Chapter 534: May All Lovers Find Their Happy Ending

Chapter 534: May All Lovers Find Their Happy Ending

“First, let us address your initial misconception.” Wu Chen looked at An Huaiguo, gesturing off to the side with a casual wave. Shang Yunlu stepped forward at once, handing over the laptop he had brought along. “You claimed that all of you in the entertainment industry hold dirt on one another. That is incorrect.”

“Huaxing indeed holds dirt on Hezhong Media, but Hezhong may not necessarily have any on you. You haven’t considered one crucial possibility…” Wu Chen gave a faint smile.

He paused with deliberate theatricality.

“What possibility?” An Huaiguo asked.

“You haven’t considered that I might destroy the dirt Hezhong Media holds on Huaxing Group!” Wu Chen gestured toward the man beside him. “I’ve already introduced him: Shang Yunlu. He—”

“I know who he is!” An Huaiguo cut him off sharply.

Shang Yunlu had once been an actor, and many people recognized him. An entertainer who pivoted to corporate management while remaining within the industry was not easily forgotten. When An Huaiguo said he knew him, he didn’t mean he had merely noted Wu Chen’s introduction; he was already intimately aware of the exact responsibilities Shang Yunlu handled inside Hezhong Media!

“You’re relying on him?”

An Huaiguo scoffed, “A middle manager who barely ranks third or fourth in Hezhong Media’s publicity and promotion division? You honestly believe using him as an inside man will allow you to wipe out Hezhong’s top-secret internal files? What an absolute joke! If your mole were Guan Hongrun, I might give you the benefit of the doubt. But him? He is nowhere near enough!”

“Guan Hongrun’s character is revolting. I dislike him,” Wu Chen replied with an easy smile.

“Ha! Do you even believe that pathetic excuse yourself?”

An Huaiguo had completely dropped his polished demeanor, openly mocking Wu Chen. “If you couldn’t handle Guan Hongrun, just admit it. The man holds shares in Hezhong. Someone of his stature isn’t so easily cowed. It is entirely natural that you couldn’t manage him—there is no need to make excuses.”

Wu Chen kept his faint smile, offering no spoken rebuttal.

He opened the laptop, keyed in the password, and accessed a specific directory. Then, he nudged the device forward. Peng Wei stepped in smoothly, taking the machine with both hands, circling around the table, and placing it respectfully right before An Huaiguo.

“Take a look. See if these are the top-secret internal files of Hezhong Media you were just speaking of.” Wu Chen gestured with his chin.

Keeping an impassive mask, An Huaiguo clicked into the files with simmering doubt. He opened one, scanned the contents, closed it, clicked open another, skimmed it, and closed it in turn.

Huaxing Media was an industry giant. Its marquee artists were household names across the entire nation—megastars, A-listers, and venerable veteran actors alike. An Huaiguo could identify every single one of them at a glance, as could any ordinary television viewer.

That held true even when the photos were taken from long distances and blurred, or when the video footage was dimly lit, showing a barefaced, disheveled actress. It was still child’s play to discern who she was and what acts she was committing with the man beside her.

In several clips, An Huaiguo even recognized “the man” involved: renowned directors, heavyweight producers, or prominent senior executives from corporate conglomerates.

Such scandalous gossip was not particularly devastating in itself.

Much of it was already an open secret within the industry. Certain actresses were notorious for sleeping with colleagues on set, while others traded their bodies for every role they landed. Everyone knew who served as whose patron and who was kept as whose bird in a gilded cage. Golden celebrity couples whose public devotion was celebrated nationwide had long been living completely separate private lives, and there were even spineless men who willingly pushed their starlet wives into the beds of powerful tycoons to curry favor…

Those were minor transgressions!

The true crux lay in the extensive evidence of outright criminal offenses scattered across the dossiers, implicating everyone from A-list celebrities to corporate directors.

The destructive payload of this evidence might not match the sheer lethality of the dirt Peng Wei had dug up under Wu Chen’s direction, but it was more than sufficient to get the job done!

It held enough weight to send some artists and corporate managers behind bars for several years!

