Bundled purchasing was an unwritten rule in the industry, with the most well-known luxury bundled purchases being Hermès’ BKC—three popular bags: Birkin, Kelly, and Constance.

For instance, a 1:1 bundled purchase meant that for a bag costing one hundred thousand yuan, you would need to buy other specified products from the same brand worth another hundred thousand yuan before the sales associate would allow you to purchase the bag. Different locations and stores had various ratios.

Ji Mingshu naturally knew about this practice, but rules, whether explicit or implicit, were meant to be broken.

When you’re a top-tier socialite wearing diamond-encrusted Himalayan Crocodile Birkins and Chaumet diamond rings, dressed in Chanel haute couture with annual spending in the eight figures at minimum, sales associates at any luxury store worldwide would only welcome you with open doors and smiling faces.

Back when Jiang Chun was still at odds with Ji Mingshu, she heard that Ji Mingshu didn’t need to make bundled purchases for Hermès and thought she was either bragging or secretly buying counterfeits.

As a result, she was bombarded with education from Ji Mingshu’s plastic sisters, basically centered around how prestigious our Shushu’s treatment is, how her limited editions are all acquired through auctions, and so on.

In the end, Ji Mingshu had smiled and concluded, “There’s no luxury item money can’t buy. If you can’t buy it, it’s because you’re not rich enough.”

She owned nearly seven hundred Hermès items, including over a hundred Birkins, her most beloved style. Her collection was more complete than most boutiques. Having been immersed in luxury goods for many years, indeed, no clueless sales associate had ever asked her to make a bundled purchase.

Now in this small place called Star City, she had truly lived to see something new—a second-tier makeup brand, lacking the status but putting on more airs than top luxury brands.

A small area of silence fell over the first floor of the mall, as customers and beauty advisors from other counters turned to look at Ji Mingshu.

An’ning, standing beside Ji Mingshu, was completely dumbfounded, even more confused than when the counter lady had told her about the bundled purchase requirement.

Her… her sister-in-law was so… so fierce.

The counter girl who had been thrown the lipstick was also in shock.

Although the lipstick was thrown in her direction, it hadn’t hit her.

The tester fell just a hand’s width away, right beside her high heels, leaving a rose-red mark on the floor, the lipstick broken into two pieces.

However, another effeminate sales associate at the counter reacted more quickly. He hurriedly stepped forward, looking his colleague up and down, and rudely questioned: “Miss, if you have any complaints, you can speak directly. There’s no need to get physical, is there? What kind of person are you?”

This effeminate man exuded the aura of a half-baked, judgmental sister from the gay scene in a second-tier city, sharing with his colleague the brand’s consistent trademarks of eye-rolling, sour faces, and passive-aggressive attitudes when serving customers.

Ji Mingshu laughed lightly, “This is just how I am. The quality of the merchandise determines the expression on my face.”

The effeminate man hadn’t looked carefully before, but now he scanned Ji Mingshu from top to bottom, and his attitude suddenly became much more restrained. However, he still stood united with his colleague, adopting a particularly official stance.

“Miss, bundled purchasing is our brand’s policy. Even if you’re upset, there’s no need to take it out on us. We’re just small employees; we can’t change the decisions from above!”

“Brand policy? Go ahead, I’ll record this. Say what you just said again.”

Ji Mingshu almost laughed from anger. “Ning’ning, check the consumer association’s phone number. Let’s ask which brand in our country has been approved to force bundled purchases and coercive sales. Give you a little oil and you really think you’re a scallion or garlic that can fry up a fragrance.”

The effeminate man had spoken hastily and immediately knew he’d said the wrong thing. Seeing Ji Mingshu so serious about it, his face suddenly turned pale.

After all, even at Hermès, if you went in and directly asked about the bundling requirements for a certain bag, the sales associate would only smile and say, “Our house doesn’t require bundled purchases,” and then suggestively hint whether you’d like to look at jewelry or ready-to-wear.

It could be said that no brand would dare to blatantly state that their policy required forced bundled purchases.

More crucially, bundling was just a trend that counters had recently adopted. These beauty advisors used it to trick customers into making their sales targets. If this got back to the brand, the consequences would be unimaginable.

Ji Mingshu saw at a glance that these two had guilty consciences and mockingly said, “Being beauty advisors has spoiled you. Who are you rolling your eyes and making faces at? You standing at a counter thinking the brand belongs to you should be listed as one of the world’s three great delusions.”

She flipped her hair, crossing her arms low in front of her, and continued casually: “I don’t want to waste more time with your kind. Apologize to my sister. If she’s satisfied, then I’ll be satisfied too.”

An’ning was confused once again.

She hadn’t thought about making them apologize, but if she now said something cowardly like “it’s not necessary,” wouldn’t that be slapping her sister-in-law’s face?

So she could only watch as the man and woman exchanged glances for a moment, hesitating mutually, before bowing to her with extremely unpleasant expressions, saying: “We’re sorry, miss. Our service attitude was problematic. It absolutely won’t happen again. Please forgive us this time. If you still want the lipstick, we can package it for you.”

An’ning didn’t know whether she should speak up.

Ji Mingshu stood nearby and said flatly: “My sister isn’t very satisfied, so I’m not very satisfied either.”

Before she finished speaking, the two bowed even deeper. If their previous apology had been through gritted teeth, this time it had a distinct air of “forget it, aggravating this woman won’t end well” resignation.

