Information delivery has time lags, but the internet era has greatly shortened this difference.

Shortly after He Lanxiang went upstairs, Ruan Sixian’s phone was also flooded with messages.

However, before she had time to check them one by one, He Lanxiang came down from the second floor.

He Lanxiang walked unhurriedly, even stopping at the staircase corner to straighten a branch in the floor planter.

After returning to her seat, under the crystal chandelier’s light, He Lanxiang’s expression was calm as she stirred the soup in her bowl and asked, “Are you not eating anymore?”

“I’m finished, Auntie. Please take your time.”

Ruan Sixian wiped her mouth with a napkin and glanced at her wristwatch.

Today’s meal seemed to be ending here.

“Something urgent came up at work, Mingyu needs to rush back to the company soon,” He Lanxiang said while gesturing for Aunty Luo to bring over a bowl of coconut bird’s nest soup. “I’m sorry. If you’re not in a hurry, have something more to drink, and I’ll have my driver take you home afterward.”

As she finished speaking, just as Ruan Sixian was about to respond, two people walked out from upstairs.

The villa might be spacious, but it wasn’t empty. It had all the necessary furniture, and the lady of the house was someone with good taste for life, with various decorations arranged abundantly yet not crowded.

However, Fu Mingyu and Fu Boting’s heavy footsteps sounded as if they were walking in an empty house.

Fu Boting glanced toward the dining room, composed his solemn expression, and said while holding his coat, “We’re going to the company. Take your time eating.”

Fu Mingyu didn’t say anything, walking straight to Ruan Sixian, slightly bending down to say in a low voice, “I’m leaving now. Rest a bit, and my mother will have the driver take you home?”

Having spent only about ten minutes in the study, Fu Mingyu’s expression was no longer as relaxed as before.

Ruan Sixian squeezed his palm, “Okay.”

After Fu Mingyu left, Ruan Sixian naturally had no desire to stay and chat with He Lanxiang.

Soon, she was sitting in the car arranged by He Lanxiang.

When she opened her phone again, every work group chat had “99+” unread messages.

In just half an hour, when she checked Weibo again, the topic #WorldAirlinePassengerKneeling# had already climbed to the top three trending searches, not to mention various airline consultation apps all pushing these news updates.

Normally, this incident might not have garnered such high discussion, but it happened while the heat from Ruan Sixian’s emergency landing hadn’t died down yet. After this afternoon’s interview came out, due to Li Zhihuai’s fans making trouble, there were plenty of onlookers watching the drama.

When this kind of news broke at this time, the keyword “World Airlines” appeared and immediately skyrocketed in popularity.

As for what exactly happened, online information wasn’t entirely accurate, but someone in the work group had already summarized the overall incident.

It started with a World Airlines international flight from Sydney, Australia, transferring through Singapore to Jiangcheng.

However, the departure from Sydney was delayed by nearly six hours.

Flight delays are normal occurrences, but they’re always a headache for passengers. For airlines, the biggest challenge in handling delay incidents is managing passenger emotions.

But during this delay, World Airlines’ Singapore operations department explained to waiting passengers that the delay was due to heavy rain in Sydney, when in fact there was no rain in Sydney.

When the plane arrived in Singapore, passengers who had been waiting at the airport for six hours demanded an apology from the airline. When none was forthcoming, they refused to board.

Meanwhile, the Sydney passengers still on the plane were unaware of the situation outside and, after waiting on the aircraft for two hours, were told to disembark as the day’s flight was canceled.

All this happened this afternoon.

Four hours later, passengers who had been waiting for hours specifically went to the ground staff to inquire, only to learn that the flight had taken off half an hour earlier.

Surprisingly, there were only about a hundred passengers on the plane, with dozens of passengers left behind.

As for these stranded passengers, some knew the plane was about to take off but still refused to board because their demand for an apology wasn’t met, while others didn’t receive any takeoff notification at all.

Emotions that had been building up due to the delay exploded in an instant. The stranded passengers became angry and the conflict intensified. Among them, an elderly person’s blood pressure rose from anger, causing them to faint at the airport. A pregnant woman, due to emotional distress and poor circulation, showed signs of threatened miscarriage.

The person in charge who arrived at the scene didn’t handle the situation promptly, and their remarks contained obvious self-justification, causing the conflict to escalate further.

Because one passenger was rushing back to Jiangcheng to attend his daughter’s wedding, such a delay would inevitably cause him to miss it. In desperation, he knelt before the person in charge, crying and shouting. Meanwhile, angry passengers threw the cash compensation provided by the airline at the manager’s face, with other passengers following suit.

These scenes were all captured by others at the airport and posted online, causing heated discussions. Marketing accounts immediately published controversial content to provoke user comments and shares. In just over an hour, World Airlines was at the center of a public opinion storm.

Seeing all this, Ruan Sixian finally understood why Fu Boting was so angry.

This year, major airlines have been expanding into overseas markets. However, with markets already near maturity, service has become the key to capturing market share.

This series of events triggered by the flight delay, ultimately resulting in passengers being hospitalized, kneeling, and other bizarre incidents, completely challenged World Airlines’ service standards in overseas markets.

For an airline, delays due to weather or flow control are already a major test of service. When the delay occurred, staff didn’t promptly comfort passengers or effectively address their inconvenience. Later, when the situation was completely out of control, the person in charge hurriedly arrived at the scene but still couldn’t resolve the matter.

The development of this incident directly exposed the uncoordinated internal communication and chaotic transmission mechanism within World Airlines’ Singapore operations department.

As for assigning responsibility, in Fu Boting’s eyes, Fu Mingyu was primarily to blame.

Since the beginning of last year, when Fu Boting handed over full control of World Airlines to Fu Mingyu, he relieved himself of most of the pressure and fully devoted himself to the affairs of the aviation financial leasing parent company.

