My Queen, My Rules - 75

As soon as Cen Sen spoke, the atmosphere in the car instantly turned ice-cold.

The driver seemed to finally realize at that moment: this was the Group President from the capital, not the affable old leader he usually chauffeured, the one who enjoyed casual chats with his staff.

He wisely shut his mouth.

Zhou Jiaheng didn't dare offer any comforting words either, and just kept making calls to stay in touch with their people in Xingcheng.

Just then, even more sudden news arrived: due to landslides and roadbed collapses on the Chengshuang section, the Xingshuang Expressway would be shutting down entirely, effective immediately.

The expressway they needed to take back to Xingcheng was precisely the Xingshuang Expressway.

The situation in Xingcheng was even less optimistic. The latest update was that civilian vehicles were now prohibited from entering, which meant there was simply no way to send anyone to look out for Ji Mingshu.

No one knew what was going through Cen Sen's mind. After listening to Zhou Jiaheng's report, he got out of the car directly and made a call to Jiang Che.

Xingcheng was Jiang Che's turf. Whether it was finding someone or pulling strings for special access, his involvement would be far more direct and effective.

The phone was picked up after just two rings.

Cen Sen got straight to the point. "I'm on the road from Chengshuang back to Xingcheng. The Xingshuang Expressway is closed. Arrange for me to get back immediately."

His voice, heavy with the night air, was cold and decisive.

Jiang Che, waiting for a connecting flight at an airport, let out a careless, light scoff. "What, rushing back to Xingcheng to check on me? I'm not even there today."

Cen Sen: "Cut the crap."

Jiang Che was about to tease further when something suddenly occurred to him. "Don't tell me you left Ji Mingshu in Xingcheng and can't get in touch with her?"

He knew Cen Sen was in Xingcheng on business and vaguely recalled him saying Ji Mingshu had come along this time.

The silence on the other end seemed to confirm his guess. In an instant, he shed his lazy demeanor. He thought for a moment and calmly laid out a plan. "Xingcheng had an earthquake; the surrounding satellite cities will definitely send fire and rescue teams. Send me your location; I'll find someone to bring you back. Send me any places Ji Mingshu might have gone to; I'll help you look."

He paused. "And don't worry about the Xingcheng University apartment."

After a brief silence, Cen Sen only said one word. "Thanks."

Jiang Che: "Cut the crap."

Cen Sen and Jiang Che had a friendship spanning more than a decade, nearly two.

Jiang Che, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, never needed to curry favor with anyone. His personality wasn't particularly polished; he'd always just done what he pleased.

Cen Sen, by comparison, had experienced more. He matured early, with a steady, calm temperament, meticulous and considerate in how he dealt with people and matters.

Over the years, Cen Sen had always been the one more in control. When their childhood friends got into trouble and didn't dare tell their families, they'd basically all come to him to help clean up the mess.

Back when Jiang Che and Chen Xingyu first founded Jiangxing Tech, they faced numerous competitors. Several times, rival companies maneuvered them into cash flow crises. The Jiang family wasn't very supportive of Jiang Che at the time either; it was Cen Sen who consistently provided capital injections and support behind the scenes.

This current situation, where Cen Sen was asking Jiang Che for help, seemed to be a first.

To be honest, Cen Sen disliked this feeling intensely. Perhaps the deeply ingrained psychological shadow from his childhood experiences of being arranged for and decided by others made him, over these years, accustomed to standing in the dominant position, keeping everything firmly within his own grasp.

The night wind was sparse and cold. He turned back, gripping the car door handle with one hand, the veins on the back of his hand standing out from exertion.

But the next second, he let go, tapping lightly on the window to ask the driver for a cigarette.

The driver hurriedly offered the pack, even helpfully cupping his hands to light it for him.

Leaning against the car, Cen Sen gazed steadily in the direction of Xingcheng. The faint glow at his fingertips released wispy trails of smoke that trailed off into the distance.

---

Cen Sen arrived in Xingcheng at one in the morning. Online, news related to the Xingcheng earthquake was already everywhere—impossible to miss.

The strongest main tremor had occurred at 8:15 PM, lasting nearly seventeen seconds. Between then and midnight, there had been several aftershocks.

The epicenter was Fengyang County in the Xingcheng suburbs, very close to the main downtown. Statistics on casualties and economic losses were still being compiled. From the information already released, it didn't seem particularly severe.

But for Cen Sen, the situation was severe, because Ji Mingshu remained unreachable.

For a long time, Ji Mingshu's phone could be dialed and would ring; it just wasn't answered.

But when he tried again after midnight, all that was left was the mechanical female voice notification: “The number you have dialed is powered off.”

The hotel surveillance footage had been checked long ago. Searching based on the time frame recalled by staff, they could see she had indeed gone out in the afternoon.

But after going out, she never came back. The hotel room was empty. Without a precise time frame, checking the extensive surveillance footage was difficult.

When Cen Sen arrived at the Junyi Huazhang where they were staying, Jiang Che finally sent definite news. Ji Mingshu had gone out in the afternoon to visit a trendy café. After leaving the café, it seemed she had… gone straight back to the hotel. Moreover, the last phone call she answered this afternoon was also located at the hotel.

Standing in the hotel lobby, Cen Sen looked at the final location provided by Jiang Che's side and suddenly understood.

