“There’s no medical staff in the cabin!”

Ni Tong rushed into the cockpit, bending down to check on the captain’s condition. Several strands of her hair, which had been neatly combed before departure that morning, were now in disarray. “We’ve been circling for so long, many passengers are getting impatient.”

Ruan Sixian glanced at the captain who had fainted in the pilot’s seat, took a deep breath, and said, “Call Number Three in to look after the captain. You go out and notify the passengers that we’re preparing to land.”

She glanced at Ni Tong again. “Fix your hair. Don’t cause panic.”

Ni Tong immediately covered her hair with her hand but didn’t leave right away. “In the current situation… can we land?”

“Go quickly!”

Ni Tong couldn’t say another word and immediately ran out.

Two minutes later, the third flight attendant came in, fastened her seatbelt, and sat next to the captain.

She clasped her hands tightly and asked nervously, “What’s the situation now?”

“It’s fine,” Ruan Sixian said. “Don’t worry.”

In truth, the situation was not fine at all.

The captain’s incapacitation was secondary. The main problem was that the main runway, designed based on the most frequent wind direction throughout the year, was unusable now.

If the aircraft descended with a tailwind, the runway would likely not be long enough.

However, the current secondary runway had strong crosswinds, which could easily cause the aircraft to tilt sideways. Moreover, she anticipated that the current ground drainage conditions might lead to a “seaplane” situation.

Even if the captain were conscious, this would be an extremely difficult landing.

“Fifty percent.”

After speaking with air traffic control, Ruan Sixian silently repeated this number to herself.

The crosswind intensity was almost at the regulatory limit, barely meeting landing conditions.

She estimated that the probability of a successful landing was only fifty percent.

She had encountered more difficult situations in the flight simulator, but the difference was that now the safety of hundreds of people in the cabin weighed heavily on her shoulders.

With the captain incapacitated, she had no right to panic. She had to remain exceptionally clear-headed at this moment, rapidly calculating all the data in her mind.

The aircraft turned, entering the approach path.

“Ah…” After breaking through the clouds, the flight attendant beside her sighed with relief, murmuring, “Finally, we can see the runway!”

However, just as she finished speaking, the rain intensified once again, turning the front windshield into almost a waterfall.

The speed of the wipers couldn’t keep up with the rainfall. During the descent, visibility became increasingly narrow.

Ruan Sixian pressed her lips tightly together, almost peering through a slit at the runway ahead.

Feeling the jolt of landing, the flight attendant beside her patted her chest and turned to give Ruan Sixian some encouragement, but saw her brow tightly furrowed.

Following Ruan Sixian’s gaze towards the left window, the flight attendant’s heart suddenly pounded violently.

The rain showed no signs of stopping. Maintenance personnel and ground staff in raincoats moved quickly across the airport, directing and arranging to ensure runway clearance.

Inside the crew vehicle, phone ringtones sounded one after another.

“How’s the drainage on the secondary runway?” Fu Mingyu asked.

“The rain is too heavy and came suddenly. The water couldn’t be drained in time. Ground staff are dealing with it now.”

Bai Yang glanced at his phone and added, “The National Civil Aviation Administration and Jiangcheng Civil Aviation Bureau have sent people to Jiangcheng International Airport to understand the situation first-hand. Do you want to go there?”

“Leave it to Director Hu. I’ll stay right here.”

Fu Mingyu took out his phone that had been ringing non-stop, opened WeChat, and his gaze lingered on Ruan Sixian’s last message.

[Ruan Sixian] — All right, all right, I get it. About to take off, so shut up.

Every day, hundreds of flights crisscrossed the sky. Although everyone was cautious and mobilized all resources to ensure the safety of each flight,

Natural disasters could strike without warning, and human efforts were completely insignificant in the face of nature.

Amid violent winds, heavy rain, hail, and thunder clouds, he could stand safely in the crew vehicle, but his girl—with her slender waist, slim legs, bright eyes, and white teeth—who should be cherished and loved for a lifetime, instead had to constantly battle with nature.

The sound of rain came and went in his ears. Fu Mingyu remained silent, staring intently at the runway ahead.

He emanated such a deeply melancholic aura that others in the crew vehicle dared not approach him. Even Bai Yang beside him hardly dared to breathe.

If not for the flashing lights outside and people moving around, Bai Yang would have felt as if time had frozen.

The watch on his wrist ticked second by second.

After an unknown amount of time had passed, Bai Yang’s eyes suddenly brightened. “It’s landed!”

Fu Mingyu’s eyes remained deep and unfathomable. He didn’t speak, his gaze closely following the moving lights ahead.

