The Favored Heiress
Chapter 422: Li Qiao, You Are Too Arrogant

Chapter 422: Chapter 422: Li Qiao, You Are Too Arrogant

That afternoon, the interrogation room at Chong City Police Station.

Sitting across from Li Qiao were two police officers with stern faces, and the wall behind bore the four characters: "Leniency to those who confess."

They were flipping through the case records in their hands when one of them looked up, "You are now a suspect involved in the case. If you don’t cooperate with our investigation, you’re only making things harder for yourself."

"I do not admit to conducting human experimentation. Is that what you call not cooperating?"

Li Qiao rested her forehead on her fingertips and slowly retorted, which left the officer facing her momentarily speechless.

The officer tapped the table with his knuckles, "Get the situation straight, now we have both testimonial and material evidence. You think we have no way to deal with you just because you won’t admit it?"

Li Qiao rubbed her forehead, leaned on the armrest, and looked up at the officer, "Can I see a lawyer?"

"No, in your criminal case..."

Li Qiao curled her lips, "According to Article 36 of the ’Criminal Procedure Law,’ defense lawyers can provide legal assistance to suspects during the investigation; comrades, am I right?"

The officers: "..."

Indeed, she was correct, but this case was special. They had been ’specially instructed’ by their superiors to handle it with utmost seriousness, and they were merely following orders.

At that moment, Li Qiao watched them without expression and puckered her lips towards the table, "Regardless of what your leaders request, unless they can overrule the criminal law, please hand me the phone."

How did she know about the pressure from the higher-ups?

The two officers exchanged looks, each with confusion and surprise in their eyes.

After a brief moment, one of them picked up the cell phone from the table, stood up, and handed it to Li Qiao, and then she made a call to someone, uttering just three words, "Come in."

The call was over in less than three seconds.

The officers watched her, dumbfounded, having never encountered such a scene before.

Why was there a sense that she knew all along that she would be brought to the station?

Less than half a minute later, someone knocked on the door of the inquiry room, and an auxiliary officer relayed a message: Li Qiao’s ’lawyer’ had arrived.

Soon, Li Qiao went to the private visitor’s room and met her lawyer.

Xia Siyu walked in wearing a women’s business suit, the epitome of business professional, carrying a briefcase.

Seeing her outfit, the corners of Li Qiao’s mouth twitched. She really did look like a lawyer.

Xia Siyu sat down across from her and started with a stern face, "Was it really Shang Qiongying who was behind this?"

"Who else?" The calm composure of Li Qiao made Xia Siyu’s tense emotions ease a little, "What do you need me to do?"

Li Qiao crossed her legs, her lips curling into a smile, "Take me to a nice dinner tonight."

"Tonight?" Xia Siyu looked down at her phone, it was already three in the afternoon, and she squinted her eyes suspiciously, "Are you sure you can get out by tonight?"

Li Qiao grinned, "Too early?"

Xia Siyu: "..."

The two whispered a few more words, and soon Xia Siyu left the police station at a leisurely pace.

She glanced at the briefcase she had bought from a roadside stall, looked back at the steps leading to the police station, and felt like a housewife who had just popped in for a visit while out shopping for groceries.

...

At Chong City Police Station, due to the case involving human experimentation research, a special investigation team was specifically established.

Nearing four o’clock in the afternoon, the team leader was discussing crime details with his people in the conference room when someone knocked on the door urgently from outside: "Brother Liu, Brother Liu, someone has just delivered a package. It seems to be... new evidence related to the case of human experimentation."

"Who delivered it?" Team leader Brother Liu was utterly confused.

The officer outside scratched his head, looking bewildered, "A man, pretty tall, with a very ordinary face. It was just a delivery document, and after he delivered it, he left."

"Bring it in."

Soon, the officer brought in a delivery document.

The team leader took out several pages from it, glanced over them briefly, and his face suddenly changed, "This... how could this happen? Quick, go find the man who delivered the documents and bring him back."

"Huh?"

"What do you mean ’huh’? Just go!"

Instantly, the conference room descended into chaos.

The other officers who hadn’t seen the evidence began to question their souls, "Brother Liu, what kind of evidence is it?"

"Could the nature of the case be more serious than we thought?"

Team Leader Brother Liu clutched the evidence in his hands, his face deathly pale.

...

Meanwhile, in the detention room.

Li Qiao sat back leisurely with her legs crossed in the barred room, leaning against the corner of the wall with her eyes closed, seemingly unaffected by her surroundings.

Suddenly, the door to the detention room opened from the outside, and an officer escorted Shang Qiongying inside, kindly reminding her, "There isn’t much time, please make it quick."

Shang Qiongying nodded at him and then, holding her handbag, walked over to the office desk outside the bars and sat down.

The officer, on the other hand, deliberately maintained a distance as if to avoid any suspicion, staying outside the door.

Ms. Shang sat at the desk and gazed directly into the barred room at Li Qiao, "It seems you’re quite enjoying prison life."

Li Qiao did not lift her head or open her eyes, but maintained her position and wiggled her toes, "Ms. Shang, you’ve gone through considerable effort to get me in here; I can’t very well disappoint you."

Shang Qiongying covered her lips with her fingertip and laughed, her shrewd eyes revealing a hint of admiration, "Li Qiao, to be honest, if you weren’t Shang Shaoyan’s girlfriend, I would really like to have you on the Council working for me."

"Oh." Li Qiao tilted her head back, lightly tapping the back of her head against the wall, and chuckled softly, "You think you’re worthy?"

Facing her mockery, Shang Qiongying didn’t take it to heart; after all, Li Qiao was a bird trapped in a cage, and indulging in harsh words was hardly a fault.

She sat upright in the chair, silent for a few seconds, then spoke softly again, "Don’t you wonder how you ended up here?"

"Do I need to wonder?" Li Qiao opened her eyelids, tossing a lazy glance her way, "But... Ms. Shang, you really have opened my eyes. Indeed, I’ve never seen such low-end tactics."

Facing such direct mockery, Shang Qiongying’s expression froze momentarily.

But she quickly regained her composure, her fingers brushing past the hair by her ear, and said meaningfully, "Li Qiao, you’re clearly not as smart as you pretend to be, so why bother acting as if you have everything figured out?

If you really knew my tactics, why didn’t you come and plead with me earlier?

Maybe if we’d discussed terms, none of this would have happened today."

Li Qiao curled her lips into a cool smile, shifting her gaze back to the wall opposite her, "You’re very confident."

Shang Qiongying’s eyebrows furrowed imperceptibly, and she didn’t bother to say more; glancing at the time, she got up and prepared to leave, "Li Qiao, I originally had a high opinion of you, but... you’re too arrogant."

Perhaps she still hoped that Shaoyan would save her, but unfortunately, he’s already in over his head in the South Sea.

Li Qiao casually draped her forearms over her knees, tossing a few words back indifferently, "Thanks for the compliment."

Shang Qiongying stood at the door, turning back to take a deep look at Li Qiao.

Though she disliked Li Qiao’s complacent attitude, she never believed that a twenty-two-year-old girl could make much of a splash.