My Queen, My Rules - 84

Whether she missed him or not was debatable, but the flustered anger was real.

For the entire drive back, Ji Mingshu sulked, staring out the window and ignoring Cen Sen. He tried to start a conversation several times, but she held her tongue, silently refuting him in her heart.

But then Cen Sen took a call from Jiang Che on the car’s Bluetooth, making no effort to hide it from her.

She pricked up her ears. Although neither man mentioned Cen Yang by name, she caught the familiar names "Borui" and "Haichuan."

After the call ended, Ji Mingshu couldn’t help but speak first. "I read the financial paper on the plane. It said Jingcheng Capital intends to acquire Borui. Jingcheng Capital is the one you started with Jiang Che, right?"

"Mhm."

Ji Mingshu pressed on, "And this acquisition… have you been planning it for a long time?"

They were approaching the ETC lane at the highway toll; a few cars were queued up. Cen Sen slowed the car, seeming to consider his words. "Not too long. The plan only came together after I returned to the country last year."

That wasn't long?

"So… that time Cen Yang intercepted that billion-dollar investment… was that part of your plan too?"

On the plane, this question had nagged at her. She’d always heard people praise Cen Sen’s formidable skill and ability. Was his famed skill just frantically cleaning up a mess after being outmaneuvered by a newcomer? Thinking back, it didn’t add up.

Just as Ji Mingshu was picturing Cen Sen masterfully manipulating everyone like chess pieces, he poured cold water on her theory. "No."

"…"

Never mind.

Cen Sen added leisurely, "He's not worth that level of planning."

As he said this, he looked straight ahead, his expression detached, the lines of his profile clean and sharp. Even in a normal driving posture, he exuded a steady, unshakeable confidence.

Ji Mingshu glanced at him and was, quite inappropriately, captivated for a few seconds. Her fingers fiddled with the rose petals, her heart beating like a startled deer.

It took her a good while to snap out of it. She turned to look out the window as if nothing had happened. Catching his reflection focused on the road, she quietly pulled out her phone and typed out a line at lightning speed, a smile unconsciously tugging at her lips.

Ji Mingshu: [OMG, when my Cen-shi Sensen gets all alpha, other men might as well not exist!]

Jiang Chun: [??]

Jiang Chun: [Unauthorized dog-food dumping outside designated time and location. One red card.]

Gu Kaiyang: [Ji-shi Shushu, you've changed.]

Gu Kaiyang: [You used to say he was beta.]

Jiang Chun: [That's because she's mutated into Cen-shi Shushu now!]

Ji Mingshu: …

Ji Mingshu: [I brought gifts for both of you. Think carefully.]

[Jiang Chun has retracted a message] x2

[Gu Kaiyang has retracted a message] x2

The true nature of humanity. :)

Ji Mingshu didn't notice that during those few minutes of chatting, Cen Sen had glanced at her three separate times.

Stopped at a red light, Cen Sen suddenly asked slowly, "Are you chatting with Cen Yang?"

"Huh?"

"What are you talking about?"

Baffled, Ji Mingshu handed him her phone without thinking, showing him the chat interface.

Cen Sen actually looked. And before Ji Mingshu could react, he scrolled up a bit.

[OMG, when my Cen-shi Sensen gets all alpha, other men might as well not exist!]

Seeing this, Cen Sen raised an eyebrow almost imperceptibly, gave a slight nod, and continued driving.

…?

Ji Mingshu was dumbfounded, managing to detect an emotion named 'pleasure' on his otherwise expressionless face.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and the reunion… even more ardent.

That night, the lights at Mingshui Manor stayed on until dawn.

Ji Mingshu experienced a comprehensive demonstration of what "alpha" truly meant. Waking up the next day, lying in bed, she felt profoundly serene. And utterly world-weary.

Before, Cen Sen would clean up afterward. But since the baby conversation, they hadn't restocked those destined-to-be-trash contraceptive items.

However, a baby didn't seem to arrive with a single strike. Ji Mingshu's period had been arriving right on schedule for the last month or two.

She was starting to have minor doubts about her own constitution, but Cen Sen didn't seem worried at all.

This led Ji Mingshu to highly suspect—that he didn't actually want a baby; he just wanted to enjoy himself.

Her suspicion wasn't without evidence. Since ditching precautions, the dog man's athletic enthusiasm and stamina had clearly leveled up. Before, she was only occasionally pushed to the brink; now, every time was a journey to the brink and back.

