My Queen, My Rules - Chapter 76

Chapter 76

With that "baby" from Cen Sen, Ji Mingshu was finally satisfied. She was as sweet as if she had drunk honey, cuddling obediently in Cen Sen's arms without causing any more trouble, though the upturned corners of her lips simply would not flatten.

There were no more aftershocks in Star City that night, and the two of them slept soundly.

Early the next morning, Cen Sen held a three-way video conference with headquarters and the hotel managers in Star City to get a first-hand understanding of the measures each hotel had taken in response to the earthquake.

The hotels under the Junyi brand all followed a high-end route, and the anti-seismic standards had been set very high when the buildings were first constructed.

Furthermore, the hotel management was well-prepared; they scheduled training exercises for fire and earthquake safety every quarter, so the staff were highly disciplined.

After the earthquake last night, the hotel's work on self-inspection of walls and the evacuation and comforting of guests had been carried out in an orderly manner at the very first moment.

Learning of this, the high-level executives at headquarters were much more at ease, and Cen Sen did not stay in Star City any longer.

People in the Imperial Capital had been worried sick and had been urging them to return as soon as possible. He adjusted his work schedule and brought Ji Mingshu back to the capital that afternoon.

On the return journey, Ji Mingshu was constantly reporting her safety to the WeChat friends who had messaged her the day before to express their concern.

Seeing her not lift her head for over half an hour, Cen Sen glanced over.

As luck would have it, this one glance landed exactly on a familiar contact name: Li Che.

Li Che: 【Mingshu, are you alright? I saw on your Moments a couple of days ago that you seemed to be in Star City?】

Ji Mingshu: 【I'm fine, thanks for your concern. /Cute】

Cen Sen: "Are you and Li Che very close?"

Ji Mingshu didn't even lift her head. "Not close."

Cen Sen pondered slightly. "If you aren't close, you shouldn't reply with that emoji. Replying with the first emoji is more appropriate."

"The first one? The 'smile' emoji?" Ji Mingshu looked up, asking with slight surprise, "Do you not know what a 'smile' emoji means?"

Cen Sen's expression was calm, as if he were saying, "Doesn't a smile mean a smile? What else could it mean?"

Ji Mingshu paused for a moment. "You probably don't use WeChat for work, do you?"

"There's no need. I basically only use WeChat to talk to you."

"That's good." Relieved, she lowered her head and continued replying.

Cen Sen adjusted his tie, glancing at her phone screen with his peripheral vision while reading from his tablet.

In just this short while, she and Li Che had gone back and forth with three or four messages.

Subconsciously, he spoke in a deep voice: "Mingshu, you are already married. You should maintain a distance from these kinds of male celebrities and not leave room for people to fantasize, causing unnecessary misunderstandings."

"……?"

How could this create any room for fantasies or cause any misunderstandings? Isn't it just basic human decency for someone to show concern after seeing news about an earthquake?

She suddenly thought of something and, with keen interest, leaned in to ask: "Are you jealous, aren't you?"

Cen Sen: "I am merely kindly reminding you, lest you get too close to a male celebrity and end up on the trending topics again, becoming a victim of cyberbullying."

"I see..."

Ji Mingshu deliberately drew out the end of her sentence and gave a slow nod.

Just then, Li Che sent a new WeChat message.

Ji Mingshu was quick-witted; she covered her phone slightly against her lower abdomen and then intentionally turned to the side, not giving Cen Sen a chance to catch a glimpse.

Cen Sen: "..."

Not knowing what kind of message had been sent, Ji Mingshu held her phone and typed incessantly, all while beaming with a smile.

Cen Sen stared at her for a while, but couldn't help himself; with an expressionless face, he snatched the phone from her hand.

The message Li Che had sent was: 【I'm relieved to hear that. You can get some good rest after you get home.】

But Ji Mingshu hadn't replied yet; the message still sat in the input box: 【YOU! ARE! JUST! JEALOUS!】

Cen Sen: "..."

