My Queen, My Rules - 3

Kneel

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The next morning dawned bright. Sunlight, filtered through the lush greenery of the villa district, held the crystalline clarity following a cleansing rain.

Ji Mingshu opened her eyes, lifted her head just a fraction, then let it sink back down.

A strong arm was locked around her waist, pinning her in place. Not that she was in any hurry to move. Her whole body ached. There was a dull, tingling throb low in her abdomen.

It was strange. Cen Sen had never been a man of strong appetites. Before he left, it had been once, maybe twice a month. A perfunctory meeting of needs, with barely a change of position. But last night had been different. It was as if he'd been saving up two years' worth of household expenses and was determined to spend it all in one glorious, reckless binge. He’d taken her again and again, not stopping until well past three in the morning.

Was this what it meant to be good in bed? Ji Mingshu wasn't sure. After all, she had no other reference for a proper comparison.

Her mind wandered for a bit, then she reached for the bedside table. Finding a remote, she pressed the curtain switch.

The drapes had barely parted when Cen Sen, squinting and frowning, snatched the remote from her hand and closed them again. A second later, his arm was back around her waist.

"Take your..."

The word "hand" hadn't even left her mouth when he withdrew his arm. He tugged at the duvet, his voice a low, irritable growl. "Quiet. Sleeping."

The deep furrow between his brows made it clear: he genuinely found her noise annoying.

Sated and scornful. That was him, all right.

Luckily, Ji Mingshu wasn't in a rush to get up. She gave him a light-but-not-too-light kick, rolled onto her other side, and grabbed her phone.

The previous night's gala was still a hot topic. Most of the chatter revolved around the celebrities.

Su Cheng, as the center of every photo, was mentioned constantly. Fashion bloggers had crowned her Best Dressed of the night. The comments were overwhelmingly positive, mostly variations on a single theme: "When the Best Actress shows up, the wannabes better step aside."

Ji Mingshu scrolled through the posts. Every photo that included Su Cheng either had half the frame cropped out, or the background was artfully blurred. Even the official video from Zero Degree was no exception.

This wasn't surprising. Cen Sen had always been a master of staying out of the public eye.

But after last night, everyone in their circle who mattered now knew, with absolute certainty, that the Jingjian heir was back.

Jingjian was the Cen family's core enterprise, its internal factions were notoriously complex, with years of infighting. 

In the current generation, Cen Yuanchao's branch had risen to dominate, controlling the state-supported construction projects, and the company's main revenue driver, Junyi Hotel Group. Holding absolute authority within Jingjian.

But Cen Yuanchao's health was in decline. He'd been rushed to the emergency room, openly or discreetly, several times now.

His illness had emboldened rival factions. While they couldn't topple the dominant branch, their relentless maneuvering had certainly created plenty of waves inside Jingjian.

As Cen Yuanchao's only son, the weight of responsibility on Cen Sen's shoulders was immense. His abilities, however, were more than equal to the task. On the surface, he seemed refined and gentlemanly, mild-mannered. But his moves were famously ruthless and decisive. Few in the younger generation dared to challenge him directly.

And Cen Sen was the kind of man who was ruthless to others, and absolutely merciless to himself. When he needed the Ji family's backing to suppress the southern Cen branch, he'd married Ji Mingshu, a socialite notorious in Beijing-Shanghai circles for her willful spoiled nature, without so much as a blink.

When the news of the Cen-Ji alliance first broke, everyone was stunned. Many even assumed the engagement was a temporary expedient, that an actual wedding would never materialize.

But the engagement came and went as scheduled. Cen Sen was transferred from Huazhang Holdings, a Junyi subsidiary, back to group headquarters as Director of Development. The path was clear: the young heir was using his new in-laws to solidify his claim to the throne.

From the announcement of the marriage through the post-wedding formalities, gossip about Cen Sen and Ji Mingshu never ceased.

It was only after six months of marriage that the couple finally faded from after-dinner conversation.

But just then, Cen Sen suddenly requested a transfer to Junyi’s Overseas Division, proposing to station himself in Australia to expand the company’s international market.

This, of course, caused another uproar.

Back when Cen Sen had first returned to Junyi headquarters, he'd pushed through the creation of "Shuiyunjian," a sub-brand centered on "hot spring getaways," against considerable opposition.

Few had faith in the project at the time. He'd forced it through, but with no immediate results, he found himself constrained by senior executives across other departments.

He never backed down, ruthlessly purged the petty troublemakers from the rival branches, his methods so thunderous that, for a time, he practically held all the power.

He'd weathered all that pressure, seen the hotel through to completion. He was on the verge of success, poised to take the next step. And then, to everyone bewilderment, he'd asked for the overseas post.

Now, two years later, mention a hot spring hotel, and the first name that came to mind, for those who could afford it and those who couldn't, was Junyi Shuiyunjian.

That level of brand recognition is the most direct, if silent, validation.

And now Cen Sen returned, just as quietly as he'd left. Everyone’s long-dormant curiosity was rekindled. From last night to this morning, private conversations were buzzing.

Ji Mingshu's phone was bombarded. Her WeChat was a sea of red unread messages. Just from the previews, she could tell they were all variations on the same theme, trying to pry information about Cen Sen out of her.

Gu Kaiyang, however, had no interest in probing about Cen Sen. She'd sent a voice message first thing in the morning, her tone teasing:

"Still in bed?"

"Cen Sen's really something else in bed, huh."

Ji Mingshu only tapped the first one. Before she could even bring it to her ear, the second one auto-played through the speaker.

She fumbled to stop it, but her thumb was too slow. By the time she hit the screen, the message had finished. Her "stop" became a "replay." "Cen Sen's really something else in bed, huh."

