After Setting Me Up With My Ex, The Aloof Alpha Regrets It - Chapter 48.2

Chapter 48.2: Dreams Come True in Fairy Tales, While Dashed Hopes Are Reality.

Shi Li picked up the tape.

Wen Yue had bugged their conversation from earlier today.

She had used that pink handbag today.

The last time she used it was the day Wen Yue showed up unannounced in front of Shi Yu.

They also had a small fight that day. It seemed that was when Wen Yue found an opportunity to secretly place a bug in her bag.

“Wen Yue, is it necessary to make such a big deal out of this? Besides, a recorded conversation obtained through a bug doesn’t prove anything.”

“It proves something. Or it doesn’t. That depends on how the media digs, and how Zhu Yunqi’s mother and mother-in-law see it. I never thought that the person Zhu Yunqi would like would be you…”

As Wen Yue spoke, she raised her hand to wipe the blood from the corner of Shi Li’s lips.

Shi Li turned her head to avoid it.

Wen Yue’s eyes darkened.

As if greatly provoked, she forcibly twisted Shi Li’s head, making her face her, and forcefully rubbed her thumb across her lips.

“Shi Li, you can’t possibly think that Zhu Yunqi really likes you, can you? Someone from her family, even if her engagement with me is off, would at least marry an Omega with an intact gland. You’ve only known each other for a short time. She’s just playing with you. Don’t be naive.”

“Look closely. Only I truly love you. I love you so much I’m going crazy.”

A strong wave of nausea surged in Shi Li’s stomach. She held it in and barely managed not to throw up on the spot.

She looked at Wen Yue’s distorted face. A cold smile hung on the corner of her lips. “Wen Yue, I told you, Zhu Yunqi doesn’t like me. She was just drunk and said some words that could be misinterpreted. I didn’t even misunderstand, but you…”

“Zhu Yunqi said that she originally wanted you to marry me. I can understand that. She didn’t want to marry me from the start, so of course she wanted me to be with someone else.” Wen Yue completely disregarded the lies she had told Shi Li before. She just wanted to confirm that her suspicion that Zhu Yunqi liked Shi Li was correct. “But then she changed her mind. There has to be a reason for that. She couldn’t have stopped us because she suddenly wanted to marry me. So the only answer left is you: She likes you, so of course she doesn’t want to see you with someone else.”

Wen Yue thought her deduction was flawless.

Zhu Yunqi, Zhu Yunqi… she acted so high and mighty and arrogant in front of her, but secretly, she was in love with her girlfriend. The Alpha the doctor mentioned to Shi Li was most likely Zhu Yunqi. She even acted out a plot from a novel, going to the hospital to visit but stopping outside the ward.

It was all so laughable.

Shi Li felt helpless. “Wen Yue, I never noticed before that you have such a rich imagination.”

“Yes, there are many things you haven’t noticed. Shi Li, I almost died for you. There’s nothing I can’t do.”

Wen Yue grabbed Shi Li’s chin. “Also, you are not allowed to tell Zhu Yunqi that I know about your relationship. If you tell her, I’ll expose the recording, and I’ll also reveal her family’s secrets. If you want to ruin her and us, then you can tell her everything I told you today.”

Hearing that, Shi Li’s heart sank.

From the moment she got out of the car until now, she had been trying to get Wen Yue to shift the focus of the problem. She had successfully shifted Wen Yue’s focus from “Why do you and Zhu Yunqi know each other and why were you meeting secretly?” to “Zhu Yunqi has a crush on you.” “Zhu Yunqi has a crush on you” was not a fact. When the focus of the problem was on something fabricated, it became much easier to solve.

But she underestimated Wen Yue’s madness.

Even if Wen Yue really exposed what she just said to the media, Shi Li believed that Zhu Yunqi’s family would have ways to deal with it. But she didn’t dare to bet on it. Even with proper handling, negative news would always exist once it was out there. People would always wonder if the Alpha in the recording was the mysterious heiress of Zhu Holdings.

Moreover, Wen Yue had added the “family’s secrets” as a bargaining chip.

Shi Li didn’t know how big that secret was. She only knew that she didn’t want to see Zhu Yunqi get hurt.

