After Setting Me Up With My Ex, The Aloof Alpha Regrets It - Chapter 24

Chapter 24: God Opened All The Doors for Zhu Yunqi But Closed The One to Love.

Zhu Yunqi was startled by the comment. She had been standing at the door for almost twenty minutes.

She and Siren began to walk away from the room, with Zhu Yunqi asking, “What does NTR mean?”

“It’s when you like to watch the person you love be in a relationship with someone else, and you get a special, unspeakable thrill from it.”

Thrill? She didn’t feel any of that.

“I’m not. I don’t have that fetish.”

“Then why were you crouching at their door?” Siren was puzzled.

Zhu Yunqi said self-righteously, “Because I’m her client. If the thing I paid her to do doesn’t succeed, you might never see me again. Of course, I have to constantly care about her condition.”

As they walked from the ward to the elevator, Zhu Yunqi felt she had adjusted her mindset.

The reason was simple: although she wasn’t a particularly kind person, she was at least a responsible one, so of course she would be concerned about her pathetic little client.

Siren was shocked.

“Never see you again? Could someone be trying to assassinate you, and you hired her to assassinate the assassin, creating a chain of assassinations?” After saying it, she also found it absurd. “Never mind, with Shi Li’s small physique, she’d have trouble killing a chicken.”

Siren shook her head and then had a sudden realization. “So, Captain Zhu, when you asked us last month how much money it would take to get us to do something, were you asking how much to pay Shi Li?”

Zhu Yunqi gave a reserved nod.

“Inhumanly rich.”

However, when it came to her captain’s romantic life, Siren decided to stick to her judgment.

“Captain Zhu, I think you’re just being stubborn sometimes.”

Zhu Yunqi scoffed.

Siren quietly shook her head behind Zhu Yunqi.

God opened all the doors for Zhu Yunqi—looks, wealth, work ability—but closed the one to love.

…

Shi Li stayed in the hospital for three days.

Tang Yingchi used all her remaining vacation time to stay with her. Shi Li felt very bad about it, but Tang Yingchi said the only way to make it up to her was to get better quickly, and then they could go on a trip together for next year’s annual leave.

Shi Li agreed with a smile.

Before she was discharged, Dr. Ji told Shi Li the truth about her gland.

She waited until Shi Li was in much better health to do so. When Shi Li was first hospitalized, she was so pale and lifeless. Dr. Ji had tried to speak to her several times but couldn’t bring herself to do it, fearing Shi Li wouldn’t be able to handle the shock.

“Your gland has been unstable for some time. Its condition was already very bad, and being injected with a potent aphrodisiac under such high pressure, without a proper mark, meant we could only treat it with equally powerful inhibitors. This caused your gland to be severely impacted in a short period, and it’s now in a state of complete disorder. Regular inhibitor treatment has limited effect, so you have two choices.”

“The first is to use a highly-matched Alpha’s pheromones for comfort, which is a biological treatment with fewer side effects. You have repeatedly told me that you won’t accept a mark from an Alpha. Coincidentally, we are conducting a new pheromone purification study, which would allow you to be directly injected with Alpha pheromones without being marked.”

“However, because this technology is still in its early stages, the drawbacks are also obvious. It only prevents you from being marked, but it requires a stable source of purified Alpha pheromones. If you need to switch sources midway, you would have to undergo a ‘cleansing’ before a new pheromone can be injected, to prevent the two Alpha pheromones from clashing inside your body. The pain of the cleansing is no less than that of removing a mark.”

Dr. Ji explained a lot, carefully laying out the pros and cons to help Shi Li make a decision.

Shi Li looked down, thought for a moment, and asked, “What’s the second option?”

“Excision of the gland,” Dr. Ji said, though she really didn’t want to offer this choice and had planned to skip it. But all options should be presented to the patient.

“The surgery to remove the gland is simple, but you would essentially become genderless. An Omega who loses their gland will age rapidly and develop various complications like heart and kidney failure…”

It was almost like suicide.

Shi Li fell silent.

Dr. Ji couldn’t help but add, “The simplest way, actually, is to find an Alpha to mark you. That would be a direct form of supplementary treatment with a higher success rate.”

But Shi Li had always refused this option.

Shi Li sat quietly, her hands resting obediently on her knees.

Two choices. Just like ten years ago. Ten years ago, in front of Dr. Ji, a sixteen-year-old Shi Li also faced two choices: use medication to suppress her biological nature, or be permanently marked by an Alpha she disliked.

