My Queen, My Rules - 87

The airport was a river of people, a low hum of chatter and rolling suitcases punctuated by flight announcements. Departure boards flickered, a constant backdrop for farewells and reunions.

Cen Sen's arrival should have drawn the final line under this particular goodbye. Ji Mingshu slowly extracted herself from his embrace, and Cen Yang, taking the hint, prepared to make his exit.

But then, with a soft clatter, several unidentifiable objects tumbled from Ji Mingshu's pocket.

Cen Yang was the first to react, bending to pick them up. He glanced at what he was holding, his expression turning notably intriguing.

Cen Sen, not caring to see what they were, coldly snatched them from his grasp and looked down.

Then, both men turned their eyes to Ji Mingshu.

Ji Mingshu: "..."

The silence stretched for a good ten seconds. Again, it was Cen Yang who recovered first. He cleared his throat gently and said warmly, "Congratulations."

Ji Mingshu tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, pressing her lips together. Pregnancy wasn't some shameful secret, but having pregnancy tests spill out like this was mortifying enough to make her want to suffocate on the spot.

She glanced at Cen Sen as if by accident, only to find him staring straight at her, unblinking.

Desperate to end this increasingly awkward farewell, she shuffled closer in tiny steps, looped her arm through his, cleared her throat, and said to Cen Yang, "Well, you still have security and customs. You should head in. We won't keep you. We'll… meet up next time we're in the States."

Cen Yang nodded, said nothing more, and simply waved goodbye.

Planes landed and took off with a roar, a relentless cycle of arrivals and departures.

After he was gone, Cen Sen asked, "Was your sneaky outing today to buy these?"

"I wasn't sneaking," Ji Mingshu deflected stiffly. "Anyway, why are you here? Didn't you have that investment meeting today? How did it go?"

Cen Sen: "The contract is signed."

"Good." She breathed a sigh of relief.

Cen Sen: "You haven't answered my question."

"What question?"

Cen Sen glanced down at the pregnancy tests in his hand.

Ji Mingshu paused, organizing her words. "Well… I threw up this morning, right? Gu Kaiyang and Jiang Chun said it might be… you know. So I thought I should buy a test. I couldn't very well go to the hospital alone, could I?"

"Then why didn't you tell me?"

"You had the contract to deal with! I was going to tell you after I got a result, so you could take me to the hospital for a proper check-up."

Cen Sen was silent for a moment, letting the subject drop. "I've already had Zhao Yang arrange a prenatal checkup. We're going now."

Already arranged? But she hadn't seen him make a call.

A slow question mark formed in Ji Mingshu's mind.

Following him to the car, she felt dazed and nervous.

Nervousness made her chatty. Once in the car, she prattled on, recounting every detail from receiving Cen Yang's farewell call onwards.

When she got to their phone conversation, she found it amusing. "Oh, why were you so tense on the phone earlier? You two were so weird. You didn't actually think Cen Yang would kidnap me, did you? What kind of logic is that…"

"What if he had?"

Cen Sen interrupted suddenly.

Ji Mingshu: "...?"

Cen Sen glanced at the rearview mirror at the bodyguards' Passat following them, his voice betraying little emotion. "When he was still with the Cen family, he was kidnapped. The family had just found out about his true parentage. Faced with the huge ransom demand, they considered abandoning him."

"He's held a grudge against the Cens all these years. So I couldn't rule out the possibility that, having lost all his other cards, he might kidnap you for revenge."

Cen Yang was kidnapped? When did that happen?

It took Ji Mingshu a long moment to process this.

Cen Sen had already looked away, concluding calmly, "Fortunately, he still has some sense."

He hadn't originally wanted to dredge up these old, buried stories for Ji Mingshu. But she had been sheltered too well, never having witnessed the true depths of human malice and coldness.

If Cen Yang hadn't genuinely decided to let go of the past today, but instead wanted one final, reckless act of revenge against the Cen family, he could have easily used their shared history and a single phone call to lure Ji Mingshu away.

Even a one-in-ten-thousand chance of that mutually destructive outcome was enough to fray his self-control at the mere thought of it.

After digesting the information, Ji Mingshu felt less fear and more shock. "I never knew about this. Why would they want to abandon him?"

Cen Sen lowered his gaze, his tone flat. "You understand too little about the Cen family."

To understand the inherent coldness in their bones.