However, she understood that she couldn’t appear too nervous. Otherwise, it would seem that Zhu Yunqi was very important to her, so important that she would rather go against her own girlfriend to protect Zhu Yunqi.

If she and Zhu Yunqi were really just ordinary friends who had only met a few times, she should be indifferent to what Wen Yue wanted to do to Zhu Yunqi.

“I don’t care what you want to do to Zhu Yunqi. But I can agree to your request. That’s because Zhu Yunqi isn’t important to me. Not seeing her or not telling her some things doesn’t matter.”

“Good. Remember what you promised me.”

After Wen Yue finished speaking, she suddenly leaned forward and hugged Shi Li. Shi Li’s body stiffened. She stayed in her position, hugging her knees, and didn’t respond.

Wen Yue leaned in close to her ear and murmured, “Baby, you can only love me. You can only love me forever.”

A bit of sorrow and sarcasm laced Shi Li’s tone.

“Wen Yue, after you did something like this to me, do you really think I’ll love you the same way I used to?”

Wen Yue hugged her tightly and laughed softly. “It doesn’t matter. As long as you’re by my side, and you’re mine alone. By the way, isn’t Auntie recuperating in the Mid-Star System? I used some of my father’s connections without his knowledge. I’ll have someone take good care of her. After all, Auntie approves of and likes me so much.”

Shi Li clenched her fists.

“I never thought our relationship would get to the point where you would use my mom to threaten me. Wen Yue, you are shameless.”

Wen Yue sighed in response. “What can I do? I love you too much. Baby, I’ve become a monster for you. As long as I can keep you by my side, I’ll do anything.”

…

Zhu Yunqi spent the entire afternoon thinking about the meaning of Shi Li’s last message.

Shi Li said she lied last night.

Zhu Yunqi wracked her brain, wishing she could take out her hippocampus and flip through it piece by piece, trying to recall every word Zhu Yunqi had said last night.

Which one was a lie?

Other than telling her to wash up and go to bed, Shi Li hadn’t said much last night.

There was only one question she had asked Shi Li: Do you love Wen Yue that much?

And Shi Li’s answer that she would marry Wen Yue.

If those two sentences were lies…

Zhu Yunqi’s heart pounded with a nervous rhythm.

She scrolled through her chat history with Shi Li over and over again. From the beginning when Shi Li agreed to the contract, diligently and seriously reporting her progress with Wen Yue every day, to later when she told her about everything that happened between her and Wen Yue in great detail, to occasionally sharing their daily lives, and finally the daily updates on the little plant.

In the beginning, Shi Li was always like a diligent employee, responding with a serious “Received” to almost every message. Now, she would even send her funny, abstract memes.

In the middle, she had even deleted the dozens of “flirty pictures” Shi Li had accidentally sent her instead of to Wen Yue.

The distance between them was getting closer little by little.

Zhu Yunqi reminisced about the process of getting closer to Shi Li.

One of the wisest things she ever did was investigate Wen Yue behind the scenes, find Shi Li, and meet her.

But at the same time, she also did the stupidest thing: trying to get Shi Li and Wen Yue together.

In the beginning, she just thought Shi Li was a pretty and serious Omega.

Gradually, she started to think that Shi Li had bad taste. How could she fall for Wen Yue and be with her for so long?

Now, she was jealous of Wen Yue, jealous that the person by Shi Li’s side was Wen Yue and not her. She was jealous that Wen Yue could receive so much love from Shi Li.

Zhu Yunqi couldn’t wait to find out which part of Shi Li’s words were a lie.

She was worried that messaging Shi Li would disturb her work. Shi Li seemed very busy recently. She had to go to training workshops on weekends, do her daily work, and seemed to have entered some kind of design competition.

So she first found Tang Yingchi’s optical computer account. She and Tang Yingchi weren’t friends, but it was easy to find Tang Yingchi by finding the account that had liked both Shi Li’s and Hai Yao’s community posts.

Tang Yingchi’s account name was a little abstract: “Crazy Roach Juice Drinker.”

She asked Tang Yingchi if she had seen or talked to Shi Li and how Shi Li was doing.

Tang Yingchi replied with a voice message: “Are you going to become an exclusive fan of our Li Bao? I just went to see her this afternoon. She’s doing great. Her colleagues also said she looks like she’s in a good mood. Her skin is as smooth and radiant as porcelain. Oh, right, she also specially designed a robot. She said she’ll show it to you when she’s done.”