But there were differences. Ten years later, she no longer even had the option of using medication to suppress her nature.

As for being marked by an Alpha… the thought was immediately dismissed by Shi Li. What would happen to Wen Yue if she was marked by an Alpha? What would happen to Zhu Yunqi? Zhu Yunqi had saved her; she should repay her with all her might. How could she turn around and get marked by an Alpha? Wouldn’t that sever all possibilities between her and Wen Yue, making Zhu Yunqi and Wen Yue’s marriage a foregone conclusion?

Although Zhu Yunqi had always said she had a Plan B, Shi Li instinctively felt it wasn’t a good plan. It was more like a forced, “do or die” situation.

And she couldn’t choose to remove her gland and wait for death. She still had a mother in a sanatorium in the Central Star System.

In the time it took to listen to a song, Shi Li had made her choice.

“Dr. Ji, I’ll take the first option.”

Dr. Ji patted her shoulder in relief.

Shi Li then asked, “Do I need to find an Alpha myself for the pheromone extraction? What’s the required match percentage?”

“You don’t need to worry about that for now. We have already found an Alpha with a very high pheromone match to you, and she is also very willing to donate her pheromones for the exploration of this cutting-edge treatment.”

“What about the cost…”

Shi Li stopped herself before she finished the sentence. So many things had happened recently that she had forgotten about the almost billion dollars sitting on the card Zhu Yunqi had given her. A person who had been poor for over twenty years had become rich overnight, and she didn’t even know how to spend the money.

She didn’t need to consider the cost now.

“Since it’s still an experimental treatment, the hospital will cover all the costs. We will also regularly collect your data for our research.”

Shi Li felt both apologetic and grateful toward the Alpha she had never met.

The gland was the most sensitive part of the body, with the most nerves, and extracting pheromones was extremely painful.

“I’d like to thank her… I can give her some money or other assistance… If she doesn’t want to be known, could you, as a liaison for the hospital, express my gratitude to her?”

Dr. Ji thought back to Zhu Yunqi’s appearance. She didn’t lack money, work, looks, or kindness… The only thing she lacked might be a girlfriend.

Sigh, if only Shi Li could just be her girlfriend. It would cure her illness, and she wouldn’t have to go through all this trouble to express her gratitude.

But that was not an option.

“Let’s try the treatment for a while first. The donor doesn’t seem to need any help for now.”

Shi Li had no choice but to let it go for the time being.

As the doctor had requested, she took a few more days off from work to rest at home and wait for her first treatment three days later.

When she was discharged, Lin Xiaonan came to see her on behalf of her colleagues. Lin Xiaonan said that in the days she was gone, the second design team was like a bunch of unsupervised monkeys, almost going crazy. It was also bad luck that she had run into such a vicious robber.

She also gave her a small silver trophy, saying that after everyone returned from the mech research institute, they had submitted reports, and the company’s internal review committee unanimously decided that Shi Li’s was the most profound and thoughtful, so they were giving her a small trophy as encouragement.

The trophy was small, but it felt heavy in her hand.

Three days passed quickly.

Although she had money, Shi Li hadn’t gotten used to driving yet, and she hadn’t decided if she should buy a car, or what kind of car to buy. As long as Zhu Yunqi and Wen Yue’s engagement was not officially called off, she didn’t feel right using the money on the card to buy personal items for herself.

She spent a fortune on a taxi to go to the hospital for the first time.

At the entrance of the hospital, a familiar figure seemed to flash by. Tall and slender, wearing a sleeveless top, cargo pants, and combat boots, with her hair in a bun, revealing an elegant neck.

It looked like Zhu Yunqi.

In the blink of an eye, she disappeared into the crowd.

Maybe she was mistaken. Why would Zhu Yunqi come to the hospital at this time? Like Wen Yue, people from that kind of family usually had private doctors and didn’t need to come to a hospital even when they were sick.

In Dr. Ji’s treatment room, Shi Li signed the treatment agreement.

From now on, she would need to use purified and specially-treated Alpha pheromones to treat her heat.

In the sterile operating room on the other side of the wall, Zhu Yunqi signed the donation agreement.

The doctor confirmed with her, “Are you ready? We can’t use anesthesia to extract the pheromones, so it will be quite painful.”

Zhu Yunqi lowered her head, exposing her gland completely.

“I’m ready.”

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