My Queen, My Rules - Chapter 36

Chapter 36

Although she told herself she shouldn't get angry, if anyone could remain peaceful and smiling after encountering something like this, they would have to be the reincarnation of the Laughing Maitreya Buddha, glowing with divine aura.

For a few seconds, Ji Mingshu really wanted to shove her phone into Cen Sen’s face to let him see exactly how his world-class "white lotus" ex-girlfriend was acting so shamelessly and stirring up trouble.

But the last shred of her reason told her that since Cen Sen had said he would no longer dwell on the past, she shouldn't vent her anger on him without cause.

Perhaps Li Wenyin was banking on her explosive temper to pick a fight with Cen Sen, intentionally pulling this stunt to drive a wedge between them, and was currently waiting to watch the show.

Yes, that must be it.

Don't fall for it, absolutely do not fall for it!

But she was just so angry!!!!

Ji Mingshu grabbed a cushion and buried her head in it for a moment, then kicked Cen Sen, put her feet down, and sat up straight. She was fuming, teetering on the edge of exploding and interrogating him.

Usually, Ji Mingshu was a straight shooter, but whenever her nemesis Li Wenyin was involved, she acted as if possessed, holding onto grievances she couldn't bring herself to voice.

It wasn't school dismissal time yet, but the small shops in the neighborhood had opened, and street vendors were pulling their carts out one after another.

"Stop the car!" Ji Mingshu suddenly shouted. She looked at the roadside stalls and said, "I'm hungry."

The driver was sharp and immediately replied, "Madam, what would you like to eat? I'll go buy it."

Ji Mingshu: "No need, I'll go myself."

As soon as she stepped out of the car, Ji Mingshu headed straight for a deep-fried food stall and ordered a portion of chicken tenders.

Just like stationery stores, deep-fried food stalls were a staple of school life, regardless of whether it was elementary, middle, or high school. Apart from the skyrocketing prices and the QR codes stuck on the carts, everything looked exactly as she remembered.

The vendor was efficient. He used tongs to grab some chicken tenders from the metal tray, weighed them, realized he had grabbed too many, picked two pieces back off the scale with a light shake, and tossed them back into the tray.

His skillful and indifferent operation seemed to be telling Ji Mingshu: give it up, my stall doesn't accept payment in beauty.

In fact, Ji Mingshu only started strictly controlling her diet in her second year of high school. When she was a child, she also loved junk food; Sprite, Coke, potato chips, spicy strips, fried snacks, and barbecue were all her favorites.

Back in middle school, she relied on her youth and fast metabolism, frequently grabbing late-night snacks with her girlfriends.

But the summer vacation after her freshman year of high school, her class organized a final get-together before the streaming process. She mixed beer with plenty of oily and spicy skewers. When she got home, she was in agony with a stomachache, running to the bathroom constantly, and was eventually diagnosed with acute gastroenteritis by the family doctor, needing three full days on an IV drip.

At the time, her aunt was heartbroken while scolding her, and her older and younger cousins hovered around her, nagging her endlessly. She was so terrified by this group of "Tripitakas" that she had to raise four fingers and swear, "I'll never eat junk food again, or I'll marry an ugly monster!"

Her little cousin, sharp-eyed and pedantic, even forced one of her fingers down, making her swear again.

Ji Mingshu felt guilty, and she swore again weakly, only then gaining some temporary peace. But as she lay alone in her room, the silence felt excessive, and the pain in her stomach became even more pronounced.

She curled up on the bed, rubbing her belly with tears in her eyes, remembering how the girls in her class had said, "Li Wenyin actually landed Cen Sen," and "She's so lucky." She tossed and turned, unable to sleep.

In her memory, that must have been the most difficult night of her life so far.

She hadn't taken the vow seriously when she made it, but after that night, she developed a lingering, deep-seated phobia of gastroenteritis. Every time she saw junk food, she would feel a lingering fear, and to her surprise, she actually kept her promise, turning over a new leaf and becoming a better person.

*

The breaded chicken tenders sizzled in the oil, turning golden. Ji Mingshu pulled herself back to reality and poked the glass cabinet again, "Add a sausage."

At some point, Cen Sen had followed her.

He glanced at Ji Mingshu, but couldn't see any particularly intense desire for fried food in her eyes.

The food was soon fried. Ji Mingshu held the chicken tenders and handed the sausage to Cen Sen, "Help me hold this."

Cen Sen didn't reach for it for a long while.

Something must have snapped in her mind, and she suddenly poked the sausage toward his face, provokingly adding, with a hint of bitterness: "Did you never hold snacks for your girlfriend when you were in school?"

Cen Sen finally took the bamboo stick from her hand and happened to reflect on it, "No."

"..."

Yeah, right.

If he never even held snacks for her, what exactly was Li Wenyin reminiscing about?

Ji Mingshu went to a beef noodle shop feeling stifled, but Cen Sen reminded her from behind, "The one ahead tastes better."

"How do you know?"

Cen Sen’s voice was calm, "I studied here before."

...？

Ji Mingshu paused for two seconds and turned to look at the elementary school across the street.

—Star City Normal University Second Affiliated Primary School.

The red paint on the school name was peeling, and like the old sentry booth, it looked as if it hadn't been renovated for years. The road inside the school was shaded by lush trees on both sides, becoming less clear the further back you looked, with only the brick-red teaching building faintly visible in the distance.

Cen Sen studied here when he was in Star City?

For some reason, the ordinary little street suddenly took on the familiar taste of the old days, making her feel inexplicably curious and wanting to know more.

