“I’m honored, but… why?” Jiang Hanguang hesitated for a moment before asking.
While she certainly wasn’t self-deprecating enough to agree with Fan Jie, she was also well aware that she had indeed wasted a great deal of time. She had fallen far behind this fast-paced industry, and catching up would not be easy. Besides, she was no longer the carefree Jiang Hanguang of the past. Her parents, Feng Nan… there were too many external forces pressuring her. The more likely outcome was that she would never surpass the achievements of her twenty-year-old self and would simply squander the rest of her life.
When Jiang Hanguang fled the Feng family, she had already considered all these consequences quite clearly.
She was self-aware, which was why she was puzzled.
With Cheng Ying’s resources, finding a young artist with potential to cultivate shouldn’t be difficult.
Besides, wasn’t Xu Ning still at a stage where she couldn’t stand on her own yet?
Cheng Ying lowered her eyes.
Why, indeed?
She, for one, wanted to ask Jiang Hanguang: why do people like you always insist on toughing it out alone? You’re clearly bruised and battered, yet you still have to pretend in front of others that everything is fine.
You neither cry nor ask for help.
If you could keep up the act until the very end, it would be a happy ending for all.
But why, then, did you have to die so tragically, not even giving me the chance to say I’m sorry?
Jiang Hanguang couldn’t answer this question.
The person who could answer it had been turned to ash in that explosion fifteen years ago.
So Cheng Ying could only flash that thoughtless smile exclusive to profligates. She braced a hand against the doorframe, executing a highly unorthodox kabedon on Jiang Hanguang. “Because you’re beautiful. I can’t bear to see a beauty suffer.”
“Ugh, how nauseating.” Cheng Mantou shook off its non-existent goosebumps.
And Miss Jiang Hanguang, who had just been subjected to this flirtation, froze for a moment before suddenly letting out a soft laugh.
She was fine when she wasn’t smiling, but the moment she did, it was simply lethal. Her captivating eyes curved, the corners of her lips lifted into a faint arc, and the tranquil aura around her instantly dissolved, transforming into a tender trap one would willingly drown in.
Cheng Ying’s heart hammered in an almost instinctual reaction, but her rational side grew flustered, to the point that the hand she had braced against the doorframe began to tremble.
“Is there a problem?”
Jiang Hanguang’s smile was faint and fleeting. She quickly composed herself and looked at Cheng Ying seriously. “Thank you for the compliment, Boss Cheng. However, it’s best to be cautious about signing someone. I… am not a good choice.”
With that, she gave a slight bow and turned to leave, not waiting for Cheng Ying’s reaction.
Jiang Hanguang didn’t feel that Cheng Ying had any ill intentions toward her. In fact, from the moment they first met, she had felt that Cheng Ying wasn’t much like her portrayal in the news.
Due to her past experiences, she was highly sensitive to malicious gazes, a category that naturally included an Alpha’s innate desire to dominate an Omega.
But she had never gotten that feeling from Cheng Ying.
Cheng Ying’s flippancy seemed like a well-constructed facade, but unfortunately for her, Miss Jiang Hanguang had built-in X-ray vision.
Even when Cheng Ying had delivered that classic pick-up line, Jiang Hanguang thought she seemed like a child deliberately… pretending to be an expert at misbehaving.
It was impossible to be angry; in fact, she felt a little like laughing.
It was for this very reason that she didn’t want to implicate Cheng Ying. She’d heard that Cheng Ying was always dedicated to her artists, and that even unknown talents could quickly make a name for themselves in her hands.
But Feng Nan would never stand by and watch her succeed. At that point, Cheng Ying, the Vice President of a Cheng’s subsidiary, would probably have to go up against the current President of Feng’s Food Group for her sake.
It was an impossible fight to win. And when the time came, Cheng Ying, having invested so much effort in her, would surely be upset.
A shadow crossed Jiang Hanguang’s eyes, and she quickened her pace.
Meanwhile, Cheng Ying, who had been left in her wake, still hadn’t recovered from the massive blow.
Did I just get rejected?
I actually got rejected?
Cheng Mantou’s taunt was late, but it arrived all the same. “See? This is what happens when you’re always so unreliable. She thought you were joking.”
Cheng Ying incredulously slammed a fist against the doorframe, her face a mask of disbelief.
“Who’s joking with her? She’s the one treating me like a joke, isn’t she?”
“So what’s the plan?” Cheng Mantou, who genuinely wanted Cheng Ying to sign Jiang Hanguang, couldn’t help but feel anxious.
