Ji Mingshu: [You’re telling Pei Xiyan to keep his distance from me?]
Ji Mingshu: [Are you even human?]
Ji Mingshu: [Since knowing you, all I want to know is how many years for murder.jpg]
Ten minutes later, she received a reply from Cen Sen.
Cen Sen didn’t say anything, just responded to her last meme by sending back a screenshot of legal provisions for intentional homicide sentencing.
A glance showed that penalties mostly started at ten years, with suspended death sentences and death penalties taking center position.
Ji Mingshu: [?]
Ji Mingshu: [Looks like you don’t want a wife anymore.jpg]
Seeing this meme, Cen Sen didn’t argue further, just pressed the voice message button and said calmly: “Having too much contact with a celebrity isn’t good for you. You should restrain yourself a bit.”
He glanced at the time and added, “By the way, I’m flying to Los Angeles tonight and will be back in a week. But I’ll return to the capital first, then come to Star City.”
“Zhou Jiaheng has already arrived in Star City. If you need anything, you can contact him.”
The issues at the Star City branch were more complicated than imagined.
In recent years, internal unrest had plagued Jing Construction, and Cen Yuanzhao had spent considerable effort cleaning house. As a result, the concrete matters under Jun Yi had been somewhat neglected.
As Jun Yi Group’s second-largest base, the Star City branch had been controlled by senior management for years, already showing signs of becoming a separate power. Breaking through and dismantling this situation overnight wasn’t realistic; they could only tackle it bit by bit.
Cen Sen couldn’t possibly put aside other work for internal conflicts at a branch, so he sent Zhou Jiaheng to keep an eye on things while he temporarily stepped away to discuss more important collaborations.
After receiving these two voice messages, Ji Mingshu paused for three seconds.
This was his reason for breaking up the Swallow-Sparrow CP?
But when she tried to send another message to Cen Sen, there was no response, like a stone sinking into the sea.
She was furious and immediately executed a “never see you again” deluxe package—blocking and deleting him in one smooth operation. In her heart, she even drew circles to curse this wretched man, wishing him a smooth journey. Fearing the circles might not be effective enough, she also drew several polygons and triangular prisms.
After venting her anger, Ji Mingshu thought that while Cen Sen had cut off that path, she might still be able to make a breakthrough with Pei Xiyan.
The kid was young; with a bit of coaxing, he’d probably tell her everything about “how he met Cen Sen” and “what exactly Cen Sen said about keeping their distance.” She could even brainwash the kid into not listening to Cen Sen’s nonsense.
But what she never expected was that Pei Xiyan was a young man of extreme principle. Having promised Cen Sen to keep his distance from her, he absolutely avoided any physical contact, barely made eye contact, let alone allowed close persuasion. During the show recording, whenever he noticed her approaching, he would dodge away.
Ji Mingshu was furious.
The only consolation was that this deliberate distance-keeping wasn’t too obvious amid Pei Xiyan’s equally cold treatment of everyone.
He remained quietly aloof throughout, following instructions and thoroughly practicing the mantra “do more, speak less.”
Compared to him, Yan Yuexing was a typical counterexample. She talked more than the other three group members combined, but did the least work. Even sweeping the floor required frequent pauses to catch her breath, along with cutesy acts and whining for the camera.
All that would have been tolerable, but she wasn’t just lazy—she actively caused trouble.
Ji Mingshu: “What did you buy? 6,500? Are you insane?”
Under the triple pressure of “financial difficulties,” “being the backbone,” and “the kid ignoring me,” Ji Mingshu quickly understood life’s hardships.
At first, she had no concept of budget planning, thinking twenty million couldn’t even renovate a bathroom, let alone an entire house—it seemed like a joke.
Later, she quietly consulted experienced designers from other groups and searched online for ordinary family renovation cases. Only then did she realize that the program’s funding was reasonable.
She also spent several days visiting building material markets and furniture markets, personally browsing to discover that many materials weren’t as expensive as she thought. The same applied to soft furnishings—if you didn’t pursue famous furniture designers’ classic works and limited products, the options were actually quite extensive.
In just a few days, the once-extravagant Miss Ji had drawn up a long Excel spreadsheet for the twenty million renovation fund, calculating down to the last digit. She repeatedly emphasized to her teammates not to buy any impractical decorations that didn’t match the design plan.
Who would have thought Yan Yuexing would completely disregard team collaboration and suddenly bring back a carpet priced at 6,500 yuan?
Faced with Ji Mingshu’s questioning that verged on confrontation, she responded righteously and feigned innocence: “It’s a carpet, don’t you think it’s beautiful? It’s a limited edition by a famous designer this year. There was only one left in the home furnishing market.”
Ji Mingshu knew which design it was with just a glance. Without even looking up, she said, “Return it.”
“Why return it? This carpet is very versatile. It would give the living room sofa area that kind of postmodern feeling.”
Having been criticized by Ji Mingshu during the first recording for having “rural socialite” aesthetics, Yan Yuexing was quite indignant. She’d crammed design knowledge for several days and now occasionally dropped terms like “postmodern” and “high saturation” that sounded artistic at first hearing.
Ji Mingshu didn’t care that the cameras were still rolling. With a dizzy head and a blocked heart, she launched into a fierce tirade.
“Can you shut up? Do you even know what postmodernism is? This isn’t postmodern at all!”
