After being outplayed by Cen Sen, Ji Mingshu felt completely unsatisfied.

The entire return journey, she kept reflecting: what evil spell had possessed her to add Cen Sen back on WeChat after deleting him? Wasn’t this just deliberately asking for trouble? Whether she added him or not wouldn’t affect her ability to swipe her card and splurge anyway!

Fortunately, Ji Mingshu was the kind of young lady who refused to shortchange herself. Since she couldn’t deal with Cen Sen, handling the pure little goose was still quite effortless for her. So she clicked into the “Pure Female College Students Uncensored Online Chat Group” and started picking on Jiang Chun.

Ji Mingshu: [Jiang Chun, come out.]

Jiang Chun: [Ga!]

The simple goose girl, still oblivious to her fate, responded quite eagerly and promptly upon receiving the princess’s summons.

Ji Mingshu: [What did you eat today? How many kilograms do you weigh now? Send me a video of your weight scale.]

Jiang Chun was still quite far from her target weight. Recently, Ji Mingshu had been maintaining remote surveillance, randomly conducting surprise inspections of her breakfast and lunch.

As for dinner, in Ji Mingshu’s words:

“How can there be such a thing as dinner in a girl’s world? Is warm water too hot for your mouth? Does fruit salad not taste good? If you can’t even give up dinner, how can you be the most beautiful socialite on Chang’an Street? You might as well become a big eater and start a mukbang channel. No one will care if you eat eight meals a day, and you can support your family, buy a seaside house, and reach the peak of life.”

After this deadly triple-question combo, the group quickly fell into silence.

Ji Mingshu: [Come out, don’t play dead.]

Jiang Chun: […]

Ji Mingshu launched a rapid sticker attack.

After a while, Jiang Chun sent a voice message: “Reporting to Teacher Ji, it’s like this. For breakfast, I had an apple and a cup of black coffee with no sugar or milk. Around ten o’clock, Tang Zhizhou invited me to see an art exhibition, so I took an apple with me and ate a chicken cutlet on the way. That exhibition was amazing, I couldn’t understand it at all! Then I didn’t eat anything in the afternoon, and for dinner I’m only planning to eat an orange to supplement vitamin C. Aren’t I doing especially well?”

Jiang Chun spoke very quickly, and the words “ate a chicken cutlet on the way” were low and mumbled, mixed in her long sentence without pauses. Ji Mingshu had to listen carefully three times before she understood.

Ji Mingshu: [Chicken cutlet? What the hell? Say that again.]

Jiang Chun: [Too afraid to speak.jpg]

Ji Mingshu: [A chicken cutlet has nearly 230 calories per 100 grams. One piece is at least 200 grams, which means one chicken cutlet is 500 calories. Do you have any idea how long you’d need to use the elliptical to burn off 500 calories? And your attitude, trying to sneak this past me in a mumbled way, is extremely inappropriate! Let me tell you, people like you would have been put on academic probation back in school.]

Jiang Chun: [Actually, I ate two pieces (whispering)]

Ji Mingshu: […?]

Ji Mingshu: [Is the meat growing on me? Did I get my fiancé stolen? Is the little white lotus showing off to intimidate me?]

Ji Mingshu: [This student is hopeless.jpg]

Ji Mingshu: [The last person who made me this angry already has cows grazing on their grave.jpg]

Jiang Chun: [It seems I can only regain my standing in your eyes by inducing vomiting :)]

Ji Mingshu: [Shut up, beautiful girl.jpg]

Ji Mingshu: [You’re no longer my sister.]

Jiang Chun wanted to say more, but the next second, the page displayed: You have been removed from “Pure Female College Students Uncensored Online Chat Group” by the group owner.

While Ji Mingshu was vigorously plucking Jiang Chun’s goose feathers, Cen Sen, seeing that Ji Mingshu had been educated into speechlessness, let out a soft chuckle.

This trip to Xingcheng had been arranged quite suddenly. Several assistants, including Zhou Jiaheng, all had important matters to handle and couldn’t accompany him immediately. The executives of the Xingcheng branch assigned two staff members to serve as temporary assistants.

The first two temporary assistants arranged were both women. One was slightly older and handled matters steadily. The other seemed to be a decorative vase sent by the branch executives to please him, and a counterfeit one at that—the kind that couldn’t be more obviously fake if it tried.

