My Queen, My Rules - 78
A Date
Inside the luxurious, spacious dressing room, Ji Mingshu held up her phone to film herself as she asked, "What do you think of this one? Is it too formal?"
She was trying on a burgundy satin cocktail dress with the underskirt removed. Its bare-shoulder design left her shoulders exposed, while a delicate belt studded with glittering diamonds cinched her waist.
The dress was extremely demanding when it came to the wearer's figure, but Ji Mingshu had a petite frame and fair skin. It fit her perfectly, neither an inch too tight nor an inch too loose. It also made her eyes look even brighter and her features even more delicate and captivating.
On the other end of the video call, Jiang Chun seemed so dazzled by her beauty that she could barely tear her eyes away. She stared for several seconds without blinking until Ji Mingshu called her name twice and finally brought her back to reality. "Oh, it is a little formal. But it should be fine if you're going to a French restaurant or seeing a play or concert. By the way, where are you two going tonight?"
"That's exactly the problem. I don't know where we're going. He only asked if I was free for a date, and said he'd come pick me up after work."
When she said the first half, Ji Mingshu's brows drew together slightly, and she genuinely seemed a little troubled. But the farther she got into the sentence, the higher the corners of her lips climbed, until she could no longer suppress the smile.
Every one of her coy little expressions seemed to be screaming the same message: That's right, I'm currently a little canary baby completely lost in love!
Jiang Chun had absolutely no idea what she had done to deserve this. In the middle of the afternoon, before she'd even fully woken from her nap, someone had pried open her mouth and forcibly stuffed a giant helping of dog food down her throat.
She barely managed to swallow it, but the whole thing still felt somewhat unreal because she simply could not imagine what a cold, intimidating tycoon like Cen Sen, who seemed to think ‘wasting a second talking to you costs me a hundred million’, would look like when asking someone out on a date.
Fortunately, she didn't need to imagine it. Ji Mingshu loved showing off far too much. After picking out her clothes, she couldn't resist and insisted on showing Jiang Chun their chat history.
Cen Sen: [Baby, are you free to go on a date with me tonight?]
Jiang Chun lightly slapped her own face.
Yep, that stung a bit. Definitely not a dream.
Jiang Chun: [That's your husband?]
Ji Mingshu: [Who else would it be?]
Jiang Chun: [Did you try calling your husband to check? It looks like his account got hacked.]
Ji Mingshu: [...?]
Ji Mingshu: [Do you even know how to talk to people?]
Jiang Chun: [No, seriously, that message is too surreal. Think about it yourself. Does it really make sense for Cen Sen to call you Baby? Even Tang Zhizhou isn't that cheesy...]
Ji Mingshu: [Congratulations. You managed to offend three people with one sentence. /smile]
Jiang Chun: [...]
Jiang Chun: [humble.jpg]
Jiang Chun's attempt to pour cold water over her clearly did nothing to extinguish Ji Mingshu's excitement. After all, she and Cen Sen had been married for nearly four years, and aside from that Christmas Eve when they had gone to see a movie and eat hotpot, they had never actually gone on a proper date.
She carefully did her makeup for the occasion and styled her hair into something effortlessly tousled yet full of calculated little touches. Then she changed into a relatively less formal smoky-pink strapless dress that showed off her elegant, sensual collarbones to perfection.
But even after changing, she still felt something was missing. Remembering a bracelet she'd left at Bocui Tianhua that would probably complement today's outfit perfectly, she thought it over, informed Cen Sen, and had the driver take her to Bocui Tianhua.
At 4:57 p.m., the executive meeting at Junyi was still deadlocked. The heads of two major projects were arguing heatedly over resources, both of them red in the face.
Normally, everyone in the room was a leader of some sort, and they could all maintain a polished, civil demeanor when dealing with people above or below them. But when it came time for actual interests to speak, executives were no different from those aunties in a wet market fighting with a vendor over three cents.
If there was any difference at all, it was that they were fiercer, more aggressive, taller, and stronger. Judging by the way the two of them were going at it, if the conference table had been narrower and their arms a little longer, they probably would have rolled up their sleeves and settled the matter with an all-out fight to the death.
