After Ji Mingshu asked her question, perhaps knowing she wouldn’t get an answer, her original three parts of melancholy expanded to five.
She sighed softly, then rolled over to lie flat beside Cen Sen, staring at the ceiling, her mind empty.
Unconsciously, drowsiness swept over her. The frequency of her blinking eyelids became slower and slower, until finally they drooped shut and didn’t open again, her breathing becoming even and prolonged.
The slightly tipsy man beside her still had his eyes closed, but suddenly turned to his side, placing one hand on her waist and pulling her closer to himself.
In the pale moonlight of the winter night, in the dim, hazy darkness, the corner of his lips seemed to lift slightly upward.
A night without dreams. Ji Mingshu had rested well the day before and, for once, woke up early with Cen Sen.
Cen Sen woke up, sniffed at his collar, and without a word, got up to run water for a shower.
Ji Mingshu followed, her bare feet touching the floor as she supported herself on the edge of the bed to steady herself before also entering the bathroom.
Seeing her come in, Cen Sen turned his head. “Did I wake you? You can sleep a bit more, it’s still early.” His voice was raspy, as if hoarse from sleep.
Ji Mingshu was squeezing toothpaste in the outer section of the bathroom, wrinkling her nose in disgust, “I wasn’t woken up by noise, but by the smell.”
She rambled on, “Later, I’ll have to ask the housekeeper to come up and change the bedding. The whole bed smells of alcohol. I don’t know how I fell asleep last night. I can’t stand you.”
How she fell asleep.
Cen Sen paused briefly, recalling the kiss on his lips last night and the soft murmurs by his ear, suddenly laughing softly.
Ji Mingshu was quite alert. She leaned back, looking inside, and asked through a mouthful of toothpaste, “Whash sho funny?”
“Nothing.”
Cen Sen replied casually, dismissively.
Seeing Ji Mingshu still staring at him while holding her buzzing electric toothbrush, he remained composed, leisurely removing his shirt. After taking off his shirt, he reached downward… Ji Mingshu silently cursed him for being shameless and immediately averted her gaze.
The master bathroom was very large, with a sauna, a built-in mirror television, and even a wine-tasting counter. Walking further to the end of the bathroom revealed another world—one side leading to an east-facing sunroom, the other to an infinity pool on the west-facing terrace.
In summer, soaking in the pool while tasting wine and enjoying the mountain and lake scenery was like a vacation without leaving home.
Ji Mingshu had moved her dressing table to the bathroom. After brushing her teeth, she sat at the dressing table, following her morning skincare routine while talking to Cen Sen, who was showering inside.
When Cen Sen finished his shower and came out, Ji Mingshu had just finished applying her face mask. Her hair was tied back with a light pink cat-shaped hairband, revealing her palm-sized clean face. She was now holding a spray bottle, spraying her face in circular motions.
“What’s that?”
Ji Mingshu finished spraying, gently patted her face, then used a hexagonal sponge to absorb excess moisture before beckoning Cen Sen to bend down.
Cen Sen paused briefly, then actually leaned on her dressing table, bending slightly.
Ji Mingshu grabbed the spray and vigorously sprayed his face several times, “It’s for hydration. You’re almost thirty, you should start taking care of your skin too.”
“…”
Cen Sen wiped a bit and sniffed it, it seemed like just pure water.
But looking down at Ji Mingshu’s bare skin, still as smooth and delicate as a peeled egg, with not a single flaw visible even under a row of lights, he couldn’t quite judge whether these bottles and jars that didn’t look like serious products were truly effective.
Ji Mingshu was still applying various products, and while doing so, she cast a strange glance at Cen Sen, “Why do you keep staring at me? You’ve grown a beard, shave it off.”
It was just very short blue-gray stubble, not visible unless you looked closely.
Cen Sen casually responded with an “Mm,” and got up to get his razor for grooming, quite obediently.
By the time he finished, Ji Mingshu had also completed her skincare routine.
But just as she was about to get up, Cen Sen suddenly pressed her down, leaning over from behind, reaching around her neck, and coming close to rub his chin against her cheek, “Is it clean now?”
Ji Mingshu froze, her voice betraying her by dropping lower and lower, “Yes… It’s clean.”
The gesture was intimate. Ji Mingshu saw in the mirror Cen Sen slightly tilting his head against her cheek, his appearance handsome and somewhat lazy.
She breathed in small breaths, her eyelashes lowered, continuing to apply hand cream intermittently, while verbally expressing disgust and urging him to leave quickly, fearing that some misstep would expose her springtime feelings of infatuation.
That morning, the two were like a newly married, loving couple—the wife helping the husband with his cufflinks and tie, the husband spraying cologne in the air for the wife to twirl through. After getting ready, they went downstairs together for breakfast, discussing the day’s schedule.
When Cen Sen was leaving, Ji Mingshu followed him out with her milk, smiling and greeting Zhou Jiaheng.
Zhou Jiaheng was pleasantly surprised and hurriedly responded with a “Good morning, madam.”
After watching the Bentley drive away, Ji Mingshu cheerfully returned to the house, sitting cross-legged on the sofa, hugging a pillow and giggling to herself for quite a while.
If every day could be like this morning, that would be wonderful. Of course, if this dog of a man could leave a good morning kiss before going out, that would be even better.