—

Last time they were in Xingcheng, Ji Mingshu had been fixated on visiting a certain viral café, but because she had to rush back to the capital for her showdown with Li Wenyin at the cocktail party, she never made it.

This time, she finally went. But the café fell far short of her expectations. Whether it was the décor, the highly praised desserts, or the owner's taste in coffee beans, she disliked it all. After half a cup of coffee, she got up and left without even taking a photo.

Perhaps because Cen Sen had worn her out the night before, she wasn't in the mood for shopping either and soon returned to the hotel, took two vitamin pills, and went to sleep.

For Ji Mingshu, the day was utterly ordinary, so peaceful it was almost boring.

So, when she was kissed awake, breathless and disoriented, she was completely overwhelmed.

"What are you doing? It's the middle of the night—let people sleep!"

She pushed at his face, simultaneously clutching the silk strap of her nightgown to herself. Her voice soft, sticky, and spoiled.

The only response was a deepening, invasive kiss.

The kiss was forceful; she couldn't even muster a muffled protest. A coolness touched her skin as the nightgown she'd just clutched was pulled open.

Thoroughly roused by his actions, Ji Mingshu was now fully awake.

Cen Sen was really not acting normal. He hadn't even showered, and he was taking her with such urgency, with so much force. Most crucially, he kept affectionately calling her "baby" in her ear.

Had he drunk fake liquor or something?

But there was no smell of alcohol.

Maybe fake liquor just doesn't smell…?

Ji Mingshu's mind wandered as she held onto Cen Sen, biting her lip and bearing it.

At this moment, she was like a salted fish pressed on a chopping block, unable to resist and lacking the strength to, simply allowing Cen Sen to flip her over this way and that.

…

When it was all over, Cen Sen held Ji Mingshu tightly in his arms—very tightly. He kept asking if she was uncomfortable anywhere, kept kissing her, much more affectionate than his usual post-coital attitude.

Ji Mingshu looked at him suspiciously, pinching the edge of the duvet, and cautiously asked, "Blink if you're possessed."

Cen Sen: "…"

Perhaps to prove he wasn't possessed, for nearly half a minute he just quietly stared at her. Ji Mingshu blinked repeatedly, but he still hadn't.

She took a relieved breath, then couldn't help but ask in a small voice, "What's wrong with you? You seem really off today."

"Nothing." He didn't elaborate, suddenly got up and carried her horizontally into the bathroom to wash.

No one could understand the emotional journey Cen Sen had undergone in those five or six hours.

The moment he saw Ji Mingshu, it seemed that only possession could prove she was real—and still in his arms.

Sensing Cen Sen's unusual silence tonight, Ji Mingshu didn't press further.

It was only after bathing and returning to the master bedroom to play on her phone that she realized her phone was dead.

Once plugged in, her phone nearly exploded from the flood of messages rushing in from all directions.

"… Earthquake?"

Ji Mingshu was completely stunned.

"When did this happen? Why didn't I feel a thing?"

Come to think of it, she did vaguely recall feeling the world shaking for a while in her sleep. But that didn't make sense. Shouldn't the tremors from a 5.8-magnitude earthquake be quite strong? How could she have slept through it?

She grabbed the vitamin bottle by the bed and looked at it.

They weren't vitamins. They were sleeping pills.

She'd taken the wrong medicine!

After this series of powerful realizations hit her, the pieces clicked into place. "You didn't think something happened to me, did you?"

Cen Sen didn't speak, turning off the bedside lamp.

Ji Mingshu, refusing to let it go, moved closer, using her phone screen's light to illuminate his face, her eyes sparkling. "You did think something happened to me, didn't you? Were you really worried about me? Are you stupid? I don't know many people in Xingcheng—where else could I go? Couldn't you just have sent someone to check the room?"

"I did."

But the staff member who came to check the room was new and didn't know how many rooms their suite had, mistaking a secondary room for the master bedroom. Three bedrooms in total weren't properly checked. Moreover, the person had called out her name while searching the rooms, but there was no response. How could any normal person guess that the CEO's wife had mistakenly taken sleeping pills and was just dead to the world?

Ji Mingshu lay on the bed, propping her face in her hands as she looked at Cen Sen, unable to suppress a laugh. "You admitted it."

Cen Sen didn't answer, just placed her phone back on the bedside table, closed his eyes, and said, "Sleep."

Ji Mingshu: "I slept too much this afternoon. I can't sleep now."

Cen Sen: "Then I'm going to sleep."

Ji Mingshu: "You can't!"

Ji Mingshu reached out and pried his eyelids open. "No sleeping allowed!"

Cen Sen: "I'm really tired."

"Didn't seem tired earlier. Weren't you pretty energetic just now? Tired right after doing it? Are you seventy or eighty years old? Hurry up and keep me company—chat with me. Tell me about the earthquake."

Cen Sen remained unmoved.

"Fine, if you won't talk, then call me 'Baby' one more time and I'll let you off."

Ji Mingshu's legs kicked idly in the air. She'd lean in to pull his eyelashes one moment, tickle him the next.

Cen Sen really couldn't take it anymore. He turned over a few times but couldn't escape. Finally, he turned back, wrapped his arms around Ji Mingshu, pressed her head into the crook of his neck, and called out in a low, deep voice, "Baby."

---

← Previous | Table of Contents | Next →

0