The other attendees adopted a detached, not-my-problem attitude. At most, they offered a few meaningless words of consolation, while most of them simply waited for the big boss sitting at the head of the table, Cen Sen, to make a ruling.
But Cen Sen remained unmoved. His fingers tapped lightly against the tabletop, his gaze calm and unreadable, revealing nothing of what he was actually thinking.
Some privately decided that this was merely the calm before the storm. After all, Cen Sen had always operated on the principle that if he said nothing, he said nothing, but once he opened his mouth, he went straight for the kill.
After patiently waiting for three minutes, Cen Sen finally showed signs of unleashing his verdict. "Manager Huang. Manager Song."
The argument stopped abruptly.
The entire room fell silent, and everyone turned toward the head of the table in unison.
Cen Sen looked up and said in an even, unhurried voice, "It's five o'clock. That's all for today. Meeting adjourned."
...?
Adjourned?
Everyone in attendance, including Managers Huang and Song, needed several seconds to process what they had just heard.
Sure, meetings usually had an estimated duration, but when the big boss himself was presiding, was there even such a thing as meeting adjourned simply because the clock said so? Back in school, if the principal's speech lasted through the morning study period, did the homeroom teacher have the nerve to tell him to stop talking?
While everyone was still frozen in shock, Cen Sen had already risen and begun straightening his jacket. Zhou Jiaheng also stepped forward with perfect understanding and gathered the meeting materials for him.
They could only watch as Cen Sen calmly walked out of the conference room. Then their brains immediately kicked into overdrive, desperately trying to decipher the true meaning behind his abrupt departure.
The two managers had also recovered by then. Remembering their undignified squabble in front of Cen Sen moments earlier, cold sweat broke out across their backs. It felt as though they were about to be executed once the dust settled. They grabbed onto Zhou Jiaheng, their last remaining lifeline, and refused to let him leave until he gave them a proper explanation.
Zhou Jiaheng was speechless. It literally meant the meeting was over. Did they really have to be this terrified? Weren’t you all so capable during the meeting just now? Their boss had a wife to pamper. Why would he have the patience to listen to the two of them battle it out here?
At half past five, Cen Sen's car pulled up precisely outside Bocui Tianhua. He called Ji Mingshu.
Ji Mingshu answered with a nonchalant “Wait a minute,” then grabbed a little pair of binoculars and crouched by the window to look down.
Although she had finished everything she needed to do ages ago and had been waiting specifically for Cen Sen to come pick her up, putting on a little airs was still an essential part of going on a date.
Unfortunately, maintaining those airs while she was practically clawing at her own heart with impatience was torture. She lasted less than five minutes before hurriedly rushing downstairs.
When he saw her in a little pink dress, pretending to be aloof as she toyed with her hair, Cen Sen got out of the car and opened the front passenger door for her.
Ji Mingshu glanced toward the driver's seat. "You're driving yourself?"
Cen Sen hummed, picked up a bouquet of pink and white roses from the passenger seat, and held it out to her. He looked her up and down and praised her, "You look especially beautiful today."
A CEO was a CEO. A true CEO. The word “especially” was clearly the result of diligent study, preemptively blocking the classic woman retort of, “So I’m not beautiful on other days?”
Ji Mingshu gave him a look that said, ‘At least you know what you're doing’, then carefully protected the flowers as she climbed into the car.
There were only eleven roses in the bouquet. It was small, but beautifully arranged and incredibly fresh.
Ji Mingshu adored them. She took dozens upon dozens of selfies with the bouquet during the drive, and whenever they stopped at a red light, she even motioned for Cen Sen to turn his head and take a picture with her.
But something about the angle of Cen Sen's face never looked quite right in the frame, so she simply took a side-profile shot of him driving instead.
Ji Mingshu: [On a date with Mr. Cen~ /cute]
She attached two photos.
The moment she posted it to her Moments feed, likes and comments began shooting upward.
Zhao Yang: [You two are already an old married couple. Can you be any more disgustingly sweet?]
Shu Yang: [I think I need to go to the pet hospital and get myself checked out.]
