Excellent, absolutely excellent.
Ji Mingshu felt her understanding of Cen's Sensen had reached a new level.
Although Cen's Sensen hadn't admitted it outright, the implied meaning of his indirect statement, translated plainly, was: Yes, I know your best friend is participating in this show, and I arranged for Zhou Jiaheng to go there. I hope your best friend can focus on her own affairs from now on and stop having so much free time that she meddles with our marital relationship.
Ji Mingshu: "Have you lost your mind?"
Wasn't his work busy enough? He actually had the spare time to arrange for his own assistant to cozy up to his wife's best friend!
Cen Sen stared at her for a moment, then nodded. "You actually believed that."
He loosened his tie and suddenly chuckled lightly.
Ji Mingshu: "..."
She wasn't sure if she was seeing things or what, but Cen Sen's smile carried a hint of inexplicable affection, as if saying, "Oh darling, I just love how you believe everything, that foolish look of yours with not enough brains to go around."
She got goosebumps, stood on tiptoe, pinched Cen Sen's cheeks, and pulled them to the sides. "Stop laughing!"
"Alright, no laughing."
Cen Sen pressed his forehead against hers, planted a kiss on her lips, and then asked in a low voice, "Want to shower together?"
Ji Mingshu: "Pervert!"
The process of his flirtation aside, during this time, Ji Mingshu still managed to pester Cen Sen into explaining the matter of Zhou Jiaheng joining the show.
Actually, this really was a coincidence.
Zhou Jiaheng's family had been urging him to find a partner for the past few years. He always used work as an excuse to put them off. His family, at their wits' end, came up with a rather underhanded plan: they quietly submitted his resume and signed him up for a dating show.
With his resume, he naturally passed the initial and secondary selections with ease. It wasn't until the production team notified him to attend an interview that he found out about it.
Zhou Jiaheng actually didn't want to go, and Cen Sen originally hadn't planned to let him go either. But after learning that Gu Kaiyang was also participating in the show, he approved Zhou Jiaheng's leave and even advised him that if he was interested, he could try to develop something with Gu Kaiyang. If not, he could also help facilitate a connection between Gu Kaiyang and the other male guests.
Although Cen Sen's explanation was quite reasonable, Ji Mingshu still wanted to warn Gu Kaiyang that Zhou Jiaheng had ulterior motives and wasn't a good guy. However, Gu Kaiyang seemed quite pleased about Zhou Jiaheng joining the show midway as the fourth male guest, and her words were full of unstoppable praise.
Gu Kaiyang: 【I always thought Zhou Jiaheng was just that mother-hen type of assistant, but his position at Junyi is actually Vice President of Greater China. Can you believe it?】
Gu Kaiyang: 【And he did his undergrad at Tsinghua and his master's at USC. That's a really strong academic background. I had way too much prejudice against him before...】
It's no wonder Gu Kaiyang's opinion of Zhou Jiaheng changed so drastically. Without comparison, there's no sense of disparity.
On the third day after moving into the villa, the production team finally allowed everyone to reveal their age, education, and profession.
The condescending attitudes of the other guests during the first three days had led Gu Kaiyang to mistakenly believe they were all elite graduates from Harvard or Cambridge, earning millions annually in various industries. As a result, she felt immense pressure every time she returned to the villa those days.Who would have thought that when it came time for the big career reveal, the kings instantly turned into bronze. The degrees and jobs they reported were the kind that sounded impressive on the surface but were so inflated you could drown a cow in the water squeezed out of them. Gu Kaiyang sat there, her back unconsciously straightening.
Not to mention Zhou Jiaheng—his qualifications were truly peerless among these so-called elites.
Just look at the genuine reactions of the female guests to know. Previously, one female guest and a male guest had developed a pretty obvious mutual interest, but ever since Zhou Jiaheng arrived these past few days, the female guest had been finding all sorts of opportunities to be alone with Zhou Jiaheng.
Hearing Gu Kaiyang praise him like this, Ji Mingshu didn’t want to pour cold water or stir up trouble, especially since the two of them were still in the stage of changing impressions and hadn’t developed anything yet.
But Ji Mingshu still couldn’t rest easy. After finishing the hotel design drafts, she used the excuse of caring about Cen Sen’s health to make a special trip to Junyi during the day when Zhou Jiaheng would be at work.
In the CEO’s office—
Ji Mingshu sat in the office chair, borrowing authority from Cen Sen’s presence, imitating his usual unreadable demeanor, and asked lightly, “Assistant Zhou, is your actual position at Junyi Vice President of Greater China?”
Zhou Jiaheng replied modestly, “Just in name only.”
“When was that title given? Could it have been temporarily assigned by someone just before the show?”
