The lighting in the suites of Junyi's hotels was meticulously designed. The wine cabinet and bookshelf were illuminated by a row of bright, focused spotlights, while the bathroom mirror featured an LED ring sensor light. Beside the bed, a bamboo floor lamp cast a soft, warm yellow glow that seemed to both reveal and conceal. In the surrounding silence, as their eyes met, the tranquility seemed to add a touch of tender, ambiguous sentiment.
The distance between them grew closer, and the sound of their heartbeats became clearly audible in their ears.
As adults, what was about to happen next seemed only natural.
—If only Ji Mingshu's stomach hadn't growled from hunger.
Even the next morning, as she got up to continue participating in the program recording, Ji Mingshu was still thinking about what had happened the night before.
Her mind was filled with the image of the two of them locking eyes, on the verge of kissing. She couldn't help but feel an unconscious regret over her stomach's untimely growl. Uncontrollably, she even mentally replayed and imagined the intimate scene that should have unfolded.
"Mingshu, Mingshu?" Feng Yan called her twice. "What are you smiling about by yourself? We're getting off the car."
Yan Yuexing glanced at her upon hearing this, her expression tinged with disdain. Seeing that the cameras weren't yet rolling, she couldn't be bothered to put on an act and muttered sarcastically, "Spring fever!"
With that, she was the first to step out of the car. While calling for her makeup artist to touch up her appearance, she anxiously glanced back, pretending to casually peer into the vehicle.
These past few days, Yan Yuexing had been seething with anger, thoroughly suppressed by Ji Mingshu. As a young idol, she had a thousand curses in her heart but couldn't face the camera with the same fearlessness as Ji Mingshu.
Moreover, Ji Mingshu was particularly unnerving. It was unclear where she got her confidence from, but she showed no humility or restraint, charging headlong into everything with blatant audacity.
Having fully experienced Ji Mingshu's arrogance and domineering attitude over these days, Yan Yuexing couldn't help but feel a pang of regret and unease after her sharp-tongued remark. She feared that Ji Mingshu would snap out of it, rush out of the car, and slap her twice across the face. She was convinced Ji Mingshu was entirely capable of such a thing.
However, as Ji Mingshu snapped out of her daydream, she had no time to settle the score with Yan Yuexing for her sharp tongue. Instead, she was quickly immersed in the shock of "How could I possibly have improper thoughts about Cen Sen?" and remained lost in thought for a long time.
How shameful!
How unreal!
Ji Mingshu patted her cheeks, repeatedly urging herself to snap out of it.
How could she possibly feel regret over not having something happen with Cen Sen and even imagine it on her own?
No, impossible! It must be because she hadn't had any intimate relations for too long, making her this desperate!
Besides, there was no way she could like a man like Cen Sen, who had been at odds with her since childhood. It was simply a joke!
She only liked his money, purely and simply!
Yes, that was exactly it.
Having convinced herself, Ji Mingshu even nodded solemnly.
Yesterday had been chaotic, and with a light sleep at night, Cen Sen hadn't yet adjusted to the time difference.
Early this morning, he had called a meeting with the senior executives of the branch. A group of usually well-dressed individuals sat there, pointing fingers and shifting blame, arguing for a full three hours.
With Cen Sen, a living person, still seated at the head of the table, they had turned red-faced, refusing to yield, and argued as if they were fighting over an inheritance.
After the meeting ended, the clamor of the quarreling crowd still echoed in Cen Sen's mind.He entered the office alone and instructed Zhou Jiaheng not to allow anyone inside. Leaning back in his office chair, he listened to piano music for half an hour before finally calming down a bit.
People often said women were noisy, but compared to this group of men, he felt Ji Mingshu could even be considered gentle and considerate.
Thinking of Ji Mingshu, he picked up his phone again, opened WeChat, and accepted her friend request.
Cen Sen rarely browsed his friends' updates, but noticing that Ji Mingshu had posted photos in her album, he casually clicked in to take a glance.
Unexpectedly, that one glance turned into nearly half an hour of scrolling.
Ji Mingshu’s posts were largely as he had imagined, but aside from showcasing her elegant, wealthy socialite persona, many of them were full of everyday life, even carrying a hint of silliness.
It wasn’t until Zhou Jiaheng called on the internal line to remind him of his afternoon appointment that he had just reached the New Year photos Ji Mingshu posted earlier this year.
In them, she was building a snowman with the younger members of the Cen family, wrapped in a fluffy coat and wearing a little red hat on her head, her smiling eyes bright and adorable.
While saving the photos, he calmly gave instructions about work matters.
On the other side, Ji Mingshu, who was eating a hotel-delivered bento while scrolling through her phone, was so startled she nearly dropped her lunchbox.
She had just opened her updates and saw multiple notifications. When she clicked in, she discovered it was Cen Sen who had liked over a hundred of her posts.
And just as she was wondering if this garbage app had really glitched, Cen Sen was still actively liking posts in real time.
Notifications kept popping up one after another, but the content he was liking grew increasingly older, and he even began leaving comments.
Cen Sen: [The photo is out of focus.]
Cen Sen: [The clothes are too brightly colored.]
Cen Sen: [Wrong tense used.]
Cen Sen: [Wrong idiom used.]
Ji Mingshu stared straight at the comment notifications, her mind filled with question marks. Did he think he was a homeroom teacher, grading her posts as he browsed?
Ji Mingshu: [?]
Ji Mingshu: [What are you doing?]
Cen Sen: [Looking at your updates.]
Although she had always shared her updates publicly, Cen Sen wasn’t actually among the people she thought would be viewing them.