Zhao Yang replied to Shu Yang: [No need. You're just stuffed with too much dog food.]
Gu Kaiyang: [Today's dose of Shu Bao's beauty has been absorbed!]
Jiang Chun: [Baby, schedule one for me next?]
Cen Yingshuang: [Schedule a second baby next?]
Ji Mingshu replied to each comment, but before she could finish, Cen Sen stopped the car and announced, "We're here."
"That fast?" She was a little surprised.
It actually wasn’t that fast, considering she had spent about forty minutes taking photos and editing them.
Cen Sen did not explain. He just hummed in agreement and leaned over to help her unfasten her seat belt.
They had arrived at a French restaurant.
The moment Ji Mingshu realized she was about to have a meal with Cen Sen outside, and a very lengthy French one at that, she felt a conditioned headache coming on.
But it was a date, and dates required food, so she closed her eyes, steeled herself, and walked in.
To her immense surprise, however, the meal turned out to be nothing like the ordeal of having a teacher sitting across from you impatiently waiting for you to hand in your exam paper. Instead, it was comfortable, relaxed, and genuinely pleasant.
Cen Sen ate slowly and was extremely attentive to her needs. He poured her water and red wine, and he even found things to talk about with her.
He was also remarkably skilled at balancing the conversation. They would talk seriously for a while, then drift into lighthearted, trivial chatter for a while.
Ji Mingshu found it rather miraculous. How had he suddenly adopted this “talkative” persona at the dinner table?
Normally, he only had this much to say were when he was lecturing her or flirting with her in bed.
Of course, she could not deny that she liked having him constantly look at her and talk about one thing or another. It gave her the feeling that he was genuinely making an effort to spend time with her.
After dinner, they held hands and wandered aimlessly outside. They continued talking about the stories from their school days that had come up during dinner, and for once, they opened up to each other and had a proper heart-to-heart.
Everything was perfect. It even fit Ji Mingshu's definition of what a couples' date should be, if only they had not gone to see that 4D movie.
After wandering around for about half an hour, Ji Mingshu's feet began to ache, so Cen Sen suggested going to the movies.
When they saw that there was a 4D screening, Cen Sen asked whether she wanted to try it. As the hopeless romantic she was, Ji Mingshu naturally figured that whatever her husband wanted to watch was fine. She obediently nodded, and the two-hour nightmare of involuntary clubbing began.
The movie opened with a high-speed car chase. Ji Mingshu had barely settled into her seat when it began violently shaking along with the camera movements, without so much as a warning. The ice cream cone in her hand went straight into her face.
After wiping herself clean, she decided to take a sip of Coke to calm her nerves, only for the seatback to suddenly punch her in sync with a gunshot on screen. It landed squarely between her shoulder blades, sending half a cup of Coke spilling onto the floor.
Worst of all were the blasts of cold air and clouds of mist that came at intervals of less than thirty seconds, a painfully realistic version of cold rain beating mercilessly against one's face. Even wrapped in Cen Sen's jacket, she shivered from the cold. The only thing worth celebrating was that her makeup today was light and highly waterproof, so she would not emerge looking like some demonic witcb with black makeup streaming down her face.
By the time the movie ended, she had been beaten half to death by the seat and was practically paralyzed from the waist up. Her dress was crumpled, her carefully styled hair, with every curl arranged at a deliberate angle, was now an utter mess. She looked as though Cen Sen had thoroughly violated her dignity eighteen times inside the cinema, every inch of her radiating the helplessness of a tiny, miserable victim.
Cen Sen had also spent two hours paying money to suffer, but he still managed to maintain his expressionless, cold CEO persona, showing neither joy nor irritation.
He stood and straightened his clothes, then held out a hand toward Ji Mingshu.
Ji Mingshu took his hand and shakily pulled herself to her feet, staggering half a step into his arms as she stood.
He caught her and held her close.
Exhausted, furious, and thoroughly worn out, Ji Mingshu's eyes were bright and damp as she leaned against him and complained in a small, aggrieved voice, "You did that on purpose, didn't you? I'm so mad! I want a divorce!”
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