Seeing Cen Sen emerge from the bathroom in the morning, dressed in a crisp white shirt and suit, his tie impeccably knotted and adorned with the tie clip she gave him, the very picture of refined nobility, she couldn't help but mutter weakly from the bed, "Beast in gentleman's clothing!"

Hearing this, Cen Sen turned back, walked to the bedside, tucked her in, smoothed her disheveled hair, kissed her lips, and readily admitted, "Mhm. Right now, I'm in the gentleman's clothing."

—I'll be the beast later tonight.

Ji Mingshu couldn't resist kicking him.

"Don't move around, I just applied ointment for you."

Cen Sen caught her ankle, his tone casual, as though discussing the weather.

Ji Mingshu was so angry she was speechless for a long moment.

Fortunately, Cen Sen knew when to stop. "I'm going to the company. Rest well at home today."

As he stood up, he seemed to remember something. Leaning down again, he whispered two words by her ear.

He certainly knew how to hit the right note. Hearing them, Ji Mingshu's barely gathered anger dissipated in seconds. Feeling awkward yet pleased, she actually proactively looped her arms around his neck and gave him a proper kiss.

Although Cen Sen told her to rest, Ji Mingshu couldn't sit idle, remembering the endless design work piled up.

Also, over dinner last night, she had a proper discussion with Cen Sen about the documentary program. After careful consideration, she had given the producer a definite yes.

The program was finally titled "Vestiges: Street Impressions." It would be broadcast as a narrated documentary. Besides introducing the renovation project, the designers' on-screen time would be minimal.

This was fundamentally different from Designer’s Abode, which was more about recording than designing. This program was about the design first.

In late June and early July, the main structure of Junyi Yaji, the designer hotel under the Junyi Group, was completed, and interior decoration officially began.

At this stage, designers didn't need to be hands-on. If time allowed, they could occasionally visit the site to give guidance; if not, remote supervision was also fine.

Ji Mingshu's time didn't allow much. She had already thrown herself into the new challenge of Vestiges: Street Impressions.

Initially, hearing the producer talk about restoring Shanghai-style charm, Ji Mingshu thought she'd have to travel to Shanghai. Turns out, it was Hustreet, right in the capital.

Hustreet was an oasis hidden in the city, with a prime location. But due to various historical reasons, it was difficult to fully relocate residents, and the architecture hadn't been well preserved.

The old public housing slated for protective renovation was one of the few relocated buildings on Hustreet—a three-story Western-style villa whose dilapidated exterior couldn't hide its Republican-era charm.

The renovation targeted both exterior and interior. The exterior focused on restoration, involving professional issues like wall structure; for this, the production team had enlisted a renowned architect.

The interior renovation was to be completed by Ji Mingshu and several other interior designers, in coordination with the architect.

Initially, the production team estimated a two-month renovation period; they had greatly underestimated the difficulty.

And—the team was a bit prone to flights of fancy. Originally, it was clearly stated they were renovating unoccupied old public housing for exhibition. But then the producer and scriptwriter suddenly said, "Not warm enough, not human enough."

So, on a whim, they reached an agreement with the relevant authorities to also take on the neighboring building, which was filled with elderly, sick, and disadvantaged residents.

When Ji Mingshu first heard this, a stampede of mental curses ran through her mind, and she was ready to walk off the project. But the producer, appealing to both reason and emotion, somehow talked her into it, and she muddle-headedly agreed.

Due to the last-minute additional workload, the entire team spent the whole summer on this project, barely completing two-thirds.

By late autumn, when the project was finally complete, Ji Mingshu felt she herself had been thoroughly renovated too.

The uninhabited building was manageable. The occupied one was an absolute headache. Every day, she felt surrounded by the cacophony of ten thousand chickens, ducks, and geese, as if transported back to a pastoral era.

Residents unwilling to demolish their illegal structures, fighting over half a square meter of public space—this was a world apart from the life she had always known.

She used to hear that poverty limited imagination. Now she realized wealth could limit imagination too.

She had to admit this impromptu addition plan ruthlessly exposed her weakness: she wasn't good at putting herself in others' shoes to make designs truly down-to-earth.

But no matter how difficult, everything eventually reached a satisfactory conclusion. When filming wrapped, Ji Mingshu felt she had gained many new insights.

The renovation delay caused scheduling issues; the broadcast time slotted by the TV station couldn't be changed.

The post-production team had to work around the clock. Just one week after renovation completion, the promotional trailer was released.

