The lunch came to an end in a flurry of fuss.
After the meal, Chen Biqing cleaned up the dishes, An Ning helped turn on the TV to make tea and cut fruits, Cen Sen went to the balcony to answer the phone, and Ji Mingshu could only sit on the sofa and watch a local news program that An Ning tuned out.
The protagonists of the show are a pair of young people who are about to get married in the surrounding towns of Star City. Before getting married, the man accidentally discovered that the woman had a history of abortion. He couldn't accept the anger and broke off the engagement.
On the woman's side, the first thing to do is to persuade her to stay. It's okay if she can't keep her and she can't settle the matter, but the 50,000 yuan gift money cannot be refunded, because you have slept with me too, so you have to pay the breakup fee.
The two parties went on the show to quarrel over the 50,000 yuan dowry money.
Ji Mingshu had never watched this kind of program, and at first he didn't believe that someone could be interviewed on TV for 50,000 yuan and fight each other.
But when she saw the preview on the scroll bar at the bottom of the program, it said, "The middle-aged man had a cerebral hemorrhage due to a dispute with a poker player at the mahjong table for ten yuan. He has been sent to Xingcheng People's Hospital urgently." The 50,000 yuan is really justified and convincing.
She watched TV while eating fruit, and she was still a little invested in watching.
Seeing An Ning standing aside after finishing her work, not knowing what to do, she asked An Ning to sit down and watch together.
An Ning blushed and nodded, and sat down along the edge of the sofa, with her legs together and her hands on her knees neatly, as if this was Ji Mingshu's house and she was just a distant relative who came to visit.
When Ji Mingshu ate fruit and watched TV, she also had the aura of a lady. Even though the room was ordinary, it could even be said to be very old, but she felt elegant and luxurious sitting in the front row of a Milan show.
From time to time, An Ning pretended to sneak a glance at her casually.
There's no way, she really has never seen such a beautiful woman, even more beautiful than the female stars on TV, like a pearl that can shine in the daytime.
Ji Mingshu didn't notice An Ning's fangirl eyes at first, but when she was holding a tissue, she happened to meet this curious gaze. She was slightly taken aback, and then looked at her with a smile, trying to express her kindness and friendliness.
But An Ning was very shy, and when she was caught, she immediately avoided looking at her, and her face turned red like a tomato in an instant.
Ji Mingshu: "..."
This is an innocent girl left over from what era, she is too shy...
No wonder she and Cen Sen are not biological siblings, this little girl doesn't even share one percent of Cen Sen's shameless genes.
In the next second, she naturally thought of Cen Yang again.
When Cen Yang was in the compound, she was still too young, and her memory became blurred with age. She couldn't even remember Cen Yang's specific face. It is also the opposite.
While Ji Mingshu was distracted for a while, Cen Sen had finished talking on the phone and walked back to the living room.
He went straight to the sofa and didn't sit down.
Ji Mingshu raised his head to meet his gaze, and read from his eyes the meaning of "you should pat your ass and leave after eating".
No, he came here to eat on purpose, so he really only had a meal
It's fine that An Ning and An Ning haven't developed a brother-sister relationship and can't communicate, but Chen Biqing... from the time they came in to now, the mother and son haven't spoken a few words.
Ji Mingshu was startled, not knowing what to do for a while.
Fortunately, Chen Biqing just came out of the kitchen at this time, and she seemed to see Cen Sen's intention to leave, so she couldn't help but shouted, "Xiao Sen."
The air was suddenly quiet.
For a long while, no one spoke.
Ji Mingshu felt that this kind of silence was really uncomfortable, she held it in for a long time, and finally said: "Well... my lipstick is gone, Ningning, can you accompany me to buy a lipstick?"
An Ning was suddenly cueed and was a little overwhelmed.
Ji Mingshu used his power max, quickly got up and picked up his bag, pulled An Ning up again, and dragged her out of the room.
The anti-theft iron door closed with a creak, and only Chen Biqing and Cen Sen were left in the room.
The afternoon sun is quiet, and the last fragrance of flowers and plants in late summer is blown in by the breeze, with a slight smell of rust, so familiar that people have the illusion of time travel.
Cen Sen remembered that it was also such a sunny afternoon, he ended his nap early because he wanted to buy comic books.
Before carrying his schoolbag to school, he wanted to go to the master bedroom to take a look at his little sister, but outside the master bedroom door, he heard his parents talking.
Driven by curiosity, he eavesdropped on the door.
Dad An Guoping said: "What's wrong with the Cen family's power? Can they still grab it from us? It's just too much deception! If they dare to do it, I will report it to the organization! I still don't believe it. , now is a society ruled by law!"
Chen Biqing sighed, "The Cen family is really domineering. They wanted to take A Sen away, but they didn't let us see the child. We don't even know what the child's name is now."
Hearing this, An Guoping was silent for a while.
The couple also said a few words in a very low voice, but Cen Sen didn't hear them clearly. In the end, he only heard Chen Biqing say in a slightly weeping voice, "Why do you think this happened?"
At that time, Cen Sen was still young, and he couldn't fully understand the few words between Chen Biqing and An Guoping, but he already had a vague premonition that something related to him was happening quietly without his knowledge.
That is, from then on, he began to consciously eavesdrop on Chen Biqing An Guoping's words, and the truth was slowly restored by him in a few words again and again.
Later, the Cen family's car and bodyguards were parked downstairs in the teacher's apartment, and when Chen Biqing and An Guoping dragged on to tell him the truth at the last moment, he was surprisingly calm.
He had been eavesdropping and heard many discussions between the two of them who firmly opposed sending him back to the Cen family.
But in the end, his parents abandoned him.
