My Queen, My Rules - 18
Shoot
Silence settled over the private room for three full seconds.
Cen Sen, Jiang Che, and Zhao Yang all turned to look at Shu Yang. Cen Sen and Jiang Che merely looked at him, but Zhao Yang's expression openly radiated contempt.
Unfortunately, Shu Yang's skin was thicker than riverbed silt. Even now, he shamelessly pretended nothing had happened. Turning around with exaggerated surprise, he exclaimed, "Well, well! Xiao Shu, you finally made it! Come, come, let your big brother have a look. Where did this stunning beauty come from?"
Ji Mingshu smiled without warmth and swung her handbag straight across his head.
He immediately put on a dramatic performance. "Ow! Ow! That hurts!"
"Oh, shut up," Ji Mingshu scoffed. "I'm not even complaining about your greasy hair dirtying my bag yet, what are you yelling for?"
Ever since childhood, the two people whose names both contained "Shu" had always been equally sharp-tongued. Everyone was long accustomed to watching them bicker, so while they traded insults back and forth, the others wisely stayed out of it.
As though nothing unusual were happening, Jiang Che laid down a pair of queens. Cen Sen followed with a pair of kings, while Zhao Yang tapped the table.
"Pass."
After thoroughly defeating Shu Yang in yet another round of verbal sparring, just as she always did, Ji Mingshu walked straight over and sat beside Cen Sen.
Cen Sen gestured toward the cards.
Naturally, she took them.
Even more naturally, she leaned over to peek at Jiang Che's and Zhao Yang's hands before calmly rearranging the order of play.
"Nine, ten, jack, queen, king. Straight. Three fours with two kickers. Pair of fives. Done. I'm out."
"...Seriously?" Zhao Yang threw down his cards and craned his neck to look. "Who can compete with that?"
It had been years since he'd seen anyone play quite so shamelessly.
Ji Mingshu immediately began settling accounts. "You owe me one handbag. You owe me three."
Jiang Che lazily raised his eyes. "Why do I owe three?"
Ji Mingshu: "He's at least a lifesaving doctor in service of the people now. You're just an unscrupulous capitalist exploiting the ordinary people. Why shouldn't you pay three?"
For a brief, glorious moment, Zhao Yang genuinely felt as though he'd gotten an incredible bargain.
Ji Mingshu wasn't finished.
"Besides," she continued righteously, "your buddy here just said that whoever earns the most money should contribute the most to supporting a Golden Canary. Three bags. Seems perfectly fair."
Jiang Che looked entirely unconcerned. "Oh. He's not my friend."
"...?"
"Hey, that's not what I said, was it?" Shu Yang’s head was full of question marks, then he turned toward Jiang Che. "Seriously? You're disowning me over three handbags?"
Jiang Che: "Then you buy them."
"Fine, I'll buy them! I'll buy ten!"
Ji Mingshu’s expression switched as fast as turning pages. She propped her chin on her hand, smiling sweetly. “Thank you, Yang-ge."
Shu Yang never thought before bragging.
Now, coming to his senses and remembering the price range of Ji Mingshu's bags, his heart bled.
He quickly turned toward Cen Sen, hoping to recover at least a little of his losses. "Sen-ge, just how badly do you treat her? You won't even buy her handbags, so she has to scam the rest of us?"
Completely unfazed, Cen Sen answered evenly, "Xiao Shu is rather frugal."
Right on cue, Ji Mingshu offered everyone the picture-perfect smile of a virtuous, thrifty housewife.
Shu Yang: "..."
Okay. You two are a perfect match. Please stay together forever and stop terrorizing innocent people. :)
By the end of the gathering, Ji Mingshu had scammed, tricked, and swindled well over a dozen bags out of them.
The others willingly indulged her. It had been a long time since they'd seen her, and teasing her was half the fun.
Ji Mingshu, in turn, was compensating on behalf of Cen Sen, making up for the lack of energy he contributed to the group's dynamic.
They were all smart people. No one touched the minefield that was ‘Li Wenyin’ again for the rest of the night.
Li Wenyin was Cen Sen's ex-girlfriend.
