My Queen, My Rules - 34
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The hotel suites under the Junyi brand were all meticulously lit. Bright spotlights illuminated the wine cabinet and bookshelves, the bathroom mirror glowed beneath a ring of motion-sensor LED lights, while the bamboo floor lamp beside the bed cast a soft amber glow that was warm without fully dispelling the shadows. In the silence, as they looked into each other's eyes, the tranquil atmosphere seemed to grow even gentler, tinged with an unmistakable intimacy.
The distance between them shrank with every passing second. They could hear each other's heartbeat as clearly as their own.
For two consenting adults, what came next should have been the most natural thing in the world.
—If only Ji Mingshu's stomach hadn't chosen that exact moment to growl.
Even after waking the next morning and heading back to the filming location, Ji Mingshu still couldn't stop thinking about what had happened the night before.
Her mind replayed the image of them gazing into each other's eyes, just moments away from kissing. The ill-timed rumble from her stomach filled her with unconscious regret, and before she knew it, her imagination had wandered even further, reconstructing every shameful possibility of what should have happened afterward.
"Mingshu? Mingshu?" Feng Yan called twice before she snapped out of it. "Why are you smiling to yourself? We're here."
Yan Yuexing glanced over, disdain flickering across her face. Seeing that the cameras hadn't started rolling yet, she couldn't be bothered pretending. "Someone's in heat," she sneered.
With that, she got out first, calling for her makeup artist to touch up her face. At the same time, she kept stealing nervous glances back toward the van, pretending to casually peer inside.
These past few days, Ji Mingshu had suppressed her at every turn, she was practically bursting with resentment. But as a youthful idol, no matter how many curse words she had bottled up inside, she couldn't brazenly say them in front of the cameras the way Ji Mingshu could.
Ji Mingshu was seriously impossible to deal with. God knew where she got her confidence. She had no concept of humility or restraint, bulldozing through everything head-on without the slightest hesitation.
Having experienced Ji Mingshu's sheer arrogance firsthand these past days, Yan Yuexing couldn't help regretting her sharp tongue the moment the words left her mouth. She nervously worried Ji Mingshu would suddenly come charging off the van and slap her across the face with both hands. Honestly, she was absolutely certain Ji Mingshu was capable of just that.
Fortunately, by the time Ji Mingshu returned from her increasingly out-of-control imagination, she had no energy left to settle scores with Yan Yuexing. Instead, she was too busy reeling from an even more horrifying realization: She had actually developed inappropriate thoughts about Cen Sen.
How humiliating!
How unbelievable!
She patted both cheeks repeatedly, silently urging herself to wake up.
How could she possibly regret not doing something with Cen Sen?
How could she have gone so far as to imagine the rest herself?
No. Impossible. She had simply gone too long without sex. That had to be why she was so desperately pent-up!
Besides, there was no way she could ever like a man she'd clashed with since childhood.
The very idea was ridiculous.
She just…very simply… liked his money!
Right. Exactly. That was all.
Having successfully convinced herself, Ji Mingshu gave a solemn nod.
***
The chaos of yesterday, coupled with another restless night's sleep, meant Cen Sen still hadn't adjusted to the time difference.
Early that morning, he had gathered the senior executives of the regional branch for a meeting. A room full of impeccably dressed professionals spent three solid hours pointing fingers, shifting blame, and arguing endlessly.
Their president sat right there at the head of the table, yet they still bickered red-faced like heirs fighting over an inheritance.
Even after the meeting ended, the deafening racket still echoed through Cen Sen's mind like a flock of squawking ducks.
He shut himself in his office, instructed Zhou Jiaheng not to let anyone in, leaned back in his chair, and listened to piano music for half an hour before the pounding in his head finally eased.
People always claimed women were noisy. Compared to that bunch of men, even Ji Mingshu seemed gentle and soft-spoken.
Thinking of her, he picked up his phone, opened WeChat, and accepted her friend request.