Maybe it was too long in the past, but when I think about it now, it feels like a lifetime away.
Sitting on the sofa, Cen Sen looked across at Chen Biqing, who was no longer young, and suddenly asked, "Didn't you go abroad all these years?"
He himself has studied abroad for many years, and it is very easy to tell whether a person has just returned from abroad.
Chen Biqing looked at the fruit plate on the table, and said softly: "No, we have been living in Nancheng. Yang Yang...he went abroad, and he...doesn't kiss us." Speaking of this, she lowered her head again, "Many years ago I left the country and never came back.”
Cen Sen was silent.
Chen Biqing asked again awkwardly: "You, how are you doing? You and Xiao Shu were married three years ago, right?"
"Um."
Chen Biqing nodded, "Xiao Shu is fine, beautiful, and cute. I'm relieved that you are fine."
After saying this, she hurriedly wiped the corners of her eyes and smiled.
Cen Sen didn't answer.
After a while, he suddenly asked, "Where's Dad?"
At this moment, Chen Biqing was silent.
After a long time, she slowly opened her mouth and said, "He... passed away."
"Passed away?" Ji Mingshu was slightly taken aback.
Coming out of An's house, Ji Mingshu dragged An Ning into the car, ready to go shopping in a nearby mall.
The nearest shopping mall is also a quarter of an hour's drive away, Ji Mingshu felt that it would be too embarrassing to just sit for a quarter of an hour, so she chatted with An Ning in the car.
It's a chat, but it's more like a question and answer.
An Ning is a simple and honest little girl, basically she will answer whatever Ji Mingshu asks, so Ji Mingshu couldn't resist the temptation, and asked her about An's family by the way.
"Just a while ago, my father fell ill, and my mother wanted to ask Brother Cen Sen to come back to see him, but before my mother could find him, he failed the treatment and passed away."
An Ning lowered her head and said, "We also returned to Star City because of Dad's death. Dad said before he passed away that he wanted to go home and have a look."
Father Ann passed away.
Although Ji Mingshu was surprised, she wasn't particularly shocked either. Ever since she didn't see Father An in An's house, she had already had many guesses in her heart.
"Then... what about Cen Yang, oh, he should be called An Yang now, right?"
An Ning shook her head, "Brother, he hasn't changed his name. I haven't seen him much. He went to live abroad many years ago. It seems to be arranged by the Cen family. He usually only comes back once every few years."
"Dad passed away this time. He said he would come back, but he hasn't come back yet. I haven't seen him for a long, long time."
"Is that so..."
Ji Mingshu nodded slightly, feeling indescribable in his heart, and didn't know what to say.
Fortunately, the shopping mall has arrived, and she is not good at anything else, but shopping is her forte.
She tidied up her mood, walked in holding An Ning's hand, and began to push her canary theory that a woman should live delicately.
"You're going to college too, so you can't always be so simple, look at how juicy your little face is, how nice it is to tidy up and have a relationship while you're young." She turned her head and looked, "You don't have a boyfriend yet, do you? "
An Ning shyly shook her head.
"College is the best time to fall in love. How can you meet pure love when you leave school? You have to consider the other party's material conditions just by standing in front of you and looking at each other."
An Ning asked curiously, "Then you and brother Cen Sen are college classmates?"
Ji Mingshu: "..."
Sorry, we are just the kind of plastic couple who have to consider material conditions when we stand in front of each other and look at each other.
She changed the subject and said, "Actually, it's not just about falling in love. Even if a girl doesn't fall in love, she has to treat herself better. Don't you think it's fun to dress up every day?"
An Ning agrees with this point. In the university dormitory, apart from studying and dating, the most discussed topics among girls are all kinds of clothes, bags, skin care products and cosmetics.
She was fascinated by her ears and eyes, and she understood a little bit, but she never had the nerve to take this step, and she only knew how to bury her head in learning every day.
Ji Mingshu couldn't see that the pretty little girl was so simple, and wanted to take An Ning to buy a set of skin care products first, but suddenly received a call from the "Designer" program group. The signal in the mall was not good, and the voice was intermittent, so she just pointed at the nearby area. A sign told An Ning to wait there, and she would come in as soon as she went out to talk on the phone.
An Ning agreed.
The first floor of the shopping mall is dedicated to jewelry, skin care and cosmetics. An Ning seldom enters this kind of place on weekdays, and is a little dazzled by the countless searchlights.
She was wandering around the brand designated by Ji Mingshu, and inadvertently saw a make-up brand that a roommate was talking about every day recently. She heard that this brand had a very popular lipstick.
She walked over, her eyes lingering on the lipstick display cabinet, silently recalling the lipstick number her roommate had mentioned.
Finally, she found the trial size of that lipstick in the second-to-last row of the display cabinet, picked it up and tried the color on her hand, and it really looked good.
She is a junior this year, and she hasn't bought a lipstick yet, so she is eager to try it.
"Hello, how much is this lipstick?"
She held up her lipstick and asked the cabinet sister.
The cabinet lady glanced at her up and down, seeing her as a poor student, she couldn't greet her enthusiastically, rolled her eyes, and continued to play with her mobile phone, saying casually: "Sorry, this is our popular model, Not sold separately, need 2:1 distribution and sales."
Distribution
An Ning didn't understand what it meant at all, and thought she was too old-fashioned, her face turned red instantly, and she was at a loss.
But in the next second, she suddenly smelled a faint but familiar fruity fragrance.
Ji Mingshu appeared by her side at some point, grabbed the trial outfit from her hand and threw it at the cabinet lady.
The voice was cold and sneering, "Pair it up and sell it? Do you sell it together with your stinky face? I thought I was Hermes and even ordered it."
Hermes Princess has not been equipped with goods.