After Setting Me Up With My Ex, The Aloof Alpha Regrets It - Chapter 38

Chapter 38: Don’t You Forget Me, Either.

“Huh, why?”

Shi Li was confused.

She remembered perfectly what Zhu Yunqi had said when they first met. “I want you to stay with Wen Yue, and ideally, marry her.”

She thought Zhu Yunqi would be thrilled to hear that Wen Yue wanted to marry her.

Wasn’t that Zhu Yunqi’s ultimate goal back then?

Zhu Yunqi countered, “Wen Yue wants to marry you, so why won’t you agree?”

“Because she was half-joking. Besides, if Major General Wen finds out that we secretly got our license…” He’ll definitely kill me to vent his anger.

“Is there no reason of your own?” Zhu Yunqi was a little disappointed, though she wasn’t sure what she was hoping for.

“My reason?” Shi Li pointed at herself. After a brief thought, she said, “No.”

Wen Yue had been terrifyingly possessive lately, but Shi Li felt this was her own subjective feeling, so she didn’t tell Zhu Yunqi.

“Okay, none.” Zhu Yunqi repeated in a low voice. Then she went along with Shi Li’s words. “That’s right, if you get your license, Major General Wen will find out… if Wen Yue gets a crazy idea like that again, you have to remind her in time.”

Shi Li nodded. “I will.”

Every day, she was cautious and walked on thin ice. At every opportunity, she would remind Wen Yue not to reveal her existence to Major General Wen.

“No matter what, our contract doesn’t force you to succeed. You have to ensure your own safety first. Even if the engagement is called off, you need to be careful about marrying Wen Yue. Major General Wen is not an easy person to deal with. Actually…” Zhu Yunqi paused. She regretted setting such a high bar for Shi Li back then.

She had asked her to both marry Shi Li and find a way to cancel the engagement.

She never expected that she would be the first one to want to break the contract.

Shi Li waited for her to continue. “Actually, what?”

“Actually, the engagement doesn’t have to be canceled,” Zhu Yunqi said. “I have less than a month before I return to the Black Star Belt. As long as we can postpone the engagement until after I leave, that’ll be enough.”

“But you’ll have to come back one day. The engagement will just continue the next time you leave the Black Star Belt. You can’t stay there forever, can you?” Shi Li said with a worried tone.

“I can. As long as I’m not forced to get married, I can stay in the Black Star Belt for my whole life,” Zhu Yunqi blurted out.

After all, besides my sister, Zhu Jingshan, there’s no one I absolutely need to see outside of the Black Star Belt.

Her gaze suddenly met Shi Li’s worried and gentle eyes. The tear mole beneath her eye seemed to turn into a small star, winking at her.

Zhu Yunqi felt her heart skip a beat.

Perhaps, besides Zhu Jingshan, when I’m in the Black Star Belt, I might occasionally think of Shi Li and want to see her…

Every time Shi Li goes into heat, she’ll need to inject her pheromones.

Even if Shi Li never knows that the Alpha pheromones she’s injecting are hers, Zhu Yunqi was already prepared to provide them for the rest of Shi Li’s life.

She couldn’t say these words out loud. She could only think them silently in her heart.

Shi Li couldn’t help but ask, “Are you really not coming back for your whole life?”

So after Zhu Yunqi’s vacation ends at the end of July, she’ll never see her again?

They haven’t known each other for long, and they’re going to say goodbye forever so soon?

“Goodbye forever.” Shi Li had never seriously considered this phrase before. In the modern age of advanced transportation, “goodbye forever” seemed to only apply when two people were separated by death.

And Omegas were not allowed to enter the Black Star Belt. Zhu Yunqi said she could stay there for her whole life, in the one place Shi Li could never go. Never being able to see each other again was “goodbye forever.”

Shi Li’s heart ached.

“Do you want me to come back to Z3291?”

Zhu Yunqi held the words on her tongue, hesitant to speak.

She wanted to ask, but the question felt too intimate.

