However, when Cen Sen mentioned the program, she had an idea: "When are you free? I'd like to revisit the homeowner of the house I renovated before."
She didn't have much experience designing guest rooms like Junyi Yaji, but the home and hotel room designs she had done for that family had a lot in common. She wanted to revisit the place to see what kind of feedback the homeowner would give if they actually lived there.
Cen Sen glanced at his schedule on his phone. "I won't finish until 7 p.m. tomorrow, and I won't finish until 8 p.m. the day after tomorrow."
"Go for a follow-up visit at night? That's not really appropriate."
Ji Mingshu thought for a moment, "How about this, I'll go there myself tomorrow afternoon, and then you can pick me up after you're done here, okay?"
Cen Sen: "Can you do it yourself?"
"Why not? Just find someone to take me there. Do you think I can't even walk on my own?"
Cen Sen silently cut his steak.
The cutting patterns of the knife and fork clearly say: Yes, that's right, you're just a little vase that can't walk on its own.
Ji Mingshu couldn't help but kick him again from below, and only then did he reluctantly nod in agreement.
The following afternoon, Ji Mingshu deliberately wore a simple beige turtleneck sweater and skinny jeans. When passing a fruit shop, she even asked the driver to stop and buy a fruit basket.
After arriving at the residential area, she carried a fruit basket and followed her memory to find the old school district house where she had lived for more than a month.
As she knocked on the door, she was inwardly praising herself for her excellent memory.
Hearing footsteps approaching from inside, but no one opened the door for a long time, Ji Mingshu politely asked, "Are Mr. Wang and Ms. Li home?"
Finally, a slightly immature male voice came from inside, "My uncle and aunt are not here."
"You are Mr. Wang and Ms. Li's nephew, right?"
"Yes, who are you?" The boy had obviously seen that she was pretty through the peephole, which was why he spoke to her a few more times.
Ji Mingshu patiently said, "Hello, little friend. I'm the designer who did the house renovation design for your uncle and aunt before. I'm here today to make a follow-up visit. I'll just take a look and leave. If you're too scared to open the door, you can call your uncle and aunt first."
The boy hesitated for a moment inside the house, then opened the inner door, but the security gate remained closed.
"Just take a look like this. There are no adults at home, so I won't open the door for you."
"Which designer were you? My aunt and uncle just had their house renovated before the Chinese New Year. I heard that our house was on a TV show before. My aunt and uncle complain about it every day. They say that TV show is full of scammers and that the place is uninhabitable. Apart from the free appliances, all the things on the show are just pretty decorations."
Ji Mingshu stood at the door, peering through the gap in the security gate at the living room inside, which had become completely devoid of any design sense, and her mind went blank.
Chapter 73
At 7 p.m., after finishing their cooperation discussions and leaving the hotel, Cen Sen stood on the porch and watched his partners leave.
In Changsha at the turn of winter and the beginning of spring, the roadside branches were bare, showing no signs of budding. The night air was damp and cold. Cen Sen leaned back slightly and asked, "Still no one answering?"
Zhou Jiaheng lowered his eyes and replied, "No one answered, but the phone rang. The driver said that after Madam arrived there, he was told to go back first."
The car slowly drove up to the porch. Cen Sen didn't ask any more questions and just let Zhou Jiaheng open the car door for him.
After getting on the bus, he leaned back in his seat, closed his eyes, and pretended to doze off. In the dim night, his expression was not very clear.
When Ji Mingshu revisited the neighborhood, the nearby primary school had already quieted down, but the square dance group was enjoying its daily, and occasionally extra, moment of glory.
There were four teams outside the community, each with different dance styles and songs. In addition, there was an old man playing the erhu and singing opera nearby. The evening cultural performance successfully spanned Chinese and foreign cultures, ancient and modern times.
They jumped, fine, but the real problem is they blocked the gate to the residential area. The security guards at the gatehouse were probably out there having a good time. The Maybach was stuck, unable to move forward or backward.
Cen Sen signaled the driver to stop the car and got out to walk inside.
However, walking was not very smooth. In just two hundred meters, he was stopped by three aunts who asked him about his marital status.
By the time he got rid of the aunt and entered the community, it was almost eight o'clock.
In the old residential area, even the streetlights are not turned on much, with only a few lights shining through the windows of each household.
Someone was watching TV, sometimes heart-wrenching, sometimes laughing and joking.
Some people are only cooking at this hour, and the sound of stir-frying mixed with the smoke drifts out.
Someone was teaching a child to do homework, and even from a distance of ten feet, you could feel the parents' frustration and anger at the child's disappointment.
For some reason, this environment gave Cen Sen a long-lost sense of familiarity.
My aunt and uncle complain every day that the show is a scam, that it's so bad it's uninhabitable, and that apart from the appliances they gave us, it's all just pretty decorations.
"Ms. Ji, I'm so sorry. I know that you designers have your own ideas and are trying your best to meet our previous requirements, but we didn't expect it to turn out like this."
"This is about making a living. Look, we don't even have a cabinet to put our winter quilts in. How are we supposed to live here? The lamp you brought is quite nice, isn't it? But it takes up a whole square meter of space. Our house is only so big. It's not very bright and it's just getting in the way."
...
Ji Mingshu sat on the stone bench by the flower bed, hugging his knees with both hands, lost in thought.
In the afternoon, after seeing the completely renovated house through the security gate, she happened to run into the homeowner, Mr. and Mrs. Wang, returning home from get off work.
They were quite embarrassed to see her, but that embarrassment turned into a righteous complaint after showing her around the house.
She left the fruit basket behind, barely maintaining a polite demeanor as she left. Completely drained, she didn't want to do or say anything, and just sat downstairs in a daze.