She picked up the carpet and threw it in front of Yan Yuexing. “If you don’t understand, then speak less and do more. Have you even graduated from university? Are your songs original? Do you have the most basic respect for original design in your head? A brand collectively boycotted by the fashion industry that couldn’t enter the Chinese market, yet still shamelessly collaborates with furniture merchants on a piece of carpet for 6,500—and worst of all, someone with half-baked knowledge like you genuinely praises it?”
It was infuriating.
Yan Yuexing was stunned by the criticism.
Feng Yan tried to be a peacemaker, but before he could finish saying “Let it go,” Ji Mingshu interrupted him: “No, we can’t.”
She coldly stared at Yan Yuexing and said, “Either you return this carpet now, or you keep it at a discount, but I don’t need this collectively boycotted garbage in my work!”
She had meticulously calculated costs in Excel, and it wasn’t for wasting on things like this.
This girl wanted to play games with her? Dream on!
After days of collaboration, all the staff following the shooting understood—
In other groups, amateur designers were just figureheads, occasionally having to tactfully accommodate celebrities’ unreasonable ideas.
But this group’s designer was the genuine backbone, overwhelming in both ability and presence, essentially having the final say in everything.
Feng Yan and Pei Xiyan did whatever she told them to do. Yan Yuexing was the troublemaker, but could never win against the designer and always ended up being the one scolded.
She wanted to throw a celebrity tantrum, but when even Pei Xiyan was there quietly waiting for task assignments, she didn’t have the standing to make the production team care. The directors simply ignored her.
So without question, the carpet dispute ended with Ji Mingshu’s complete victory again.
Yan Yuexing hugged the carpet back to the furniture market to return it, muttering white lotus victim phrases to the camera along the way.
But Ji Mingshu had no time to care about that. The renovation schedule was tight, and she needed to coordinate and control every aspect.
All her previous works, including concept pieces from her student days, never required her involvement in implementation—they were somewhat theoretical exercises.
This was her first relatively practical interior design project and her first time participating in a renovation after completing the design drawings.
During the first two recordings, she was still distracted, but once she truly entered the flow state, she became completely invested.
Lunch was boxed meals prepared by the production team. Although they had vegetables, meat, and a balanced mix of flavors, the plastic containers made them look far from exquisite. Add to that the dusty renovation site with its unpleasant smell, and Ji Mingshu had no appetite at all.
While everyone else was eating, Ji Mingshu was still in the music room testing the soundproofing materials.
Coming out of the music room, her vision suddenly went blank for a moment. It took about four or five seconds before her body recovered from the rigid state.
Ji Mingshu rubbed her temples, feeling that something was wrong with her body. Recently, she’d been experiencing dizziness, blurred vision, and nausea—similar to the early symptoms of pregnancy.
But she hadn’t been intimate with Cen Sen for a long time, and the last time they had used protection. Plus, she’d had her period recently, so pregnancy seemed unlikely.
She walked to the balcony for some fresh air, suddenly remembering how Yan Yuexing often complained about the house’s unpleasant smell, saying they might be poisoned by formaldehyde. Ji Mingshu felt a bit uneasy, too.
The wall paint and other materials were sponsored products. She had checked online—they all had government-certified environmental protection ratings, but who could be certain about these things?
Ji Mingshu probably hadn’t heard the saying “ask Baidu once and you’re sick, ask twice and you’re dead.” Too timid to see a doctor, she went online to search for her physical symptoms.
After searching, her face turned pale, and she grew increasingly anxious.
In the following days, Ji Mingshu lost her appetite and couldn’t sleep well. Running between the construction site and building material markets daily, she visibly lost weight. No one knew what thoughts raced through her mind as she lay alone in bed at night.
A week quickly passed, and Cen Sen finally returned.
While waiting at the airport, seeing the brand of handbag Ji Mingshu often carried, he even went in to buy a new model.
Cen Sen had originally planned to return to the capital first and discuss marriage matters with his grandfather.
But as soon as he landed, Zhou Jiaheng called: “Mr. Cen, your wife fainted at the program recording site and was urgently taken to a nearby hospital half an hour ago.”
“Understood.”
He didn’t even leave the airport, flying directly to Star City instead.
Ji Mingshu had suddenly fainted while moving furniture. She felt dizzy, nauseous, saw a flash of white light, and then lost consciousness, collapsing to the ground.
The production team rushed her to the hospital and notified her emergency contact.
Her listed contact was Zhou Jiaheng.
As Cen Sen’s chief assistant, his reliability was perhaps a hundred times that of Cen Sen—his phone was always on and answered immediately.
Half an hour after receiving the notification, he had already arrived at the hospital.
But Ji Mingshu remained unconscious.
She slept until evening when the setting sun cast an orange-red glow through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Only then did Ji Mingshu slowly open her eyes.
It took a minute or two for her consciousness to gradually return and realize she had fainted and been taken to the hospital.
Her eyes rolled slightly, noticing Cen Sen standing by the bed. Her heart sank sharply.
—Even Cen Sen had come.
Realizing she was awake, Cen Sen walked to the bedside and said expressionlessly, “You’re awake.”
Ji Mingshu didn’t speak, her face showing no emotion, neither sad nor happy. After a thousand inner struggles and countless reluctant partings, she calmly asked, “What’s wrong with me?”
Cen Sen remained silent.
“It’s okay, just tell me. I can handle it.”
Ji Mingshu lowered her eyelashes. One hand was receiving an IV drip, the other was tightly clenched into a fist under the blanket. Thinking of all the countries she hadn’t visited, delicious food she hadn’t tasted, and platinum bags she hadn’t collected, her heart ached dully. She even started wondering whether to accept chemotherapy and if it would make her ugly.
“…”
“Starving.”