My Queen, My Rules - 34
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The lighting in Junyi Group hotel suites was always meticulously designed. Spotlights on the liquor cabinet and bookshelves cast bright pools of light. The bathroom mirror was framed by an LED sensor ring. And the bamboo floor lamp by the bed emitted a soft, warm, dappled glow. In the surrounding silence, with their eyes locked, that gentle light seemed to add a layer of tender, ambiguous sentiment.
The distance between them shrank. Heartbeats grew audible in each other's ears.
They were two consenting adults. What was about to happen next felt like a natural progression.
—If Ji Mingshu's stomach hadn't chosen that exact moment to growl.
Even the next morning, as she got up to continue filming the show, Ji Mingshu was still replaying the previous night in her head.
The image of their faces drawing close, on the verge of a kiss, was burned into her mind. She felt an unconscious, grating regret over her stomach’s untimely betrayal. Unbidden, her imagination even took over, reconstructing the ahem, intimate scenario that should have followed.
"Mingshu? Mingshu?" Feng Yan called her twice. "What are you smiling at? We're here."
Yan Yuexing glanced over at the sound, her expression tinged with disdain. With the cameras still off, she couldn't be bothered to put on an act. "Getting frisky, are we?" she snipped sarcastically.
With that, she was the first out of the van, immediately calling for her makeup artist while anxiously glancing back, pretending to casually peer inside.
These past few days, Yan Yuexing had been thoroughly suppressed by Ji Mingshu, and she was fuming. The problem was, as a girl-group member, even if she had a thousand curses on the tip of her tongue, she couldn't unleash them with the fearless abandon Ji Mingshu displayed in front of the cameras.
And Ji Mingshu was seriously a weird one. God knew where she got her confidence. She had no concept of humility or restraint, charging through everything head-on and openly.
Having experienced Ji Mingshu's sheer audacity firsthand these past days, Yan Yuexing felt a pang of regret and anxiety after her snide remark. She was afraid Ji Mingshu would snap out of it, charge down from the van, and slap her twice across the face. She was absolutely certain Ji Mingshu was capable of just that.
However, when Ji Mingshu finally snapped out of her vivid daydream, she had no time to settle scores over a petty insult. She was quickly submerged in a new wave of shock: "I actually had indecent thoughts about Cen Sen?!" The realization left her reeling.
So shameful!
So unreal!
Ji Mingshu patted her cheeks, mentally urging herself to wake up.
How could she possibly feel regret over not doing something with Cen Sen? And even fantasize about it?
No, impossible! She must just be… pent up. Yes, that was it. It had been too long since she’d had sex, that's all!
Besides, there was no way she could like a man she’d been fundamentally incompatible with since childhood. What a joke!
She just…very simply… liked his money!
Right. Exactly. That was all.
Having convinced herself, Ji Mingshu gave a firm, solemn nod.
---
The previous day had been chaotic, and his sleep at night had been shallow. Cen Sen hadn't managed to shake off the jet lag.
Early that morning, he’d called a meeting with the branch’s senior management. Executives who were usually the picture of propriety sat there, pointing fingers and shirking responsibility, arguing for a full three hours.
With him, a living, breathing person, sitting right at the head of the table, they’d argued until they were red in the face, putting on a performance worthy of a feud over an inheritance.
By the time the meeting adjourned, the clamorous din of what felt like a boiling duck pond still echoed in Cen Sen's head.
He entered his office alone, instructing Zhou Jiaheng not to let anyone in, and leaned back in his chair. He listened to piano music for half an hour before finally feeling his mind clear.
People always said women were noisy. Compared to this lot, he felt Ji Mingshu could qualify as a model of gentle consideration.
Thinking of Ji Mingshu, he picked up his phone, opened WeChat, and accepted her friend request.
Cen Sen rarely browsed Moments. Noticing Ji Mingshu had photos in her album, he casually clicked to take a look.
That "casual look" would turn into over half an hour of scrolling.
Ji Mingshu's Moments were largely as he’d imagined, but alongside posts carefully crafting her image as an elegant socialite and wealthy wife, there were many brimming with everyday life, even a touch of silliness.
Zhou Jiaheng called on the intercom to remind him of his afternoon engagement just as he reached the New Year photos Ji Mingshu had posted at the beginning of the year.
In the photo, she was building a snowman with the younger members of the Cen family, bundled in a fuzzy coat, a little red hat perched on her head, her eyes curved into happy crescents—bright and adorable.
As he saved the photo, he calmly issued work instructions.
---
On the other side, Ji Mingshu, munching on a hotel-delivered lunchbox while scrolling through her phone, nearly dropped her food in shock.
She’d just opened her Moments to see a flood of notifications. Clicking in, she discovered it was Cen Sen—he’d liked over a hundred of her posts!
And just as she was wondering if this garbage app had finally glitched, Cen Sen was still actively liking posts in real time.
Notification after notification kept popping up. The posts he was liking grew older and older, and had now started to include live commentary.
Cen Sen: [The photo is out of focus.]
Cen Sen: [The clothing color is too garish.]
Cen Sen: [Wrong verb tense.]
Cen Sen: [Misused idiom.]
Ji Mingshu stared at the comment alerts, her mind full of question marks. Did he think he was a homeroom teacher, grading her posts as he went?
Ji Mingshu: [?]
Ji Mingshu: [What the hell are you doing?]
Cen Sen: [Looking at your Moments.]