Their rumored relationship had lasted three years, the actual tenure had lasted only three months.
An ex-girlfriend wasn't necessarily a forbidden topic. The problem was that Li Wenyin and Ji Mingshu had despised each other since middle school. They'd clashed countless times over the years.
On top of that, although Li Wenyin always acted carefree, she never quite missed an opportunity to hint that she'd never truly gotten over Cen Sen.
During Ji Mingshu and Cen Sen's first year of marriage, Li Wenyin had gone viral on Weibo after posting a nostalgic story titled My Ex Got Married.
She later deleted it, saying she didn't want to disturb his life. Unfortunately, by then it had already been reposted everywhere online and still resurfaced from time to time.
On the drive home after the gathering, Ji Mingshu didn't say a word.
She looked out the window, at her phone, and into the rearview mirror, using every reflective surface she could find to secretly observe Cen Sen's facial expressions from every possible angle.
There was just one problem, Cen Sen didn't have any expressions and certainly no subtle emotional shift to observe.
He fell asleep almost immediately after getting into the car, then somehow woke up the exact moment they arrived home, as though a built-in radar had informed him they'd reached their destination.
For reasons even she couldn't explain, Ji Mingshu found herself increasingly annoyed and didn't want to talk to him at all.
Completely oblivious to her mood, Cen Sen had originally planned to recharge during the drive and enjoy a proper marital activities once they got home.
Instead, after showering and walking into the bedroom, he found Ji Mingshu already sleeping soundly.
He didn't dwell on it. He simply postponed "marital activities" to another day.
***
The magazine shoot delayed by Zhang Baoshu incident was finally back on schedule. Zero Degrees had replaced the original stars with another on-screen couple, but they still needed to borrow the dress.
By now, Ji Mingshu couldn't stand the sight of it. She'd gladly give it away, of course, she agreed immediately.
On Thursday morning, she brought Jiang Chun along to Zero Degrees, intending to give this Little Earth Goose some exposure to high fashion.
The featured couple that day were two trending idols who rose to fame after starring in an idol drama together.
Both had enormous solo fandoms and their CP fandom was equally massive. With their fanbases constantly at odds, arguing every three days and fighting every five, they’d managed to tear their way into traffic stars status despite having few notable works.
"Bring the lighting a little closer on A-Che's side... Yes, exactly like that."
Dressed in a stylish little suit, Gu Kaiyang stood inside the studio with folded arms, confidently directing the shoot. She'd been deputy editor for a while now, and she was growing into the role more every day.
Ji Mingshu and Jiang Chun sat quietly in one corner of the studio, chatting while they watched.
"What did you do last night?" Ji Mingshu asked. "I was going to invite you to a movie, but I couldn't even get through."
"Really? Maybe the signal was bad." Jiang Chun smiled. "Tang Zhizhou took me to a movie."
Ji Mingshu turned toward her. "After Eight Great Masters and Strawberry, he's still willing to talk to you?"
"What exactly do you mean by that?" Jiang Chun protested. "Fine, I may not be the most cultured, but I'm sincere! After you explained everything, I messaged him to apologize. He said it was fine and even called me cute."
Ji Mingshu looked at her with an expression that said: Is he blind?
After forcing that wave of self-praise, Jiang Chun remembered the slight ambiguity between her and Tang Zhizhou while watching the movie last night. Her ears reddened slightly. Unable to resist, she swatted her goose-like paw at Ji Mingshu and forcibly changed the subject.
"Forget me. What actually happened between Cen Sen and that three-hundred-and-eightieth-tier little green tea? I completely missed the cause or process, how did we jump straight to the result?"
"I already told you," Ji Mingshu replied. "It was just a misunderstanding. I don't even remember the woman's name. What's the use of asking me?"
Asking Ji Mingshu was indeed useless. The only thing she'd learned from the entire incident was that Cen Sen hadn't cheated. The rest, she didn't know and didn't care about.
Gu Kaiyang, however, knew every detail.
After handing over the shoot to the photographer, she filled Ji Mingshu and Jiang Chun in on everything that had happened behind the scenes, including how Zhang Baoshu had stirred up trouble and just how disastrous the consequences had been.