With Tang Yingchi’s words as a foundation, Zhu Yunqi felt relieved.

Shi Li was in a good mood this afternoon, which meant she wasn’t angry about Zhu Yunqi crossing the line. Maybe she was even a little happy.

Does that mean she’s a little bit special to Shi Li, too?

Zhu Yunqi patiently waited until the evening, guessing that Shi Li must have gotten home and was done with her shower, before sending her a message.

Zhu Yunqi: Can I call you now? There’s something I want to ask you.

After she sent it, she closed her eyes, lay flat on her bed, and stared at the ceiling with her two eyes.

The next second, she curled herself up like a shrimp. She didn’t stay in the shrimp position for two seconds before she rolled over and wriggled like a caterpillar on the bed.

She had never so anxiously anticipated a reply.

She hoped for good luck and for Lady Luck to smile upon her. Zhu Yunqi couldn’t stop aimlessly hypothesizing in her mind. What if Shi Li also had a good feeling about her? She would definitely rush to Shi Li’s side immediately. On the way, she would buy out all the Rhodes roses from the flower shop… Her romance would no longer be under Wen Yue’s name, but under Zhu Yunqi’s name. She wouldn’t make empty promises to Shi Li either. She would talk to her family first. It wouldn’t matter if Zhu Shengxi and Shen Qinghe disagreed. Even if she had to leave her family, she wouldn’t make random promises when she didn’t have the ability to fulfill them, causing Shi Li to suffer grievances…

Before long, Shi Li’s call request came through.

Zhu Yunqi sprang up from the bed. She walked barefoot to the balcony, took a deep breath first, and then answered.

She was so nervous that her breathing was a little shaky.

The optical computer unseasonably reminded her, “Owner, your heart rate is too fast. Are there any other adverse reactions? Please notify Xiao Guang in time if you feel unwell.”

“Zhu Yunqi, what do you want to ask?” Shi Li’s voice was still infinitely soft and calm, like a peaceful wave at sunset.

Zhu Yunqi cleared her throat.

“You said you lied yesterday—which one was a lie?”

A silence fell over the other side.

Zhu Yunqi’s heart was in her throat, waiting for the verdict.

Shi Li’s tone was almost cheerful.

“Of course it was when I told Yingchi I would ride the banana home. That’s just my yellowish-brown backpack. How could I ride it home?”

It felt like she had been hit hard in the chest with a solid fist, right in the space where she knew she would soon be in excruciating pain, but her adrenaline was still working hard, temporarily blocking the pain transmission.

Zhu Yunqi knew she was about to be sad, but the sadness hadn’t truly hit her yet.

“Is that… is that the only one?” Zhu Yunqi heard herself speak stiffly. All her expectations instantly turned into bubbles and popped.

“Yeah. The other things don’t seem like lies. Zhu Yunqi, do you have something you want to tell me? I feel like you had something you wanted to say to me today.”

Zhu Yunqi opened her mouth futilely, unable to make a sound.

The world seemed to have stopped. Her eardrums filled with air, as if a film had been placed over her ears. All the sounds she heard became distant and blurred.

Until Shi Li called her, “Zhu Yunqi? Are you there?”

“Oh, I’m here. Something urgent just came up.” Zhu Yunqi felt her throat was so dry she couldn’t speak. Every word she said was like a small knife scratching her vocal cords. “I want to tell you to take good care of yourself and not… not to get hurt again.”

“Thank you. But Zhu Yunqi, I also have something I want to tell you.”

“I’m listening.”

Zhu Yunqi looked up at the sky.

It’s nothing. It’s normal for expectations to fall through. Dreams come true in fairy tales, while dashed hopes are reality.

So, it was nothing.

That’s what Zhu Yunqi told herself.

“I’ve thought it over carefully.” Shi Li’s speaking speed suddenly quickened. “The only person I want to marry and spend the rest of my life with is Wen Yue. Zhu Yunqi, you said you would bless us. Does that still count?”

The lingering pain finally invaded her limbs.

The pause in the middle was like building up momentum, then suddenly dropping, leaving Zhu Yunqi’s mind blank.

She said mechanically, “Yes, it counts. I will bless you two.”

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