My Queen, My Rules - 63
Present
Ji Mingshu spent a little too long agonizing over how to word a WeChat message. By the time she finished, she'd made it onto the trending charts again.
The people who had missed the drama last night because the relevant keywords had been censored happily dug into the fresh revelations while catching up on everything they'd missed, unanimously declaring that learning had never felt so enjoyable.
Entertainment gossip accounts with exceptional summarizing skills quickly pieced together the entire saga with screenshots and timelines, topping it all off with the headline:
“Click Here to Watch a Domineering CEO Spoil His Wife in Real Time!”
The post would later earn legendary status among gossip lovers as one of the year's greatest recap threads. It even collected countless tiny details that most people had overlooked.
For example, the moment Ji Mingshu released her statement, Feng Yan, Li Che, and Pei Xiyan had all liked and reposted it on Weibo. And when the scandal first broke, a niche rich-girl lifestyle blogger had confidently predicted that both the production team and Yan Yuexing were doomed.
Simultaneously, discussions exploded across every major forum. Some users dug up Ji Mingshu's previous collaborations with Chris Chou on two runway productions. Others actually watched both episodes of Designer's Abode and admitted her designs were genuinely impressive. Most people, however, were far more interested in admiring her stunning looks through endless screenshots and turning her expressions into reaction GIFs.
The most viral ones were the frame where she pointed at the rug while demanding an explanation from Yan Yuexing, and another where she turned away in exasperation and walked off without another glance.
The captions were endlessly remixed into things like, "Silence. Daybreak has arrived," "You hopeless spendthrift," "I have nothing to say to an idiot like you," and, "You have one second to disappear from this CEO's wife's sight."
By that afternoon, every version of the show had been pulled from streaming platforms. The production team and Yan Yuexing's studio released public apologies within minutes of each other.
Amusingly, the two sides didn't seem to have aligned their stories. Yan Yuexing's studio carefully avoided mentioning the malicious editing altogether. Their apology addressed only the online harassment directed at Ji Mingshu, painting themselves as innocent victims who supposedly knew nothing while implying everything had been the production team's doing. It was such an obvious little white lotus performance that hardly anyone bought it.
Perhaps furious by being thrown under the bus, the production team retaliated by uploading three videos to Xingcheng TV. Together they ran for nearly two hours. Anyone who clicked in was greeted with the complete unedited footage, no filters, no beauty retouching, even the raw production audio left intact.
[Good grief. I thought the broadcast version already made the comparison brutal. Without beauty filters it's literally a rich heiress standing next to her plain little maid."
[Does Ji Mingshu's face, skin, and figure actually exist in real life? Also, can we talk about how ridiculously handsome Pei Xiyan is? Why is a sixteen-year-old that tall?!]
[Key point! Key point! Video One, from 3:18 to 4:01. Everything Ji Mingshu said was cut! Yan Yuexing started the whole mess herself, and somehow they edited it into Ji Mingshu throwing a tantrum for no reason. I'm speechless!]
[Watching the unedited version, I noticed that Ji Mingshu , Feng Yan, and Pei Xiyan all seemed to have a distance with Yan Yuexing. The three of them just consulted with each other.]
[I've said this so many times already. Pei Xiyan follows Ji Mingshu and Feng Yan on Weibo, but not Yan Yuexing. Nobody listens to me. T_T]
The forum detectives blasted through the footage at double speed and edited together the key moments from nearly two hours of tedious raw material.
That compilation unexpectedly detonated across the entire internet.
"If you don't understand something, then talk less and work more. Did you even graduate from college? Are the songs you sing your own originals? Do you have even the slightest respect for original design? This brand is collectively boycotted by the fashion industry, barred from entering the Chinese market. Instead of learning its lesson, they just slaps its name on a cheap rug through a furniture collaboration, even dares to charge six thousand five hundred for it... And the worst part is there are half-baked posers like you who genuinely singing its praises!”
The explosive rug argument, packed with facts and delivered with merciless precision, had been cut entirely from the broadcast. Within a single afternoon it spread across the internet like wildfire. Ji Mingshu's follower count climbed by hundreds, sometimes thousands, every second. The top comments under her long Weibo statement underwent a dramatic shift:
[AHHHH! The CEO's wife is unleashing her full aura!!! I'm dead!!!]
[Mrs. Cen said everything I've been thinking! That ugly rug costs sixty-five hundred yuan and a bunch of influencers were actually recommending it?!]
[I've officially fallen in love! Mrs. Cen, please debut! I'll spend every last cent of my allowance to vote you into center position!]
[After watching the raw footage, I honestly think the production team is nuts. Maliciously editing Ms. Ji to prop up Ms. Yan? If they'd promoted Ms. Ji instead, the show would've blown up!]
Ji Mingshu: "..."
More than anything, she wanted to know who ran Junyi's official Weibo account.
It was all because they'd insisted on calling her "Ms. Ji." Now everyone online had started doing the same.
For heaven's sake, she's an eternally eighteen-year-old youthful fairy, okay?
"Ms. Ji" sounded too much like a stern member of the National People's Congress or one of those terrifying school disciplinarians who could silence an entire campus with a single glare.
She immediately complained about it in the girls' group chat.
Gu Kaiyang: [???]
Gu Kaiyang: [Seriously? That's your takeaway from all this?]
Jiang Chun: [They're calling Yan Yuexing "Ms. Yan" too, and she's younger than you. You're hardly getting the short end of the stick here.]
Ji Mingshu: [Go away, Goose. Nobody asked. Thanks.]
Jiang Chun: [Wow. You get famous and suddenly you don't recognize your friends anymore. I've finally seen through you, Ji-shi Shushu!]
