threat. What Wu Chen was hinting at now, however…

Could very well infuriate An Huaiguo completely.

Only a bona fide madman would do such a thing.

And Wu Chen appeared to be that very madman.

An eerie, suffocating hush descended over the office.

An Menglan had gone completely numb. She could not comprehend why Wu Chen would utter such inflammatory words, and the scene had spiraled far beyond her ability to manage. She knew with absolute clarity that if she spoke even a single syllable in Wu Chen’s defense now, she would only fan her father’s fury to new heights.

Wu Chen had merely drawn out a trailing vowel, yet the air in the room had grown so thick it was nearly unbreathable.

“Of course, I am referring only to certain people.” Wu Chen took An Menglan’s hand from beside him, lightly pressed his lips to the back of it, and met An Huaiguo’s gaze. “Boss An, you have cultivated such a brilliant and exceptional daughter. I am certain your personal character is of the highest order, earning universal acclaim from all who know you.”

An Menglan, Peng Wei, and Shang Yunlu could no longer tell whether Wu Chen was deliberately provoking An Huaiguo further or simply did not give a damn about what An Huaiguo thought.

A madman!

A man whom the father utterly detested had just kissed the daughter’s hand right in front of him!

Faced with such blatant insolence, any ordinary father would have grabbed an ashtray and struck the man.

And when that father was An Huaiguo…

“Drop your deranged little tricks.” The flesh on An Huaiguo’s face twitched. He seemed to have seen through the ploy, yet his fury was unmistakably stoked. He abruptly seized a thick sheaf of documents from the table and flung them into the air. Sheets fluttered down in a chaotic flurry as he glared into Wu Chen’s eyes. “You honestly believe these scraps will do you any good? Do you think those of us running entertainment empires don’t hoard dirt of this caliber? We may not hold hard evidence of homicides, but if we want to topple corporate executives or ruin high-profile artists, we can destroy them with evidence—and we can destroy them just as easily without it!”

“You need to realize that with these vicious tactics, you have threatened the interests of a great many people! They will retaliate! They hold lethal dirt on others as well! And backing them are titan figures far beyond your wildest imagination, shielding them from harm! As long as their pillars remain upright, it doesn’t matter to whom you deliver these dossiers! Blast them onto the internet, and they will be scrubbed into oblivion immediately! No matter how many eyes have seen them, they have the power to turn black into white!”

He was not merely boundlessly arrogant; he was a genuine lunatic!

An Huaiguo’s voice grew increasingly volatile. It wasn’t that he lacked the composure to hold his temper; rather, he genuinely felt that this young man was…

Yet this was precisely the reaction Wu Chen sought.

If you wanted a complete stranger to accept the most outrageous, inconceivable deeds in the shortest possible timeframe, there was no more effective disguise than that of a madman!

When an ordinary person committed a crazed act, people found it baffling, incredible, and impossible to digest. They would probe incessantly for an explanation, concocting convoluted backstories about childhood traumas, until the resulting investigative report ran thicker than a dictionary!

Yet when a recognized lunatic did something insane, it was deemed entirely natural.

Because he was a lunatic!

The investigation required only a single line: He is a madman—and an extraordinary genius!

“Naturally, I respect your investigative prowess. You clearly possess no small amount of capability!” An Huaiguo swept an arm toward Peng Wei and Shang Yunlu, then gestured at his daughter, An Menglan. “You have the talent to get people to work for you, and you know how to bewitch women. For someone of your age to pull off all this is undeniably impressive!”

…

“However—”

“You underestimate the world, young man. Do you understand? Some of the files you showed me are indeed shocking, but so what? You honestly believe you can bring down Hezhong Media with these? Do you have the slightest inkling of who stands behind Hezhong Media? Commercial matters must remain commercial matters. The moment you turn this into a power struggle, the fallout will spiral far beyond your ability to control!”

“You have no conception of the carnage that will unfold if everyone discards the rules and seizes assets through such savage means! Setting aside whether inciting a war is right or wrong… do you honestly believe you are qualified to set foot into a battlefield at that level? Do you really think you won’t be the very first casualty to be wiped out?”

An Huaiguo’s deep-seated disdain for Wu Chen’s youth remained plain to see.

In his eyes, this madman’s horizons were fundamentally limited; he had no grasp of how the highest echelons of power operated!

“Are you finished, Boss An?” Wu Chen met his gaze with an easy smile. “Get everything off your chest first. Once you’re done, I’ll dismantle your arguments point by point and show you precisely where you are wrong.”

An Huaiguo’s expression turned frigid. He leaned back against the sofa cushions and offered an open-palmed wave toward Wu Chen.

The gesture said it all: Go on, then. Let us see your performance!