My Queen, My Rules - Chapter 31

Chapter 31

Ji Mingshu: [You told Pei Xiyan to keep his distance from me?]

Ji Mingshu: [Are you even human?]

Ji Mingshu: [Ever since I met you, all I want to know is how many years you get for murder.jpg]

Ten minutes later, she received a reply from Cen Sen.

Cen Sen said nothing at all. He simply took the meme she had just sent and fired back a screenshot of the legal statutes regarding the sentencing for intentional homicide.

At a single glance, it was clear: the minimum sentence was ten years, with suspended death sentences and immediate execution taking the center stage.

Ji Mingshu: [?]

Ji Mingshu: [I see you don't want a wife anymore.jpg]

Seeing this meme, Cen Sen didn't continue the argument. He simply held down the voice message button and said slowly, "Having too much contact with a popular celebrity won't do you any good. Tone it down a little."

He checked the time and added, "By the way, I’m flying to Los Angeles tonight and will be back in a week. But I’ll be stopping in the Imperial Capital first before heading over to Star City."

"Zhou Jiaheng has already arrived in Star City. If you need anything, you can contact him."

Matters at the Star City branch were far thornier than anticipated.

Internal affairs within Jingjian had been restless for years. While Cen Yuanchao had spent great effort cleaning things up, the specific operations under Junyi had been somewhat neglected.

As the second-largest stronghold of the Junyi Group, the Star City branch had been left under the control of senior management for so long that it had effectively become a breakaway faction. Trying to dismantle it in one fell swoop was unrealistic; they could only be broken one by one through slow, grinding efforts.

Cen Sen couldn't afford to halt his other work for the internal conflicts of a single branch, so he had sent Zhou Jiaheng to keep an eye on things while he stepped away to negotiate more important partnerships.

Ji Mingshu paused for three seconds after receiving those two voice messages.

This was his reason for breaking up the "Yan-Que" pairing?

But when she tried to message Cen Sen again, it was like a stone dropped into the ocean—no response.

Furious, she shot back a "never meet again for all eternity" deluxe package, swiftly blocking and deleting him in one fluid motion. In her heart, she didn't forget to draw circles to curse the dog of a man to have a "smooth journey"—and fearing that the circles weren't potent enough, she threw in a few polygons and triangular prisms for good measure.

Once her rage cooled, Ji Mingshu thought that since the path through Cen Sen was cut off, perhaps she could make a breakthrough through Pei Xiyan.

The kid wasn't that old; a little coaxing would likely get him to spill everything—how he and Cen Sen met, exactly what Cen Sen said to make him keep his distance, and so on.

She could even brainwash the kid so he wouldn't listen to Cen Sen's nonsense.

But she never expected that this kid, Pei Xiyan, had incredibly strong principles. Since he had promised Cen Sen to keep his distance from her, he absolutely refused any physical contact. They barely even made eye contact, let alone let her get close enough to persuade him. During filming, whenever he saw her intending to approach, he would dodge on his own.

Ji Mingshu was very annoyed.

The only silver lining was that this deliberate distance didn't seem very obvious, as it was masked by the uniform coldness Pei Xiyan showed toward everyone.

He remained quiet and cool throughout, simply following instructions and practicing the motto "do more, speak less" with extreme thoroughness.

Compared to him, Yan Yuexing was a classic negative example. The other three members of the group combined didn't say as much as she did, yet she did the least amount of work. She would stop to catch her breath every time she swept the floor, taking the opportunity to whine and act coy in front of the camera.

Even that would have been fine, but not only did she not work, she caused nothing but trouble.

Ji Mingshu: "What did you buy? Six thousand five hundred? Are you crazy?"

Under the triple pressure of "limited funds," "you are the backbone," and "the kid is ignoring me," Ji Mingshu had realized the hardships of life in just a few short days.

Initially, she had no concept of a design budget. She thought two hundred thousand wasn't even enough to renovate a bathroom, let alone an entire house—it was a joke.

