At seven in the evening, after finishing the business meeting and exiting the hotel, Cen Sen stood at the portico, watching as his business partners departed.

In Star City at the end of winter and the beginning of spring, the branches along the road were bare, showing no signs of budding. The night wind was damp and cold. Cen Sen leaned back slightly and asked, “Still no one answering?”

Zhou Jiaheng lowered his eyes and replied, “No one is answering, but the phone line is connected. The driver said that after Madam arrived there, she told him to leave first.”

The private car slowly drove up to the portico. Cen Sen didn’t ask anything more, simply allowing Zhou Jiaheng to open the car door for him.

After getting in the car, he leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes, pretending to doze. In the dim night, his expression was not particularly clear.

By the time they reached the residential complex where Ji Mingshu was visiting, the nearby elementary school had already quieted down, but the square dancing teams were enjoying their daily, occasionally twice-daily, moment of glory.

Just outside the complex, there were four teams, each with different dance styles and music. Along with an old man playing the erhu and singing opera nearby, the evening cultural performance successfully spanned across Chinese and foreign, ancient and modern styles.

Dancing was fine, but the key issue was that they were blocking the community gate. The security guard was nowhere to be seen, probably off having fun somewhere, leaving the Maybach unable to move forward or backward.

Cen Sen signaled the driver to stop and got out of the car to walk in.

But walking wasn’t very smooth either. In the short two hundred meters, he was stopped by three aunties inquiring about his marital status.

By the time he escaped the aunties and entered the complex, it was nearly eight o’clock.

In the old residential complex, they were stingy with streetlights, with only the windows of each household providing some illumination.

Some people were watching television, sometimes wailing in anguish, laughing joyfully.

Some were only starting to cook at this hour, with the sound of stir-frying and the aroma of cooking oil wafting out.

Some were helping their children with homework, and even from a hundred steps away, one could feel the parents’ exasperated irritation and anger at their children’s slow progress.

Somehow, this environment gave Cen Sen a long-lost sense of familiarity.

—My uncle and aunt complain every day that the show was full of scammers who made the house unlivable. Apart from the free home appliances, everything else was just for looks.

—Miss Ji, I’m sorry. I know that you designers have your ideas and were trying your best to meet our requirements, but we didn’t expect it would turn out like this.

—Living is about living, look, there isn’t even a cabinet for storing winter quilts, so how can we live here? That lamp you brought is quite pretty, right? But once it’s placed there, it takes up a square meter. How big is our house in total? It’s sitting there, not even that bright, and it’s very much in the way.

…

Ji Mingshu sat on a stone bench by the flower bed, hugging her knees, in a dazed state.

That afternoon, after seeing the completely transformed renovation through the security door, she had happened to meet the homeowners, Mr. Wang and his wife, returning from work.

They were quite embarrassed to see her, but after showing her around the house, their embarrassment turned into righteous complaints.

She left the fruit basket, barely maintaining politeness as she departed, feeling as if all her energy had drained away. She didn’t want to do anything, didn’t want to say anything, and just sat downstairs in a daze.

Her taste had been praised since she was young. In university, like many socialites, she chose to study design. While others chose jewelry design or fashion design, to demonstrate her uniqueness, she selected spatial design.

Fortunately, she learned well, and her teachers often praised her for having creativity and good ideas.

After marrying Cen Sen, she didn’t work, but that was only because she didn’t want to work. She never felt there was an issue with her work abilities.

When she ran away from home before, she wanted to prove to Cen Sen that she wasn’t helpless without him, so she successfully designed a show venue for Chris Chou, gloriously achieving both fame and fortune.

So until today, she firmly believed that as long as Ji Mingshu wanted to do something well, she definitely could do it well.

—Of course, her confidence only lasted until six o’clock this afternoon.

“Cold?”

Cen Sen’s grades in the subject of consolation were mediocre; his opening line was neither warm nor tender.

Ji Mingshu looked up and replied slowly, “If I’m not cold, you weren’t planning to give me your coat to wear, right?”

“Even if you’re cold, I wasn’t planning to.”

…?

Ji Mingshu thought she had misheard. What nonsense was this dog of a man saying?

“If you were going to catch a cold, you would have already. It won’t happen in just a moment or two.”

Ji Mingshu: “…”

It was particularly strange. She clearly wanted to curse at him, but her heart was somehow in agreement with Cen Sen’s heartless capitalist pragmatism.

So when Cen Sen reached out his hand to her, she, as if enchanted, stupidly took it and obediently stood up from the stone bench.

Cen Sen hadn’t expected her to be so docile. Seeing her downcast eyes and unhappy demeanor, the consoling thoughts he had prepared on the way somehow suddenly vanished.

“The visit results weren’t what you imagined?”

He took off his coat, wrapped it around Ji Mingshu, and rubbed her head.