However, a second later, Bai Yang looked at the real-time information sent to his phone and added, “But it’s severely off the runway!”

Due to the strong crosswinds, the aircraft had deviated significantly from the runway indicator lights. The plane wasn’t centered on the runway at all. If this continued, the aircraft could slide off the runway.

The flight attendant’s heart pounded heavily. She gripped the armrest, sweat beading on her palms, but seeing Ruan Sixian’s composure, she inexplicably felt calmer.

“Need help?” she asked, seeing Ruan Sixian desperately stepping on the rudder pedals, trying to change the aircraft’s direction by controlling the rudder on the vertical stabilizer.

Compared to flying in the air, the speed during ground taxiing was much lower. Ruan Sixian used both feet while simultaneously operating the reverse thrust lever and nose wheel steering control with her hands. Though it looked strange, she didn’t appear flustered at all.

“Turn the ailerons to the right at maximum,” Ruan Sixian instructed, her voice even colder than usual. “Second row, first instrument on the main panel. Don’t panic.”

The flight attendant sitting next to the captain—a pretty, vivacious girl—touched the instrument panel for the first time. Though nervous, her physical control was excellent, without even a hint of trembling.

“Is that good?” she asked.

Ruan Sixian didn’t respond. The flight attendant turned to see the indicator lights almost parallel to the aircraft’s body and felt slightly relieved.

Even Yan An had come to the airport after hearing the news. He walked into Fu Mingyu’s crew vehicle in the rain, patting off the rainwater from his body. “What’s the situation now?”

“The aircraft has returned to the centerline,” said Bai Yang, typically calm but now sounding somewhat panicked. “But due to water accumulation on the ground causing tire skidding, the aircraft hasn’t continued to decelerate.”

“Damn… a seaplane?!” Yan An froze, his hand suspended in midair, his body suddenly turning cold.

Fire trucks and ambulances were all in position. The approach lights remained bright through the rain curtain. All around were flashing red lights, reflected in Fu Mingyu’s pupils.

Seeing him like this, Yan An half-opened his mouth and asked softly, “Is she on the plane?”

Fu Mingyu still didn’t speak, staring fixedly ahead. Under the navigation lights, they could faintly see the rapidly taxiing aircraft.

Yan An held his breath. The air pressure in the crew vehicle couldn’t get any tenser.

On another shuttle bus, the Jin Ya and Jin Xuan siblings were as quiet as the rest of the crowd.

“Maybe we shouldn’t leave today?” Jin Xuan said softly. “The weather today is too frightening.”

“Can we still leave now? We’re already on the shuttle bus,” Jin Ya said, her palms sweating. Because there weren’t many people in the first-class shuttle, she had space to pace back and forth. She occasionally bit her lower lip, her heart racing. “If I were on that flight, I’d be scared to death. The captain suddenly incapacitated—wouldn’t the plane just crash randomly?”

After speaking, she checked the news on her phone again. “It’s been so long, why hasn’t there been news of a successful landing? Did something happen? I don’t want to fly anymore.”

“Stop making noise!”

A female passenger behind her, unable to tolerate Jin Ya’s fear-mongering, gave her a disapproving look and said, “If something happens to the captain, isn’t there still a co-pilot?! What mode of transportation doesn’t have accidents? We’re still waiting for news, so why are you being so negative? Just spreading bad omens and scaring the children on the bus.”

After speaking, she turned to comfort a child who was about to cry. “Don’t be afraid, little brother. It’s fine. Look, even with a broken windshield, nothing happened. Surely nothing will happen now either. You have to trust the adults, okay?”

At that moment in the cockpit, the flight attendant watched helplessly as the aircraft sped past taxiway B4 in the blink of an eye. The relief she had just felt was gone again, and her nails unconsciously dug into her palm.

The remaining runway ahead wasn’t long, yet the aircraft still hadn’t successfully decelerated and continued to speed forward.

At this rate, the aircraft would run off the runway.

Ruan Sixian stepped on the brake pedal, channeling all her strength into her legs, but the aircraft still hadn’t successfully slowed down.

The flight attendant didn’t dare speak and disturb Ruan Sixian, but the lights on both sides of the runway rapidly receded, the runway getting shorter and shorter as the aircraft approached its end.

She lowered her head, looking at Ruan Sixian’s leg, as if betting her life on it.

The remaining runway gave Ruan Sixian only seconds to act.

What to do…

What to do…

There was only one last option.

“Ah!” The flight attendant saw Ruan Sixian suddenly release the brake pedal and nearly fainted from shock.

In the cabin, passengers thought the plane had landed, and most had turned on their phones, with text message alerts sounding all around.