She glanced meaningfully at Cen Sen, whom she had banished to the reception area to drink soup.
Zhou Jiaheng: “Not at all. I’ve held this position since returning from Australia.”
Ji Mingshu nodded and asked, “Assistant Zhou, you don’t seem to be from the capital. Was it very difficult for you to get into Tsinghua?”
Zhou Jiaheng remained humble. “It was fine. I ranked third in the province on the college entrance exam that year, so getting into Tsinghua or Peking University wasn’t too difficult.”
“…”
Ji Mingshu was speechless for a long moment.
Cen Sen, whether he couldn’t bear to listen anymore or for some other reason, suddenly signaled for Zhou Jiaheng to step out and hurry along a document.
Once he was gone, Cen Sen asked Ji Mingshu, “Do you think Zhou Jiaheng isn’t good enough?”
“It’s not that he isn’t good enough,” Ji Mingshu propped her chin and thought for a while. “It’s just that I feel, since Gu Kaiyang is my best friend, if her boyfriend were my husband’s assistant… it would seem a bit strange.”
Cen Sen said gently, “Zhou Jiaheng’s annual salary should be enough to buy three of Gu Kaiyang’s apartments. He also holds shares in the group. Besides, being an assistant is just a form of training for him—he won’t be an assistant forever. You’re worrying too much.”
Ji Mingshu retorted, “She’s my best friend, of course I’m going to worry!”
Without a second thought, Cen Sen said, “But it’s your best friend who’s dating, not you. They’re just on a show. If she feels it’s not suitable, naturally things won’t progress between them.”
Oh, you’re the only one with a mouth!
You’re the only one who knows how to talk!
Ji Mingshu’s death glare locked onto him.
Seeing him completely oblivious and still drinking his soup, Ji Mingshu stomped over angrily, covered the soup bowl in front of him, and picked a fight: “Why can’t I date? I married you directly without even experiencing the process of falling in love. Don’t you feel guilty? Instead, you have the nerve to say it so righteously. I’ve really seen through you!”
Cen Sen: “…”
The mood swing came as fast as a tornado. It wasn’t until he heard the office door slam shut with a deafening bang that Cen Sen managed to piece together Ji Mingshu’s sudden outburst of grievances.
He rubbed his brow, suddenly understanding what it meant to have a sweet burden.Outside the office, Zhou Jiaheng, who had just retrieved the documents, bumped into Ji Mingshu again.
Before he could even greet her, Ji Mingshu launched into a rapid-fire tirade at him like a little firecracker. The gist of it was that if he didn’t take good care of Gu Kaiyang during the program recording, or if he dared to play with Gu Kaiyang’s feelings, he was as good as dead.
Zhou Jiaheng felt more wronged than Dou E. How would he dare to play with Gu Kaiyang’s feelings? Was he tired of living?
Now, every night when he returned to that villa, his relationship with Gu Kaiyang was merely that of relatively familiar friends, nothing more.
After listening to his sincere explanation, Ji Mingshu then probed him about the pairing situation among the men and women in the villa.
From what Zhou Jiaheng implied, she gathered that Gu Kaiyang currently had no male guests she was interested in, nor were there any male guests interested in her.
It was perfectly normal for Gu Kaiyang not to be interested in any male guests, but how could there be no male guests interested in her?
No, this was too embarrassing.
Suddenly shifting the topic, she hinted to Zhou Jiaheng that he should be more attentive to Gu Kaiyang, at least in front of the cameras, and even taught him various methods for pursuing girls and creating romantic surprises.
Whether Zhou Jiaheng would use these methods to boost Gu Kaiyang’s image would have to wait until the program aired. In any case, after Ji Mingshu left, Zhou Jiaheng relayed these methods word for word to his boss.
Cen Sen glanced at them.
Sending flowers daily to make colleagues and other female guests envious—this clearly didn’t apply to Ji Mingshu. Ji Mingshu had no colleagues, and sending flowers would only mean she’d be admiring them alone at home.
Giving gifts—this didn’t apply to Ji Mingshu either, because he gave her gifts every now and then.
He suddenly asked, “How do people usually date nowadays?”
Before Zhou Jiaheng could answer, he continued on his own, “I shouldn’t ask you. You have no experience.”
Zhou Jiaheng kept his eyes downcast, silently thinking to himself: As if you have much experience.
Cen Sen paused briefly. In all seriousness, he did have experience.
It’s just that all that remained of that experience in his mind was a blank slate, as if there was nothing worth remembering or cherishing.
He took off his glasses, propped his forehead, and thought for a long time.
Finally, he picked up his phone and slowly typed out a line.
【Baby, do you have time for a date tonight?】
He stared at the words for a while, taking a long time to overcome his discomfort with such a cheesy tone before finally hitting send.
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