My Queen, My Rules - 77

Perfect. Just perfect.

Ji Mingshu felt her understanding of Cen-shi Sensen had reached a new milestone.

While he hadn't admitted it outright, reading between the lines, his indirect explanation could be bluntly translated as: Yes, I knew your best friend was on this show. I'm the one who sent Zhou Jiaheng. I hope your friend will focus on her own life from now on and stop being so bored that she stirs up trouble in our marital relationship.

Ji Mingshu stared at him. "Are you out of your mind?"

Wasn't his job demanding enough? He actually had the spare energy to send his own assistant to cozy up to his wife's best friend!

Cen Sen watched her for a moment, then nodded. "You actually believed that."

He loosened his tie and let out a soft laugh.

Ji Mingshu: "…"

Maybe she was seeing things, but his laugh sounded inexplicably doting, as if saying: Oh, darling, I just adore how you believe everything, my delightfully gullible little fool.

She broke out in goosebumps. Standing on her toes, she pinched his cheeks and pulled them. "Stop laughing!"

"Alright, no laughing."

Cen Sen pressed his forehead against hers, placed a kiss on her lips, and asked in a low voice, "Shower together?"

"Pervert!"

The details of said perversion shall be omitted. But during this process, Ji Mingshu still managed to pester Cen Sen into explaining the matter of Zhou Jiaheng joining the show.

Actually, it really was a coincidence.

Zhou Jiaheng's family had been pushing him to find a partner for years. He always used work as an excuse. At their wits' end, his family resorted to a rather underhanded tactic: they secretly submitted his resume to a dating show on his behalf.

With his credentials, he naturally sailed through the initial rounds. He only found out about it when the production team notified him to come in for an interview.

Zhou Jiaheng didn't want to go. Cen Sen hadn't planned to let him go either. But after learning that Gu Kaiyang was also a participant, he approved Zhou Jiaheng's leave. He even suggested that if Zhou Jiaheng was interested, he could pursue something with Gu Kaiyang. If not, he could at least help facilitate a connection between Gu Kaiyang and other male participants.

While Cen Sen's explanation was quite reasonable, Ji Mingshu still wanted to warn Gu Kaiyang that Zhou Jiaheng had ulterior motives and was no good. However, Gu Kaiyang seemed quite pleased about Zhou Jiaheng joining the show mid-season as the fourth male participant; her words were nothing but praise.

Gu Kaiyang: [I always thought Zhou Jiaheng was just that mother-hen type of assistant. But his official title at Junyi is actually Vice President for Greater China. Can you believe it?]

Gu Kaiyang: [And he did his undergrad at Tsinghua, grad school at USC. That's a solid academic background. I had way too many preconceptions about him before...]

It was no wonder Gu Kaiyang's opinion of Zhou Jiaheng had improved so dramatically. After all, you don't know what you've got until you see what others don't.

On the third day after moving into the villa, the production crew finally allowed everyone to reveal their ages, education, and professions.

The condescending attitudes of the other participants during those first three days had led Gu Kaiyang to mistakenly believe they were all Harvard-and-Cambridge-educated elites, leading lights in their industries pulling in tens of millions a year. The pressure she felt when returning to the villa those days was immense.

Who would have thought that when the big reveal came, the "kings" turned out to be paupers? The educations and jobs they listed were the kind that sounded impressive but, if you squeezed out the fluff, there'd be barely anything left. Gu Kaiyang found herself sitting up straighter without even realizing it.

And then there was Zhou Jiaheng. Placed among this so-called elite group, his qualifications were so superior that he was in a league of his own.

You could tell from the female participants' brutally transparent reactions. One female participant had already developed a rather obvious mutual connection with a certain male participant. But in the days since Zhou Jiaheng's arrival, that female participant had been seizing every opportunity to be alone with him.

Hearing Gu Kaiyang sing his praises like this, Ji Mingshu found it hard to pour cold water on things or plant seeds of doubt. They were still in the "revised opinion" phase anyway, and nothing concrete had developed.

But Ji Mingshu still couldn't rest easy. After finishing her draft designs for the hotel project, she used the pretext of being concerned about Cen Sen's health to make a special trip to Junyi, deliberately choosing a time when Zhou Jiaheng would be at work.

Inside the President's office—

Borrowing his authority, Ji Mingshu sat in the office chair. Mimicking Cen Sen's usual inscrutable demeanor, she asked coolly, "Assistant Zhou, your actual position at Junyi is Vice President for Greater China?"

Zhou Jiaheng replied modestly, "It's just a titular role."

"When was this title conferred? It wasn't… temporarily bestowed by someone right before the show started, was it?"