An’ning glanced at Ji Mingshu before stammering: “Oh, it’s, it’s fine. I don’t want the lipstick anymore.”

Only a steel warrior at the level of a Ninja Turtle would still want to wear this brand’s lipstick after such treatment.

Since An’ning accepted, Ji Mingshu didn’t pursue the matter further and quickly ended this small battle before security arrived.

Afterward, the female counter assistant who had been thrown the lipstick sat at her counter with a dejected face, crying and sniffling. Ji Mingshu completely ignored her, linking arms with An’ning as they swept through the entire floor of counters, picking out more than thirty lipsticks for her.

In the evening, Ji Mingshu and An’ning returned to the Star University faculty apartments.

At the thought of climbing to the sixth floor, Ji Mingshu felt her calves starting to cramp and was somewhat reluctant.

So she let An’ning go up first with their purchases, using the excuse that she needed to make a few phone calls.

An’ning didn’t think much of it and went up first with the spoils of Ji Mingshu’s shopping spree.

Once she was gone, Ji Mingshu sat in the car and sent a WeChat message to Cen Sen.

Ji Mingshu: [Are we staying here for dinner?]

Ji Mingshu: [I can’t climb the stairs, come down and get me qaq]

After waiting three minutes, Cen Sen hadn’t replied.

Just as she was about to grit her teeth and climb up anyway, the passenger door was suddenly pulled open. She turned her head and met Cen Sen’s gaze.

“You… aren’t staying for dinner?”

Cen Sen made an “mm” sound, his expression calm.

Ji Mingshu was still holding her phone and hesitantly asked: “How did your… how did your conversation go?”

Cen Sen gave her a look.

Ji Mingshu paused briefly, immediately sitting up straight and putting on a proper face that said “I’m just asking out of politeness, I don’t really want to know.”

“Fine.”

He gave another brief two-word answer.

Ji Mingshu nodded perfunctorily and looked out the window.

After a while, she suddenly remembered something—her spy mission seemed to have reached the important moment of delivering intelligence.

She raised her phone, stared at the WeChat interface for a while, and after three attempts, she finally clicked into Cen Yingxue’s chat box.

But after typing a few words, she remembered something and held down the delete key to clear the content.

Betraying her sugar daddy made her a bit nervous, so she decided to chat with her girlfriends first to practice.

After chatting for about five or six minutes, Ji Mingshu suddenly turned and patted Cen Sen.

Cen Sen was resting with his eyes closed and didn’t react after two pats. She shifted her position and leaned over, using her thumb and index finger to forcibly open his eyes.

Unexpectedly, the driver at the Star City branch wasn’t as professional as Cen Sen’s usual driver. Seeing the couple’s intimacy in the rearview mirror, he was distracted and suddenly arrived at a traffic light, having to slam on the brakes!

Ji Mingshu was already leaning sideways, and the sudden braking inertia caused her to fall forward. Just as she was about to fall to the floor, Cen Sen reached out and caught her.

After a moment of dizziness, she found herself lying on her back across Cen Sen’s lap, looking directly into his eyes.

“…”

Ji Mingshu didn’t blink.

She had to admit, this dog of a man was quite handsome—even from this deadly angle, there was no sign of a double chin or other disfiguring features.

After half a minute of staring, she finally came to her senses, pushed herself up using Cen Sen’s legs for leverage, sat properly, and cleared her throat to get to the point.

“I, I need to tell you something. Your aunt told me to notify her if you had contact with the An family because the old master was worried. At the time, I thought you might not necessarily have contact with the An family, or even if you did, you might not let me know, so I agreed. But I didn’t expect…”

She paused, “A person must keep their word, right? So I just wanted to let you know that I’m going to tell on you.”

Cen Sen: “…”

Seeing him silent, Ji Mingshu glanced at him again, then picked up her phone and pretended to betray him, when in reality she was frantically chatting with Jiang Chun and Gu Kaiyang in their group chat, multitasking.

But without warning, Cen Sen suddenly snatched her phone and said calmly: “No need, I’ll explain to Grandfather myself.”

He glanced at the phone screen, initially intending to speak with Cen Yingxue, but paused when he saw the content.

Ji Mingshu: [Do you think I should betray Cen’s family? Will this dog of a man cut off my economic resources if I betray him? Is betraying my sugar daddy inappropriate?]

Gu Kaiyang: [Here’s what you do: just tell your man directly that you’re going to tell on him to his grandfather. This way, you can show that you’re troubled by your conscience, that you’re a straightforward and genuine girl. If your man has any sense, he’ll say he’ll tell them himself, and this way you won’t offend either side.]

Jiang Chun: [Can it work like that…?]

Jiang Chun: [Shocked dog face.jpg]

Jiang Chun: [Gu Editor is truly Gu Editor, worthy of being the only professional career woman among us three. Respect!]

Ji Mingshu: [But what if he doesn’t have any sense at all?]

Gu Kaiyang: [Is Cen CEO’s image so low in your heart? Surely not?]

Ji Mingshu: [He is that low. Anyway, I’ll try it.]

Two minutes later.

Ji Mingshu: [Wuwuwu! Gugu truly is my clever little darling! I love you!!!]

Gu Kaiyang: [Another victory for the pure college girl. /evil smile]

Ji Mingshu: [Honest and pure white lotus skill #1 acquired!]

Cen Sen took a moment to recover, then looked at the group name—

Pure College Girls Uncensored Online Chat Group.