My Queen, My Rules - 62
CEO's Wife
Fresh out of sleep, Ji Mingshu was still a little dazed. Her eyes were swollen and sore from crying the night before, but after getting the comfort she had wanted from Cen Sen, she felt surprisingly calm as she looked at the even more vicious abuse filling her Weibo.
Last night, she was convinced she'd be too angry to sleep. But after her call with Cen Sen, she'd fallen asleep almost immediately.
Still, waking up to find what should have died down had somehow exploded into an even bigger storm left her utterly bewildered.
Just then, Gu Kaiyang called to check on her. Yawning, Ji Mingshu assured her she was fine, then brushed her teeth while listening to Gu Kaiyang passionately recount what she dramatically dubbed The Ji Mingshu Incident that had unfolded overnight.
Editor Gu truly deserved her reputation. She could invent a headline dramatic enough to belong in a disaster documentary without even trying. Ji Mingshu nearly choked herself fully awake.
But listening more carefully, the whole story basically came down to one thing: after her family stepped in, the internet had reacted with one spectacular chain reaction after another.
Gu Kaiyang explained that her family had been incredibly heavy-handed. Realizing blocking searches for "Ji Mingshu" hadn't slowed the discussion, they'd gone on to block related keywords across major forums as well, including "designer," "JMS," and practically every derivative anyone could think of.
Thanks to that operation, Ji Mingshu had earned herself a brand-new nickname across the internet overnight.
The Silencer. :)
The gossip queens had even invented an entire series of jokes and memes around her: "As Quiet as Ji," "Lights out. Everyone shut up," "Looks like you've been served... another helping of Ji."
What had started as an incredibly depressing situation somehow had Ji Mingshu laughing so hard she sprayed toothpaste foam all over the bathroom mirror.
After brushing her teeth, she quickly called her second uncle. She wheedled, pleaded, and swore repeatedly that she could handle everything herself. Only then did he finally agree to reverse the sweeping restrictions he'd ordered.
Finally, and unsurprisingly, Ji still received a lecture. It was the usual litany: she shouldn't be making a public spectacle of herself and should be focusing on nurturing her relationship with Cen Sen.
Ji Mingshu patiently answered with a stream of obedient "Mm-hm"s and "Okay"s, simply waiting for the inevitable ‘Think it over yourself’, before he hung up.
Instead, after finishing his lecture, her second uncle unexpectedly added something new. "Xiao Shu, neither of you is getting any younger. You should start preparing over the next couple of years and have a child. After giving birth, you can rest for a year or two. Then you'll still have time for a second child before you turn thirty."
"...?"
Ji Mingshu froze. Of all times to bring up children…and her second uncle had somehow jumped straight from one child to two. Truly worthy of being Director Ji, the family member with the highest political awareness and the strongest commitment to following national policy. She was so stunned she couldn't find a single word to say.
Come to think of it, she and Cen Sen had been married for over three years now. They really hadn't given any thought to children. It seemed like neither of them was even conscious of it, maintaining an unspoken, perfectly aligned understanding about contraception since the beginning.
As for his family, they probably figured there was no use pushing while Cen Sen was in Australia for the first two years, so nobody bothered.
After hanging up, Ji Mingshu sat on the bed with her chin resting in her hands, absentmindedly following her uncle's train of thought from having one child to having two, from sons to daughters. Nearly half an hour passed before she finally remembered she actually had actual business to deal with.
The night before, after talking with Cen Sen, she'd drafted a long Weibo post on her phone. But she'd fallen asleep before posting it.
Now that the situation had changed, rereading it with a clear head made her realize much of it was poorly written. So she hunched over her phone again, deleting and revising, even dragging in Gu Kaiyang, the big-shot editor who worked with words, to proofread it for her.
At eleven o'clock that morning, Ji Mingshu finally posted.
“I admit, I have a bad temper. But I am not someone who loses my temper without cause. The program was filmed over fifty-three days. Miss Yan Yuexing knows better than anyone what kind of attitude she brought to work throughout that time.”
“As for the editor responsible for this masterpiece of creative editing, your skills are extraordinary. I wonder if your annual salary has reached a million yet? If not, perhaps you should consider changing jobs. I'll hire you.”