And what was up with this man? If he wanted to look, fine, but did he have to like and comment on everything? Was this his way of saying "I have seen this"? It was utterly baffling!
Ji Mingshu didn’t want to argue with him further and decided to cut it off at the source. She changed her update visibility to "last three days" and then posted a smug, tongue-sticking-out emoji.
Unexpectedly, Cen Sen didn’t play by the rules. Out of nowhere, he sent her a candid photo from the New Year snowman-building session, complete with a one-on-one review.
Cen Sen: [This one looks the best.]
Ji Mingshu: [...]
Cen Sen: [Quite cute.]
Ji Mingshu: [...]
Her ears flushed red.
This, this dog of a man, wasn’t he trying to flirt with her? What was with the sudden directness?
Feeling inexplicably guilty, she quickly tucked her phone into her bag.
After absentmindedly finishing her bento, she happened to run into Feng Yan and Pei Xiyan sawing wood upstairs.
Most of the wood they were sawing was useless, but it was meant to enhance the show’s appeal, making viewers think the custom furniture also had contributions from the guests.
The cameras weren’t rolling at the moment, so the two were just practicing. After all, if their sawing posture looked too awkward during the actual recording, they’d likely get criticized.
She crouched down nearby, cupping her face as she watched, but her thoughts were still drifting far away.Feng Yan casually asked, "Mingshu, what's wrong? You seem a bit off today."
Ji Mingshu snapped back to attention. "I'm fine. I was just thinking... how we could practically enhance the usability of our design."
Feng Yan and Pei Xiyan couldn’t really contribute to this question.
As celebrities, they lived mostly privileged lives. They could appreciate Ji Mingshu’s high-end designs but didn’t know how to make them more practical for everyday living.
Cen Sen had mentioned last night that Ji Mingshu’s design lacked practicality, and she had seriously pondered over it for a while.
But with the renovation already past the halfway point, there wasn’t much room for changes in the hard furnishings. She could only focus on the soft furnishings.
She felt the root of the problem was insufficient storage space. When she arrived today, she visited the neighbors in the building. Based on her observations, she temporarily revised the designs for several custom furniture pieces.
For example, the sofa.
Star City is located in the south, where underfloor heating isn’t provided in winter. Most households are accustomed to using electric heaters for warmth.
At her neighbor’s place, she noticed they placed the electric heater under the coffee table. However, electric heaters are generally quite bulky. Placing them under the coffee table not only takes up space underneath, making it inconvenient to stretch your legs while watching TV, but it also looks unattractive.
So she revised the custom sofa design, leaving a rectangular space under the main sofa base to store the electric heater. The front would have a small wooden door that slides up and down, while the sides of the sofa base would be designed as storage cabinets.
Of course, more detailed adjustments would have to wait until she returned home today to revise the overall design drawings.
Ji Mingshu crouched for a while longer, watching as they repositioned the wood. Suddenly, she blurted out, "Let me ask you a question."
Feng Yan: "What question?"
Ji Mingshu: "Well, would you suddenly give a girl a lot of likes, save a picture from her social media, send it to her, tell her the photo looks great, and even praise her for being cute?"
Feng Yan and Pei Xiyan paused briefly, exchanging glances before both shaking their heads.
Yan Zai was still a kid with no dating experience, so that was understandable. But Feng Yan wasn’t that young—why was he shaking his head too?
Ji Mingshu pressed him further: "Then what do you think such actions usually mean?"
Feng Yan: "This... maybe he likes her?"
"What kind of 'like' is that? Isn’t it just flirting?"
Yan Yuexing rolled her eyes, utterly exasperated by the three of them—whose combined ages exceeded sixty—pretending to be innocent.
Feng Yan, worried the two girls might start arguing again, subtly shook his head at Ji Mingshu, signaling her not to take it to heart.
Over this period, everyone had come to see Yan Yuexing’s true colors. In front of the camera, she was a cute, sweet idol, but as soon as the cameras were off, she turned into a little troublemaker.
Initially, she had wanted to maintain a good image to get close to Pei Xiyan. However, with Ji Mingshu fiercely protective and Pei Xiyan skillfully avoiding her, even though they were recording the show together, she could hardly get near him or exchange more than a few words. Eventually, she gave up wasting her energy.
She and Cen Sen were married—they could just go straight to bed. What was there to flirt about? Ji Mingshu ignored Yan Yuexing’s nonsense, resting her chin on her hand as she pondered Feng Yan’s words. Did Cen Sen like her?
How strange. She usually couldn’t sense it at all, and he only acted like this occasionally. Could there be such a thing as intermittent affection, just like intermittent amnesia?
She continued discussing it with Feng Yan.Throughout this process, Pei Xiyan maintained a polite yet distant attitude, never joining the conversation. However, he did step out at one point to take a call from Cen Sen.
Cen Sen called to ask whether Ji Mingshu had revised the design proposal. He had just sent her a WeChat message to inquire, but it seemed she hadn’t checked her phone, as there was no reply.
Pei Xiyan responded briefly, and after a moment’s thought, added, “Sen, by the way, it seems someone has been pursuing Mingshu recently.”
Cen Sen: “What?”
Feeling that as a guy he shouldn’t be gossiping, Pei Xiyan simply suggested that Cen Sen ask Ji Mingshu directly.
But when Cen Sen pressed him again, Pei Xiyan had no choice. Clearing his throat, he explained briefly, “Some guy has been liking all of Mingshu’s WeChat Moments posts and even sent her photos of herself, praising her for being pretty and cute. That’s all. Don’t tell her I told you.”
He cleared his throat again, seemingly embarrassed by his act of tattling.
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