*

Even after following Cen Sen into the noodle shop, Ji Mingshu was still looking around in detail. It was hard for her to imagine the "little radish" version of Cen Sen living here for such a long time.

Cen Sen thought she was acting like a princess and couldn't accept such a rustic environment, so he laid two tissues down on a plastic stool. Who would have thought that Ji Mingshu wouldn't even notice; after looking around, she pulled up a small plastic stool and sat down herself.

The owner looked Cen Sen up and down, his expression seeming to say, "What's wrong with a grown man being more particular than this pretty little girl?" Cen Sen remained unmoved, sat down, and ordered directly, "Two bowls of beef noodles, slightly spicy."

Ji Mingshu corrected him: "I don't want beef; I want the three-delicacy mix."

"Coming right up."

The elementary students hadn't been dismissed yet, so the owner boiled the noodles for them in three or five minutes.

The owner was an honest man, and his differential treatment was very obvious. Cen Sen’s bowl was a normal portion, but Ji Mingshu’s three-delicacy noodle bowl was piled with a small mountain of toppings.

Unfortunately, Ji Mingshu’s "bird-sized stomach" was destined to let down the owner's kindness of adding more for the same price. She had been controlling her diet for so long that her body and mind had developed inertia; after a few chicken tenders, the calorie count was already spinning rapidly in her mind.

She couldn't eat now, so she just stirred her bowl aimlessly with her chopsticks.

Perhaps feeling the atmosphere was too quiet, she asked Cen Sen while stirring, "Did you come to this shop often when you were in elementary school?"

Cen Sen added some chili to his bowl, "Not often. I usually went home to eat."

Mentioning going home, Ji Mingshu couldn't help but think of Chen Biqing and An Ning. After seeing them that one time, Cen Sen didn't seem to have contacted them again. Was he planning to just ignore it like that?

Ji Mingshu rested her chin on her hand and said casually, "I saw on WeChat Moments that An Ning seems to have started school."

Cen Sen glanced up. Not knowing how his train of thought turned, he suddenly asked, "Are you trying to ask if Cen Yang has returned?"

"...?"

"I didn't."

Ji Mingshu instinctively denied it, feeling very bewildered inside.

Heaven is my witness, she was as tired as a dog every day; where would she find the time to think about the blurry-faced Cen Yang?

Cen Sen didn't know if he believed her, but he didn't pick up the topic anyway.

Ji Mingshu recovered from her bewilderment, feeling that his sudden shift to Cen Yang was because he didn't want to talk about family issues, so she didn't push it.

After all, it had little to do with her, and she didn't have the ability to act as a mediator to fix the messy, fragile family relationships of her "plastic" husband.

In the next second, she remembered something that did have to do with her.

Li Wenyin's interview was truly filled with heartfelt nostalgia for their relationship; how rare could three months be? Had she never seen a man before? A cold, hard, smelly rock like this—only a "white lotus" like Li Wenyin would treat it like a treasure and hold onto it so tightly!

It would have been fine if she hadn't thought about it, but once she did, she felt uncomfortable all over, wildly wanting to make trouble.

Suddenly, she grabbed the vinegar bottle and dumped half a bottle into Cen Sen's bowl, staring at his bowl with sincerity: "I think it tastes better with more vinegar."

Cen Sen’s chopsticks paused. He didn't say much, but simply swapped their bowls.

When they left the noodle shop, the sun was already setting. Elementary students were being dismissed across the street, either stretching their necks to find their parents or standing in line to board the school bus.

Ji Mingshu stood by the roadside, suddenly acting like an elementary student herself, pulling on Cen Sen and refusing to move.

Cen Sen: "What is it?"

"My feet hurt; I can't walk."

Warning one: Little Bird Ji had started her antics.

Cen Sen glanced down, "Then I'll call the driver to bring the car over."

Ji Mingshu: "This is a one-way street; it takes a huge detour for the car to turn around."

She didn't even have a driver's license, yet she was very knowledgeable about traffic rules.

Cen Sen ignored her and reached for his phone.

She reached out and covered his phone, acting perfectly justified: "Why do you like to trouble others so much?"

"..."

Cen Sen swept her with a look that said, "Everyone has the right to say that except you." After a moment of silence, he asked, "Then what do you want? Want me to carry you?"

Ji Mingshu crossed her arms and looked around, intentionally putting on a breezy, indifferent attitude, narrowing her eyes slightly: "Whenever I couldn't walk when I was a kid, Big Brother Cen Yang would carry me."

"..."

Cen Sen continued to flip through his contacts for the driver.

"…?"

What was with this "crap" attitude of his?

She wouldn't actually want him to carry her in front of a bunch of elementary schoolers, but he could at least show a little bit of a husband's tenderness and consideration. Hadn't he carried Li Wenyin before? Why couldn't he carry her!

The more Little Bird Ji thought about it, the angrier she got. Without thinking, she said: "I wonder when Big Brother Cen Yang will be back. Big Brother Cen Yang has been smart since he was a kid; he should be doing well abroad these years. Come to think of it, I haven't seen many boys as excellent as him, and he was also especially kind. All the stray cats near the hutong when we were kids were fed by him."

Just as Ji Mingshu was rambling on with her fabricated nonsense, the driver had already received notice and pulled the car over.

Cen Sen stepped forward to open the car door, then paused, looked back at Ji Mingshu, and said in a flat tone, "He possesses many traditional Chinese virtues; it's a pity I have none of them."

Ji Mingshu: "…?"

Before she could react, the car door slammed shut with a "bang.”