Chapter 4

Chapter 4

I made my move three days before Anniversary Night.

I took a snippet of that fragmented recording, packaged it with photos of Wen Yan’s performances over the years and some old forum posts, and sent it anonymously to several marketing accounts known for their love of celebrity dirt.

I didn’t release everything.

I deliberately only leaked enough to start a fire.

I wanted to see if Wen Yan could still keep his composure.

Within half a day of the news going out, Distortion exploded.

People started camping out by the entrance.

Customers at the bar were secretly filming videos.

Even the manager didn’t dare speak loudly anymore.

Ah Song came to ask me about it once.

“The stuff online… it doesn’t have anything to do with you, does it?”

I didn’t answer.

Ah Song stared at me for a few seconds before finally saying, “Brother Wen was called up by the board today.”

“They told him to stop performing.”

The glass in my hand nearly slipped.

But I kept my expression under control.

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

Ah Song didn’t respond to that.

He just looked at me as if he were seeing a stranger for the first time.

On the day of the Anniversary Night rehearsal, the moment Wen Yan stepped onto the stage, people in the venue started shouting my brother’s name.

He didn’t explain.

He didn’t stop, either.

He simply finished the entire song on the drums before taking off his monitors and walking off stage.

In that one glance, he still saw me.

I should have felt satisfied.

But for some reason, my chest felt tighter and tighter.

At three in the morning, Wen Yan cornered me in the back alley.

He had fresh injuries on his hands, looking like he’d just been in a fight.

“Is it enough?” he asked.

“Not yet.”

“I figured.” Wen Yan nodded. “When your brother died, I didn’t think it was enough either.”

My throat tightened.

Wen Yan stared at me, his voice low.

“This knife you’re stabbing with… you’re hitting me, but you’re hitting Pei Che too.”

“Don’t use my brother to pressure me.”

“I’m not pressuring you,” he said. “Lu Qi has already started clearing out the equipment. If you had leaked this a day earlier, the evidence would still be there. Leaking it now is just a warning for him to go wipe his tracks.”

My throat constricted.

“What do you mean by that?”

“It means you almost threw away the last piece of the puzzle.” Wen Yan stared at me. “Pei Shi, the thing you should hate me for most isn’t that I became famous later. It’s that three years ago, I failed to get him out. But what you’re doing now is exactly what I did back then.”

Those words were ruthless.

My face paled instantly.

Wen Yan didn’t give me a chance to strike back.

“Don’t come to Distortion anymore,” he said. “I don’t want to watch you be stupid a second time.”

He left as soon as he finished speaking.

When I went back inside, the manager was standing behind the bar, smashing things.

Seeing me, he immediately started cursing.

“Are you all out of your minds? Anniversary Night hasn’t even started, and the place is already falling apart!”

“Wen Yan’s been suspended. Are you happy now?”

I stood there without moving.

The manager cursed until he eventually stopped abruptly.

“Pei Shi,” he said. “You’d better not tell me this has anything to do with you.”

I didn’t admit it.

I didn’t deny it either.

The manager looked at me for a long time before finally dropping one last sentence.

“That business with your brother was already a mess. Don’t go making a second corpse.”

I stood where I was, the fire in my chest not dissipating one bit.

But for the first time, panic began to seep into the flames.

I started to think that I might have truly made a wrong move.