Later, she secretly asked experienced designers from other groups and searched online for home renovation cases for ordinary families, only to realize that the funds provided by the show were within a reasonable range.

She had also spent several days running between building material markets and furniture markets. Only by wandering through the markets herself did she learn that many materials weren't as expensive as she thought. If one didn't chase after classic works from famous furniture designers or limited-edition products, there was actually a lot of room for choice.

In just a few days, the Miss Ji who had never known anything but luxury had compiled a long Excel sheet for the two hundred thousand decoration fund, calculating down to the last digit. She repeatedly emphasized to her team members not to buy any impractical decorations that didn't fit the design plan.

Who would have thought that Yan Yuexing would completely disregard team collaboration and suddenly bring back a carpet priced at six thousand five hundred?

Faced with Ji Mingshu's inquiry—which was on the verge of a full-blown confrontation—Yan Yuexing acted innocent and righteous: "It's a carpet. Don't you think it's pretty? This is a limited-edition piece from a very famous designer this year. There's only this one left in the entire home furnishing market, eh."

Ji Mingshu only needed a glance to know which house's design it was. Without even lifting her head, she said, "Return it."

"Why return it? This carpet is very versatile. If you put it by the sofa in the living room, it will have that post-modern feeling, right?"

During the first recording, Ji Mingshu had mocked her taste as being like a "rural socialite." Yan Yuexing had been very dissatisfied and spent a few days cramming knowledge. Now, she would occasionally pop out words like "post-modern" or "high saturation," terms that sounded quite artistic at first listen.

Ji Mingshu couldn't care about the fact that the cameras were still rolling. She just felt dizzy and blocked in her chest, so she lashed out.

"Can you shut up? Do you even know what post-modernism is? This has nothing to do with being post-modern!"

She grabbed the carpet and tossed it in front of Yan Yuexing. "If you don't understand, speak less and do more. Have you graduated from university? Are the songs you sing your own original work? Do you have even the most basic respect for original design in your head? A brand that the fashion circle has collectively boycotted and can't enter the Chinese market just kept at it, turned around to cooperate with a furniture dealer, and now a piece of trash carpet dares to sell for six thousand five hundred? The point is, there are actually people like you—half-full buckets of water—who are genuinely praising it?"

She was practically laughing with rage.

Yan Yuexing was stunned by the mockery.

Feng Yan wanted to play the peacemaker, but before he could even finish a "forget it, forget it," Ji Mingshu cut him off. "We cannot forget it."

She stared coldly at Yan Yuexing: "Either you go return this carpet now, or you cover the cost yourself. In any case, my work does not need this kind of boycotted garbage!"

She spent her time calculating costs down to the penny in Excel, not to have it squandered on this kind of junk.

This little girl wanted to play tricks on her? She could go eat dirt!

After working together for many days, all the staff following the shoot had figured it out—

In other groups, the amateur designers were just there to make up the numbers, often having to subtly deal with the irrational ideas of celebrity guests.

The designer for this group, however, was the real backbone. From her competence to her aura, she crushed everything, and in the group, she was the one whose word was final.

Feng Yan and Pei Xiyan basically did whatever she told them to do. Yan Yuexing was a troublemaker, but she was no match for this designer and always ended up being the one suffering.

She had the heart to throw her weight around, but with Pei Xiyan calmly waiting for task assignments, she didn't have the status to make the show's producers take her seriously; the director's team didn't even pay her any mind.

So, without a doubt, the "carpet war" ended in a total victory for Ji Mingshu.

Yan Yuexing went off to the furniture market to return the item, looking aggrieved, and muttered quite a few "white lotus" phrases to the camera along the way.

But Ji Mingshu didn't have time to care about that. The renovation period was very tight, and she needed to regulate and control every single aspect.

All of her previous works, including the conceptual pieces she did in school, had never required her personal involvement in the execution, making them somewhat like "armchair talk."

