My Ares Son-in-Law

"Xiao Chen..." Yun Yuyan deliberately dragged out the last syllable, her body softly leaning towards him. A sweet fragrance wafted into Xiao Chen's nose. She tilted her head up, her charming eyes fixed on him without blinking, a sly smile playing on her lips.

"Tell me honestly, at the banquet just now, our Ice Queen Zhou Keying publicly confessed her love to you... Weren't you incredibly excited? Super proud? Did you feel like you'd reached the pinnacle of your life?"

Although her tone was joking and teasing, if you listened carefully, you could see a faint trace of disappointment hidden deep in her smile, a disappointment that even she herself might not have been aware of, as if her beloved possession had been shared with someone else.

She likes Xiao Chen.

I really like it.

Now, she no longer dared to hope that Xiao Chen would love only her. Her only wish was that no matter where he went in the future, or how many people stood by his side, there would always be an irreplaceable place for her, Yun Yuyan, in his heart.

"It's alright." Xiao Chen's gaze remained fixed on the television screen, his tone casual and indifferent, revealing little emotion.

Feeling Xiao Chen's indifference, Yun Yuyan felt both embarrassed and sad.

She knew Xiao Chen had a wife, but she just couldn't help liking this man.

The atmosphere became somewhat strange.

Xiao Chen was also somewhat helpless. There was nothing he could do; her charm was too great, and he didn't know how to handle this situation.

Just when the awkwardness was so intense that even breathing felt difficult, a sharp, piercing ringtone broke through the embarrassment like an icicle.

Xiao Chen paused, a hint of joy flashing in his eyes.

Finally, there's a way out.

The ringtone not only gave Xiao Chen a way out, but also greatly reduced Yun Yuyan's embarrassment.

"It might be urgent, please take this call."

Xiao Chen looked at Yun Yuyan and said.

Yun Yuyan hurriedly picked up her phone, glanced at the screen, and turned to Xiao Chen, saying, "It's Liu Jianming."

She immediately pressed the answer button: "Liu Jianming, what's up?"

A hurried voice came from the other end of the phone. Just two or three seconds later, the embarrassment and sadness on Yun Yuyan's face vanished instantly, replaced by a deathly pallor. She abruptly hung up the phone, her voice trembling noticeably: "Xiao Chen, something's happened! The company… hurry!"

Xiao Chen's eyes sharpened, and all his embarrassment vanished instantly. He quickly straightened his clothes, and then rushed towards the underground parking garage with Yun Yuyan.

……

More than ten minutes later, at the Xunjiang Group, in the top-floor conference room.

The heavy double wooden doors were pushed open with a bang, bringing a gust of cold wind, and Xiao Chen and Yun Yuyan appeared in the doorway.

"Mr. Xiao..."

Liu Jianming, who was waiting inside, immediately stood up, his face ashen, and his forehead beaded with cold sweat. He knew that his dereliction of duty would surely bring him Xiao Chen's wrath. But what was done was done, and he had nothing to say.

Yun Yuyan strode to the conference table and sat down, while Xiao Chen stood directly in front of the main seat, his gaze like two drawn swords piercing Liu Jianming: "Speak! What happened!"

Liu Jianming seemed to have aged ten years overnight, his voice hoarse as he reported, "Mr. Xiao, just tonight, about half an hour ago, a group of unidentified thugs forcibly broke through the group's security system and stormed into the core data area. Our six skilled personnel stationed there... all perished. They... they stole all the core formulas and experimental data from the 'Spark' project! The backup server was also physically destroyed!"

Xiao Chen's eyes turned icy: "Absolutely impossible." The vault storing the prescriptions not only employed the most advanced physical security technology available today, but more importantly, he had personally laid down three layers of hidden energy barriers inside. Without a specific key and his personal aura to guide it, forcibly opening it would only trigger a self-destruct program and turn the intruder against them. Within the group, only a handful of people had the authority to access that level.

Suddenly, Xiao Chen's cold gaze swept over an empty seat next to the conference table.

That's the seat of the technical director, Zhao Qiming.

Zhao Qiming is a top student from a prestigious Ivy League university abroad. He has a keen sense of technology and was a talent strongly recommended by Liu Jianming. He is also one of the main people in charge of the "Spark" project and has authority second only to Liu Jianming and himself.

"Why is Zhao Qiming absent from such an urgent meeting!" Xiao Chen's voice was filled with suppressed anger.

Liu Jianming's lips trembled slightly as he said with difficulty, "Mr. Xiao, we retrieved the surveillance footage from outside the building... Yes, it was Zhao Qiming who personally led that group in through the internal passage. Without his high-level access card and biometric verification, it would have been impossible for them to bypass all the overt and covert checkpoints so easily and pinpoint the location of the vault..."

Xiao Chen fell silent, his mind racing.

The current clues point clearly to:

Zhao Qiming betrayed them, colluding with those inside and outside.

The attackers were incredibly powerful, capable of eliminating all of his carefully arranged defenses; their methods were far from ordinary.

“Mr. Xiao, I am to blame for this, and I, Liu… am at your mercy!” Liu Jianming said, bending his knees as if to kneel down.

However, before his knees even touched the ground, Xiao Chen exerted a slight force with his feet, and a gentle yet resilient invisible force supported Liu Jianming, preventing him from kneeling.

"A man's knees are worth more than gold! He kneels before heaven and earth, before his parents and teachers!" Xiao Chen's voice was cold and deep. "Now is not the time to assign blame! The most urgent task is to solve the problem! Where are the remains of our fallen brothers?"

The more critical the situation, the more calm the leader needs to remain.

"In...in the downstairs lounge."

"take me."

The group arrived at the lounge, where ten bodies covered with white sheets were neatly arranged on the floor. Xiao Chen stepped forward and gently lifted the white sheet from one of the bodies. When he saw the twisted limbs, the hideous wounds, and the frozen defiance and rage in the wide-open eyes of the deceased, a chilling killing intent surged in his chest.

These people had endured extremely brutal battles before their deaths, almost being crushed to death by overwhelming force. Judging from the shape of their wounds, the perpetrators were ruthless, even displaying a sense of mockery and enjoyment.

What made Xiao Chen's heart sink even more was that several fatal wounds were very strange, with residual energy aura that was cold and bone-chilling, completely different from the true qi or internal strength cultivated by martial artists in the Dragon Kingdom.

Instead, it exudes a chilling aura.

Prison Clan!

Xiao Chen immediately thought of the Prison Clan. Although the aura was faint, he was very familiar with it. Sure enough, these rats in the shadows had taken action.

"What about the surveillance footage? Not a single thing was left inside?" Xiao Chen's voice was devoid of emotion.

"The monitoring and storage devices in the core area were infected with a virus by Zhao Qiming beforehand, and were all formatted... The ones on the periphery only captured some blurry black shadows, which are not very valuable." Liu Jianming's voice grew lower and lower.

The trail seems to have gone cold.

Xiao Chen pressed further, "Any other discoveries? Don't overlook any subtle anomalies." (End of Chapter)