The Favored Heiress
Chapter 585: Xiao Qi, Welcome Home

Chapter 585: Chapter 585: Xiao Qi, Welcome Home

This place is the main base of the Border Seven Sons.

Each building corresponded to an individual, and the one belonging to Li Qiao was at the very back.

At this moment, while Luoyu was still surveying the scenery outside the window, Li Qiao, in the back seat, had already opened her eyes and pushed the door open to get out of the car.

In front of the carved iron gate, Li Qiao walked to the side of the wall and opened a hidden brick, revealing a fingerprint and iris scanner.

After a brief three seconds, the scanner emitted a familiar voice, "Xiao Qi, welcome home."

This embedded voice message came from Xiao Yehui and hearing it again felt like a lifetime ago.

It was from the time when he had recorded a personalized greeting for everyone while setting up the defense system.

Li Qiao closed the hidden brick with a playful look in her eyes as she lingered for a moment on the fingerprint recognition panel.

There, clear signs of recent touches were evident.

When the gate opened, Li Qiao got back into the car.

Ah Chang started the car again and drove up to the vicinity of the last building.

Inside Wenzhai Garden, long abandoned, weeds grew indiscriminately, and the desolation was akin to a ghost town.

It wasn’t until that moment that Luoyu realized Wenzhai Garden belonged to Miss Li.

Getting out of the car, Li Qiao stood in front of the building, looking up at the wall marked by the rain. She curved her lips in a smile and turned her head to speak to Ah Chang, "Where are the Seven Sons’ men?"

Ah Chang stepped forward, "They’re all stationed near Poor People’s Kiln, do you need me to call them over?"

"Not yet."

With that, Li Qiao walked in, as the building’s entrance system was still an iris scanner.

Upon opening the door and entering, they were met with darkness and floating dust.

Ah Chang casually turned on the lights and soon the building was brightly lit.

Since the electrical system had not been used for a while, Li Qiao decided against using the elevator and instead ascended the stairs.

Minutes later, they reached the top floor office, which despite the bright lights, couldn’t hide the dead silence of its emptiness.

Ever since arriving at Wenzhai Garden, Li Qiao spoke very little.

She lingered in front of the window for a long time, perfectly capturing the entire view of the six buildings in front.

After a while, she looked down at the dusty windowsill and instructed Ah Chang in a faint voice, "Go to the surveillance room and transfer the park’s surveillance footage of the last year to my computer."

"Yes."

Ah Chang obeyed and left the office, and Luoyu couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow. No wonder the iris scanner worked upon entry—Wenzhai Garden had been kept powered up all along, with the surveillance operating normally.

Not long after, Li Qiao took a somewhat bulky laptop computer from a drawer in the office desk.

Though it had been idle for three years, the boot-up speed was still impressive.

She logged into the park’s system, and the surveillance footage promptly appeared on the screen.

Li Qiao played the video at sixteen times the speed, watching intently until the progress bar was nearly at the end when she hit the pause button.

In the frame, a graceful figure stepped down from a Bentley.

If one looked carefully, they could notice that before opening the hidden brick, the person had deliberately glanced at the surveillance camera in the upper right corner.

Yin Mo, Yin Lao Er, had indeed returned to the border six days ago.

Li Qiao resumed playback at normal speed, watching as Yin Mo entered the building that was hers. She emerged in less than five minutes and then headed to... Xiao Yehui’s building.

When Yin Mo left, she carried a black briefcase in her hand.

Seeing this, Li Qiao closed her laptop and turned to gaze out the window with a smile, sighing.

So it turned out that all these years, Yin Lao Er had been with Xiao Yehui.

No wonder her whereabouts couldn’t be traced, with the protection of the Charlman Family and staying beside Xiao Yehui, who was ’officially dead,’ was indeed the best way to stay hidden.

Each building within Wenzhai Garden could only be entered using their own iris scans, which allowed for ample space and privacy between each other.

And the system within the garden was, in fact, set up jointly by Yin Lao Er and Xiao Yehui. Aside from the two of them, no one else could make any changes.

Even she couldn’t.

Because the system’s change keys were held separately by Yin Mo and Xiao Yehui.

A string of keys, each held half of the characters.

Xiao Yehui was in charge of smart system security, and Yin Mo was responsible for network system security.

In the video, the fact that Yin Mo could enter Xiao Yehui’s building was enough to prove that they had modified the system already.

Revisiting the old place, everyone was no longer the youths they once were.

Li Qiao put the computer back into the drawer and headed for the door.

Luoyu hurriedly followed and, eyeing her profile with suspicion, asked, "Miss Li, can’t the surveillance be checked domestically?"

"It can’t," Li Qiao explained briefly and succinctly. "Yin Lao Er added seven high-level firewalls and counter-attack viruses to the surveillance system. Even if the intrusion is successful, the surveillance will automatically self-destruct."

Luoyu silently lowered her eyelids. What a master indeed.

When Li Qiao left Wenzhai Garden, twilight had already fallen heavily.

She had spent forty minutes just watching that segment of surveillance footage.

The thing she wanted to confirm had already reached a conclusion; she had no reason to stay any longer.

As the car moved away from Wenzhai Garden, Li Qiao’s gaze lingered in the rearview mirror, unwilling to move on.

The laughter and camaraderie of those bygone days had eventually settled into the dust of time along with the sealing of this garden.

The night was ink-dark, and after returning to the Border Factory, Li Qiao went to the standalone dormitory on the south side.

She told Luoyu and Ah Chang to go back to rest, then took out a few cans of beer from the fridge and sat by the window to drink alone under the moon.

The room was dim as she didn’t turn on the light. After three cans of beer, she made a phone call to Shang Yu.

It was nine o’clock. In Parma... it must have been deep into the night.

Thinking this, she quickly hung up the call.

Perhaps, he was already asleep.

She casually picked up a beer, tilted her head back, and drank half a can, and a buzzing noise broke the surrounding silence.

The incoming call displayed a single word: "Yan."

Li Qiao looked down to answer the call but didn’t speak.

Shang Yu’s voice, slow and husky, sounded exceptionally clear in the night, "Why did you hang up after calling?"

His voice was close to her ear.

Li Qiao gently curved her lips, her voice soft. "I thought you were asleep."

After a moment of faint noises, the man’s voice came, laced with a smile, "Miss me?"

"Mhm," she responded truthfully. Indeed, she missed him, even if they had been apart for only a day. "I went to Seven Sons’ headquarters this afternoon..."

Just as she spoke, the line disconnected.

Li Qiao took the phone away from her ear, about to redial when a video call came through on WeChat.

Usually, when they were in separate places, they communicated mostly by phone, and video calls were indeed less common.

Li Qiao pressed the answer button, and on the screen, Shang Yu sitting under the warm light came sharply into view.

The man’s hair was damp, hanging softly across his forehead, and the dim yellow light softened the angles of his face.

Shang Yu didn’t seem to be at Paibo Manor. The decor behind him was relatively simple and appeared to be an old house.

"Why didn’t you turn on the light?" The man held the phone in one hand and swirled a wine glass to his lips with the other, his dark eyes looking at Li Qiao through the screen, still conveying indulgent warmth.