This was her first time doing more domestic interior design, and her first time actually participating in the renovation after finishing the blueprints.

During the first two episodes, she had been distracted, but once she truly entered the zone, she became completely invested.

For lunch, they ate the boxed meals provided by the show. Although they were well-balanced with meat and vegetables, the presentation in plastic boxes was far from refined. Added to the fact that the house undergoing renovation was full of dust and smelled terrible, Ji Mingshu had absolutely no appetite.

While the others were eating, Ji Mingshu was still in the music room testing the effectiveness of soundproofing materials.

When she came out of the music room, her vision went blank for a split second. It took about four or five seconds for her to recover from the stiffness.

Ji Mingshu rubbed her temples, feeling that something was wrong with her body. Recently, she had been suffering from dizziness and nausea, which felt a bit like the rumored early symptoms of pregnancy.

But she and Cen Sen hadn't done it in a long time, and they had taken precautions the last time they did. Besides, she had her period recently, so pregnancy was probably impossible.

She walked to the balcony to breathe some fresh air and suddenly remembered Yan Yuexing complaining about the bad smell of the house, saying she might be poisoned by formaldehyde. She felt a bit uneasy.

The wall paint and such were sponsored products. She had looked them up online and they were certified as environmentally friendly by the state, but in these matters, who could really say?

Ji Mingshu likely hadn't heard the saying: "Ask Baidu once, you're sick; ask Baidu twice, your grave is already chosen." She was too timid to see a doctor, so she didn't just stop there—she actually went online and searched for her own symptoms.

After searching, her face turned pale and her heart became even more anxious.

In the days that followed, Ji Mingshu didn't want to eat and couldn't sleep well. She ran around the construction site and the building materials market every day, visibly losing weight. No one knew what kind of scenarios she was imagining when she lay alone in bed in the dead of night.

A week passed quickly, and Cen Sen finally returned.

While waiting for his flight at the airport, he saw the brand of bag that Ji Mingshu usually carried and went inside to buy the new model.

Cen Sen’s original plan was to return to the Imperial Capital first and talk to the old man about the An family.

Who would have thought that as soon as he landed, Zhou Jiaheng would call and say, "President Cen, Madam fainted at the recording site and was rushed to a nearby hospital half an hour ago."

"Understood."

He didn't even leave the airport and flew straight to Star City.

Ji Mingshu had fainted suddenly while moving furniture. Feeling dizzy and nauseous, she saw a flash of white light before collapsing to the floor, unconscious.

The show's crew rushed her to the hospital and notified the contact person she had listed.

The contact person she had listed was Zhou Jiaheng.

As Cen Sen’s chief assistant, his reliability was about a hundred times greater than Cen Sen's. His phone was essentially always online and reachable.

Thirty minutes after receiving the notice, he was already at the hospital.

But Ji Mingshu hadn't woken up.

She slept until the evening. As the sunset glow projected in through the floor-to-ceiling windows, casting an orange-red luster, Ji Mingshu finally opened her eyes slowly.

It took about a minute or two for her consciousness to return, and she realized she had fainted and been taken to the hospital.

She rolled her eyes and saw Cen Sen standing by the bed. Her heart sank abruptly.

—Even Cen Sen had come.

Realizing she was awake, Cen Sen walked back to the bedside and said with a calm expression, "You're awake."

Ji Mingshu said nothing, and there was no expression on her face—no sorrow or joy. Deep down, after a thousand struggles and ten thousand instances of reluctance, she still asked calmly, "What’s wrong with me?"

Cen Sen was silent.

"It's okay, just say it. I can handle it."

Ji Mingshu lowered her eyelashes. One hand was connected to an IV drip, while the other was tightly clenched into a fist under the quilt. Thinking about all the countries she hadn't been to, the gourmet food she hadn't tasted, and the Birkin bags she hadn't collected, she felt a dull ache in her heart. She was already debating whether or not she should undergo chemotherapy, and if chemotherapy would make her look ugly.

"..."

"You're hungry.”