Ji Mingshu tilted her head triumphantly and flashed him a victory "V" sign.

He lowered his eyes with calm composure, deleted the message in the input box, and keyed in a new one—

【Thank you for your concern for my wife. I will take good care of her.】

Sent.

Ji Mingshu had never expected him to pull such a stunt; she scrambled to grab the phone and recall the message. "Are you crazy? People are going to think we are both mentally ill!"

She was a bit too late with the recall because Li Che had been waiting for her reply. Suddenly seeing this message, Li Che felt inexplicably guilty.

In truth, he had indeed had a bit of an interest in Ji Mingshu before, but knowing that she was already married and that her husband was someone not to be trifled with, he had dismissed the idea of pursuing her. Instead, he wanted to make friends with her to get closer to Cen Sen, but it seemed he had tried too hard and only achieved the opposite of his intentions.

He rubbed his forehead and began to think of remedial measures.

Whether Li Che remedied it or not, neither Ji Mingshu nor Cen Sen cared much. After sending that message, the two of them began an in-depth study on the issue of maintaining distance from the opposite sex.

This research continued for a long time after they returned to the Imperial Capital.

Ji Mingshu slowly discovered that Cen Sen's possessiveness was quite abnormal. Although he said he wouldn't stop her from having contact with the opposite sex as long as she maintained a safe distance, in reality, he wished she would delete every single male contact in her WeChat.

Moreover, he was quite hypocritical; he himself had several female assistants, but when it came to him, it was merely a "purely professional relationship."

Ji Mingshu was extremely dissatisfied, but she couldn't win the argument, so she had to seek wisdom from Gu Kaiyang. From time to time, she would use Gu Kaiyang's theories—such as "women should have their own private space," "even if married, one should have their own social circle," and "gender equality means no double standards"—to argue fiercely with Cen Sen.

Cen Sen remained noncommittal to all of this.

Aside from this "research," after returning to the capital, Ji Mingshu's primary work fell on the guest room design drafts for the Junyi Elegant Collection.

To produce a satisfactory design proposal, she didn't go out for half a month, cooping herself up at home every day.

She also had quite a strong sense of fair competition. Although she was curious to see the guest room design proposals others had made for the Junyi Elegant Collection, she felt that if she peeked in advance, she would have a guilty conscience as if she were winning by cheating.

After much struggle, she didn't open her mouth to ask Cen Sen; she just silently collected and studied the design works these designers had made public.

The more she studied, the more she felt that there were truly many people in this world with inspiration and ideas, and that she, Ji Mingshu, was not so unique and irreplaceable.

However, while learning how outstanding her competitors were, she also developed unprecedented interest and passion for this hotel design project.

Jiang Chun had never seen Ji Mingshu working seriously. She had always assumed that the designs Ji Mingshu did were just drawing sketches on paper and then ordering people to decorate and arrange furniture according to her whims, and that that constituted a job well done.

Therefore, because Ji Mingshu refused to go out for half a month, Jiang Chun kept suspecting that Ji Mingshu was secretly working on something big behind her back.

What was most suspicious was that Gu Kaiyang also refused to go out recently; she worked frantically during the day and declined every attempt to invite her out at night.

Jiang Chun's imagination ran wild, and the more she thought, the sadder she became.

Half a month later, she solemnly posted a notification in their group chat stating that "Little Goose" was about to withdraw from the group. Although the notice accidentally contained a few typos, it could be described as genuine and filled with heartfelt blood.

She ended the message with, "If you don't want to hang out with me anymore, you can just say so; I will withdraw from the group voluntarily," attached a heartbroken emoji, and then silently exited the group chat.

Ji Mingshu had just come out of seclusion when she saw this. Feeling both confused and amused, she pulled the person right back in.

Ji Mingshu: 【……】

Ji Mingshu: 【Acting in a tragic drama?】

Jiang Chun: 【You guys are ignoring me tvt!】

Ji Mingshu couldn't be bothered to nag her; she directly uploaded a concept model video that hadn't been rendered yet into the group.