So for this matter, he wouldn’t blame others, only attributing it to Fu Mingyu’s poor supervision of overseas operations departments and excessive delegation of authority, which led to such results.

One accident occurs after a thousand hidden dangers. For an airline, such a service incident indicates the presence of thousands of underlying risks, and no one can be certain that safety hazards aren’t among them.

If a safety incident were to occur, it would be a responsibility no one could bear.

Before reaching home, Ruan Sixian had already received messages from many friends asking about the details of the incident.

Ruan Sixian only had information from the workgroup, and she wasn’t sure if it was complete, so she didn’t say much.

Now the screen was full of related messages. She frowned, unable to imagine how much pressure Fu Mingyu was under right now.

The driver stopped the car downstairs.

When Ruan Sixian got out, she felt something cold on her face.

Looking up, she saw many tiny snowflakes dancing irregularly in the beam of the streetlight.

It was snowing at this time.

Ruan Sixian pulled her scarf closer and went upstairs with her head down.

By now, the situation had been fermenting online for over an hour. Ruan Sixian saw colleagues from other departments in the work group said they were immediately rushing back to work overtime, with Fu Boting personally convening a meeting today.

How long had it been since he last managed World Airlines’ affairs? For him to step in at this time, he must be extremely angry.

So although Ruan Sixian wanted to ask Fu Mingyu about the situation, considering the state of the company right now, she decided against it. He probably had no mental space to check personal messages.

Back home, it was still early. Ruan Sixian sat in the study for a while but couldn’t focus on a single page of her book.

As soon as her gaze fell on the book, her mind was filled with all sorts of chaotic thoughts.

Outside, the snow fell heavier, drifting down softly, making the indoor silence even more pronounced.

Ruan Sixian finished her bath before nine o’clock. She leaned on the balcony, looking out through the window. Many children had run out to play in the snow, and several girls were wearing hats and taking photos.

Although there wasn’t much snow, they all seemed quite happy.

But Ruan Sixian felt troubled.

It had been a long time since she felt this kind of helplessness.

She didn’t know what Fu Mingyu was doing now, what situation he was facing, and she couldn’t do anything about it.

After thinking for a while, she sent Fu Mingyu a message.

[Ruan Sixian] — I’m going to sleep now. Tomorrow morning I need to go to the aviation hospital for a check-up. If both my physical and psychological conditions are fine, I’ll be flying again soon.

As she expected, he didn’t reply even until she closed her eyes.

But Ruan Sixian wasn’t completely asleep.

Although her consciousness wasn’t very clear, in her half-asleep state, she could still hear the sound of falling snow outside.

After some time, between sleep and wakefulness, Ruan Sixian felt a slight movement in the room.

She thought a window in the living room might be open, so she ignored it.

Suddenly, a pair of cold lips covered hers, kissing her finely and densely, prying open her teeth, twisting and entering.

Ruan Sixian’s mind wasn’t yet clear, and a whimper was swallowed as her mouth was instantly invaded.

Fuck!

Her body woke up faster than her mind. The instant she opened her eyes before she could see the person in front of her, she had already slapped out.

A loud “smack” echoed throughout the room.

The cold feeling on her palm from just hitting him was quickly replaced by a burning pain.

It was at this moment that Ruan Sixian froze.

After a long while, from the darkness came his extremely helpless and weary voice.

“You hit me again.”

In the pitch-black room, with only a faint light seeping through the curtains, Fu Mingyu’s face was half-hidden and unclear.

She realized it was him because she smelled the familiar cold cedar fragrance on him.

—And that familiar feeling under her hand.

“No, I…” Ruan Sixian’s hand was still frozen in mid-air, but her logic was quite clear at this moment, “Are you a pervert, sneaking into a woman’s room in the middle of the night to steal a kiss? In ancient times, you would have been drowned in a pig cage for this.”

Fu Mingyu let out a cold laugh.

“Steal a kiss? You’re my girlfriend, do I need to steal a kiss from you?”

And “sneaking in”—had she forgotten she’d given him the password to her place?

Ruan Sixian had nothing to say. Instead of lowering her hand, she used it to touch his cheek.

“Does it hurt?”

“Don’t you know how strong you are?”

“Oh…”

As she withdrew her hand, Ruan Sixian touched his shoulder and felt something cold and icy.

It was snow.

She brushed it off for him.

“How’s everything?”

Fu Mingyu didn’t speak, but the air pressure around him was heavy.

In the hazy light, he stared straight at Ruan Sixian.

“In three hours, I’m going to Singapore.”

Ruan Sixian had already anticipated this. With such an incident, Fu Mingyu would need to go there personally.

“Mm, when will you be back?”

“I can’t give you a definite answer,” he said. “Director Hu will temporarily manage World Airlines while I go to Singapore to reorganize the operations department. When it can be concluded will depend on understanding the specific situation thereafter I arrive.”

He paused, then added, “After that, I’ll also randomly inspect the conditions of other overseas operations departments, which will probably take a month or two.”

Ruan Sixian responded with an “Oh,” lowering her head, lost in thought.

Fu Mingyu’s phone rang once. Without looking, he knew it was Bai Yang calling.

He didn’t answer the call, but instead said gently, “Wait for me to come back.”

“As if I could run away?” Ruan Sixian muttered. “The contract still has a few years left.”

Fu Mingyu smiled, still somewhat helplessly.

Even at a time like this, he couldn’t hear her say something nice.

“Sleep early.”

As soon as he finished speaking, Fu Mingyu stood up to leave.

Suddenly, his tie was grabbed and pulled forward, yanking him down to a half-kneel on the bed.

Ruan Sixian tilted her head up, placing a kiss on his lips.

“I’ll be waiting for you to come back.”