Cen Sen rarely browsed through Moments, but seeing that Ji Mingshu had photos posted, he casually tapped into her profile for a quick look.
That quick look somehow lasted more than half an hour.
Her Moments were much as he'd expected. Alongside all the carefully curated images of an elegant socialite and Mrs. Cen, there were also plenty of everyday posts full of life, and more than a few that were surprisingly silly.
It wasn't until Zhou Jiaheng called through the office intercom to remind him about his afternoon engagement that he'd finally reached Ji Mingshu's New Year's photos from the beginning of the year.
She was building a snowman with the younger members of the Cen family, bundled up in a fluffy winter coat with a little red hat perched on her head. Her eyes curved into bright crescents as she smiled, looking radiant and irresistibly adorable.
As he quietly saved the photo, he continued issuing work instructions in his usual calm tone.
Meanwhile, Ji Mingshu was eating the hotel-provided lunchbox while scrolling through her phone. The sudden flood of notifications startled her so badly she nearly dropped her meal.
She had only just opened Moments when she saw dozens of alerts. Tapping them open, she discovered that Cen Sen had liked well over a hundred of her posts.
Just as she began wondering whether the app had developed some bizarre bug, more notifications continued appearing in real time.
One after another, the likes kept rolling in. The older the posts became, the more comments accompanied them.
Cen Sen: [The photo is out of focus.]
Cen Sen: [The colors of your outfit are too bright.]
Cen Sen: [Wrong verb tense.]
Cen Sen: [Misused idiom.]
Ji Mingshu stared blankly at the notifications, her head filling with question marks.
Did he think he was her homeroom teacher, grading homework while scrolling?
Ji Mingshu: [?]
Ji Mingshu: [What on earth are you doing?]
Cen Sen: [Looking through your Moments.]
She had always left her Moments visible to everyone. But somehow, Cen Sen had never existed within the imaginary audience she'd envisioned.
And what exactly was wrong with this man? Fine, look if you wanted to. But why like every single post and leave comments as though announcing, ‘His Majesty has reviewed this’? It made absolutely no sense.
Not wanting to waste time arguing, Ji Mingshu solved the problem at its source. She changed her Moments visibility to the past three days only, then triumphantly sent him a tongue-out sticker.
Unexpectedly, Cen Sen refused to play by the rules.
Without warning, he sent her a candid photo of her building the snowman during New Year, then offered a personal review.
Cen Sen: [This one's the best.]
Ji Mingshu: [...]
Cen Sen: [You look cute here.]
Ji Mingshu: [...]
Heat instantly rushed to her ears.
This... this Dog Man wasn't trying to flirt with her, was he? Where had this sudden direct attack come from?
Flustered for reasons she couldn't explain, she hurriedly shoved her phone into her bag.
She finished her lunch absentmindedly, and while heading upstairs, she happened to run into Feng Yan and Pei Xiyan sawing lumber.
Most of the wood they were cutting served no real purpose. It was simply there to make the program more entertaining, creating the illusion that the custom furniture had been built with the guests' own hands.
Since filming hadn't started yet, the two were only practicing. After all, if their sawing posture looked too awkward during the actual recording, they’d likely get roasted by viewers.
Ji Mingshu squatted nearby with her chin resting in her hands, watching them as her thoughts continued drifting somewhere out in deep space.
Feng Yan casually asked, "Mingshu, what's wrong? You seem a little distracted today."
Snapping back to reality, Ji Mingshu replied, "I'm fine. I was just thinking... about how we can make our design more practical."
Neither Feng Yan nor Pei Xiyan had much to contribute.
They were celebrities accustomed to comfortable lives. They could appreciate Ji Mingshu's sophisticated designs, but had little understanding of how to make them more functional for everyday living.
After Cen Sen pointed out the previous night that her design lacked practicality, Ji Mingshu had given it serious thought.