“Some of Miss Yan's fans have been posting fabricated stories in my comment section, accusing my family of tax evasion based on pure speculation. Let me answer that directly. The taxes my family pays to the country every year are fully aboveboard, and anyone is welcome to verify them in any way they see fit. The ones throwing their weight around isn't me. It's the self-righteous Ms. Yan Yuexing and the production team I once trusted.”
“This is an era where social media rewards whoever has the most followers and the loudest voice. Without my family's support, perhaps so many people would never have paid attention to me, and perhaps this post would never even have reached you. But since it has, I owe it to myself to tell the truth.”
“I originally believed Designer's Abode was a home design program with ideas of its own, one that refused to simply follow the crowd, whose stated purpose was to bring design into people's everyday lives. I never imagined its true purpose was simply to turn controversy into money.”
"Seeing what this has become, I am deeply disappointed. At the same time, I firmly believe any artists and production teams willing to sacrifice every moral standard for publicity should not be given such a broad platform to thrive. Their existence is the loudest slap in the face to every hardworking professional who genuinely dedicates themselves to creating quality work in the entertainment industry.”
“Finally, thank you for taking the time to read this. I'm Ji Mingshu, an interior designer. Not the 'Silencer'."
Less than a minute after she posted it, hundreds of comments flooded in.
Almost all came from Yan Yuexing's fans who had camped beneath her Weibo specifically to insult her. Most of them clearly hadn't even read the post before launching into abuse.
But once the blocked keywords were restored and the post spread across the major forums, the tone of the comments began changing dramatically.
[Honestly, she sounds pretty reasonable. Strong without losing her head. I believe you, pretty lady. (Mostly because you're gorgeous. doge)]
[Wasn't it already exposed that she is Huadian's heiress? Do YYX's fans have water for brains? They actually tagged state media asking them to investigate her taxes? I'm crying. That's the funniest thing I've heard all year.]
[After reading the last part, here's my conclusion. A wealthy young lady hid her identity to join a small show she was interested in, gets stabbed in the back by the production team and nobody celebrity, gets pissed beyond belief, and now wants to reform the entire entertainment industry. Hahahaha.]
In truth, both the production team and Yan Yuexing's side had been trying to contact Ji Mingshu since the previous night to apologize and seek a settlement. Yan Yuexing's team, especially, regretted everything so deeply they could barely breathe.
She had recently been negotiating for the second female lead in a major production. The project already carried prestige and enormous publicity. Once officially announced, she wouldn't need to rely on a home renovation show like Designer's Abode for exposure.
Yet somehow, when only the contract signing remained, the production company unilaterally canceled the collaboration without warning. They simply informed her they had found someone more suitable and wouldn't even let her benefit from the publicity surrounding the costume fitting photos.
Her agency had already quietly hinted about the role to the major fan club leaders. Those leaders, in turn, had teased the news to the regular fans. So while everyone's public stance was ‘no official announcement, no celebration’, the fan groups had already begun fundraising to celebrate. In the end, without an official announcement, there was indeed nothing to celebrate.
Not only were the fans disappointed, but Yan Yuexing had also cleared her schedule well in advance for this big project. With this sudden change, all the previous preparations were wasted.
With no other choice, her team shifted its focus to Designer's Abode, hoping to compensate for the empty publicity gap during the winter break.
As for choosing Ji Mingshu as the target of a malicious edit, the production team was willing to cooperate, Yan Yuexing personally disliked Ji Mingshu, and suppressing an amateur carried almost no cost. So without thinking too deeply, both sides reached an agreement.
Whether they gained many new fans didn't really matter. As long as they could generate sympathy, strengthen fan loyalty, and create buzz, the plan would be worthwhile.
—If only, the person they had targeted hadn't been named Ji Mingshu. Then their collaboration with the production team would have been considered a complete success.
Yan Yuexing's team had worked frantically all night, but with minimal results. Communication with the production team stalled, and trying to calm the fan groups achieved even less.