Cheng Ying rested her forehead in her hand and leaned helplessly against the doorframe. “If the mountain won’t turn, the river will. Since Miss Jiang won’t sign with me, I’ll just have to get creative elsewhere.”
Mantou caught on instantly. “You mean… Fan Jie?”
Cheng’s Media managed the relationship between agents and artists through a contracting system. Artists’ contracts were signed directly with the company, after which a professional team would assess their value and assign them to an agent of a corresponding level.
Unless an artist experienced a meteoric rise to fame, the company generally wouldn’t reassign them, for ease of management.
And if an agent were to leave their position or become unable to manage artists for some reason, the artists in their charge would be returned to the valuation pool for reassignment.
Cheng Ying didn’t understand Jiang Hanguang’s refusal, but she knew that nothing good would come of her staying in Fan Jie’s hands.
And now that she had decided to get involved, she wouldn’t take no for an answer.
Cheng Ying slipped back into her usual devil-may-care demeanor. She sauntered out, phone in hand, and said, “She asked Miss Jiang for an answer by tomorrow, didn’t she? Well then, let’s just take care of her before tomorrow comes.”
“Guess what? Do you think someone like that has a clean record?”
“Tsk, tsk. This isn’t just ‘not clean,’ it’s absolutely filthy. My eyes! Ahhh!” Half an hour later, in Cheng Ying’s study, the screen of a computer twice the size of a normal one was densely packed with incriminating evidence from Fan Jie’s hidden personal files.
Colluding with manufacturers to sell shoddy products was just standard practice. There was also hiring people to harass competitors, using her celebrities’ fame to launder money from dubious sources, and even several compromising photos of her artists with certain wealthy businessmen. The purpose they served—or had served—was self-evident.
This wasn’t an agent; this was a mercenary, an outlaw who’d do anything for profit.
Cheng Mantou was filled with righteous indignation, wishing it could turn all this over to the police immediately to set things right. But then it remembered that it had stolen the data from a confidential folder protected by N-layers of security, meaning it couldn’t be used as evidence.
“Ying, we can’t just call the police and have her arrested. What should we do?”
Cheng Ying looked at the screen in disgust. Fan Jie’s lack of class was truly something else. “Then we’ll just have to find a way to get the police to notice her.”
“Huh?”
The Alpha’s slender fingers danced across the keyboard, the screen’s light reflecting off her protective glasses. Behind the lenses, her eyes were like a high-speed, precision instrument. “She’s been involved in so much disgusting business. Why do you think she hasn’t been exposed after all this time?”
“Er, because she’s just that evil?” Although Cheng Mantou possessed five thousand years of knowledge, book learning was ultimately shallow, so it offered the most intuitive answer.
“No, that’s the most trivial part of it. What’s so special about being evil? Anyone can be evil,” Cheng Ying said, shaking her head with a derisive smile. “It’s because of mutual interest. Everyone who knows about these things has, whether willingly or not, become a grasshopper on the same rope as Fan Jie. Take those artists who sold counterfeit goods—if they reported her, their own careers would be ruined. A shared interest is what builds an indestructible fortress.”
“Oh, I see! So your plan is…”
Cheng Mantou watched as Cheng Ying bundled the incriminating evidence into a message and casually sent it to several of Fan Jie’s artists.
“Wait, if you send it to them directly, won’t we be exposed!” Cheng Mantou exclaimed in alarm.
Cheng Ying rolled her eyes. “Exposed? You think they can actually find me?”
Cheng Mantou: “…”
That was true. Unless Cheng Ying had a sudden charitable impulse and turned herself in, tracking her online was like trying to find Poseidon in the sea—an impossible task.
“The only way to deal with a fortress like this is to tell the people inside,” Cheng Ying leaned back slightly, cupping her hands around her mouth like a megaphone, affecting the air of a sincere negotiator. “You are surrounded! We won’t kill the first to surrender their weapons, dearies.”
Cheng Mantou: “Trying to be cute is shameful.”
Cheng Ying leisurely opened “Flying Pigeon,” the largest real-time social media platform, used a burner account to follow one of the people she had just messaged, and started playing a game while she waited.
A group held together by profit will naturally disintegrate at the first sign of a greater conflict of interest. She was all too familiar with such matters.
Meanwhile, Gu Lan, Fan Jie’s most famous artist, was preparing for a livestream. She sat in a makeup chair, scrolling through her phone while a stylist worked on her hair.
Suddenly, a message popped up. There was no sender’s name, no number.
Just a short line of text and a few images.
This information will be in the hands of the police by tomorrow. Take care.
