The voice was neither loud nor soft, slightly lowered, carrying a familiar calmness.
Ji Mingshu’s mind exploded!
How could it be?
How could he be here?
As if to confirm the possibility for her, Cen Sen knocked on the door again.
"If you don’t open it, I’ll call someone."
"Don’t!" Ji Mingshu instinctively blurted out to stop him.
Jiang Chun chimed in at that moment, shouting toward the men’s restroom, "Ji Mingshu, you can come out now! Your husband cleared the area, there’s no one outside anymore!"
Ji Mingshu: "..."
Seriously, compared to letting this jerk see her in such a sorry state, she’d rather have rushed out recklessly before he arrived or simply flushed herself down the toilet to vanish from the face of the earth!
This girl stood outside for so long without helping at all, and now she even brought over the last person Ji Mingshu wanted to deal with to witness her embarrassment. What was she doing? Where was her brain? Did breaking up come with an intelligence-debuff or something???
Cen Sen clearly wasn’t very patient. Seeing that she remained silent and motionless for so long, he prepared to call his assistant. "Zhou Jiaheng..."
"Wait!"
Ji Mingshu raised her voice to drown out his words and, with effort, reached up to fumble with the latch.
The next second, the stall door gently swung outward.
Cen Sen lowered his gaze to see Ji Mingshu crouched on the floor, looking small, pitiful, and helpless.
She hugged her knees tightly, her face buried deep in the crook of her arms, but Cen Sen could still faintly glimpse her flushed ears through the gaps in her hair.
Before Cen Sen could speak, Ji Mingshu mumbled in a muffled voice, "My legs are numb, I can’t stand up."
She was quite good at taking the initiative.
Cen Sen’s expression remained indifferent, and he didn’t respond.
Ji Mingshu waited for a long time without any movement, unsure whether this jerk was pretending not to understand to mock her or if he was just too much of a clueless straight guy to grasp her meaning. She had no choice but to steel herself and command directly, "Carry me out."
Cen Sen still stood there without moving, lost in thought.
Ji Mingshu felt uneasy, afraid he was deliberately trying to embarrass her.
Fortunately, after a few seconds of silence, Cen Sen finally moved.
He leisurely unbuttoned his coat, took it off, and draped it over her head.
Then, leaning slightly forward, he wrapped one arm around her slender shoulders and the other under her knees, lifting her into a horizontal carry.
The moment her body left the ground, Ji Mingshu’s legs tingled intensely, as if thousands of tiny insects were swarming and lightly stinging her feet and legs. To make matters worse, Cen Sen shifted her weight slightly in his arms, intensifying the numbness—whether intentionally or not, she couldn’t tell.
The restroom had been temporarily cleared by Cen Sen, so it was quiet inside. Outside, the sounds of conversation, laughter, and rolling suitcases mingled into a noisy cacophony.
Ji Mingshu was so nervous at that moment that every sound seemed like people pointing and whispering about her. Temporarily setting aside the thought of how Cen Sen might mock her later, she instinctively shrank deeper into his embrace, wrapping her arms around his neck, silent and timid as a quail.
Cen Sen carried a faint scent of fir—clean, crisp, and refreshing. Nestled against his chest, Ji Mingshu unconsciously took a few extra breaths.
Cen Sen noticed and glanced at her but said nothing.Outside, Jiang Chun was handing over the luggage to Zhou Jiaheng. Seeing Cen Sen completely shielding Ji Mingshu and then executing a boyfriend-power-max princess carry, she felt a mix of envy and jealousy, silently giving Yan two metaphorical scissor-stabs in her heart.
Actually, she had always thought that Ji Mingshu and Cen Sen were a textbook case of an arranged marriage between families—putting on a loving show when they needed to appear together in public, but otherwise living separate lives and ignoring each other.
But after witnessing today's scene, she felt that jealousy had previously blinded her. To have secretly assumed their marriage was unhappy without knowing anything was truly malicious. She was clearly a kind person—when had she become so malicious?
All the way to the parking lot, Jiang Chun followed behind them, silently reflecting.
Settling into the back seat of the car, she watched as Cen Sen carried Ji Mingshu into their car and drove away. Suddenly, she tore off the couple's watch on her wrist—the same style as Yan's—and thought angrily: Another day where the lemon tree bears fruit! Scumbag, drop dead!
Outside the window, the sun shone brilliantly. In the capital city's midsummer, the sunlight was scorching, and the air was stiflingly dry.
Inside the car, Ji Mingshu still had Cen Sen's suit jacket draped over her head and remained silent.
Cen Sen paid her no mind, busy on a call with a business partner.
Finally finishing the work call, a call from home came in. He glanced at the caller ID, then at Ji Mingshu, and put it on speakerphone.
"Ah Sen, have you picked up Xiao Shu yet?"
Hearing Old Madam Cen's robust voice, Ji Mingshu's ears instantly perked up.
Cen Sen gave an affirmative "Mhm." "Picked her up."
Old Madam Cen on the other end urged, "Then hurry over! Aunt Zhou made a whole table of dishes today, all your favorites!"
Wait, go to Nanqiao Hutong for dinner? In her current stinky, wretched state?
Ji Mingshu instantly emerged from under the suit jacket, shaking her head frantically at Cen Sen.
Cen Sen looked at her, his gaze calm, saying nothing.
Thinking quickly, Ji Mingshu scooted closer to him and tentatively started massaging his shoulders and back.
After enjoying the massage service for over ten seconds, Cen Sen switched the phone to his other hand and said, "Grandma, I have an unexpected meeting tonight. Xiao Shu hasn't adjusted to the time difference yet and is a bit tired; she's already fallen asleep in the car."
"Is that so." Old Madam Cen understood. "Then take Xiao Shu back to rest first. Come for dinner another time."