The fans had become completely irrational, stubbornly convinced Yan Yuexing was being bullied. The more the management urged them to stop, the more enraged they became. Some even marched straight to the manager's and the agency's Weibo accounts, cursing them for being spineless cowards who couldn't do their jobs! Our Xingxing cannot swallow this humiliation! If you won't stand up for her, we will!
Even when Yan Yuexing personally posted that everything had been a misunderstanding, her fans refused to believe it, insisting the company had forced her to say it. They even analyzed the difference in the Weibo client used to publish the post and concluded that the ‘vile’ agency had taken control of her account. That the statement didn't reflect Yan Yuexing's true intentions!
By the time Ji Mingshu released her own response, Yan Yuexing had already given up. She simply lay there, waiting for the inevitable.
No wonder the project she'd valued so highly had suddenly cut ties with her. The production's lead investor was Junhe Pictures, a wholly owned film investment company under Huazhang Holdings. Which, if you trace it back further, ultimately belonged to Junyi Group.
The notice terminating their cooperation had arrived the very morning after the Designer's Abode wrap-up party.
Thinking back to that night, she suddenly remembered the unpredictable man who had looked at her with icy eyes before silently standing up and leaving. All the things that had once puzzled her finally made sense.
***
Meanwhile, at Mingshui Manor.
After posting her Weibo statement, Ji Mingshu deliberately avoided reading any reactions. She refused to let them ruin her mood.
She just flopped on the bed, scrolling through WeChat. Yet after checking the long list of unread messages, not a single message was from Cen Sen.
Seriously… she might be understanding, but did that Dog Man honestly believe a few comforting words last night had solved everything? Unbelievable.
She opened their chat window, wanting to send him something, but then she worried about interrupting his work.
While she hesitated and agonized…she completely missed Junyi Group's official Weibo account stirring back to life three minutes earlier to deliver the coup de grâce.
Yes.
Believe it or not, even a company as reclusive as Junyi Group, whose executives all seemed like they had wandered out of an ancient tomb, maintained an official Weibo account. They even had an official WeChat account. Its usual content consisted of inspirational slogans about contributing to national prosperity and cheerful updates about the thriving development of the hotel business.
Compared with the WeChat account, however, Junyi's Weibo was practically abandoned. The previous post had been a repost of hotel industry reform news from March of the previous year.
This sudden resurrection, however, saw the group's official account post three times in rapid succession.
One was a repost of Ji Mingshu's long Weibo statement, appended with just one word: “Support.”
The second tagged Designer's Abode production team and published a lawyer's letter stating that Junyi would pursue legal responsibility for violating the sponsor agreement.
The third post was the most astonishing of all. It directly issued a legal notice on Ji Mingshu's behalf.
Junyi Group:
[1. We request that the production team of Designer's Abode immediately remove the relevant episodes from all platforms, cease causing further harm to Ms. Ji Mingshu, and provide the original unedited footage as soon as possible so the truth behind the recording process may be restored.
2. The internet is not a sanctuary where anyone is free to spread malice. We request that fans of Ms. Yan who maliciously attacked Ms. Ji Mingshu publicly apologize immediately. The names attached to the legal notices below represent only our preliminary list. The investigation will continue to expand. These notices are not empty warnings. Should public apologies not be issued within the specified time frame, Junyi Group will pursue legal responsibility indefinitely, without regard for cost.]
Up until then, the people watching the drama had only just managed to uncover the fact that Ji Mingshu came from a powerful family, and speculation was still running wild. No one knew what was true and what wasn't.
So when they saw the final post, everyone was confused.
Wasn't the sponsor supposed to support the production team? Not supporting them was one thing, but why was the sponsor issuing a legal notice on behalf of the designer?
Curious onlookers flooded the comments with questions, and the group's official account actually began replying to comments in real time.
Netizen B: [Pursue legal responsibility indefinitely, without regard for cost... Can that actually send people to prison? Isn't this taking things a little too seriously?]
Junyi Group replied: [It can't send anyone to prison, but it can make them apologize.]
Netizen A: [Why are you doing this? This is such a strong stand for justice, I'm shocked…]
Junyi Group replied: [No. It's because Ms. Ji is the CEO’s wife.]
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