Chapter 813: Chapter 813: Why So Polite with Me

Twenty minutes later, Li Qiao was woken up.

The scent of ginger soup floated in the air, and Shang Yu touched her forehead, whispering, “Go back to sleep after finishing the ginger soup.”

Li Qiao, feeling under the weather, drooped her eyelids, “What time is it?”

“Half-past ten.” As Shang Yu’s arm passed through her shoulders, just lifting the corner of the quilt, Li Qiao shivered.

Seeing this, the man’s thin lips turned white as he covered her back up with the blanket and picked up the steaming ginger soup, blowing on it before taking a sip.

Shang Yu pinched Li Qiao’s chin, leaning down to pass the ginger soup to her.

With her burning palms, Li Qiao grabbed the man’s wrist and turned her head slightly, her hoarse voice saying, “It’s contagious, I can drink it myself.”

Shang Yu was silent, forcefully feeding her most of the bowl of ginger soup in this manner.

In the end, he sucked on Li Qiao’s rosy lips, “Go to sleep.”

Li Qiao blinked, her drowsiness completely gone.

She stared at Shang Yu’s thin lips, which seemed to be reddened by the ginger soup.

Li Qiao, as if possessed, grabbed his shirt and, forgetting about the contagiousness of her cold, forcefully pulled Shang Yu close, tilting her head upward to plant a firm kiss on his lips, “Are you busy?”

The man propped his arms on either side of her, looking down at the sickly girl, his thumb gently caressing her cheek, “Not busy.”

Li Qiao shifted inward, signaling with her eyes, clearly indicating for him to sleep with her.

Shang Yu’s tense features gradually softened, and he lay down beside her, gently encircling her in his arms.

The dependence shown by Li Qiao was the best cure for him.

…

By two o’clock in the afternoon, Li Qiao’s fever had subsided, and she sat in the dining room, slowly sipping vegetable porridge in her bathrobe.

The speakerphone on the mobile phone was on, and the sound of keyboard taps came through intermittently.

“Where exactly did you hear about this Paul Taglor Cherman?” Bai Yan turned to exhale a puff of smoke, “There’s no relevant information in the British Imperial database, all related personnel point to Ancestor Xiao, could it be an alias he used before?”

Li Qiao, with a nasal voice, replied, “No.”

If Paul Taglor Cherman were an alias used by Ancestor Xiao, Jing Yilan’s floppy disk wouldn’t have left this clue.

Bai Yan flung the mouse aside, his legs propped on the desk, “Then there’s another possibility, identity replacement. But records from fifty-six years ago were all manually entered, not yet in the database. Even if someone’s identity was replaced, the evidence has long been destroyed.”

Li Qiao stirred the white porridge and shifted the topic, “Did they discover the murder case?”

Who was the person Xiao Hongdao shot and killed in the surveillance video on the floppy disk on August 12th?

Clutching his cigarette, Bai Yan fell silent for a moment before complaining mournfully, “Can’t you assign me some work in the Mortal Realm? This shit’s all Underworld business, dead without proof, how am I supposed to investigate?”

Li Qiao calmly sipped her porridge, turning a deaf ear to his complaints.

A few seconds later, Bai Yan cleared his throat, and the keyboard sounded again, “It’s not that it can’t be investigated; it just needs some time.”

“Mm, thank you.”

Bai Yan responded instinctively, “Thanks my ass, why so formal with me?”

Li Qiao hung up the phone with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

She continued to sip her porridge, feeling that something was slightly off. Out of the corner of her eye, she lifted her head to see Shang Yu’s silhouette leaning against the glass door of the dining room.

Sniffling, Li Qiao’s voice was especially soft with her thick nasal voice, “What’s up?”

The man’s features were deep-set, and his thin lips curled up in a faint arc, “Bai Yan?”

“Mhm.” Li Qiao nodded, pondering with a spoonful of soup, then added, “Flame Alliance has branches all over the world with extensive information; it’s more convenient to ask him.”

She was worried that Shang Yu would overthink or get jealous.

At that moment, the man stepped forward and sat next to her, his expression inscrutably profound, “The Hacker Alliance also has no shortage of information.”

Understood.

Li Qiao readily responded, “Alright, I’ll use Hacker Alliance next time.”

Shang Yu’s eyes briefly shimmered with a hint of amusement as he picked up chopsticks to serve Li Qiao some food, “If you want to check something, just arrange for Wang Yue or Cheng Mo. There’s no need to do it yourself for such a trivial matter.”

He knew all too well just how lazy she could be.

In no time, Li Qiao finished her meal, leaning against the chair back and continued drinking half a glass of maternal milk powder.

Something crossed her mind, she took out her phone, logged into the VPN app, and swiftly bypassed the network firewall.

Upon logging into the British Imperial social media site, after a day and night of fermenting, the buzz around Paul Taylor Cherman remained at its peak.

It even spawned other trending search terms.

#DukeCharlman#

#PaulTaylorChermanGoHome#

#WhoIsPaulTaylorCherman#

Among them, #DukeCharlman# soared high at the top of the hot search list, breaking the record for single-topic discussion volume.

Concerning a top-tier noble, netizens’ enthusiasm for gossip reached unprecedented levels.

Li Qiao entered the discussion page, scrolled through a few posts, and raised her eyebrows in doubt, “They actually haven’t pulled down the hot search?”

Already, numerous netizens speculated about the relationship between Duke Charlman and Paul Taylor Cherman, setting the tone of the discussion.

And yet, the Xiao family remained indifferent?

Upon hearing this, Shang Yu simply curved his lips in amusement but remained silent.

Li Qiao didn’t dwell on it either. After glancing at the time, she put down her phone, turned her head and eyed the man beside her, “Will you accompany me on a trip back to the Li family?”

Shang Yu leaned back in his chair with his brows slightly furrowed, “Are you feeling better?”

Li Qiao licked her lips and stopped talking.

During her illness, she felt guilty and dared not act rashly.

An hour later, Li Qiao sat in the living room wrapped in a blanket, basking in the sun by the floor-to-ceiling windows.

Although the early winter weather was chilly, the sunlight was warm.

Li Qiao, with her eyes closed, felt slightly drowsy.

In her haziness, she seemed to hear someone talking, mentioning something about a safe.

Feeling sleepy, Li Qiao pulled the blanket over her face, and soon she fell asleep.

Outside the living room, Wang Yue carried a small safe. After reporting to Shang Yu, he walked toward the basement laboratory, seemingly with some difficulty.

He was quite puzzled.

The boss had sent him to the Li family to fetch something, but hadn’t specified what.

In the end, Matriarch Li, Duan Shuyuan, seemed very uneasy, hesitating for a long time before… letting him carry the safe back to report.

All the way, Wang Yue wondered how much money was inside the safe.

…

In the evening, Li Qiao was awakened by the vibration of her phone.

Instinctively reaching beneath her pillow, she fumbled around, feeling something amiss.

This wasn’t a pillow.

Li Qiao propped herself up to see the pair of trouser-clad legs clearly before her eyes.

Looking further up, she saw a black shirt, a sharp Adam’s apple, and… the strikingly handsome face of Shang Yu.

Li Qiao rubbed her face and plunged headfirst into the man’s embrace.

Shang Yu wrapped one arm around her, while the other held a phone, his voice deep as he commanded, “For the interception from other hackers, use a level two virus for a counterattack, and remove the attack before the firewall is breached.”

Li Qiao lifted her head from his embrace, slightly surprised.

From the sound of it, it seemed like they were attacking someone else’s firewall and had encountered a hacker interception technique.