Perhaps because she had just woken up, Ji Mingshu felt a bit dazed. Her eyes were still swollen and painful from crying last night, but having received Cen Sen’s comfort as she wished, she didn’t experience any particularly intense emotional fluctuations when she saw the even more frenzied insults on Weibo.
Last night, she had thought she would be so angry she wouldn’t be able to sleep, but unexpectedly, after finishing her call with Cen Sen, she quickly fell asleep.
However, waking up to find that what should have been suppressed had instead become the talk of the town, she felt quite bewildered.
Coincidentally, Gu Kaiyang called to express his concern. Yawning, she said she was fine while brushing her teeth and listening to Gu Kaiyang’s vivid recap of the “Ji Mingshu Incident” that had unfolded late last night.
Editor Gu lived up to his reputation—he could casually come up with such sensational narrative titles. Ji Mingshu was thoroughly shocked awake.
But upon careful listening, the main content seemed to be just a long chain of internet surfing reactions triggered after her family intervened.
Gu Kaiyang said her family was particularly tough. After discovering that blocking the three characters “Ji Mingshu” didn’t reduce the heat, they had successively blocked a series of derived keywords like “designer” and “JMS” on various major forums.
With this operation, Ji Mingshu had gained her exclusive title overnight across major forums—Mute Master 🙂
The gossip queens had even created derivative buzzwords and meaningful phrases for her, such as “Quiet as Ji,” “Dark Night, Please Shut Up,” and “It’s Getting Cold, Let Me Treat You to a Bowl of Ji Ji Red.”
What should have been an upsetting matter made Ji Mingshu laugh so hard that toothpaste foam splattered all over the mirror.
After brushing her teeth, she quickly called her second uncle, coaxing and swearing, promising that she could handle this matter properly. Only then did her second uncle withdraw the series of actions he had initiated earlier.
Finally, Ji Mingshu was predictably lectured. It was nothing more than the old familiar tune about how she shouldn’t be in the public eye and how she should focus on maintaining her relationship with Cen Sen.
She patiently responded with “mmm” and “ahh,” just waiting for her second uncle to say “think about it carefully” and then hang up.
But unexpectedly, after finishing his lecture this morning, her second uncle somehow added a new argument: “Xiao Shu, you’re not getting any younger. In these two years, you should prepare to have a child. After giving birth, you can rest for a year or two, and before you turn thirty, you can still have a second child. It won’t interfere with anything.”
“…?”
Ji Mingshu was stunned, never imagining that at a time like this, her second uncle would still have the heart to think about children, and even mention a second child. Truly worthy of being Commissioner Ji, the one with the highest political awareness in the family, who always closely follows national policies and guidelines. She was so choked up that she couldn’t speak for a while.
Come to think of it, she and Cen Sen had been married for more than three years, but they had never really thought about having children. The two seemed to have no awareness of it at all, maintaining a high degree of tacit agreement on safety measures since getting married.
As for the family, they probably didn’t push the issue because Cen Sen had been in Australia for the past two years, so urging wouldn’t have helped anyway.
After hanging up, she propped her chin up in bed and spaced out for a while, following her second uncle’s train of thought to consider whether to have a boy or a girl, one child or two. After almost half an hour of daydreaming, she finally remembered to deal with the pressing matters.
After Cen Sen comforted her last night, she had written a long Weibo post, but fell asleep before posting it.
Now that the situation had changed, reviewing yesterday’s long post after waking up, she felt many parts were inappropriate. So she spent some time deleting and revising with her phone, and even pulled in Gu Kaiyang, the big editor who worked with words, to review it for her.
At 11 AM, Ji Mingshu posted:
“I admit I’m a person with a bad temper, but I’m not someone who loses my temper without reason. The program was recorded over fifty-three days, and Miss Yan Yuexing knows clearly what kind of work attitude she had while participating.
“As for the program’s editors, with such superb technical skills, I wonder if their annual salary has reached one million? If not, perhaps they could consider changing jobs—I’ll hire you.
