My Queen, My Rules - 31

Hungry

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Ji Mingshu: [You told Pei Xiyan to keep his distance from me?]

Ji Mingshu: [Are you even human?]

Ji Mingshu: [Since meeting you, all I want to know is how many years you get for murder.jpg]

Ten minutes later, she received a reply from Cen Sen.

He said nothing in response to her questions. He only addressed her last meme, firing back a screenshot of legal statutes on penalties for intentional homicide.

A quick scan showed sentences starting at ten years, with suspended death sentences and the death penalty taking center stage.

Ji Mingshu: [?]

Ji Mingshu: [I see you don't want a wife anymore.jpg]

Seeing this meme, Cen Sen didn’t bother dragging out the argument. He simply held down the voice message button and said calmly, “Getting too close to a popular celebrity won’t do you any good. Tone it down a little.”

He checked the time and added, “By the way, I’m flying to Los Angeles tonight. I’ll be back in a week. But I’ll stop by the capital first before coming to Xingcheng.”

“Zhou Jiaheng is already in Xingcheng. Contact him if you need anything.”

The situation at the Xingcheng branch was more troublesome than anticipated.

In recent years, Jingjian’s internal affairs had been unstable. Cen Yuanchao had spent tremendous effort purging and cleaning the house, but in doing so, the day-to-day operations of subsidiaries like Junyi had been somewhat neglected.

As the Junyi Group’s second most important base, the Xingcheng branch had been left under the control of local executives for years, creating a feudalistic stronghold. Breaking it down overnight was unrealistic; they could only chip away at it piece by piece.

Cen Sen couldn’t put all his other work on hold for an internal branch conflict. He sent Zhou Jiaheng ahead to keep an eye on things while he temporarily extricated himself to discuss more critical partnerships.

Ji Mingshu listened to the two voice messages, pausing for three seconds.

This was his reason for breaking up the Yan-Shu pairing?

But any further messages she sent to Cen Sen sank like a stone, unanswered.

Fuming, she immediately blocked him with the full ‘till-death-do-us-part’ deluxe package, blocking and deleting him in one fluid, practiced motion. In her heart, she cursed this Dog Man to have a smooth journey, and , worried the curse wasn’t potent enough, she even added a few polygons and triangular prisms for good measure.

Once her anger subsided, Ji Mingshu reconsidered. Cen Sen was a dead end, but maybe she could get somewhere with Pei Xiyan.

Her precious idol was young. A few sweet words would probably get him to spill everything—how he and Cen Sen knew each other, Cen Sen’s exact words about keeping distance—in one go.

She could even brainwash the kid a little, convince him not to listen to Cen Sen's nonsense.

But she never expected Pei Xiyan to have principles of steel. Having promised Cen Sen to keep his distance, he absolutely avoided any physical contact, rarely even made eye contact, let alone allowed her close enough for persuasion. During filming, if he sensed her trying to approach, he would deftly evade.

Ji Mingshu was livid.

The only silver lining was that this intentional distancing wasn’t too obvious, lost in the blanket of icy indifference Pei Xiyan showed everyone.

He was quiet and aloof the whole time, just following instructions, practicing the adage “more work, less talk” flawlessly.

In contrast, Yan Yuexing was a classic counterexample. She talked more than the other three group members combined but did the least work. Sweeping the floor required frequent breaks to catch her breath, all while chattering cutely in front of the camera, putting on a sweet, helpless act.

That was annoying enough, but she didn't just avoid work, she actively created more.

Ji Mingshu: “What is this you bought? Six thousand five? Are you insane?”

Under the triple pressure of a “tight budget,” “being the leader,” and “the kid is ignoring me,” Ji Mingshu learned the harsh realities of life in just a few days.

Initially, she had no concept of a design budget. Twenty thousand to renovate an entire house felt like a joke—not even enough for a bathroom.

Later, she secretly asked experienced designers from other teams and searched online for ordinary home renovation cases. Only then did she realize the program’s funding was actually reasonable.

She’d also spent days running around building material markets and furniture stores. Being on the ground taught her that many materials weren’t as expensive as she’d assumed. Soft furnishings, too, offered plenty of options if you weren’t chasing classic pieces or limited editions by famous furniture designers.

In a matter of days, the formerly luxury-obsessed Miss Ji, for whom no extravagance was too great, had created a detailed Excel spreadsheet for the 200,000-yuan renovation fund, budgeting down to the single digit. She repeatedly emphasized to her team: don't buy anything impractical or unrelated to the design plan.

Who could have guessed Yan Yuexing would disregard teamwork entirely and suddenly bring back a rug costing sixty-five hundred?

Facing Ji Mingshu’s interrogation, which teetered on a full-blown catfight, Yan Yuexing had the audacity to play innocent. “A rug. Don’t you think it’s beautiful? It’s this year’s limited edition by a very famous designer. It was the last one in the whole home furnishing market!”

Ji Mingshu recognized the design at a glance. Without even looking up, she said, “Return it.”

“Why? This rug is very versatile. It’ll give the living room sofa area a real postmodern vibe.”

After having her taste criticized as hopelessly tacky during the first recording, Yan Yuexing had been furious. She’d crammed a few days of design terminology and now peppered her speech with words like “postmodern” and “high saturation,” which might sound artsy at first blush.

Ji Mingshu, her head throbbing and heart choked, couldn't be bothered that the cameras were still rolling. She launched into a furious tirade.

“Can you just shut up? Do you even know what postmodernism is? This isn’t postmodern, it’s bullshit!”