Ji Mingshu quietly reposted the official trailer. She thought it was just a formality, but after lying dormant for half a year, her sudden "resurrection" still drew considerable attention and engagement.

Mainly, her timing was impeccable. Recently, a famous rich-girl blogger who regularly posted vlogs flaunting bags, watches, and walk-in closets was exposed. The saga kept twisting and turning, trending for three days across Weibo and major forums.

It started when a keen-eyed fan questioned the pattern on a Chanel bag serving as background in an Hermès bag unboxing video. The little fan was ganged up on by other die-hard fans.

Indignant, the little fan went to great lengths to gather various pieces of evidence proving the bag was off and submitted them to an exposé account.

The exposé that the rich-girl blogger carried fakes blew up. The blogger blamed it on a friend's gift and even hinted on a private account that the giver was a certain faux friend who'd already vanished from social media.

The hot-tempered faux friend, vanished or not, was lured back online. After clarifying she didn't give fakes, she used her main account to diss the rich-girl blogger for faking her education and being kept by a wealthy businessman. This ignited a three-day drama of netizens digging up dirt versus fans defending their idol.

Ji Mingshu didn't know or care about this messy business that had nothing to do with her, but netizens could connect them in a heartbeat!

[Of all these online rich-girl personas, I only acknowledge the CEO's wife.]

[The fake one flaunts bags and closets daily; the real one is doing public welfare renovations.]

[Please stop calling every low-tier wannabe a "top-tier socialite." The CEO's wife isn't even boasting. Pipe down.]

Other bloggers who didn't get along with the exposed rich-girl blogger also spilled tea:

[Not even in the same league. That's reaching.]

[The CEO's wife owns over seven hundred Hermès bags. Why would she film an unboxing for one Kelly?]

[Ever heard of Bocui Tianhua? The penthouse owner's surname is Ji. Just saying.]

Gaining unexpected attention and nearly a thousand pleas in all caps to see the hundreds of Hermès bags left Ji Mingshu bewildered. Jiang Chun had to explain the whole saga for her to barely understand.

Gu Kaiyang, working in magazine media, had a nose for hot topics. "You could post a vlog, just casually film something. Isn't your documentary airing soon? You could promote it."

Ji Mingshu couldn't fathom how Gu Kaiyang came up with the unprecedentedly terrible idea of making a vlog to publicly flaunt wealth. Just thinking about it made her cringe hard enough to suffocate.

But Gu Kaiyang's suggestion wasn't entirely without merit. Promoting the documentary was a good idea.

It wasn't that she wanted fame and fortune, but after four or five months of hard work, she'd feel disappointed if something she worked so hard on went unseen and unnoticed.

So, after resting for two days, she asked Zhou Jiaheng to arrange a whole team—to help her film a video.

…

"Honestly, I've never been good at residential design. I only found out about the change in plans—adding the residential building renovation—after filming started.

"I was quite discouraged initially because I often don't truly understand the occupants' needs. I even believed that since I wasn't good at it, I didn't need to understand that aspect.

"But during this renovation, I encountered many situations that touched me. For example, one household had a female occupant with mobility issues, another had an elderly person with Alzheimer's. In such cases, interior design must fully serve the occupants' daily lives. It's not just about artistic flair that counts as interior design; a life with warmth is also a form of interior design."

…

The video was only three minutes and forty seconds but thoughtfully structured in three parts.

One part shared her insights on protective renovation design, another reflected on lessons from the residential renovation, and the last part was straightforward promotion for the documentary.

She knew how to make the most of things, even mentioning at the end that her design work would also be featured in the Junyi Yaji slated for a trial operation at the end of the year.

Worried about low viewership, Ji Mingshu followed Gu Kaiyang's suggestion to run a giveaway.

Unfamiliar with giveaway norms and afraid of looking stingy, she thought and posted: [Repost to enter! One winner gets a Hermès Birkin. Ten winners get their shopping carts cleared. One hundred winners get a ¥1000 red packet.]

Seeing the post, Gu Kaiyang sent her a string of question marks: [Girl, isn't that a bit too extravagant?]

Ji Mingshu: […Is it?]

Something even more extravagant followed after. The Junyi official account reposted immediately, adding another prize: one winner gets free lifetime stays at any Junyi hotel.

Comments exploded instantly.

[Rounding up, that's basically giving away a house.]

[The private hot spring suite at Junyi Shuiyunjian is 8999 per night. Is that your room rate?]

[What kind of bootlicker reincarnated as this official account? Is it the CEO himself?]

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