She glanced meaningfully at Cen Sen, whom she had banished to the reception area to drink his soup.

Zhou Jiaheng: "No, not at all. It's been my title since I returned from Australia."

Ji Mingshu nodded. "Assistant Zhou, you're not from the capital, right? Was it very difficult for you to get into Tsinghua?"

Zhou Jiaheng remained humble. "It was alright. I placed third in my province in the Gaokao. Getting into Tsinghua or Beida wasn't particularly difficult."

"…"

Ji Mingshu was rendered speechless for a long moment.

Perhaps Cen Sen had heard enough. He suddenly motioned for Zhou Jiaheng to step out and hurry along a document.

Once he was gone, Cen Sen asked Ji Mingshu, "You think Zhou Jiaheng isn't good enough?"

"It's not that he's not good enough," Ji Mingshu propped her chin on her hand, thinking hard. "It's just… Gu Kaiyang is my best friend. If her boyfriend were my husband's assistant… wouldn't that be a bit strange?"

Cen Sen said gently, "Zhou Jiaheng's annual salary should be enough to buy three of Gu Kaiyang's apartments. He also holds equity in the group. And being an assistant is just a training role for him; he won't be one forever. You're worrying too much."

Ji Mingshu retorted. "She's my best friend; of course I'm going to worry!"

Without hesitation, Cen Sen replied, "And it's your best friend who will be dating, not you. It's just a show. If she feels it's not suitable, naturally nothing will develop between them."

Oh, you just had to say it!

You and your big mouth!

Ji Mingshu's death glare locked onto him.

Seeing him completely oblivious, still sipping his soup, Ji Mingshu stomped over angrily, slapped a hand over his soup bowl, and picked a fight: "I also want to date! I married you directly without even experiencing the process of dating! Don't you feel even a little guilty? And you still have the nerve to be so self-righteous! I've seen your true colors now!"

Cen Sen: "…"

The mood swing hit faster than a tornado. It wasn't until he heard the office door slam shut with an earth-shaking bang that Cen Sen managed to barely piece together the logic behind her sudden outburst.

He rubbed the bridge of his nose, suddenly gaining a profound understanding of what people meant by a sweet burden.

Outside the office, Zhou Jiaheng—having retrieved the document—once again ran into Ji Mingshu.

Before he could even greet her, Ji Mingshu launched into a rapid-fire tirade like a little firecracker. The gist was that if he didn't take good care of Gu Kaiyang during the show, if he dared to play with her feelings, he was a dead man, etc., etc.

Zhou Jiaheng felt more wronged than a saint in the stocks. Dare to play with Gu Kaiyang's feelings? Was he tired of living?

At this point, when he returned to the villa every night, his relationship with Gu Kaiyang was just that of a relatively familiar acquaintance, nothing more.

After listening to his sincere explanation, Ji Mingshu then pumped him for information about the pairing dynamics among the men and women in the villa.

She gathered from Zhou Jiaheng's account that, currently, Gu Kaiyang didn't seem interested in any of the male participants, and no male participant seemed interested in her either.

It was normal for Gu Kaiyang not to be interested. But how could no male participant be interested in her?

Unacceptable. That'd be a serious blow to her pride.

She abruptly changed tack and explicitly instructed Zhou Jiaheng to be more attentive to Gu Kaiyang—at least when the cameras were rolling. She even imparted various methods for pursuing girls and creating romantic surprises.

Whether Zhou Jiaheng used these methods to help Gu Kaiyang save face remained unknown until the show aired. What was known is that after Ji Mingshu left, Zhou Jiaheng relayed these methods word-for-word to his boss.

Cen Sen looked them over.

Send flowers daily to make colleagues and other female participants jealous — This clearly didn't apply to Ji Mingshu. She had no colleagues. Sending flowers would just mean her admiring them alone at home.

Give gifts — This also didn't apply. He gave Ji Mingshu gifts every few days as it was.

He suddenly asked, "How do people generally date nowadays?"

Before Zhou Jiaheng could answer, he continued, "I shouldn't ask you. You have no experience."

Zhou Jiaheng maintained a neutral expression, silently complaining in his heart: As if you have any experience.

Cen Sen paused. Actually, if he thought about it seriously, he did have experience.

It was just that all that remained of that experience in his mind was a blank space. Nothing seemed worth remembering, nothing worth missing.

He took off his glasses, propped his forehead on his hand, and thought for a long time.

Finally, he picked up his phone and slowly typed out a line of text.

[Baby, do you have time for a date tonight?]

He stared at the words for a while, taking a good long moment to overcome the discomfort in his heart at such a cheesy tone, then tapped "send."

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