My Queen, My Rules - 96

Cen Sen remembered the day he returned to Nanqiao Hutong. A light drizzle fell, raindrops splashing into puddles on the ground, leaping up in fleeting blossoms of water. The sky was a gloomy gray, like dirty wash-water slopped unevenly across a canvas.

It wasn't just that day. For a long time after returning to Nanqiao Hutong, it seemed he was always seeing that same oppressive, overcast sky.

Cold-toned, melancholy, lifeless, and stretching endlessly ahead—yet it possessed a powerful, enveloping force, casting a gray pall even over the briefest flashes of brightness.

That awkward, in-between period of his life, when he was transitioning from childhood to adolescence, seemed perpetually shrouded in that same gray filter.

Immersed in a past that had already grown distant, he unilaterally rejected all goodwill from the outside world.

Much, much later, as his and Ji Mingshu's daughter, Cen Zhuo, slowly grew up, looking more and more like a quiet, miniaturized version of Ji Mingshu, he would often find himself looking back and wondering: if all those years ago he had accepted the bold, outstretched hand of that little girl Ji Mingshu, offering her friendship, would the many dim days he later walked through alone have been bright instead?

In Cen Sen's impression, the elementary-schooler Ji Mingshu was a pretty but incredibly noisy little girl. In middle school, she evolved into a pretty, yet equally noisy, young girl.

Spoiled, willful, bold, and audacious. It was as if she could make herself the center of the universe no matter where she was, and just as a matter of course demand that all lesser celestial bodies orbit her.

When Cen Sen was in his third year of junior high, Ji Mingshu had just started her first year. That entire year, the probability of him hearing the name "Ji Mingshu" was higher than that of hearing their homeroom teacher's name.

Entering high school, academic pressure suddenly increased, and his classmates' appetite for gossip during breaks diminished slightly. But the junior and senior high divisions of the affiliated school weren't separated, and Ji Mingshu remained the central figure in all manner of schoolyard chatter.

"That second-year, Ji Mingshu, is getting pretty close with the class monitor next door."

...

"Did you hear? The track team captain is pursuing Ji Mingshu."

...

"Someone sent flowers to the second-year class during lessons yesterday. We'll probably get a school-wide announcement and criticism during the homeroom meeting later. Old Yang definitely won't make us do test papers then. Good news!"

...

Such tidbits flowed past his ears day after day. Even without trying, he'd always catch and remember a few fragments.

Back then, after evening self-study ended, Cen Sen always made a habit of spending an hour or two in the library before returning to the dorm, because the dorm was no less noisy than Ji Mingshu. It was impossible to focus on studying once he went back.

Of course, this didn't mean that waiting an hour or two spared him from the pollution of pointless topics.

Dormitory lights-out chats, no matter the starting topic, would always somehow, inexplicably, circle back to the girls at school.

One night, his roommates discussed:

"Hey, so I overslept this morning, right? Ran into Li Wenyin and Ji Mingshu at the school gate. They were stuck there arguing about the dress code—skirts shortened meant demerits. I'm telling you, Ji Mingshu is really something. In that short skirt, her legs are so white and straight. Just, wow. No exaggeration, I couldn't even blink at the time."

"Li Wenyin's not bad-looking either. The quality of girls in their grade is really something. Not like ours. Pfft. You can count the decent ones on one hand."

"Li Wenyin's okay on her own, but standing next to Ji Mingshu, she pales in comparison. A bit too plain."

Adolescent boys were inevitably restless. Discussions about female classmates happened often. Whenever someone threw out a topic, everyone's enthusiasm to contribute would unconsciously multiply exponentially. The only ones in the whole dorm probably uninterested in girls' topics were Cen Sen and Jiang Che.

Back then, Jiang Che was into informatics competitions, dreaming of writing code in his sleep. Anyone disturbing him usually got impatiently brushed off. Over time, the roommates learned their lesson and wouldn't bother him with boring topics he had zero interest in.

But Cen Sen was even-tempered and quiet. Although he always carried a faint sense of detachment, he maintained good relationships with most people and was the unofficial leader in the dorm. When discussions wound down, the topic would often circle back to him. That time was no exception.

