After Setting Me Up With My Ex, The Aloof Alpha Regrets It - Chapter 52.2

Chapter 52.2: Under The Fireworks, It Was Crowded, But Zhu Yunqi Still Recognized The Omega She Had been Thinking About Day and Night.

Hai Yao was yelling from the side, “Nonsense! Tang Yingchi, that’s nonsense!”

Tang Yingchi rolled her eyes and muted Hai Yao’s mic.

Zhu Yunqi endured the pain of a knife in her chest and twitched the corner of her mouth. She said to Tang Yingchi, “Actually, I don’t ship them anymo-”

She just wanted to know if Shi Li was doing well. She didn’t care about anything related to Wen Yue.

Before she could finish, she saw Wen Yue touch Shi Li’s hair and then turn around and walk in another direction.

As soon as Wen Yue left, Shi Li closed her eyes, then opened them again and looked around. Her gaze searched the crowd for Tang Yingchi. For a moment, her eyes lingered on the camera, as if they had traveled through the vast sea of stars between the Upper Star Domain and the Black Star Belt, crossed billions of miles, and gently landed on Zhu Yunqi.

Zhu Yunqi’s breath hitched.

Shi Li didn’t notice that Tang Yingchi was on a call. She found her friend, walked toward her, and held onto Tang Yingchi’s arm. Zhu Yunqi heard Tang Yingchi ask, “Where’s Wen Yue?”

“She went to the restroom.” For some reason, Shi Li’s voice sounded a little lonely, and also a little relieved, as if she could “finally breathe.”

Tang Yingchi didn’t notice her emotional state and excitedly pulled Shi Li into the camera. “I’m on a video call with Lan Yang. Zhu Yunqi is here too. Do you want to talk to her?”

Shi Li’s entire body stiffened.

She quickly glanced at the camera and then lowered her head in a panic.

She said, “You guys chat. I’m going to go look at the fireworks…”

Afraid that Shi Li would disappear like smoke again, Zhu Yunqi couldn’t help but call out her name, “Shi Li.”

Her voice was a little hoarse from being suppressed, like the wind’s low moan in the night sky.

Shi Li froze. The moment she heard Zhu Yunqi’s voice, her nose started to feel sore. The overflowing emotions that she hadn’t even noticed came surging with Zhu Yunqi’s call. Her eyelashes trembled in pain.

Before Zhu Yunqi left, Shi Li had always thought that Zhu Yunqi was just a person who was a little more special than others to her. Like a friend, like family, like the naive crush she had. Even if she lost her, it would just be losing a source of happiness and wouldn’t really affect her life.

But after Zhu Yunqi really left, she found that this wasn’t the case.

She found out about Zhu Yunqi’s intergalactic train schedule through Tang Yingchi. All morning, she was absent-minded in the design department. When she went to the pantry to get water, she didn’t realize the water had overflowed onto her hand until it was already too late. Even the full-sugar latte she always liked to use to dilute the bitterness only tasted bitter in her mouth, and her throat felt sickly sweet after swallowing it.

She counted down the time until Zhu Yunqi’s departure. At 10:12 a.m., the train left the station.

Only then did Shi Li finally have a real sense of Zhu Yunqi’s departure.

She stared blankly in the direction of the intergalactic train station, thinking that Zhu Yunqi was no longer on Z3291.

…

Tang Yingchi grabbed Shi Li’s wrist. “Oh, come on. Zhu Yunqi is calling you. Hurry up and say a few words to her. This is a long-distance call that spans the Black Star Belt and the Upper Star Domain.”

Thinking that her friend might be too embarrassed to talk on the phone in front of her, Tang Yingchi generously handed the video call entirely to Shi Li and had Hai Yao hand it over to Zhu Yunqi as well.

Hai Yao was furious. “Hey, isn’t this our video call? Do they not have their own optical computers?”

Tang Yingchi had already disappeared from the screen.

Just as they were back at the dorm building, Hai Yao huffily pulled the optical computer device off her wrist and threw it into Zhu Yunqi’s hand. “Go talk on your own phone.”

She could tell that Zhu Yunqi and Shi Li were just two awkward caterpillars!

Suddenly, only Shi Li and Zhu Yunqi were left on both ends of the video.

Zhu Yunqi had a belly full of words she wanted to say to Shi Li. She held it in for a while and finally managed to squeeze out a few words. “Are you doing well lately?”

Shi Li said, “I’m doing well. Are you doing well in the Black Star Belt?”

Zhu Yunqi replied, “I’m doing well, too.”

She tried to find a topic. Her eyes scanned the dorm room and finally stopped on the white crystal chrysanthemum in the photo frame. Zhu Yunqi walked over and held the frame up to her face to show Shi Li. “I framed the flower you gave me and put it on my bedside table. How are the little plants doing?”

Her voice was low, a little hurt and a little cautious. “You haven’t been sending me pictures of the little plants lately.”

Shi Li said apologetically, “I’m sorry. The little plants have turned yellow recently. I took them to the plant research institute to be checked. They said they were infected with a plant virus. Let’s see if they can survive it on their own. If they can, it’s great. If not, then…” they’ll die.

When she took the plant to the research institute, the staff looked at her as if she were an idiot.

That pot of grass was a very ordinary plant found in green spaces. It was already rare for someone to keep a small pot of it at home, let alone bringing such a pot of grass to the institute with an anxious look on her face for a “check-up.”

If it died, couldn’t she just pull a new one from the green space?

Shi Li repeatedly emphasized that the pot of grass had a special meaning to her and that she was willing to pay all the fees. In the end, a kind female researcher checked it for her for free.