The drive to the hospital was spent processing the revelation about Cen Yang's past. Distracted by this, her earlier nervousness vanished completely. Even while waiting for the test results at the hospital, her mind was partly distracted, half wondering whether she was actually pregnant, half pondering the Cen family's past.

While waiting, Cen Sen was on a call with Zhou Jiaheng, receiving real-time work updates.

His expression was as composed as ever, but his eyes kept drifting toward the lounge door, his attention wandering. Zhou Jiaheng had to call his name twice before he refocused.

Ji Mingshu's results were delivered to the lounge personally by the head nurse.

"Mr. Cen, Mrs. Cen, congratulations."

The head nurse beamed as she handed over the report.

Cen Sen took it, his eyes scanning the page. Ji Mingshu leaned in to look too.

In truth, both their minds went blank the moment they heard "congratulations." Looking at the report was pure instinct; the numbers and terms were incomprehensible.

They remained in that blank state for a good half-minute before they started to hear the head nurse explaining precautions for the early stages of pregnancy.

One sat quietly without a word; the other listened and nodded faintly.

Witnessing their reaction, the head nurse thought to herself: People who've seen the world are different. Even news of a pregnancy is met with such unflappable composure.

After the nurse left, silence lingered in the lounge.

Ji Mingshu finally emerged from her daze and tugged on Cen Sen's sleeve. "I… I'm really pregnant."

Cen Sen's fingers twitched. He didn't speak, just slowly turned and drew her into his arms.

Ji Mingshu had thought she was mentally prepared for this. But hearing the confirmation felt like a dream—unreal, yet wonderful.

She wrapped her arms around Cen Sen too. But after a while, his silence felt heavy. She looked up, half-sulking, half-coaxing. "Why aren't you saying anything? Weren't you the one who wanted a baby? Aren't you happy I'm pregnant?"

Cen Sen rested his forehead against hers, gazing into her eyes for a long time before he finally said in a low, rough voice, "I'm very happy."

Ji Mingshu glanced behind her to ensure they were alone, then sneakily lifted the hem of her shirt, exposing her flat, pale stomach. "Prove it," she demanded unreasonably. "Kiss your baby. Prove you're really happy and that you really love them."

Cen Sen was silent for a beat. Then he guided her to sit on the sofa, braced his hands on the cushions beside her, and slowly bent down, pressing a kiss to her bare stomach.

Ji Mingshu couldn't suppress the smile that tugged at her lips. She stood up and hugged him tightly, adding a new command. "But after the baby is born, you still have to love me the most!"

Cen Sen gave a soft "Mm," ruffling her hair and promising in a low voice, "I'll love you the most."

The head nurse, remembering she'd forgotten to give them the prenatal handbook, returned to the room. She was just about to knock when she overheard the saccharine conversation inside.

"..."

Better not disturb.

---

The initial shock of the pregnancy left both Ji Mingshu and Cen Sen feeling disconnected from reality. On the drive home, they agreed to keep the news from their families for now.

Cen Sen's reason was his inherently limited emotional connection to his relatives; he didn't feel the need to share immediately. Ji Mingshu, deeply influenced by period dramas where pregnancies are hidden, was convinced the first three months shouldn't be announced to the world.

Back home, they both remained in a surreal, floating state. Though they tried to act normally, they were already profoundly affected.

Ji Mingshu watched a drama but couldn't recall a single plot point after an entire episode. Cen Sen cooked, turning green pepper fried pork into green pepper fried red pepper, and managed to salt it twice.

That night, after showering and lying in bed, one was on her phone, the other reading. Ji Mingshu's mind wasn't on her screen at all, but seeing Cen Sen seemingly absorbed in his book, she didn't know how to start.

She peeked at him. Ten minutes later, she peeked again.

Suddenly, as if she'd made a great discovery, she snatched Cen Sen's e-reader from him. With the small triumph of having caught him out, she challenged, "You've only turned one page in ten minutes! What are you really doing?"

Cen Sen pinched the bridge of his nose and admitted, "I was thinking about the baby."

Ji Mingshu lay down across his lap. "Me too."

"Hm?"

She sighed, a little melancholy. "It just still feels… so unreal. I'm not even mature myself, and suddenly I have to raise a child. And my own mother barely paid attention to me when I was little. I don't even know how a mother is supposed to act towards her child."

Cen Sen stroked her hair, lost in thought, and didn't reply.

Ji Mingshu suddenly reached up and poked his Adam's apple, hesitantly voicing a question she'd long been curious about but had never asked.