The volume was massive, and the chronological record spanned over a decade. That sweeping timeline alone proved the archives were the proprietary, top-secret intelligence of a media colossus.

It was equally effortless to determine which titan had assembled it.

The archives cataloged devastating dirt on Huaxing’s artists and executives, as well as those belonging to other media conglomerates—yet contained not a single trace of Hezhong Media’s own dirty laundry…

“Stolen files!” An Huaiguo snapped the laptop shut. He looked first at Shang Yunlu, then turned his gaze back to Wu Chen. “Stealing files is one thing. Scrubbing them out of existence is an entirely different matter.”

Reaching into his jacket, Wu Chen produced a freshly developed photograph. With a flick of his wrist, the print spun through the air and landed squarely on the lid of the closed laptop.

The instant An Huaiguo caught sight of the woman in the frame, his brow furrowed deeply. He snatched it up, bringing it closer to inspect.

“You just mentioned Guan Hongrun. I assume you know he is the head of Hezhong’s publicity and promotion division and the custodian of these classified files. You ought to recognize the woman in this picture as well. At the charity gala eight months ago, Guan Hongrun brought her as his date; you even clinked glasses with them,” Wu Chen said with an effortless smile.

The photograph captured Bai Nawei standing right before an open safe.

“Guan Hongrun’s wife. She helped you steal the files?” An Huaiguo lowered the photograph, staring at Wu Chen with a flat expression.

“Not me. She is helping herself. Only when that scum Guan Hongrun dies in prison will she find true liberation,” Wu Chen said smoothly. “And only through that freedom can she spend the rest of her days with the man she truly loves.” As he spoke, he gave a slight gesture in Shang Yunlu’s direction.

It was an explicit declaration of the clandestine affair between Shang Yunlu and Bai Nawei.

An Huaiguo abruptly fell silent. He realized that Wu Chen’s maneuvers inside Hezhong Media were targeted squarely at Guan Hongrun—and the execution appeared virtually seamless!

There was no need to overcomplicate the mechanics.

What was a corporate boss most terrified of?

His wife carrying on an affair with a subordinate. One was privy to his business maneuvers, while the other held the secrets of his private life. If the two combined their knowledge, he wouldn’t even know how he had been destroyed!

Yet all of this hinged on a single prerequisite: that the romance between Shang Yunlu and Bai Nawei was genuine!

Snap!

Just as that thought took shape, Wu Chen snapped his fingers, gesturing to Shang Yunlu with a curl of his hand. “Hand over your phone.”

Shang Yunlu hesitated for a fraction of a second, but in this setting, he could not afford to show the slightest reluctance or defiance. He pulled his phone from his coat and handed it to Wu Chen.

Wu Chen breezed past the lock screen, launched a cloud drive app, typed in the credentials, and navigated to a selection of stored videos, tapping one at random.

Keep in mind—this was Shang Yunlu’s personal phone!

Wu Chen extended his arm and placed the device atop the thick stack of dossiers on the coffee table.

Everyone could see the clip playing on the screen. It was nothing lewd—merely a private rendezvous between lovers, playfully celebrating a birthday behind closed doors. Fully clothed, they sang, blew out candles, embraced, and kissed. The pair were unmistakably Shang Yunlu and Bai Nawei.

Beside Shang Yunlu, Bai Nawei laughed with the uninhibited delight of a young girl, even playfully smearing frosting across his cheek.

“May all lovers find their happy ending,” Wu Chen murmured with a faint smile, putting an arm around An Menglan’s waist.

A line laden with deliberate double meaning!

Yet An Huaiguo displayed no outward shock at Wu Chen’s demonstration.

Because regardless of everything—regardless of whether Wu Chen had successfully neutralized Hezhong Media’s means of counterattack—none of that formed the core of the dilemma! The ultimate, insurmountable barrier to dismantling and devouring Hezhong Media lay in the titans backing the company!

And that was an obstacle Wu Chen could never hope to resolve!

Even a Xiangjiang oligarch of An Huaiguo’s stature was powerless against it!