“Some of Miss Yan’s fans have posted long images with fabricated content in my Weibo comments, making baseless speculations that my family evades taxes. Then I can also respond directly: the taxes my family pays to the country each year are transparent and clear, and we welcome any form of verification. The one using power to bully others is not me, but the self-righteous Miss Yan Yuexing and the program team I once trusted.
“This is an era of rapid self-media development where having more fans and more channels of expression means having more discourse power. I think that without my family, not many people would pay attention to my posts, and the Weibo I posted today might not appear before everyone. But since it has appeared, I must restore the above truth for myself.
“I originally thought ‘Design Home’ was a home design program with ideas that didn’t follow the crowd, with the original intention of bringing design into life. I didn’t expect the purpose was to bring heat and money into their pockets.
“As a result, I deeply regret how things have evolved, and I also firmly believe that artists and program teams who would stoop to any level for popularity should not have such broad living space. This is the loudest slap in the face to other hardworking staff who diligently fight on the front lines of the entertainment industry and work tirelessly for good productions.
“Finally, thank you for your patient reading. I am Ji Mingshu, an interior designer, not a Mute Master.”
Less than a minute after Ji Mingshu’s Weibo was published, there were hundreds of comments, all from Yan Yuexing’s fans who had been camping in her Weibo to abuse her. They probably hadn’t read the content and just frantically attacked on sight.
But as her keywords were unblocked and her Weibo was reposted to various forums, the tone of the comments began to reverse:
[She speaks quite coherently, strong but not lacking rationality. I believe you, sister (mainly because you’re beautiful! Doge face)]
[Wasn’t she revealed to be the Huadian princess? YYX fans’ brains are bubbling to tag official media accounts to investigate taxes. LMAO, literally the funniest joke I’ve heard this year.]
[After reading the last paragraph, I feel like the truth is that this socialite heiress hid her identity to participate in a small program she was interested in, but was set up by the program team and this small-time celebrity, getting so angry that one Buddha emerged from the world and a second Buddha ascended to heaven, and now she wants to control the entire entertainment industry, hahahahaha!]
Actually, since last night, both the program team and Yan Yuexing’s side had been trying to contact Ji Mingshu to apologize and reconcile. Especially Yan Yuexing’s side, who regretted it so much their intestines had turned green!
Originally, Yan Yuexing had been negotiating a supporting female role in a big production that came with its buzz and prestige. After the official announcement, she wouldn’t have needed to rely on a home design program like “Design Home” for popularity.
But somehow, when they were just one step away from signing the contract, the production side suddenly unilaterally canceled the cooperation, saying they already had a more suitable candidate. They wouldn’t even let her ride the heat of a makeup test photo!
The company had already hinted to the fan leaders about this big production’s supporting role, and the fan leaders had, in turn, dangled it in front of the smaller fans. So while everyone was saying “no official announcement, no appointment,” the fan groups had already joyfully started fundraising to prepare for celebrations. Who would have thought that, without an official announcement, the appointment really couldn’t be made?
Not only were the fans disappointed, but Yan Yuexing had also cleared her schedule early to join this production. With this sudden change, all the previous preparations became useless.
The team had no choice but to work with “Design Home,” this winter vacation variety show, to make up for the loss of exposure during the gap period.
As for choosing the plan to edit Ji Mingshu maliciously, firstly, the program team was willing to cooperate; secondly, Yan Yuexing personally was very displeased with Ji Mingshu; and thirdly, the cost of suppressing an ordinary person was very low. So, without much deep thought, they finalized the cooperation with the program team. How many new fans they could attract remained to be seen, but at least they could engage existing fans and generate some buzz.
—If the ordinary person they suppressed wasn’t named Ji Mingshu, their cooperation with the program team would have been both complete and successful.
Yan Yuexing’s team had been busy all night, but with minimal effect. Communication with the program team was poor, and contacting the fan groups was also useless.