"So… I was wondering. Your mother, your biological one, I mean… have you ever met her?"

"I met her once."

The emotion in Cen Sen's eyes was unreadable.

Ji Mingshu: "I saw her many times when I was little. But then, suddenly, she and Cen Yang both disappeared."

In the past, Ji Mingshu hadn't been one to dig for answers. Partly from lack of curiosity, partly from a desire not to meddle. For a long time, she had conscientiously upheld the principle of their arranged marriage, actively preserving each other's personal spaces.

She never pressed about why he and Cen Yang were switched, never probed why her official mother-in-law was completely absent, never asked what Cen Sen had truly thought about it all those years.

But tonight, she was suddenly overcome with an urge to step completely into Cen Sen's past.

This urge had been brewing since she noticed his polite but distant relationship with his family. It crystallized today in the car when he said, "You understand too little about the Cen family." It struck her then that she had doled out so much sympathy to Cen Yang, but had never deeply considered why Cen Sen, who had a family, seemed to live with a sense of lonely detachment from everyone.

Cen Sen twirled the ends of her hair around his finger, silent for a long time before answering. "She passed away a long time ago."

His birth mother came from a prestigious family. Before marrying Cen Yuanchao, she had been engaged to her childhood sweetheart, who died in a car accident before their wedding.

She had discovered very early on that Cen Yang wasn't Cen Yuanchao's child. But it never occurred to her that he wasn't her child either; she instinctively assumed he was conceived with her late fiancé before her marriage. So she went to great lengths to hide the truth from the entire Cen family.

It was largely thanks to her efforts that Cen Yang's true identity remained hidden until he was seven or eight years old.

She had never gotten over her first love and poured all her affection into Cen Yang.

Later, Cen Yuanchao accidentally discovered that Cen Yang's blood type didn't match either of theirs. He secretly arranged for two paternity tests. When the results came back, he followed the trail and quickly uncovered the An family.

Back then, the An family was also a scholarly household in the capital. They happened to give birth in the same hospital as the Cen family. A careless nurse had switched the two babies.

The An family patriarch had stepped down from his post due to sensitive political issues shortly after his daughter-in-law, Chen Biqing, gave birth, and the whole family moved to Xingcheng, their lives gradually settling into simplicity.

Later, Cen Yuanchao confirmed Cen Sen's identity and wanted to bring him back.

Cen Yuanchao was initially adamant about keeping Cen Yang to raise as well. But upon learning the truth of the switch, his wife had a complete breakdown. Not because of the switch itself, but because the child she had cherished with all her heart was not the product of her lost love as she had believed.

Furious upon learning the truth, Cen Yuanchao's disgust extended even to Cen Yang. When Cen Yang was later kidnapped, Cen Yuanchao disregarded the kidnappers' threats and called the police directly. Fortunately, Cen Yang was tough and was rescued by the police.

Later still, when Cen Sen declared it was either him or Cen Yang, Cen Yuanchao took the opportunity to send Cen Yang back to the An family.

Cen Sen's birth mother never recovered from the collapse of her world. He met her once after returning to the Cen family. The look she gave him wasn't just unfamiliar; it was laced with disgust.

She and Cen Yuanchao began divorce proceedings soon after. The day after Cen Sen returned to the Cen family, she left without a backward glance.

The Cen family publicly claimed she was accompanying Cen Yang abroad for his studies. The following year, she fell ill and passed away. Her ashes were buried in the cemetery on the western outskirts. From then on, like Cen Yang, she became a forbidden topic in the Cen family.

Outside, a light rain pattered against the window. The floor lamp cast a warm, yellow glow. Cen Sen's voice was calm and low as he narrated the entire story, as if it had nothing to do with him.

Ji Mingshu was lost in thought for a long time after hearing it.

So, this was the complete story.

She had seen his birth mother as a child too, though back then she was still Cen Yang's mother. In her memory, she was a gentle, quiet, cultured woman. It was hard to imagine her being so cold to her own child, not uttering a single word during their only meeting.

For some reason, the thought of that gentle aunt from her childhood looking at Cen Sen with disgust made her ache terribly.

The room was quiet for a long while. Suddenly, she wrapped her arms around Cen Sen's waist, then sat up to loop them around his neck, planting light kisses on his lips. One, two, three.

"Husband, don't be sad. The baby and I will be good to you from now on."

---

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