While her Moments were publicly shared, Cen Sen had never been within her intended audience. And what was with this man? Looking was one thing, but did he have to like and comment on everything? Was this his version of "We have noted this report"? It was utterly baffling!
Ji Mingshu didn't want to argue. She went straight to the source, changing her Moments visibility to "Last 3 days." Then she posted a smug, tongue-sticking-out emoji.
Unexpectedly, Cen Sen didn't play by the usual rules. Out of the blue, he sent her a candid photo from when she was building snowmen during the New Year, with a personal review.
Cen Sen: [This one is the best.]
Ji Mingshu: […]
Cen Sen: [Pretty cute.]
Ji Mingshu: […]
Her ears flushed red.
This… this Dog Man… was he trying to flirt with her? What was with this sudden direct attack?
Feeling oddly flustered, she quickly stashed her phone in her bag.
---
She finished her lunch absentmindedly. Heading upstairs, she ran into Feng Yan and Pei Xiyan sawing wood.
Most of the wood they were sawing was useless, just a ploy to enhance the show's appeal, to make the audience think the guests had a hand in crafting these custom furniture.
The cameras were off now, and they were just practicing. After all, if their sawing posture looked too awkward during the actual recording, they’d likely get roasted online.
Ji Mingshu crouched down nearby, cupping her face as she watched them, but her thoughts were still drifting in outer space.
Feng Yan asked casually, "Mingshu, what's up? You seem a bit out of it today."
Ji Mingshu snapped back to reality. "I'm fine. I was just thinking… about the practicality of our design. How can we actually improve it."
Feng Yan and Pei Xiyan had no input on that.
They were celebrities, mostly accustomed to a life of comfort. They could appreciate Ji Mingshu's high-end designs but didn't know how to make them more livable.
Cen Sen had said last night that Ji Mingshu's designs lacked practicality, and she had given it serious thought.
But the renovation period was more than half over. There wasn't much room for changes to the hard construction; she could only focus on the soft furnishings.
She felt the root of the "not homely enough" problem was insufficient storage. Coming over today, she had visited a neighbor in the building. Based on her observations, she’d made some temporary modifications to a few custom furniture blueprints.
Take the sofa, for instance.
Xingcheng was in the south, where centralized floor heating wasn't standard in winter. Most households used electric heaters.
At the neighbor's place, she noticed they placed the electric heater under the coffee table. But these heaters were generally quite bulky. Putting them under the coffee table not only took up the legroom, making it uncomfortable to stretch out while watching TV, but it also wasn't very aesthetically pleasing.
So, she revised the custom sofa design. She left a rectangular space in the base of the long sofa section for storing the electric heater, with a small sliding wooden door on the front. The bases of the two side sofa sections were designed as storage cabinets.
Of course, more detailed adjustments would need to be made to the overall design drawings later today.
Ji Mingshu squatted a while longer, watching them reposition the wood. Suddenly, she blurted out, "Let me ask you guys a question."
Feng Yan: "What question?"
Ji Mingshu: "Well, would you guys suddenly like a bunch of a girl's posts, then save one of her photos, send it to her, tell her it's really pretty, and even call her cute?"
Feng Yan and Pei Xiyan paused, looked at each other, then shook their heads in unison.
It was one thing for Pei Xiyan, still a kid with no relationship experience, but Feng Yan wasn't that young. What was he shaking his head for?
Ji Mingshu pressed Feng Yan, "Then what do you think that kind of behavior usually means?"
Feng Yan: "That… probably means he likes her?"
"What 'liking'? It's just flirting!" Yan Yuexing rolled her eyes, profoundly exasperated by these three people with a combined age over sixty pretending to be pure and innocent.
Feng Yan, worried the two girls would clash again, subtly shook his head at Ji Mingshu, signaling her to let it go.
By now, everyone had pretty much seen Yan Yuexing's true colors. In front of the cameras, she was a cute, moe girl-group idol. The moment the cameras were off, she was a little punk.
Initially, she’d wanted to maintain a good image and get close to Pei Xiyan. Unfortunately, Ji Mingshu was fiercely protective, and Pei Xiyan himself had maxed-out evasion skills. Even working on the same show, she couldn't get near him, barely exchanging a few words. She'd long since given up on the futile effort.
They're married; they could just go to bed directly. What 'flirting' is there to do? Ji Mingshu ignored Yan Yuexing's nonsense, propping her chin on her hand, deeply pondering Feng Yan's words. Did Cen Sen like her?
Weird. She usually didn't get that vibe at all. He just did this occasionally. Was there such a thing as intermittent affection to go with intermittent amnesia?
She discussed it a bit more with Feng Yan.
Throughout this, Pei Xiyan maintained a polite distance, not participating in the conversation. However, at one point, he stepped out to take a call—from Cen Sen.
Cen Sen was calling to ask if Ji Mingshu had revised the design plans. He’d just messaged her on WeChat, but she didn't seem to have checked her phone and hadn't replied.
Pei Xiyan answered briefly. Finally, after a moment's thought, he added, "Brother Sen, um, it seems like someone is pursuing Sister Mingshu lately."
Cen Sen: "What?"
Pei Xiyan felt that as a guy, he shouldn't gossip. He told Cen Sen to ask Ji Mingshu himself.
But Cen Sen asked again. Unable to refuse, Pei Xiyan gave a light cough and said succinctly, "Some guy liked a bunch of Sister Mingshu's Moments posts, saved her photo, sent it to her, and told her she looked pretty and cute. That's all. Don't tell her I told you."
He coughed again, seemingly embarrassed by his own act of tattling.
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