This morning, the moment they met, the counterfeit little vase was dressed like a flower garden, turning a simple workday into what felt like a beauty pageant.

Cen Sen only glanced at her once before dismissing the little vase with the excuse of inappropriate attire.

When the branch executives learned of this, either misinterpreting his intentions or for some other reason, they immediately sent a male assistant in his twenties.

In the afternoon, the male assistant reported for work in proper work attire, feeling particularly nervous due to the dismissal of the female assistant earlier.

Seeing that Cen Sen had finished signing the contract and still had time to check his phone, and seemed to be in a decent mood, he hurriedly brewed a cup of black coffee and carefully brought it into the office.

“Chairman Cen, your coffee.”

But before he could finish speaking, an internal call came through. Without even looking up, Cen Sen put down his phone and answered the call.

The male assistant observed Cen Sen’s expression while setting down the cup, and took the opportunity to peek at his phone screen.

White and green alternating dialog boxes—WeChat.

Wait, that contact name—”Darling Wife”?

The male assistant thought his eyes were deceiving him. After three seconds of shock, he leaned in closer, wanting to see more clearly.

But just as he confirmed he hadn’t misread, an unexpected “bang!” sounded beside his ear!

The saucer fell to the ground, coffee splattered everywhere, making a complete mess.

The male assistant was stunned. When he came to his senses, he hurriedly began cleaning up the mess while silently mouthing apologies.

Cen Sen, still on the phone, merely glanced at him without saying a word.

He trembled as he cleaned up the mess, still optimistically comforting himself: The big boss looks so ascetic but likes to flirt with his wife, so he must be someone externally cold but internally warm with an interesting soul. He might even like to tell dad jokes. Yes, it must be like that. Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid.

After Cen Sen finished his call, the young man wanted to apologize again, but somehow his words changed to, “Broken for peace, broken for peace.” Then his brain short-circuited, and he forced a laugh, saying, “Chairman Cen, your name has the same pronunciation as that Tang Dynasty frontier poet. What a coincidence, what a coincidence.”

Cen Sen looked up, his voice cold and indifferent, “Do I look like someone who enjoys jokes?”

“Get out.”

“Don’t come back.”

Male assistant: “…”

It seems the big boss only likes to show his interesting soul, externally cold but internally warm, to his wife. How pitiful 🙂

When Cen Sen returned to the hotel after finishing work in the evening, Ji Mingshu had also returned.

Seeing Cen Sen, Ji Mingshu barely looked up, too listless to acknowledge him.

First, because she was in a gloomy mood after losing the battle;

Second, because her period limited her physical condition from going out to have fun, being stuck in the hotel every day felt like a forced confinement play—and it was all confinement with no play.

Ji Mingshu wasn’t someone who could stay idle. After applying a face mask for a while, she suddenly had an inspiration: since the show wouldn’t start filming for another week, she could return to the capital and have some fun first, then come back to this little place when it was time to film, wouldn’t that be perfect?

So with a silicon clay mask still on her face, she suddenly rushed out of the bathroom to discuss with Cen Sen, who naturally had no objection—after all, his opinions didn’t matter most of the time anyway.

Early the next morning, Cen Sen took Ji Mingshu to the airport.

On the way, while Ji Mingshu was touching up her makeup, Cen Sen received a phone call.

The call didn’t last long, and his responses were quite brief, just simple acknowledgments like “mm,” “ah,” “oh,” and “okay.”

But after hanging up, he suddenly instructed the driver to turn around and gave a location: “Go to Star University faculty apartments.”

Ji Mingshu paused, already vaguely sensing what was happening. “…Do you have urgent business?”

Cen Sen pressed his brow bone, and after a moment of silence, said: “I need to visit the An family. Come with me, we’ll have lunch.”

Ji Mingshu: “…”

She had thought that by minimizing her stay in Xingcheng, she could escape her spy mission, but at the last moment, she still couldn’t avoid the difficult position of being caught between two sides.

She tested the waters: “How about… dropping me at the airport first, then you can go over? It won’t take much extra time, right?”

Five seconds later: “…Or you can let me out here, I can call a car service to the airport myself. It’s not that far anyway.”

Ten seconds later: “Fine, whatever you want.”

Ji Mingshu just wanted to be a precious decorative vase and had no desire to delve into the cold boss’s backstory, but one who eats another’s food is bound by obligation. She suddenly felt as if fate had seized her by the skull.