"Hey, Brother Sen, between Ji Mingshu and Li Wenyin, which type do you prefer?"

"What kind of question is that? Definitely Li Wenyin. Isn't that a free point?" a roommate teased, answering for him.

Like Ji Mingshu, Cen Sen was a school celebrity in his own right, with fresh rumors popping up now and then. One of the more widespread ones claimed he and Li Wenyin were childhood sweethearts with a very ambiguous relationship.

Cen Sen had heard it in passing but never paid it any mind. When they were kids, Li Wenyin had lived with the Ji family. If that counted as childhood sweethearts, then he and Ji Mingshu had no reason not to count either.

Usually, when someone derailed it, the topic would die a natural death. But that night, after the interruption, his roommate pressed Cen Sen again. "Hey, Brother Sen, you haven't said it yourself. Which type do you like?"

Cen Sen lay flat on his bed, gazing at the ceiling in the sparse moonlight filtering through the window, and replied casually, "Li Wenyin's type, I guess."

His roommates let out a meaningful, drawn-out "Ohhhhh,” followed by the expected joking and teasing.

But even as he answered "Li Wenyin," an image involuntarily formed in Cen Sen's mind: Ji Mingshu passing in front of him, chin slightly raised, blowing a gum bubble, and secretly rolling her eyes.

The girl Ji Mingshu often didn't walk properly. When happy, she liked to put her hands behind her back, bouncing lightly on her tiptoes.

But the pair of legs beneath her pleated skirt were indeed, as his roommate said, fair and smooth, straight and long.

That fleeting thought was vanishingly brief back then. He also didn't have the mind to pay attention to people who had little to do with him. School was busy, and he remained occupied like that until graduation from high school.

When Li Wenyin confessed to him, he had just gotten his recommendation letter from the principal and was about to enjoy a rare stretch of free time.

He was at an age where dating was acceptable. He had the time, someone had confessed, and she happened to be a type he appreciated at the time, so why not try?

To him back then, it seemed as simple—and unnecessary to ponder—as picking up a new set of competition problems to work on. Later, when he felt it wasn't suitable and they parted amicably, from his perspective, it followed the same logic.

In matters of feelings, Cen Sen considered himself a pragmatic, self-interested rationalist. He had never imagined a day would come when he would unconditionally treat a woman well because of love.

After parting amicably with Li Wenyin, he went abroad to study. During those years abroad, his schedule was packed full, but his romantic history remained a blank slate.

After returning to China, at the class reunion, he and Ji Mingshu ended up in bed together; one thing led to another. Afterwards, driven by their respective families' interests, it was almost a given that they got married. Yet for a long time after marrying Ji Mingshu, he didn't feel this marriage had brought any significant change to his life.

Everything started to change after he returned from Australia.

He didn't know why, but he found himself paying more and more attention to this ornamental wife's every move.

Clearly, the adult Ji Mingshu was still as spoiled, willful, unrestrained, and audacious as before. It seemed the Earth had to revolve around her alone for things to be perfect.

But within that willfulness, there now seemed to be a vitality he hadn't understood before. It was as if the Ji Mingshu he saw before was a flat, paper-cut figure, but now she was three-dimensional and multifaceted. Her willfulness wasn't the least bit annoying. In fact, it made him inexplicably want to indulge her whims.

In his rational definition, this was originally just an unimportant marriage. Once the Ji family's use decreased, dissolving this marital relationship wouldn't matter much. But when Ji Mingshu first brought up divorce to him, he didn't feel relief. On the contrary, he felt an out-of-control displeasure.

Later, his emotions always found themselves uncontrollably fluctuating with Ji Mingshu's. No matter how busy he was, the moment he had a spare minute, his heart seemed to be preoccupied with something.

He truly confirmed his own feelings, probably during the period when Ji Mingshu, misunderstanding that he and Li Wenyin had rekindled their old flame, ran away from home.

One night, he went to a bar with Jiang Che and accidentally overheard someone making crude, disrespectful remarks about Ji Mingshu. For the first time in his life, he got into a fight—without thinking, without considering the consequences.