She threw the rug at Yan Yuexing’s feet. “If you don’t understand, then talk less and work more. Did you even graduate college? Are the songs you sing your own original creations? Do you have the most basic respect for original design in your head? This is from a brand collectively boycotted by the fashion industry, barred from entering the Chinese market. They haven't changed their ways, just partnered with a furniture manufacturer for this piece-of-crap rug they still dare to sell for 6,500! And the worst part is there are half-baked posers like you who actually praise it!”

She was practically laughing in anger.

Yan Yuexing was stunned by the verbal assault.

Feng Yan tried to play peacemaker, but before his "Let it go, let it go" was fully out, Ji Mingshu cut him off directly. “No. We can’t just ‘let it go’.”

She stared coldly at Yan Yuexing. “Either you go return this rug right now, or you keep it and pay for it yourself. My work does not need garbage from a collectively boycotted brand!”

Her meticulous Excel budgeting wasn’t for wasting on this kind of trash.

Did this little girl really think she could play games with her? She could go eat shit!

After days of cooperation, all the crew members saw the dynamic clearly:

In other teams, the non-celebrity designer was more of an accessory, often having to tactfully accommodate the celebrity's unreasonable and strange ideas.

In this team, the designer was the undisputed backbone, overpowering everyone from skill to presence, calling all the shots.

Feng Yan and Pei Xiyan basically did whatever she told them. Yan Yuexing loved to stir the pot, but she was no match for the designer, ending up sulking every time.

She wanted to pull the diva card, but with even Pei Xiyan quietly waiting for his assigned tasks, she didn’t have the clout to make the production team care. The directors simply ignored her.

So, unsurprisingly, the Rug War ended in another total victory for Ji Mingshu.

Yan Yuexing, putting on a show of wounded pride, took the rug back to the home furnishing market to return it, muttering a stream of white-lotus remarks to the camera along the way.

But Ji Mingshu had no time for that. The renovation schedule was tight, and every aspect required her coordination and oversight.

All her past projects, including conceptual work from her student days, never required her personal involvement in the physical execution. It was all somewhat theoretical.

This was her first time doing a more lifestyle-oriented interior design and her first time participating in the actual renovation after completing the drawings.

During the first two recordings, she’d been distracted. But once she got into the groove, she became fully immersed.

Lunch was the boxed meals provided by the crew. Though balanced with meat and vegetables, packed in plastic containers, they were hardly appealing. Combined with the dusty, foul-smelling air of the renovation site, Ji Mingshu completely lost her appetite.

While everyone else was eating, she was still in the music room testing the soundproofing materials.

Coming out of the music room, her vision suddenly went blank for a moment. It took about four or five seconds for her to recover from that stiff state.

Ji Mingshu rubbed her temples. Something felt off with her body lately—frequent dizziness, vertigo, nausea. It felt like the classic early pregnancy symptoms she’d heard about.

But she and Cen Sen hadn’t done it in a long time, and the last time they had, they used protection. Plus, she’d had her period recently. Pregnancy seemed unlikely.

She walked to the balcony for some fresh air and suddenly remembered Yan Yuexing's frequent complaints about the awful smell in the house, that there might be formaldehyde and they could be poisoned . Ji Mingshu started feeling uneasy.

Things like wall paint were sponsored products. She’d searched online; they were all certified environmentally friendly. But with these things, who could say for sure.

Ji Mingshu probably hadn't heard the saying, ‘Ask Baidu once, you have a disease; ask Baidu twice, your grave is already set’. Too scared to see a doctor, she actually searched her symptoms online.

After reading the results, her face turned pale , and her anxiety grew stronger.

In the following days, Ji Mingshu had no appetite, couldn’t sleep well, and ran around between the construction site and material markets every day. She visibly lost weight. No one knew what dark scenarios she was conjuring alone in bed late at night.

A week passed quickly, and Cen Sen finally began his return journey.

While waiting at the airport, seeing the brand of a handbag Ji Mingshu often carried, he went in and bought the latest model.

Cen Sen’s original plan was to return to the capital first to discuss the An family matter with the Old Master.

Who could have predicted that the moment he landed, Zhou Jiaheng called: “President Cen, Madam fainted at the program recording site. She was urgently taken to a nearby hospital half an hour ago.”

“Understood.”

Without even leaving the airport, he boarded a direct flight to Xingcheng.

Ji Mingshu had fainted suddenly while moving furniture. Dizzy, nauseous, a flash of white light before her eyes, then she collapsed, unconscious.

The production team rushed her to the hospital and notified her emergency contact.

The contact she’d listed was Zhou Jiaheng.

As Cen Sen’s chief assistant, his reliability was about a hundred times that of his boss. His phone was practically always on and answered.

Within half an hour of being notified, he was already at the hospital.

But Ji Mingshu hadn’t woken up.

She slept until dusk . The sunset glow streamed through the floor-to-ceiling window, casting an orange-red light. Finally, Ji Mingshu slowly opened her eyes.

A minute or two passed before her consciousness fully returned, and she realized she’d fainted and was in the hospital.

Her eyes shifted, landing on Cen Sen standing by the bed. Her heart sank.

—Even Cen Sen was here.

Noticing she was awake, Cen Sen walked back to the bedside and said impassively, “You’re awake.”

Ji Mingshu didn't speak. Her face showed no emotion, neither sorrow nor joy. After a thousand internal struggles and ten thousand reluctant thoughts, she asked calmly, "What's wrong with me?”

Cen Sen remained silent.

“It’s fine. Tell me. I can take it.”

Ji Mingshu’s eyelashes lowered. One hand was on an IV drip; the other was clenched into a tight fist under the covers. Thinking of all the countries she hadn’t visited, the delicacies she hadn't tasted, the Birkin bags she hadn’t collected, her heart ached with a dull pain. She was already debating whether to undergo chemotherapy and if it would make her ugly.

“…”

“You’re hungry.”

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