"Okay."
Old Madam Cen added, "Don't work too hard; take care of your health."
Cen Sen again responded with an "Okay."
Only after the call ended did Ji Mingshu finally relax completely, stopping her shoulder and back massage. She quickly returned to her seat as if nothing had happened.
Cen Sen, probably accustomed to her fickleness, didn't make a big deal of it. Ji Mingshu herself felt a little guilty, stubbornly looking out the window without turning her head.
But the more she looked, the more something felt off—
Wait, isn't this the road back to Mingshui Mansion anyway?
She realized and turned to glare at Cen Sen, but he had already crossed his arms, leaned back in his seat, and closed his eyes to rest.
Cen Sen had been on a business trip out of town for the past two days and had just flown back to the capital from Star City two hours ago. After getting off the airport expressway, he received a call from Nanqiao Hutong and only then learned that Ji Mingshu was returning today.He had Zhou Jiaheng check the flight schedule, and it happened to be perfect timing—the flight from Paris had just landed.
So he instructed the driver to turn around and head back to the airport, planning to pick up Ji Mingshu and go to Nanqiao Hutong for dinner.
Originally, he had stayed in the car and sent Zhou Jiaheng to fetch her. Unexpectedly, Zhou Jiaheng didn’t bring her back but instead called him, and he heard a young woman’s voice on the other end shouting, “Mr. Cen, your wife is trapped in the men’s bathroom and can’t get out!”
Recalling that scene, Cen Sen instinctively rubbed his brow.
By the time they returned to Mingshui Mansion, it was already dusk. Ji Mingshu, wrapped in a suit jacket, walked inside, her sunglasses never removed and her lips pressed tightly together.
She walked quickly, heading straight upstairs as soon as she entered the house and disappearing into the bathroom to run a bath.
Hearing the sound of water, Cen Sen only glanced up before continuing to change his shoes.
When he walked to the fridge to get some water, another series of miserable screams echoed from upstairs. “Ahhhhhhh!!!”
These screams clearly weren’t due to surprise or fear. Though brief, Cen Sen could discern the deep frustration and regret in them—thoughts like, “How could I have done such a stupid thing?” “My reputation is ruined in an instant,” and “Mom, let me die again.”
He chuckled softly and took another sip of water.
Cen Sen held a video conference downstairs, which lasted nearly two hours.
Noticing no further sounds from upstairs, he went up to check and realized Ji Mingshu was still in the bathroom.
He knocked on the door from outside. “Ji Mingshu?”
“What?”
“Are you addicted to staying in the bathroom?”
As soon as he finished speaking, the glass door was pushed open forcefully.
Ji Mingshu wore a hair-drying cap and had only a towel wrapped around her. With her makeup removed, her face was clean and clear, tinged with a rosy flush from the steam. Her collarbones, arms, and calves were fair, delicate, and slender, giving her an aura of both innocence and sensuality.
She walked out barefoot, deliberately moving closer to Cen Sen. “Smell me, is there still any odor?”
She wasn’t sure if it was an illusion from being trapped in the men’s bathroom, but she felt as if she smelled awful all over.
Cen Sen’s voice was slightly low. “Yes.”
“?”
Ji Mingshu immediately lowered her head to sniff herself.
Cen Sen, who hadn’t relieved himself in days, found it hard to resist the temptation. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he suddenly pulled Ji Mingshu close, pressing her against him. His hand traveled from her spine to her tailbone while he whispered into her ear, “Trying to bribe me?”
“???”
What kind of logic was that?
Ji Mingshu’s mind went blank for a moment, followed by a dizzying sensation as she felt herself suddenly lifted into the air and then thrown onto the bed.
It wasn’t until she lay beneath Cen Sen, feeling a chill on her body, that she realized his implication—that she was deliberately seducing and bribing him to save face and make him stop mentioning the men’s bathroom incident???
Great, truly worthy of a Harvard graduate. What an excellent line of thought—why hadn’t she thought of it?
Ji Mingshu suddenly wrapped her arms around Cen Sen’s neck and asked confidently, “So if I bribe you, will you accept it?”
Desire was visible in Cen Sen’s eyes as his voice dropped low and husky.
“I accept.”
This bribe was a bit too generous.Ji Mingshu felt as if she had been tossed between life and death several times over. She had already soaked in the bathtub for a long time, and somehow the battlefield had extended back to the bathroom. After soaking twice in one day, she felt like she was about to shrivel up.
Late at night, Ji Mingshu woke up and found Cen Sen wasn’t by her side.
She was a little hungry.
She had taken a bath as soon as she returned, and after that, she had to attend to her sponsor daddy. Lying in bed, she felt like her stomach was touching her back.
After struggling for about five minutes, she dragged her weak legs downstairs to find something to eat. Unexpectedly, as she reached the stairs, she caught a whiff of a delicious aroma wafting from the central island counter.
She instinctively looked over and saw Cen Sen rolling up his shirt sleeves, skillfully plating the food from the pan.
“It smells so good, what are you making?” She moved closer. “Braised pork ribs rice?”
Cen Sen gave a faint “mm” in response, put down his sleeves, picked up the plate of fragrant and perfectly presented braised pork ribs rice, and headed toward the dining area.
Ji Mingshu followed eagerly, her eyes fixed on the food.
But Cen Sen glanced back at her and said, “I didn’t make any for you.”
“?”
“Why?”
As soon as she asked, she felt something was off. She couldn’t help but imagine him replying like some shameless, domineering character from an R-rated novel: “Hah, you little temptress, didn’t I just fill you up enough?”
However, reality often proves more stark than imagination. The thought had barely crossed her mind when she heard Cen Sen say, “I thought you spent too long in the men’s restroom and wouldn’t have an appetite for food.”
So this was what he meant by accepting a bribe?
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