The Favored Heiress
Chapter 863: Accidental Injury

Chapter 863: Chapter 863: Accidental Injury

[Zodiac Group] experienced the largest collective exit event in its history.

Little White Tiger was still immersed in a confused state, unable to extricate himself.

Meanwhile, Li Qiao and Bai Yan had already started the ’list-checking’ operation.

At this moment, Bai Yan glanced sinisterly at Little White Tiger, licking his cheeks with a dangerous look in his eyes.

He got hit by another dad’s subordinate?

If such a rumor spread, wouldn’t Bai Yan lose face?

"These thirteen people, terminate the information comparison."

Li Qiao was completely focused on typing at the keyboard, her eyes fixed on the screen, and she slightly tilted her face to say something to Bai Yan.

Bai Yan pursed his lips and withdrew his gaze, lazily leaning against the back of the chair, "Confirmed dead from mad cow disease?"

"Mm." Li Qiao clicked the mouse twice, "Age, identity, and background are all normal. Xiao Hongdao has no contact with them, won’t make a move."

Indeed, Li Qiao, having some free time, conveniently used Bai Yan’s system to screen the August 12 surveillance footage for information on the victims shot by Xiao Hongdao.

Bai Yan slowly deleted names from the information comparison, then casually glanced at Li Qiao’s computer interface and immediately sensed something amiss.

He propped up his armrest and sat up straight, focusing his eyes and his handsome face darkened, "Don’t tell me you hacked into the British Imperial Statistical Bureau."

A while ago, in order to help Li Qiao find someone, Bai Yan’s hacker account stayed in the bureau’s backend for three days.

Later, the system’s vulnerability was discovered by the other party’s network security officer, and it took Bai Yan a lot of effort to erase the hacker’s paths and traces.

If Li Qiao hacked again, the IP address would overlap, making it hard to guarantee they wouldn’t be caught.

At this point, Li Qiao, casually writing code, heard Bai Yan’s question and answered nonchalantly, "No. It’s the British Imperial Main Office’s Population Information Archive."

Bai Yan shifted his gaze toward Li Qiao, with a grin that didn’t reach his eyes, "Do you even know that the Population Information Archive belongs to... the Statistical Bureau."

Li Qiao blinked, "Oh."

Bai Yan rolled up his sleeves, intending to hit her, his palm stopped half a centimeter above her head, gritted his teeth, and messed up Li Qiao’s bun, "Well done."

Without raising her head, Li Qiao slapped away his hand and continued filtering information, "There are eighteen more names, you can delete them."

"Do it yourself."

Bai Yan leaned heavily against the chair back, grumbling.

This time, it finally caught Li Qiao’s attention. She turned her head, raising her eyebrows, "Anything bothering you?"

Bai Yan pressed the keyboard shortcut, gritting his teeth with a smile, "Wouldn’t I have to clean up after you?"

"Alright then." Li Qiao reluctantly accepted his words.

Bai Yan looked at her pale and indifferent cheek, rubbed his forehead, and began reluctantly patching the Population Information Archive to prevent being detected by the other party’s network security officer.

Therefore, in the next few hours, Li Qiao cracked programs at the front end while Bai Yan silently repaired programs at the back end.

This resulted in the British Imperial Main Office’s Population Information Archive room not realizing their backend had been breached.

Because whenever the warning system alerted that a program had been tampered with, the network security officer logged into the backend only to see the program intact.

After repeated occurrences, the security officer was bothered to the point of directly shutting down the warning system.

Stupid system, unnecessarily warning them.

...

By three in the afternoon, Li Qiao sat languidly in the living room, occasionally burping, a precursor to pregnancy nausea.

Plum slices were still on the table, but she had no desire to eat them.

The smell of oil smoke was quite strong, coming from the open-plan kitchen.

Li Qiao propped up her forehead, covering her stomach with one hand, using the act of swallowing to suppress the nausea response.

After a while, she felt much better, just about to pick up the plum slices when Bai Yan came over from the kitchen with a bowl of rice.

"You didn’t eat much at noon, I made you a bowl of fried rice, didn’t add much scallion, try a bite first, I’ll take you to the night market at five."

Scarlet City’s restaurants and snacks are all concentrated along one street at the night market, opening at five in the evening.

Looking at the bowl of fried rice ’without much scallion,’ white and green intertwined, Li Qiao felt nauseous again. She put down the sour plum box and got up to go to the bathroom.

Bai Yan holding the bowl of rice, listened to the sounds of vomiting from inside, expressionless.

His cooking not only filled the stomach but also had a vomiting-inducing effect?

That bowl of rice, Li Qiao naturally didn’t eat, so Bai Yan simply gave it to Little White Cow.

Little White Cow held the bowl, exclaiming, "Brother Yan, so much rice?"

At last, it wasn’t fried scallions with rice.

Bai Yan kicked him, "Get lost."

Li Qiao returned to the bedroom, lying supine on the bed, staring at the ceiling, feeling dizzy.

Lifestyle in Scarlet City definitely can’t compare to South Sea, and without Shang Yu by her side, she felt empty even when sleeping at night.

Habits buried deep within bones make even slight changes unsettling.

Li Qiao draped her arm over her forehead and sighed slightly, lying there with her eyes closed for a while until she began to feel a bit sleepy.

In her blurred thoughts, an abrupt thought crossed her mind.

Where had Jin Rong gone?

She and Shang Yu left home at the same time, but after a day and night, Jin Rong never asked about it.

Li Qiao increasingly felt something was off, gently opened her eyes and squinted, wondering if she’d overlooked something.

...

Five-thirty, night market.

Li Qiao followed Bai Yan to his fried rice stall, with Little White Cow and Little White Tiger behind her.

Tonight, the night market was sparsely populated with few diners.

Although Li Qiao had left Scarlet City for quite some time, she was very familiar with the city’s situation.

Such circumstances often meant new forces had either entered or challenged them.

Back then, when she and Bai Yan took over Scarlet City, the streets and the night market were similarly desolate.

Little White Tiger moved several tables and chairs out from the stall’s cart, and after Li Qiao sat down, she cautiously observed her surroundings, "What’s their background?"

Bai Yan, holding a spatula, glanced sideways at her, eyes complex yet... sympathetic.

His prideful mascot was indeed spoiled by Shang Shaoyan.

Little White Tiger looked around and dared not speak much, moving on to wipe the table before strolling around the night market to drum up business.

Little White Cow didn’t think much of it, leaning forward on the table to explain to Li Qiao, "Sis, I heard there are four of them, the leader’s surname is Black, Little Tiger calls him Black Daddy, and yesterday Brother Yan met with them and got beat up by their subordinates."

As soon as the words dropped, a spatula flew through the air, striking the back of Little White Cow’s head.

Soon, the relatively quiet fried rice stall echoed with Bai Yan’s sinister call, "Little White Cow, do you want to die?"

Li Qiao caught onto a key point.

She leisurely watched Bai Yan’s face darkening with ink, taunting word by word, "You got beaten by their subordinates?"

Bai Yan’s Adam’s apple bobbed, instinctively defending his honor, "Stop talking nonsense."

Technically speaking, the injury on his mouth wasn’t from being hit but rather... a mishap.

At the time he went to meet them, just reached the business vehicle, before he could put on the aura of Scarlet City’s boss, the driver’s door suddenly opened unexpectedly, the door slammed directly onto his mouth, he almost drew his gun to slaughter the whole city.