Ji Mingshu: 【I worked for half a month just to barely get this far; who has the energy to ignore you?】

Jiang Chun clicked on it and was instantly stunned by the sophisticated video.

Jiang Chun: 【You made all of this?】

Ji Mingshu: 【Otherwise, did you make it?】

Jiang Chun was speechless and could only express her shock with a screen full of exclamation marks and ellipses.

Just then, Gu Kaiyang suddenly popped up to explain.

Gu Kaiyang: 【I've been recording a program recently and signed a non-disclosure agreement.】

Jiang Chun: 【……？】

Jiang Chun: 【You're an editor; what kind of program are you recording?】

Jiang Chun: 【Wouldn't it be better to spend this time dating?】

Gu Kaiyang: 【……】

Gu Kaiyang: 【It's just a dating program.】

Gu Kaiyang said it as lightly as a breeze, but Ji Mingshu and Jiang Chun both sent a string of question marks in shock: Our Gu Gu is actually dating!!!

Jiang Chun: 【When did you go?】

Ji Mingshu: 【What is the program called?】

Jiang Chun: 【How are you actually dating?】

Ji Mingshu: 【Is it real or fake?】

The two coordinated perfectly, focusing their fire and launching an interrogation pursuit on the contradiction.

Gu Kaiyang: 【……】

Gu Kaiyang: 【It's hard to explain in a few words.】

Ji Mingshu: 【Then explain it in five words, four words, eight words, seven words!】

Jiang Chun: 【Exactly! You have a mouth, so are you afraid you can't explain it? Is it hard to explain, or do you not want to explain? Gu Kaiyang, this goose formally warns you: you have developed a problem in your thinking!】

Gu Kaiyang, bombarded by the two of them, couldn't handle it and finally surrendered to the organization and confessed the issue.

After the New Year, she had participated in a dating show for ordinary people; the program was produced by a video website that had a partnership with their magazine.

It happened to be during a dinner party when an executive from the video website praised her, saying it wasn't easy to become a deputy editor-in-chief at such a young age. Their editor-in-chief, May, with her big mouth, chimed in: "Little Gu is young, beautiful, and capable, but she's completely devoted to her work and hasn't even found a boyfriend."

The executive's eyes lit up upon hearing this, and he insisted on introducing this show to her. After much back-and-forth, it turned out that their show had very high requirements for the quality of the ordinary participants, and he insisted she was outstanding and perfect for the show. Finally, due to business cooperation, she had no choice but to bite the bullet and agree.

In fact, major satellite TV stations and video websites were all making similar programs, and Gu Kaiyang had some understanding of them.

Even if it wasn't about truly falling in love, at the very least, participating in this program would allow her to meet a few elites. Moreover, this was something Editor May had agreed to, so it wouldn't delay her work too much, and it did her no harm, so she actually went.

Recently, she had been working normally during the day, only needing to return to the villa in the evenings to live with the other participants recording the show. After getting used to it, it was actually quite fine.

Jiang Chun asked the most critical question: 【Did you see anyone you liked?】

Gu Kaiyang: 【No.】

Gu Kaiyang: 【However, an old acquaintance moved in as the fourth male participant today.】

Jiang Chun: 【Who?】

Gu Kaiyang: 【Zhou Jiaheng.】

Ji Mingshu: 【？？？？】

When Cen Sen returned home that night, Ji Mingshu launched an inquiry attack on him like "Ten Thousand Whys."

"Zhou Jiaheng went to participate in a dating show. He sure has a lot of free time."

"This wasn't specially arranged by you, was it? Did you know Gu Kaiyang was participating in that program?"

Cen Sen answered the question with a question: "Gu Kaiyang? She should indeed worry about her own relationship issues, rather than being a single person who constantly feeds strange, untested theories to married people and disrupts the harmony of other people's marriages.”