Ni Tong sat in her seat, feeling the aircraft had not yet decelerated, her body tense. The chaotic sounds in the cabin seemed to drift away as if in a vacuum.

It’s fine, she silently reassured herself.

This kind of situation has happened before.

It will be fine.

Suddenly, she bent down and covered her face with her hands.

But in these situations, there’s always a captain in charge. Now their captain was incapacitated, with only one co-pilot.

Suddenly, an inertial force pushed Ni Tong. She abruptly sat up straight, looking at the exit indicator lights outside the window, almost forgetting to breathe.

“What’s with the sudden hard braking?”

A passenger unaware of the situation complained.

In the second after releasing the brake pedal, Ruan Sixian used all her strength to press down again. The aircraft’s taxiing speed suddenly decreased, the braking effect reaching its maximum at that instant.

The flight attendant beside her came back to life, her mind buzzing.

She couldn’t believe that Ruan Sixian had released the brake pedal just to reapply the brakes.

“Exit at B3!”

The controller issued another command.

Unfortunately, by this time, they had already passed B3.

“Exit at B2!”

Even with the braking effect, the aircraft had passed B2.

Only B1 remained ahead.

That is the very end of the runway.

“Exit at B1!”

Around Fu Mingyu’s crew vehicle, the atmosphere was first extremely oppressive, especially when everyone saw the aircraft pass B2 without turning, it was as if everything went dark.

The aircraft that should have turned onto the taxiway at B4 hadn’t turned even after passing B2.

What this meant, everyone present understood clearly.

Ahead was the end of the runway, beyond which lay vast fields.

Fields are said to represent hope, but at this moment, they represent despair.

It seemed they had already foreseen this aircraft being lost in those fields.

The names of everyone on board, the future of the entire airline company, the manufacturing company that produced the aircraft—all seemed doomed.

The final second stretched out like a century.

The rain was still heavy, too heavy for even the lights to illuminate the night sky.

Breathing in the vehicle stopped, pressed to the lowest point, with gazes and thoughts almost frozen.

However, in the blink of an eye, the atmosphere among the ground staff and maintenance crew outside the vehicle suddenly changed. Two seconds later, they belatedly erupted into cheers.

By the time these cheers reached the crew vehicle, ambulances, and fire trucks were already speeding toward the apron.

“Holy…” Yan An stared ahead, murmuring, “That’s incredible…”

Fu Mingyu’s brow finally relaxed. He opened the door and walked into the rain.

When the controller issued this command, the aircraft had finally slowed to a speed where it could turn onto the taxiway.

Seeing the data, the controller on the other end of the headset also let out a long sigh of relief.

“Did the brakes take effect?” he asked.

A gentle voice came through the headset.

“Yes, I released the brake pedal and pressed it again.”

The controller’s half-exhaled breath froze.

If the decision to reapply the brakes had been delayed by even one second, the aircraft would have already run over the indicator lights and off the runway, with unimaginable consequences.

But reapplying the brakes was the boldest maneuver he had seen in his professional career.

Not reapplying would mean an inadequate braking effect, ensuring the aircraft would run off the runway.

Reapplying offered a glimmer of hope, but it was the riskiest action. In that crucial moment, if the person operating the brakes had been 0.1 seconds late, unable to instantly press the brake pedal down, they would have faced even more terrible consequences.

The controller had been in this position for nearly ten years and had seen all kinds of emergencies, yet he was speechless at this moment.

He found it even harder to imagine that the person who dared to do this was a woman.

The flight attendant beside Ruan Sixian felt alive again.

She leaned against the seat, looking at the still-unconscious captain beside her. For some reason, her eyes suddenly stung.

She had never imagined that the captain, who looked so healthy, would suddenly fall ill during the flight.

Even less did she expect to encounter extreme weather at such a time.

Once off the plane, her first action would be to buy the bag she had been eyeing for half a year but hadn’t dared to purchase.

The aircraft was slowly coming to a stop on the apron.

Ruan Sixian released her hands and feet, tilted her head back to look at the lights in the rain, and finally exhaled.

She felt like she had barely breathed during the whole ordeal.

There was a feeling of surviving against all odds that drained all her strength. The lights before her seemed to spin, and many images appeared in her mind like a movie.

There was her father, her mother, various long-buried memories swirling before her eyes.

And in the final moment as she gathered her emotions, the person who appeared before her was Fu Mingyu.

Fortunately, I didn’t die, otherwise giving this man to another woman would be too much of a loss.

The crew stairs were quickly set up, and medical personnel were the first to rush into the cockpit, carrying away the captain who had collapsed due to illness.

She turned on her phone, and almost a hundred missed call notifications nearly overwhelmed her phone.