Ji Mingshu had been following his cold and heartless logic and wasn’t feeling as wronged anymore, but when he unexpectedly turned gentle, the grievances she had been nursing all evening doubled and surged outward. Her desire to confide reached its peak in an instant.

“How could it just be ‘not what I imagined’? It was completely different!”

Ji Mingshu rambled on and on, feeling worse the more she spoke. “…We were supposed to prepare a gift for the homeowners at the end, right? Their profile said they played piano, and they had a piano room before, so our gift was a new piano.”

“Pianos are expensive, and we didn’t have enough money left, so we had to follow the script set by the program team and act as salespeople at the mall. I even wore out a pair of high heels at the time! But they sold the piano!”

“Most importantly, they said my design was just for looks, not practical at all. You should have seen how disgusted they looked. Tell me… tell me, is my design really that bad?”

Ji Mingshu was so upset that her voice began to choke up.

She gazed at Cen Sen with tearful eyes for a while, then suddenly grabbed his shirt buttons and found fault with him.

“You’re so mean. You said you’d pick me up at seven, but you arrived at eight.”

“Even Tang Zhizhou at Jiang Chun’s house kisses, hugs, and lifts her. You won’t even let me wear your coat, deliberately wanting me to catch a cold and get sick.”

“You don’t like me at all. You’re just a liar!”

By the time she called him a liar, Ji Mingshu’s voice was tearful. She hugged Cen Sen and forcefully wiped her tears and snot on his shirt.

As a warm wetness suddenly soaked through his chest, Cen Sen couldn’t utter a single word of defense. He could only gently pat her shoulder and rub her head.

In that moment, Cen Sen suddenly realized he had fallen into a misconception.

When employees faced setbacks, he could indeed mercilessly throw files at them, telling them to go back and reflect on whether they could accomplish anything if they couldn’t handle such small matters.

Because he was the boss, and needed to maintain an air of authority that commanded respect.

But Ji Mingshu wasn’t his employee; she was his wife.

His wife lacked a sense of security and depended on him greatly. Whenever he showed even a little care, she received a tremendous amount of comfort.

“Don’t cry anymore. How about I make you spare ribs when we get back?” His voice was low and hoarse.

“Are you even human? You’re… you’re still thinking about spare ribs right now!” Ji Mingshu sobbed, her words broken.

Cen Sen paused briefly, pondered for a moment, and explained, “That’s not what I meant. Whatever you want to eat, I can make it.”

Ji Mingshu leaned silently against his chest, not responding.

Cen Sen didn’t say anything more. When Ji Mingshu’s sobbing subsided, he gently lifted her face, his slightly rough fingertips as gentle as possible, wiping away her tears one by one. He even kissed her slightly reddened eyes.

“Mingshu, I do like you. I’m not lying.”

In the dim night, Ji Mingshu saw her reflection in his clear eyes and heard the sound of her heart stirring.

After returning to the hotel, Cen Sen cooked.

Besides the regular item of braised spare ribs, Cen Sen also made boiled fish slices. The tender black fish fillets were marinated before cooking, piled up white and tender in a bowl. Finally, he poured hot oil from a small pot over them, with the aroma of green onions, ginger, garlic, and Sichuan peppercorns instantly filling the air.

Ji Mingshu’s eyes were still red like a little rabbit’s, but sitting at the dining table, she couldn’t help but swallow several times.

She usually didn’t eat much in the evening, but being sad and upset also consumed a lot of energy. Life might not be worth it, and this dog of a man, Cen Sen, might not be worth it either, but the spare ribs and boiling fish were worth it.

After eating, Ji Mingshu seemed to regain her spirit. Hugging Cen Sen’s arm and leaning on his shoulder, she muttered to herself, reflecting and summarizing.

“I didn’t consider things thoroughly. You told me before, but the plan was already difficult to change at that time. I only modified a few places, thinking it would be enough. It was mainly my problem.”

“But I think self-contained designs are different from hotels. Your Junyi hotels are positioned more high-end, focusing on comfort and innovative design. I can’t take the loss from this design experience and then create designs for you that are all about storage, right? People staying at a designer hotel don’t need that anyway. I should go with you to inspect designer hotels—that’s the sensible thing to do.”

…

That night, Ji Mingshu said a lot, a lot more.

Cen Sen also gave her some advice.

Finally, Ji Mingshu grew tired and fell asleep leaning on his shoulder.

Cen Sen carried her horizontally, placed her on the bed, and covered her with the quilt.

After turning off the lights, he gently placed a kiss on her forehead. Remembering how she had complained with tears and snot that even Tang Zhizhou would kiss, hug, and lift Jiang Chun, his heart suddenly softened. He whispered very, very softly in her ear, “Baby, goodnight.”

After saying this, he was about to get up, but Ji Mingshu suddenly put her arms around his neck, with a hint of triumph at catching him in the act, and a bit of sleepy coquettishness, “I heard that! I heard that! Say it again, quickly, call me baby!”