But construction was already more than halfway complete, there wasn't much room to alter the structural design.
The only thing she could still adjust was the furnishings.
She believed the biggest issue was the lack of storage space. On her way over that morning, she'd visited one of the neighboring households, and after observing how they actually lived, she'd temporarily revised several pieces of custom furniture.
Take the sofa, for example.
Xingcheng was in the south, where centralized floor heating wasn't standard in winter. Most families relied on electric space heaters to stay warm.
She noticed the neighbors kept theirs beneath the coffee table. But these heaters were generally bulky. They took up the storage space underneath, left little room to stretch your legs while watching TV, and didn't look aesthetically pleasing either.
So she redesigned the custom sofa. Beneath the long sofa's base, she reserved a rectangular compartment specifically for storing the heater, concealed behind a pair of sliding wooden doors. The bases on both ends of the sofa would also be converted into storage cabinets.
Naturally, the finer details would have to wait until she returned and revised the complete design plans.
Ji Mingshu continued watching for a while longer. When they turned the log around to saw from another angle, she suddenly asked out of nowhere, "Let me ask you guys a question."
Feng Yan: "What question?"
Ji Mingshu: "So... would guys suddenly go and like a girl's posts over a hundred times, save one of her photos from Moments, send it back to her, tell her it's your favorite, and call her cute?"
Feng Yan and Pei Xiyan both paused. They exchanged bewildered looks before simultaneously shaking their heads.
Fine, Pei Xiyan was still basically a kid without any dating experience.
But Feng Yan wasn't exactly young anymore, so what was he shaking his head for?
Ji Mingshu pressed on. "Then what do you think that kind of behavior usually means?"
Feng Yan: "Uh... maybe... he likes her?"
"What ‘likes’? It's just flirting!" Yan Yuexing rolled her eyes, profoundly exasperated by three people whose combined age was well over sixty acting like they were innocent teenagers.
Afraid the two women would start arguing again, Feng Yan quickly gave Ji Mingshu a subtle shake of his head, signaling her not to respond.
By now everyone had seen Yan Yuexing's true colors. On camera she was the sweet, adorable idol. Off camera she was practically a street punk.
At first she'd tried maintaining a good image to get close to Pei Xiyan. Unfortunately for her, Ji Mingshu constantly shielded him, while Pei Xiyan possessed an almost supernatural ability to disappear whenever she approached. Even though they were filming the same show, she barely managed to exchange more than a few words with him, so eventually she gave up.
She's married to Cen Sen. They've already slept together. What 'flirting' is there to do?
Ji Mingshu ignored Yan Yuexing's nonsense. Resting her chin in her hand, she seriously considered Feng Yan's answer.
Did Cen Sen actually like her?
It felt so strange. Normally she couldn't sense it at all, then every so often he'd suddenly do something like this.
Could intermittent amnesia come with intermittent affection too?
She continued discussing the matter with Feng Yan.
Throughout the conversation, Pei Xiyan maintained a polite distance, not participating in the conversation. Midway through, however, he stepped outside to answer a phone call from Cen Sen.
Cen Sen was calling to ask whether Ji Mingshu had revised the design plans yet. He had already messaged her on WeChat, but she apparently hadn't looked at her phone and still hadn't replied.
Pei Xiyan answered a few questions. Finally, after a brief hesitation, he added, "Sen-ge... I think someone might be pursuing Mingshu-jie lately."
Cen Sen: "What?"
Feeling that it wasn't really appropriate for a guy to gossip like this, Pei Xiyan simply told him to ask Ji Mingshu himself.
But after Cen Sen pressed more, he had no choice.
Clearing his throat awkwardly, he summarized, "Some guy liked a whole bunch of Mingshu-jie's Moments posts, sent one of her photos back to her, and told her she looked pretty and cute. That's all. Just... don't tell her I was the one who told you."
He coughed again, sounding distinctly embarrassed by his own act of tattling.
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