?Chapter 949:


    Ste looked at him again, and this time, she saw through him. He was doing it on purpose—trying to distract her, trying to lift her out of the hole she was sinking into.


    Stargazing, movies… it wasn’t random.


    A soft sigh escaped her. “William, you don’t have to do all this.”


    Yeah, she was feeling down. But that didn’t mean he had to go out of his way to cheer her up.


    He walked into the room and sat beside her, taking her hand gently—it was a little cold, and his palm was warm against it. His voice dropped to something low and reassuring. “Stel… don’t carry all of this alone. It’s not your fault, okay? The money, the setbacks—that’s all secondary. What matters most is you.”


    Ste leaned against him, listening to his calm, steady heartbeat. Her throat tightened, her eyes welling up again.


    She knew he meant every word. She knew how much he cared. But even so… she couldn’t let herself just fall into hisfort. Not like this. She couldn’t be a burden. Couldn’t let him take the hits for her.


    Not when this involved more than just money—it was her work, her reputation, everything she’d poured herself into.


    More than that… she knew this mess was tied to the truth she’d been chasing. The more those people in the shadows tried to get to her, the more determined she became not to give up.


    She wasn’t some helpless bird stuck in a cage. She would fight. She would find proof. She would clear her name.


    Suddenly, her mind flicked back to that ne—her mom’s—and the odd chip tucked inside it.


    Ste didn’t breathe a word about the chip to William. She only gave him a small nod and brushed off his concern, saying, “I’m fine, don’t worry about it.”


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    That night, after the vi finally settled into silence, Ste slipped out of bed. She locked her door, switched on the deskmp, and pulled out the ne she had carefully hidden the chip in. With herptop open, she began searching online,paring its shape and size against different types of card readers. She searched dozens of websites and even reached out to people for help, but no luck. Everyone insisted that no reader existed for this particr type. A dull headache began to pound in her head, but she refused to quit. She clenched her teeth and kept going.


    While scrolling through a foreign website, she stumbled on a user who imed he might still have a reader that matched. But he warned that it was an old model and might not even function anymore. Still, that was better than nothing. Grasping at that thread of hope, Ste paid a steep price to have it shipped to her.


    Exactly three dayster, the package from overseas finally arrived in her hands. Shutting herself away in her room again, Ste carefully opened the box. She slid the chip into the reader, connected it to herptop, and held her breath as she clicked through the system.


    A folder popped open.


    A sh of excitement lit up Ste’s eyes as she immediately opened the folder. Inside, there was only one file.


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