No matter what, Shi Li dislikes me. Even if she doesn’t dislike me, she doesn’t like me. Shi Li loves Wen Yue, so she wouldn’t hope for me to come back to Z3291. Since I already know the answer won’t be what I want, there’s no need to ask.

She changed the subject. “The Black Star Belt is actually a lot of fun. It’s not the barren wasteland you imagine.”

To Shi Li, an unanswered question was always a polite refusal.

Right. Zhu Yunqi doesn’t have anyone important here. She probably hates this planet for ruining her vacation with an engagement. It’s only natural that she wouldn’t want to come back.

“Zhu Yunqi, can I ask you that question again?” Shi Li finally couldn’t help but ask the question she had been curious about for so long. “Why don’t you want to get engaged to Wen Yue?”

At this point, Zhu Yunqi felt she could tell Shi Li everything. But saying her dream was to become the Federation’s greatest mech pilot sounded a bit too childish, so she rephrased it. “Major General Wen placed some demands on my personal career plan that I couldn’t accept. Also, I don’t want to marry someone I have no feelings for.”

What’s the difference between working a job you hate for a lifetime and living with someone you don’t love for a lifetime, and being in prison for a lifetime? Zhu Shengxi and Shen Qinghe’s relationship is so bad, but at least Shen Qinghe has a job she loves and can use work to temporarily escape her home. But what about me? If I really agreed to Wen Lirong’s terms, I’d get tired of being a prisoner at home, try to catch a break by going to work, and then find out I just changed prisons.

“Oh, I see.” Shi Li nodded thoughtfully.

The question that had bothered her for almost a month finally had an answer, and it was surprisingly simple. She had been guessing it was some kind of grudge between wealthy families, but she had been completely wrong.

Zhu Yunqi quietly drank her coffee. Neither of them spoke. The only sound was the clinking of ice against the cup.

Zhu Yunqi sorted through three possible scenarios.

The first: She and Wen Yue don’t know each other and have no engagement. The result is that Shi Li and Wen Yue end up together.

The second: There is an engagement, but she doesn’t ask Shi Li to sign the contract. Shi Li won’t be a mistress and won’t end up with Wen Yue. But she also won’t know Shi Li, and there’s no possibility for them.

The third: The current situation. She has an engagement with Wen Yue, and she asked Shi Li to sign the contract, and in the end, Shi Li and Wen Yue are together.

No matter the scenario, she and Shi Li have no possibility of being together.

She regretted telling Shi Li just now that they only needed to postpone the engagement for one month.

After a long silence, Zhu Yunqi made up her mind. “How about we cancel the contract? You don’t need to worry about the Wen Yue situation anymore.”

Her grey eyes were naturally cold and distant. Without any expression or emotion, they gave off an unapproachable aloofness.

Shi Li thought Zhu Yunqi was angry.

She was also a little confused. Just now, Zhu Yunqi had said she would rather stay in the Black Star Belt for her whole life than get married, and now she was suddenly telling her to stay out of it?

“Zhu Yunqi, are you angry?” Shi Li thought it was better to be direct and talk things out, otherwise, they would keep guessing and misunderstanding each other.

“Because I backed out, you feel you misjudged me and are disappointed in me. So you’re upset, right? I didn’t want to back out, I was just a little scared… scared that Wen Yue would die… I won’t back out. I’ll definitely continue with our contract…”

Shi Li tried to explain.

“How could you think that?” Zhu Yunqi’s eyes flashed with surprise. “Shi Li, I would never be mad at you.”

I must not have been clear enough with my words.

I’m clearly mad at myself, Zhu Yunqi thought.

“Then why do you want to cancel the contract?” A thin layer of tears welled up in Shi Li’s eyes. The accumulation of fatigue, grievance, panic, and self-blame made her look like a porcelain doll that could shatter at the slightest touch.

“And also, do you not like me having too much contact with people other than Wen Yue… Zhu Yunqi, if there’s something you don’t like me doing, you can tell me directly. I’m your contractor. I’ll try to change.”