Thinking about it, she felt herself being so greedy. She wondered if all girls became as greedy as herself after falling for someone, not satisfied with taking an inch and wanting a mile, but even imagining taking ten miles.
She patted her cheeks to wake herself up, then went upstairs to change clothes, preparing to go to Gu Kaiyang’s place to move her luggage.
Because Cen Sen had come home last night, she hadn’t watched the second half of the program. On the way to Gu Kaiyang’s house, Ji Mingshu checked her Weibo and found she had gained twenty thousand followers. Many people sent private messages complimenting her beauty, and some asked if she accepted interior design projects.
She scrolled for a while without seeing any negative comments and momentarily forgot about checking the missed second half of the program.
Last night’s first episode of “Design Home” only showed their group dividing tasks and going to the market to purchase home furnishings, with most of the camera focus on Pei Xiyan and Yan Yuexing. Ji Mingshu’s part, if cut together, would barely amount to three minutes.
Moreover, the program editors probably realized that when Ji Mingshu and Yan Yuexing stood together, Ji Mingshu looked more like the celebrity. So in the second half, there were a few shots of them together. The whole episode had a love-and-peace vibe, and could even be described as boring.
For a variety show, being lowbrow and vulgar is fine, arguing and fighting are fine, but being boring is a serious problem, as it directly affects ratings.
Even with Pei Xiyan and Yan Yuexing’s fans showing support, the premiere ratings of “Design Home” were very ordinary, and online views were abysmal.
With ratings and online views in such a dismal state, the discussion level was even worse. Only when it first aired did fans open a few threads on gossip forums. Afterward, everyone was engrossed in drama and gossip elsewhere, with no attention to spare for a home renovation show.
There were two or three passersby who noticed while watching that this designer, Ji Mingshu, was quite beautiful. But when posted on forums for opinions, apart from being blindly mocked as paid commenters, the replies barely filled one page before sinking to oblivion with a “plop.”
Everything was peaceful, and nobody knew—this completely defied the program team’s original intention.
By the morning after the broadcast, the “Design Home” production team was having an emergency overnight meeting in the conference room, discussing new promotional strategies.
No one knew that yesterday’s episode hadn’t finished broadcasting!
According to the original plan, the first episode was supposed to end with a cliffhanger right when Ji Mingshu and Yan Yuexing were having a huge argument over the carpet issue.
Paid content on Weibo and various forums was already prepared, and subsequent marketing promotions would follow immediately.
A beautiful, ordinary person arguing with a young idol, plus the presence of Pei Xiyan, a popular figure who naturally attracted attention—there was no concern about generating buzz.
But man proposes, and heaven disposes. Last night, the station urgently inserted important local news: a heinous murder had occurred in Xingcheng’s urban area. With orders from above, even the evening news anchors were pulled in to record announcements, leaving no room for a small program team to object.
The last twenty minutes of the first episode of “Design Home”—the essence—was unexpectedly cut off at the waist. The producer tried to negotiate with the station to continue broadcasting, but wasn’t approved because the station had to prioritize the ratings of the hit drama at the ten o’clock slot. They were perfunctorily told to re-edit and include it in the next episode.
Next episode? With the first episode in such a wretched state, would anyone even watch the next one??? Looking at this utterly unremarkable premiere with no discussion points, the producer almost wanted to personally find and beat up that stupid murderer.
Everything remained peaceful and quiet for a week until the evening of the second episode’s broadcast. A group of paid commenters suddenly descended on various forums, starting to flood discussions about the first episode—topics like “Pei Xiyan and Yan Yuexing have good CP chemistry,” “Pei Xiyan is so cool and cute,” “Yan Yuexing is so adorable,” “That ordinary person is quite beautiful but seems to have a bad temper”…
Although veteran forum users disdainfully cursed at these “obscure show commenters to get lost,” this kind of expensive flood-style discussion could still generate a bit of attention.
And by eight o’clock in the evening, when the program officially aired, this attention began to show real conversion rates.
Ji Mingshu knew nothing about this because Cen Sen, who had said he wouldn’t travel but ended up traveling anyway, wasn’t home. Gu Kaiyang was busy with work, and Jiang Chun was busy with romance, so she had no choice but to accept an invitation from some superficial female friends to watch a musical.
In truth, none of them had much interest in musicals, but it wouldn’t look right to be partying wildly every day. They needed to occasionally demonstrate the refined taste expected of socialites.
After the long musical ended, the drowsy, superficial friend beside her finally opened her eyes and secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
Ji Mingshu felt like laughing but kept it in to be polite, and cooperatively took a selfie with her, allowing her to post it on WeChat Moments.
Vivian: [Watching a musical with Shu-baby today, yay.]
The image content of her Moments post was rich, but the text was very brief. Mainly because there was no way it couldn’t be brief—this sister had been in a half-asleep state throughout, probably not even remembering the name of the musical they watched, so one couldn’t expect her to chat about the content in detail.
Catching a glimpse of her hitting send, Ji Mingshu slowly took out her phone from her bag, preparing to give her a like and leave a “mwah” comment.
Unexpectedly, as soon as she turned off airplane mode, her WeChat exploded with messages, dinging nonstop.
And then Vivian suddenly exclaimed in surprise, “Xiao… Xiaoshu, my friend says you’re trending… on Weibo’s hot search…”