Since you have mentioned that the liquid damage is "minimal", I was thinking that Target Disk Mode might help there. Try to activate Target Disk Mode on the problematic Mac, connect it to a working Mac, and then access files and folders on it by using it as an external hard drive.
If Target Disk Mode doesn't work there, check when your Mac was shipped. If your computer was shipped before 2015, you can remove the internal hard drive and use an external USB enclosure to connect it to another Mac for file access. Which enclosure you need depends on the model of your device and you can check with OWC for available options.
Assume your Mac has a USB-C port, indicating that its SSD is soldered to the Logic Board in high possibility, then it's impossible to remove the internal hard drive and recover data.
The one last hope you can rely on is to engage an expensive professional data recovery service like Drive Savers or Ontrack, but the success rate is uncertain.
It's worth mentioning that you ought to fully back up your Mac because data loss happens with no sign. Best wishes~
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