Please don’t frown at me in disgust, and don’t coldly say you’ll stay in the Black Star Belt for the rest of your life.

Seeing that she was about to cry, Zhu Yunqi immediately panicked.

She leaned forward, wanting to wipe the redness from the corners of her eyes, but the table between them was in the way.

“Because I—”

Because I don’t want you to be with Wen Yue anymore. Although I know that even without the contract, you would still love Wen Yue. But without the contract, at least you wouldn’t be loving so hard, and it would reduce my involvement in your relationship.

The words were on the tip of her tongue but were swallowed back down again.

If I say it, Shi Li will think I’m crazy.

“Anyway, I don’t dislike you,” Zhu Yunqi said anxiously. “Shi Li, I can swear, I absolutely do not dislike you. I think everything you’ve done since we met has been very good and beautiful. There’s nothing you need to change.”

Shi Li held back her tears. She didn’t know why, but the last few times she had cried, Zhu Yunqi had seen it. She wasn’t a crybaby by nature, but her tears seemed to fall so easily in front of Zhu Yunqi.

She corrected Zhu Yunqi. “It’s not about whether you like me. It’s about whether you like the things I do.”

If I don’t speak clearly, she might misunderstand.

Zhu Yunqi: “…”

See? I haven’t even said anything, and Shi Li is already rushing to draw a line between us.

“Okay. I don’t dislike the things you do.”

Zhu Yunqi suddenly and sadly realized that the contract binding Shi Li and Wen Yue was also the tie that connected her to Shi Li.

If the contract was gone, the only remaining link between them would be tube after tube of Alpha pheromones.

And it was a one-sided connection at that.

She finally understood the tangled mess of this relationship: she had fallen for her fiancée’s Omega girlfriend; her fiancée and girlfriend were in love, and she herself was now simultaneously the matchmaker and the heartbroken third wheel in this relationship.

Zhu Yunqi suddenly felt her life was hopeless.

At the very least, I can’t get involved in other people’s relationships. It’s better to let Shi Li and Wen Yue have their happy ending.

“Alright. Then our contract will continue until my vacation ends, okay? You don’t have to change anything. Just be the same as before.”

Falling for Shi Li was something she never expected. Maybe after she returns to the Black Star Belt and they don’t see each other for a long time, these feelings will fade. At that point, everything will slowly return to normal.

She will continue to pursue her dream in the Black Star Belt, and Shi Li will continue to nurture her love with Wen Yue.

Shi Li let out a sigh of relief. “It’s good that you don’t dislike me. Last time, when the car passed by and I bumped into your nose, I saw you frown and thought you disliked me being so close.”

She finally picked up her coffee cup and took a small sip.

Zhu Yunqi said, “That time, it was because I saw you step back, and I thought you didn’t like me touching you… Then you can’t dislike me either.”

“No!” Shi Li quickly explained. “I was worried others would misunderstand. We were too close last time…”

“So we were both misunderstanding each other.”

Good thing we talked it out. Zhu Yunqi felt a little better. At least now she was certain that Shi Li wasn’t bothered by her company.

The cool, elegant Alpha’s earnest talk about “disliking” and “not disliking” sounded like what two children would say after making up. Shi Li laughed through her tears. She finally no longer had to worry about whether Zhu Yunqi disliked her.

Zhu Yunqi didn’t dislike her, and she wasn’t angry with her.

With her answer, the gloom of the past few days seemed to be completely gone.

“I really like you, Zhu Yunqi. You’re a truly good person. It’s just that you’re so good that sometimes I don’t know how to interact with you, so there might be misunderstandings. But it’s good that we talked it out,” Shi Li said with sincerity.

Having been given the “good person card,” Zhu Yunqi forced a smile.

Shi Li continued, “Even if you stay in the Black Star Belt forever, I’ll always remember you.”

She omitted the last half of the sentence.

Don’t you forget me, either.

Support After Setting Me Up With My Ex, The Aloof Alpha Regrets It