The fan groups were like they were possessed, insisting that Yan Yuexing had been bullied. The more the team tried to stop them, the angrier they became. Some even went directly to the managers and the company’s Weibo to curse them as cowardly bastards who didn’t do their job! Our star can’t swallow this insult! If you won’t stand up for her, we will!
Even when Yan Yuexing personally posted on Weibo saying it was a misunderstanding, the fans insisted that she was being coerced by the company. They even deduced from the different Weibo clients that Yan Yuexing’s Weibo had been controlled by the heartless company, and that this post wasn’t her true intention at all!
By the time Ji Mingshu personally spoke out, Yan Yuexing was already dead at heart, lying flat and waiting for death.
No wonder the drama she had been valuing suddenly cut off cooperation. The primary producer of that drama was called Junhe Films, a wholly-owned film and television investment company under Huazhang Holdings, which, tracing back to its roots, belonged to the Junyi Group.
And the notice of termination of cooperation came on the morning after the “Design Home” wrap party.
Recalling the man with the unpredictable mood that night, who coldly glanced at her and then left without a word, all the things she hadn’t understood before finally became clear.
Meanwhile, at Mingshui Mansion.
After posting on Weibo, Ji Mingshu didn’t look at it again, not wanting to affect her mood.
She just lay on the bed scrolling through WeChat, but looking down the stream of unread messages, there wasn’t a single one from Cen Sen.
Not… She may be understanding, but did this dog of a man, Cen Sen, truly believe from the bottom of his heart that a few words of comfort would make everything fine? Unbelievable.
She looked at Cen Sen’s chat interface, wanting to say something, but also afraid of disturbing his work. As she was considering and hesitating… she accidentally missed the sudden resurrection and backstabbing from the Junyi Group’s official Weibo three minutes ago.
Yes, that’s right, Junyi, a group whose leaders exuded the aura of the Ancient Tomb Sect, also had a Weibo account. Not only did they have Weibo, but they also had a WeChat public account, with content all about “A Red Heart Toward the Sun” and “The Booming Development of the Hotel Industry.”
Compared to the WeChat public account, Junyi’s Weibo was less active, with the last post being a repost of hotel industry reform news from March last year.
This sudden resurrection saw the group’s official Weibo post three messages in a row.
One was reposting Ji Mingshu’s long Weibo post, with the word “Support” attached;
Another was tagging the “Design Home” program team with a lawyer’s letter, stating that Junyi would hold the program team accountable for violating the sponsor’s terms;
The content of the last post was quite peculiar, actually issuing a letter of accountability on behalf of Ji Mingshu:
Junyi Group: [1. We request that the “Design Home” program team immediately remove related program videos from all major websites, stop harming Ms. Ji Mingshu, and hope the program team will quickly provide the original footage to restore the truth of the recording. 2. The internet is not a shelter for anyone to spread malice. We request that Miss Yan’s fans who have maliciously attacked Ms. Ji Mingshu apologize to Ms. Ji immediately. The list included in the following lawyer’s letter is a preliminary compilation. We will expand the statistical scope in the future. This letter is not just a verbal warning. If a public apology is not made within the corresponding time, we will spare no cost and track and hold accountable indefinitely.]
The gossip crowd had only eaten up the part about Ji Mingshu’s deep family background, with various opinions about which was true and which was false.
So when they saw the last Weibo post, everyone was confused. Shouldn’t a sponsor support the program team? It’s one thing not to support the program team, but what’s with helping the designer issue a letter of accountability?
Many people came after hearing the news, asking questions below, and surprisingly, the group’s official Weibo began responding online.
Random Person B: [Spare no cost and track and hold accountable indefinitely—can this put people in jail? Isn’t this taking things too seriously?]
Junyi Group replied: [It can’t put people in jail, but it can make them apologize.]
Random Person A: [Why are you posting this? This is too righteous, I’m shocked…]
Junyi Group replied: [No, because Ms. Ji is the CEO’s wife.]