In the surrounding silence, the teasing words, in that mildly distorted voice, repeated twice, as if the listener were confirming and affirming it with relish.

Ji Mingshu tensed, her ears straining—

Behind her, the previously even breathing seemed to hitch.

She froze, then slowly, as if in slow motion, stuffed the phone under her pillow. Her body was a taut line. Her toes curled.

Cen Sen was awake.

Lying on the left side of the bed, he glanced at Ji Mingshu’s rigid, slender back, and a silent, humorless smile touched his lips. A moment later, he threw back the covers and got up.

Ji Mingshu heard his footsteps round the bed, coming closer. She squeezed her eyes shut, but her lashes fluttered traitorously. 

The footsteps drew near. Without thinking, she held her breath. In the span of a heartbeat, her mind ran through several ways to retort without losing face.

Five seconds.

Ten.

Thirty.

The footsteps approached, then receded. It wasn't until she heard the rush of water in the bathroom that she realized Cen Sen simply couldn't be bothered to call her bluff.

A wave of irritation washed over her. She opened her eyes and glared at the bathroom door for a solid few seconds. Then she threw off the covers and flopped back against the headboard with an exasperated thump.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a stack of documents on the nightstand on his side of the bed. She leaned over, stretching, struggling to reach them. Finally, her fingers closed around them.

Junyi Group: Designer Hotel Development Proposal.

She'd only grabbed it out of pique, a random target for her frustration. But the title on the cover caught her attention. Her expression shifted.

When Cen Sen emerged from the bathroom, Ji Mingshu was propped against the headboard, absorbed in the documents.

Her nightgown, rumpled from the night's activities, was now hiked up in an indecent tangle. Her legs were stretched out and crossed at the ankle, impossibly long and straight, distractingly pale.

Noticing his movement, eyes still glued to the documents, she asked. "Junyi is building a designer hotel?" 

He gave a noncommittal "Mm," tilting his chin up slightly as he did up the first button of his shirt.

Ji Mingshu said nothing more and continued flipping through the pages.

She was the only girl of her generation in the Ji family. Her parents had died when she was young, but her aunts and uncles had doted on her, famously so. Marrying into the Jingjian Cen family after graduation had only cemented her position at the very top of the capital's socialite scene.

Her daily life was a whirlwind of parties and last-minute international trips. To everyone looking in, she was living the dream in easy mode.

Probably no one remembered that she was, in fact, a top graduate of SCAD's interior design program. Not some empty-headed vase whose brain was just for show, only good for shopping.

“I recall you studied interior design at SCAD. Interested?” Cen Sen's question was abrupt.

Ji Mingshu looked up, staring at him for a few seconds. Not expecting her convenient husband to remember that.

It took her a moment to recover. She tried to school her features, to hide the spark of interest, the smug satisfaction that this was exactly what she wanted. She mentally composes a suitably gracious, haughty reply, something a princess might offer a lowly subject as a special favor.

But before Her Highness could deign to speak, Cen Sen continued. "Once the hotel is finished, I'll have someone take you for a private tour."

…?

“A tour?”

"You weren't thinking of being involved in the design, were you?" He didn't even entertain the notion. "Out of the question. The hotel isn't a place for you to practice."

Ji Mingshu couldn't help herself. "I designed last night's gala set-up."

Cen Sen paused, turning to look back at her. "Ah. So that was you."

It was a sudden realization, freighted with meaning.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you definitely can't be involved in the hotel."

He finished fastening his watch with deliberate slowness, his eyes half-lidded. Delivering the verdict with the finality of a judge.

A flush crept up Ji Mingshu's neck. She sat up straight, suddenly defensive. "Last night wasn’t representative of my actual skills!”

Her voice shot up an octave, perfectly demonstrating ‘those without a leg to stand on tend to shout the loudest’.

Cen Sen's expression hovered between a smile and a smirk. He raised an eyebrow, a silent invitation for her to explain.

It was a long story. The original plan for the gala had been a "roundtable" theme, a callback to Zero Degree's very first issue ten years ago.

But right after Ji Mingshu had finalized the designs, headquarters and the sponsors had a falling out. The budget got slashed.

Fashion runs on money. Zero Degree refused to scale back, and headquarters refused to increase the budget. After a week of pointless arguing, a compromise was reached: merge the tenth-anniversary gala with the next quarter's charity event, and move the whole thing up.

Once you added the word "charity," playing with high-fashion concepts and party themes became inappropriate. That meant her original design had to be completely scrapped.

Ji Mingshu hated last-minute changes. And she had a notoriously high opinion of herself. The last time she'd deigned to work was two years ago, designing the early spring show for Chris Chou's debut at Milan Fashion Week. She'd only taken this Zero Degree case as a favor to Gu Kaiyang, and the magazine had been impossibly demanding from the start. When they'd had the nerve to suggest scrapping her finished designs and start over, she'd hung up on the editor-in-chief without a second thought.

Her initial plan was to walk out. Let someone else deal with it. But Gu Kaiyang had worn her down with pleading, and in the end, she'd agreed to a new plan.

But with the time crunch and the complete do-over, the new design was, she had to admit, a bit phoned in. The final result was adequate, no lack of luxury, yet devoid of distinctive character.

Ji Mingshu was just as dissatisfied with last night's result as anyone. But the excuses died on her lips. She opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again. Nothing came out. Finally, she just slumped back onto the bed, kneeling in defeat.

Cen Sen was already dressed and ready to leave. Her failure to produce a convincing argument didn't seem to surprise him. His gaze cooled. "Kneeling to me won't help. You might as well kowtow your way to the Potala Palace. Maybe that'll move heaven and earth."

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