She didn’t need to reply to each one now, as the news had surely been reported immediately.

She opened her phone now because, before takeoff, she had told Fu Mingyu she would report a safe landing.

[Ruan Sixian] — Safely landed.

[Fu Mingyu] — Good.

So cold?

Do you know I saved your plane, your passengers, your employees?!

Ruan Sixian put away her phone, stood up, and pushed open the unlocked cockpit door.

Fu Mingyu was standing at the door, his clothes almost completely soaked, with several drops of water still dripping from his hair.

He stared intently at Ruan Sixian, his dark eyes seeming to have many things to say.

But in the end, he only said four words.

“Are you hurt?”

Ruan Sixian shook her head, and the next second was held tightly in his arms. Her tense nerves hadn’t yet relaxed, and she still wanted to tell him about what had just happened.

“Um…”

“Don’t move.”

Fu Mingyu applied pressure with his hand, pressing the back of her neck. There was some rainwater in her hair, all soaking into his fingertips. “Just let me hold you for a while.”

His patience was running low, and his arms held Ruan Sixian so tightly she could barely breathe.

He said nothing more, allowing people to come and go around them, all looking in their direction, without loosening his grip.

The familiar scent at the tip of his nose had a calming effect.

Her brain, which had been extremely tense for over an hour, relaxed. Ruan Sixian didn’t raise her hands to hug him back, just leaned tightly against his chest.

A false alarm could be the most exhausting.

At this moment, having someone’s embrace just for her filled all the fear in her heart.

After holding her quietly for a long time, Ruan Sixian patted his back.

“Capitalist, you need to give me a raise.”

Fu Mingyu seemed not to have heard what she said. His palm gently stroked her back. After a long while, he finally said, “Everything I have is yours, what do you need a salary for?”

“Even close brothers need clear accounts.” Ruan Sixian punched his back. “Will you give me a raise or not?”

Fu Mingyu released her. “Close your eyes.”

Ruan Sixian looked at him suspiciously but was probably mesmerized by his face and obediently closed her eyes.

And prepared herself to receive a passionate kiss.

A second later, her eyelids felt his warmth.

After this lingering touch, she heard Fu Mingyu say, “Let’s go, people from the Civil Aviation Bureau have arrived.”

“Oh…”

Perhaps because today had been too thrilling, such a light kiss left Ruan Sixian somewhat dazed as she walked off the aircraft.

She forgot to continue making her reasonable request for a raise!

By this time, the ambulance had already driven away, and passengers were gradually coming out.

Ni Tong and the flight attendant who had been in the cockpit earlier had already regained their composure, standing at the cabin door, saying goodbye to each passenger.

“Take care, remember your personal belongings, and have a pleasant journey.”

They wore refined makeup and uniforms, elegant and gentle.

One after another, exiting passengers would sometimes return a smile, while others wouldn’t even look up, walking straight down the stairs. No one knew what they had just been through.

When Ruan Sixian and Fu Mingyu boarded the crew vehicle, the first shuttle bus also arrived.

Some people, because of the delayed landing, pulled their suitcases rather roughly.

Others, because of the heavy rain, held their clothes over their heads as they rushed into the shuttle bus.

Only a few people noticed the fire trucks nearby and showed some confusion, but didn’t think much about it, quickly running to the shuttle bus.

They only felt the landing was unstable and bumpy, not knowing that within seconds, they had brushed shoulders with death.

After entering the operations building, a prepared conference room was opened for the Civil Aviation Bureau personnel and the crew.

Fu Mingyu didn’t enter; he had many other matters to attend to.

But when the conference room door closed, he didn’t leave immediately. He stood against the cold wall for a long time, listening to the tense or relaxed conversations inside.

True fear crept slowly over his heart at this moment.

If she had panicked at that time if she had been off by even one second—

Fu Mingyu dared not imagine the consequences.

Whether it would have been a major accident with aircraft destruction and loss of life, or this woman disappearing from his life forever.

Until he saw the aircraft steadily parked on the apron, as the dust settled, something in his heart burst forth along with the cheers around him.

He had once felt a strong desire to conquer this sharp-tongued, beautiful woman, to explore her, along with the most primitive sexual attraction.

These were the most common reasons for the arising of affection.

However, these things were thrown aside the moment he saw her walk out of the cockpit whole and intact, replaced by a swelling, acidic feeling in his heart.

Like seeing a general in history books as a child, like seeing a sovereign at the peak of the world as a youth.

The change in his heart was heavy yet clear. She had branded herself into his heart with burning fire, scalding and profound.

He thought, there’s no escape for this lifetime.

Submit to her, yet want to possess her forever.