Her taste has been praised since childhood. When she went to college, she majored in design like many socialites. While others chose jewelry design or fashion design, she chose spatial design to show her uniqueness.
Fortunately, she did well in her studies, and her teachers often praised her for being clever and having ideas.
After marrying Cen Sen, she didn't work, but she just didn't want to work and never felt that there was anything wrong with her work ability.
When she ran away from home, she wanted to prove to Cen Sen that she wasn't helpless without him, so she got her wish and did the runway design for Christchou, gaining both fame and fortune in a grand way.
Therefore, she firmly believes that as long as Ji Mingshu wants to do well, she will definitely be able to do well.
—Of course, her certainty only lasted until 6 p.m. today.
"Are you cold?"
Cen Sen was clearly not very good at comforting people; his opening remarks were neither warm nor tender.
Ji Mingshu looked up and said slowly, "So you're not planning to give me your coat if you're not cold?"
"I don't plan to get cold."
...?
Ji Mingshu thought she had misheard. What nonsense was this bastard talking about?
"If you were going to catch a cold, you would have caught one long ago, not now."
Ji Mingshu: "..."
It was particularly strange; she clearly wanted to curse, but inexplicably, she found herself agreeing with Cen Sen and his ruthless capitalist pragmatism.
So when Cen Sen reached out his hand to her, she was as if bewitched, and foolishly took his hand, even obediently standing up from the stone bench.
Cen Sen didn't expect her to be so obedient. Seeing her downcast and unhappy look, the ideas he had prepared on the way here suddenly vanished.
"The follow-up results are different from what you expected?"
He took off his coat and wrapped it around Ji Mingshu, then patted her head.
Ji Mingshu had been following his cold and ruthless line of thought and was no longer feeling so aggrieved, but then he inexplicably became gentle, and the grievances that had been brewing for most of the night surged out again, and his urge to confide in him instantly reached its peak.
"It's not just different, it's completely different!"
Ji Mingshu kept rambling on and on, getting more and more upset as she spoke, "...We still need to prepare a gift for the homeowner, right? Their information says they can play the piano, and they used to have a music room at home, so the gift we're preparing is a new piano."
"Pianos are very expensive. At that time, we didn't have enough money left, so we had to cooperate with the script set by the program team and work as salespeople in shopping malls. I even wore out a pair of high heels, but they actually sold the piano!"
"The most important thing is that they said my design was just for show and not practical at all. You didn't see how disgusted they looked. Tell me... tell me, is my design really that bad?"
Ji Mingshu was so sad that her voice began to choke.
She looked at Cen Sen with teary eyes, and after a while, she suddenly grabbed his shirt button and started picking on him.
"You're so mean! You said you'd finish at seven and come pick me up, but you didn't arrive until eight."
“Even Jiang Chun’s son, Tang Zhizhou, would kiss, hug, and lift me up high, but you won’t even let me wear a coat. Are you deliberately trying to make me catch a cold and get sick?”
"You don't like me at all, you're a liar!"
When she called him a liar, Ji Mingshu's voice was already trembling with tears. She hugged Cen Sen and vigorously wiped her snot and tears on his shirt.
Suddenly, a warm sensation soaked his chest. Cen Sen couldn't utter a single word of rebuttal; he could only gently pat her shoulder and rub her head.
In that instant, Cen Sen suddenly realized that he had fallen into a trap.
He can indeed ruthlessly throw documents at employees who are frustrated, telling them to go back and reflect on what they can do if they can't even handle such a small matter.
Because he is the boss, he needs to project an aura of authority that inspires his respect.
But Ji Mingshu was not his employee; she was his wife.
His wife is insecure and dependent on him. Whenever he shows even a little care, she feels a great deal of comfort.
"Don't cry, I'll make you some ribs when we get back, okay?" His voice was low and hoarse.
"Are you even human? You're still thinking about ribs right now!" Ji Mingshu sobbed, her words broken.
Cen Sen paused for a moment, then explained, "That's not what I meant. I can make whatever you want to eat."
Ji Mingshu leaned against his chest in a sullen voice, without replying.
Cen Sen didn't say anything more. After Ji Mingshu's sobs subsided, he gently lifted her face and, with his slightly rough fingertips, gently wiped away her tears, bit by bit. He also kissed her slightly red eyes.
"Ming Shu, I like you, I'm not lying to you."
In the dim light of the night, Ji Mingshu saw her own reflection in his clear eyes, and even heard the sound of her heart fluttering.
After returning to the hotel, Cen Sen cooked a meal.
In addition to his regular dish of braised pork ribs, Cen Sen also made boiled fish fillets. The tender blackfish fillets were marinated and then put into the pot, piling up in a bowl. Finally, hot oil was poured over them, and the aroma of fish, along with spices such as scallions, ginger, garlic, and Sichuan peppercorns, instantly filled the air.
Ji Mingshu's eyes were still red like a little rabbit's, but she couldn't help but swallow a few times while sitting at the dining table.
Actually, she doesn't eat much at night, but being sad and upset takes a lot of energy. Life isn't worth it, and neither is Cen Sen, that jerk. But the spare ribs and the boiled fish are.
After eating, Ji Mingshu seemed to regain her energy. She hugged Cen Sen's arm, leaned on his shoulder, and muttered to herself, reflecting and summarizing her thoughts.
"Actually, it was my fault for not thinking things through. You told me before, but by then the plan was already difficult to change. I only changed a few things, and I thought it would be enough. It was mainly my fault."
“However, I think this kind of self-occupied design is different from a hotel. Your Junyi hotels are positioned as high-end, mainly focusing on comfort and novel design. I can’t let this design fail me and then give you design drawings that are all about storage, right? You can’t use them at all when staying in a designer hotel. I still need to go with you to check out some designer hotels, that’s the real deal.”
...