Zhu Yunqi immediately said, “It’s okay. Little plants don’t live for very long anyway. You’re not a professional gardener. It’s already amazing that you’ve kept it alive for this long. None of the plants I’ve ever had have lived for more than ten days.”

“I heard that a lot of sunlight would make it better, so now I take it out to the balcony to get some sun whenever it’s sunny.”

As Shi Li spoke, she saw something shiny behind Zhu Yunqi and asked, “There seems to be something shiny flickering behind you.”

Zhu Yunqi turned her head. It was the diamonds on the windowsill.

She brought the whole box over and poured it onto the table, like a child who had met someone they liked and couldn’t wait to show them all of their candy.

“I told you about them. The diamonds from the Black Star Belt.”

She picked them up one by one to show Shi Li. There was a round, black diamond that looked as if it had been artificially polished. It was an almost perfect sphere. Zhu Yunqi held it under her eye and said, “This one looks a lot like your tear mole.”

Shi Li gestured to a gray, meteorite-colored diamond with her eyes.

“Zhu Yunqi, that one looks like your eyes.”

When she said this, Shi Li almost shed a tear.

Everyone said that gray eyes were cold and heartless, but the look in Zhu Yunqi’s eyes was clearly gentler than water every time she looked at her.

Zhu Yunqi was about to say something when Shi Li suddenly moved to another spot in a hurry. She handed the optical computer back to Tang Yingchi and then said to Zhu Yunqi, “Zhu Yunqi, Wen Yue is back. I can’t talk to you anymore.”

Then, the video call was hastily ended.

Zhu Yunqi remained in the same position, still picking through the diamonds.

The optical computer screen was pitch black, as if everything that had just happened was a dream.

…

The three of them left after watching the fireworks for a while.

Too many people were watching the fireworks. If they waited until the end to leave with everyone else, it would probably be a mess.

Wen Yue drove Shi Li and Tang Yingchi home.

They went to Tang Yingchi’s house first.

When they arrived, Tang Yingchi pulled Shi Li out of the car and said that she had something to tell her alone, so she asked Wen Yue to wait in the car.

Wen Yue was not happy. Tang Yingchi’s thoughts were too unpredictable, and she often did some outrageous things. She was afraid that Shi Li would be led astray by Tang Yingchi.

“Can’t you just talk in the car? What is there that I can’t hear?”

Tang Yingchi also couldn’t stand Wen Yue. She always felt that she was overly sensitive and suspicious, and she always looked sour.

“There’s a lot you can’t hear.”

With that, she pulled Shi Li out of the car.

They walked a few steps away from the car. Tang Yingchi pouted, and a little sadness flickered in her eyes. “Li Bao, I want to ask you, what do you think of Lan Yang?”

Shi Li immediately guessed what was on her mind.

“You like her?”

Recently, Tang Yingchi and Lan Yang had been inseparable. Now that Lan Yang had gone back to the Black Star Belt, they were still in frequent contact. Shi Li had long felt that there was something going on between them, but since Tang Yingchi didn’t bring it up, she didn’t ask.

“It’s not that, I just… I just sometimes miss her.” Tang Yingchi looked down at her toes, using her heel as the center of a circle, drawing half-circles on the ground with her toes.

Shi Li spoke the truth. “To be honest, I’m not that close to Lan Yang. My impression of her is that she’s a very outgoing and enthusiastic person who likes to talk a lot. She helped me. She’s very warm and responsible. Other than that, I can’t really say.”

“Ah, I think she has a thing for me.” Tang Yingchi was very distressed. “But she won’t confess to me. I tried to sound her out, but she played dumb and pretended she didn’t understand what I was saying. I don’t think it’s possible for her not to understand. So I don’t know what she means.”

Lan Yang’s attitude had Tang Yingchi in an endless state of frustration.

Her relationship with Lan Yang was indeed ambiguous. At first, Tang Yingchi didn’t think much of it. There was always a period of ambiguity before a relationship was confirmed, but after a while, she realized that something was off. Lan Yang seemed to only want to maintain an ambiguous relationship with her.

Last time, she had casually asked Lan Yang if their relationship would progress further.

Lan Yang’s answer left her in a daze all night.

Lan Yang said, “I think our relationship is great as it is. I hope we can keep it that way.”

Tang Yingchi was so angry that she swore on the spot that she would never talk to Lan Yang again.

But not long after, she got an itch and took the initiative to call Lan Yang. While she was calling, she was also cursing herself for being pathetic, secretly hoping that maybe Lan Yang just wasn’t ready for a long-distance relationship.

But Lan Yang continued to be cheerful with her every day and never brought up the topic of confirming their relationship.

Tang Yingchi remembered what Lan Yang had said at the beginning: she didn’t like Betas and only liked Omegas. Her heart was shattered again.

Since Shi Li was here today, and Shi Li had more dating experience than her, Tang Yingchi wanted to get some advice from her friend.

Shi Li of course hoped that her friend could be happy. She wanted her friend to have what she would no longer have herself.

After thinking it over, Shi Li drew a bottom line for Tang Yingchi. “As long as you haven’t 100% clearly confirmed the relationship, you should assume she’s not interested in you.”

Tang Yingchi knew that her friend was right and sighed in frustration.

She hugged Shi Li. “I’ll listen to you.”

After seeing Tang Yingchi off, Shi Li got back in the car. Wen Yue immediately asked what they had been talking about.

With no one else around, Shi Li made no effort to hide her disgust.

“Nothing. I watched the fireworks show with you. You won’t have any objections to my business trip to the Mid-Star Domain next month, right?”

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