Before this, he'd always considered using violence to solve problems to be a foolish thing to do.

After the fight that night, he drove and sat in his car outside Ji Mingshu's building, letting the cold wind blow over him for a long time.

It was probably starting from that night that he knew, very clearly, that he was a lost cause.

Recognizing this fact, his state of mind wasn't complicated. For a moment, he even felt a sense of relief and unconsciously laughed to himself.

So be it, then. A lost cause is a lost cause.

In one's lifetime, everyone is destined to meet their nemesis.

—

Cen Sen and Ji Mingshu officially fell in love in the third year of their marriage. In the fifth year, they had their first baby. In the twelfth year, they had their second.

When their second child, Zhuo Bao, was born, Ji Mingshu was thirty-four. She still looked like a young woman in her early twenties, her personality still holding a childlike innocence that belied her age.

This was probably because she'd been protected too well. From a family of two, to three, to four, the first priority in Cen Sen's heart had always been Ji Mingshu, this forever-childish Little Canary Baby.

In the fifteenth year of their marriage, the always lively Little Canary Baby fell ill, the kind that required surgery.

It started with physical discomfort, a hospital check-up, and then the discovery of a shadow.

Ji Mingshu was all claws and teeth on the surface, but in reality, her courage was the size of a pea. And she had a tendency to overthink. Even fainting from dieting could make her brain spin tales of terminal illness. Waiting for results was, without a doubt, an excruciating torture for her.

For Cen Sen, it was also torture.

Ji Mingshu showed no sign of worry in front of the children, even pretending to be relaxed in front of him, always saying things like, "Our family is so rich, what illness can't we cure?" But one night, he found Ji Mingshu had gotten out of bed and was hiding on the balcony, crying silently.

He walked over slowly and hugged her from behind.

Ji Mingshu cried even harder, her voice choked with sobs. "What if I have cancer? Actually, I'm… I'm so scared… I'm so scared of dying… I can't bear to leave you, can't bear to leave the babies. I really can't…"

He gently stroked Ji Mingshu's head, his warm breath brushing against her ear, but somehow he couldn't find any words of comfort.

That seemed to be the most powerless moment of his life.

Both he and Ji Mingshu lost a lot of weight during that period. Later, the test results came out, it was a benign tumor requiring surgical removal.

He put aside all his work to accompany and care for her every step of the way.

The surgery was relatively simple and completed smoothly, but it was still cutting with a knife. After the operation, Ji Mingshu rested and recuperated for a long time before regaining her lively, vibrant self.

But Cen Sen suddenly realized they weren't as young as they were in their teens or twenties anymore.

When Ji Mingshu was sick, he had made the worst-case plan. If Ji Mingshu were to leave first one day, he would fulfill the duties of both parents for her, raise Cen Yan and Cen Zhuo to adulthood, see them start families and careers, then, without any attachments, go find her.

His life was lonely to begin with. Because of Ji Mingshu, he had stolen many warm years. He couldn’t let this little coward wait alone for too, too long.

He remembered many years ago meeting a potential investor for the Nanwan project, Mr. Chang. This Mr. Chang was famously family-oriented, always saying during conversations: you can’t ever finish making money, but you can always make more time for family.

Back then, he didn't pay it much mind. Now, however, he felt that no matter how much he achieved, without Ji Mingshu to share it with, it seemed meaningless.

He drastically scaled back his work, delegating much to the younger generations of the Cen family he’d nurtured over the years.

He would plan balanced, healthy three-meal-a-day menus for Ji Mingshu, accompany her shopping and to events, travel with her, and even start planning well in advance for a full handover of the Cen Enterprises once Cen Yan was ready, so they could retire and travel the world, enjoying their world for two. 

While traveling in Morocco, Ji Mingshu chattered excitedly about sending postcards to her best friends Gu Kaiyang and Jiang Chun.

He sent one too. The recipient was Ji Mingshu.

On it, written in semi-cursive script, was a line—

"Baby, however long or short this life may be, I will be the one who walks with you to the end. Thank you for barging into my life without warning."

---

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