Jiang Chun immediately followed up with a barrage of stickers. Worse still, every single one featured Ji Mingshu herself, both still images and animated GIFs.
Ji Mingshu couldn't take it anymore. She shut off her phone and flopped backward onto the bed.
At long last, the whole farce had finally come to an end.
She had secured the justice she sought for, and somehow received an explosion of public attention as a bonus.
She had to admit that public opinion on the internet was terrifyingly powerful. It shifted by the second, impossible to predict. She never could have imagined that once the raw footage was released, she'd somehow become everyone's newest obsession.
As obnoxious as it sounded, suddenly becoming a public figure felt... strangely surreal.
She had absolutely no idea how she was supposed to handle it, so she decided not to bother trying.
Rolling onto her side, she prepared to catch up on the sleep she'd missed.
But less than three minutes later, she grabbed her phone again to harass Cen Sen.
Ji Mingshu: [You deadbeat.]
Ji Mingshu: [I'm famous now.]
Ji Mingshu: [Let's break up.]
Ji Mingshu: [Of course, if you bring me presents back from Paris, I might generously consider living with you a little longer.]
Five minutes passed without a reply. It should have been morning in Paris by now; he couldn't still be asleep. He must be in a meeting.
At this thought, Ji Mingshu stopped waiting, set her phone aside, and drifted peacefully back to sleep.
By the time she woke again, dusk had settled outside. Still half asleep, she yawned blankly while wondering what she should eat for dinner.
She was alone in the house. Since no one else was home, she'd left the bedroom door open before sleeping. Now, with unusually sharp hearing, she caught the faint rustle of movement and footsteps downstairs.
Her first thought was the housekeeper. But that didn't make sense.
Although the housekeeper lived on the property, the staff quarters weren't connected to the family's living area. They had to enter through the back of the villa, and whenever someone was home, they would never come inside without being called first.
Something flashed through Ji Mingshu's mind. The last traces of sleep vanished instantly.
She hurried out of bed, her heartbeat quickening as a possibility began taking shape in her mind.
She desperately tried to keep that secret hope from growing too strong.
But the moment she reached the staircase railing and saw Cen Sen downstairs, changing out of his shoes and loosening his tie, solid and unmistakably real, it felt like an overwhelming wave of happiness had crashed straight into her.
Cen Sen had only just arrived home. Hearing the sound above him, he lifted his eyes slightly.
The exhaustion from forty-eight hours of non-stop travel and meetings seemed to melt away the moment his gaze met Ji Mingshu's.
Winter sunset streamed through the south-facing lattice windows in broad golden beams, washing over him. After changing his shoes, he leaned casually against the doorway, standing precisely where light and shadow met. Weariness still lingered around him.
Yet as he looked up at Ji Mingshu, the corners of his lips curved into the faintest smile. Then he slowly opened his arms.
An invitation.
The fading daylight seemed to brighten for a single, suspended moment.
Without the slightest hesitation, Ji Mingshu raced downstairs barefoot.
Somehow, as she ran down, memories from her school years flashed through her mind unbidden.
The red rubber running track. The brick-colored classroom building. Navy-blue school uniforms.
Back then, the sky had seemed brighter, the grass greener. Youth, in retrospect, always seemed to be tinted with a soft, vibrant glow.
Back then, Cen Sen had been just as distant as he was brilliant.
He was always impossibly far away. On the rare occasions they crossed paths, she would brush past him with deliberate indifference.
Yet every single time she walked away pretending not to care, she always found herself turned back for one more look at the tall, graceful figure disappearing into the distance.
After all these years, she could finally run openly, unapologetically, straight into that boy's embrace.
Much later, the image of Ji Mingshu running down the stairs towards him was one Cen Sen would revisit often.
Her dusty-pink nightdress. The waterfall of black hair cascading over her shoulders. The stars sparkling in her eyes.
It was in that instant that he finally became certain: What he felt for Ji Mingshu was far more than simple affection.
She carried the delicate fragrance of camellia body lotion.
Closing his eyes, he rested against the hollow of her neck, allowing himself to drown completely in her scent, unwilling to ever surface.
That embrace at winter dusk, after their brief separation, lasted nearly a full minute.
Even afterward, Ji Mingshu refused to let go. Pressing her forehead against his chest, she mumbled, "Why are you already back? Did the negotiations go well?"
Cen Sen answered with a quiet, "Mm."
Ji Mingshu hugged him even tighter. She'd wanted to ask if he was tired, if he wanted to rest for a while. Instead, the words that escaped were completely different. "How come you didn't spin me around? That's what people always do in TV dramas."
Before Cen Sen could answer, she grumbled under her breath, "Never mind. You're practically thirty already. Old men don't have much strength left. You probably couldn't even lift...Ahhh!"
Before she could finish, the ground vanished beneath her feet. Completely caught off guard, she instinctively wrapped both arms around Cen Sen's neck as the room spun around her.
"O-Okay! That's enough! Put me down!"
She made quite a fuss, but her stamina was pitiful. A few spins were all it took to make her dizzy. When her feet finally touched the floor again, she staggered backward, accidentally stepping squarely onto Cen Sen's foot, and would have fell if not for Cen Sen's arm around her waist.
As she was still trying to recover, Cen Sen seized the opportunity to say casually, "I only saw your messages after getting off the plane. I didn't bring you a present. What should I do?"
Still seeing stars, the words "it's fine" were on the tip of her tongue, but she caught herself just in time.
"What else? Break up, obviously."
She delivered the tiny provocation in the softest voice imaginable while poking a finger against his chest.
Cen Sen's eyes darkened. His already deep voice turned lower still, roughened by fatigue. "But I did come back from Paris. How about accepting me as your present?"
Ji Mingshu: "..."
How does a dog man this smooth even exist?!!
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