"She actually had a promising future ahead of her," Gu Kaiyang said. "Now she's been completely shelved. Of all people, she just had to provoke Zhang Qi. That guy holds grudges like nobody else."
"And once a girl like her has tasted fame, you can't exactly expect them to quietly leave the entertainment industry and take a regular nine-to-five job. Her road ahead is going to be rough."
Remembering the little white lotus who had steal Yan Yu, Jiang Chun couldn't muster even the slightest sympathy. "She brought it on herself."
After a brief pause, she asked another question. "Oh, right. What about Shi Qing you mentioned?"
Gu Kaiyang raised an eyebrow and drew a finger across her throat.
Jiang Chun: "Fired?"
Gu Kaiyang: "Yeah. Speaking of which, I find it really strange. When you get down to it, that day's incident was a personal grudge between me and her. Since Shushu said she wasn't behind it, I honestly don't know why the company fired her."
Jiang Chun had a sudden brainwave and looked at Ji Mingshu. "Could it be your husband?"
"...?"
Ji Mingshu stared at her in disbelief.
"Have you been reading too many novels?"
Jiang Chun was thoroughly intimidated by the look on her face, she immediately fell silent and began questioning her own logic.
Ji Mingshu initially thought the idea sounded ridiculous. But after thinking about it, perhaps...
It wasn't completely impossible.
Taking advantage of a break in filming, she opened WeChat and messaged Cen Sen.
Ji Mingshu: [The other day I had an argument with a woman at Gu Kaiyang's magazine. She got fired.]
Ji Mingshu: [secretly watching.jpg]
She waited for a reply, but Cen Sen seemed busy. There was no response for a good while.
During that time, Jiang Chun went to the restroom, and Gu Kaiyang stepped outside to answer a phone call.
When Gu Kaiyang returned, her expression looked strangely complicated.
The moment Ji Mingshu saw it, she was instantly reminded of the terror she'd felt a few days earlier when she'd first heard Cen Sen had "cheated."
"What's wrong? Why are you making that weird face again?"
Jiang Chun returned just then, wiping her hands as she chimed in, “Are you constipated?”
"No. I just got notified about a new interview assignment."
"Who? Her husband? A magazine feature to show off marital bliss?” Jiang Chun pointed at Ji Mingshu without a second thought, her mind permanently wired like a romance novel.
After a pause, Gu Kaiyang replied, "Her husband's ex-girlfriend."
Jiang Chun and Ji Mingshu: "..."
The atmosphere instantly became both awkward and delicate.
Trying desperately to ease the tension, Jiang Chun voiced the question that had genuinely puzzled her. "But... isn't Zero Degrees a men's fashion magazine? Why are you interviewing a woman?"
"Aren't we photographing a woman for the cover right now?" Gu Kaiyang gestured toward the set behind her, then continuing, "I'll try to think of a way. We don't necessarily have to feature Li Wenyin for this segment. But she should be back in the country within the next couple of days."
She might be able to refuse the interview but she definitely couldn't stop Li Wenyin from boarding a plane home.
Just then, Ji Mingshu's phone buzzed.
Cen Sen: [I did it.]
Ji Mingshu paused, staring at those three simple words.
Cen Sen: [You're at the magazine?]
Ji Mingshu: [nods obediently.jpg]
Cen Sen: [Then I'll pick you up after work.]
Looking at the brief exchange on her screen, Ji Mingshu couldn't quite explain why, but it made her a little happy.
The corners of her lips lifted before she could stop them. She quickly straightened her posture, casually brushed back her hair, and declared with regal composure, "No need. Go ahead with her interview. I'd like to hear exactly what kind of nonsense she has to say."
Jiang Chun quietly sipped her milk tea.
After spending so much time with Ji Mingshu, she could practically hear the unspoken words behind that elegant statement.
"If that little bitch dares talk nonsense, I'll kill her."
---
Author's Note:
Poet of the Frontier: Stop getting all happy. I just wanted to have marital activities. (pushes up glasses)
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