Blossom through the Cloud - Chapter 20

Chapter 20

Ever since learning that Ruan Suxian was the very same flight attendant who had delivered coffee to him three times all those years ago, Fu Mingyu had finally managed to piece together the source of her occasional hostility toward him.

Yet if she held such animosity toward him, why on earth had she chosen to return to World Aviation?

Besides, since Yan An was fond of her, he could easily foot the bill for whatever sum she named; what was stopping the two of them from flying off together and building a life at Air China?

Consequently, he figured Ruan Suxian was either nursing a grievance and plotting her return just to prove a point to him, or simply looking to come back and drive him up the wall.

Seen in that light, his remark from earlier could be considered fairly objective.

However, even a nearly one-hundred-thousand-word book could be read a thousand different ways by a thousand different readers, let alone a single, overly concise sentence from Fu Mingyu, which naturally left a boundless expanse of room for interpretation.

Ruan Suxian was practically fuming herself to the point of explosion over the interpretation she had arrived at.

More?!

Big?!

Face?!

"Does your nasal bridge double as a slide, or can people swim laps in your eyes? Can your eyelashes swing on a playground set, or do your abs throw a rave party down there? Do you seriously think your face is so drop-dead gorgeous that the moment anyone looks at you, they immediately want to pledge allegiance to the motherland and protect planet earth? And what do you mean 'was it for you'? If you're so insanely capable, why are you sitting around acting like some corporate CEO instead of launching yourself straight into outer space?!"

Ruan Suxian blasted through that entire tirade without drawing a single breath, affording Fu Mingyu zero opportunity to get a word in edgewise before pivoting sharply on her heel and storming into the stairwell.

She didn't even care to wait for the elevator; she didn't want to spend another fraction of a second breathing the same air as Fu Mingyu.

As for Fu Mingyu, he was no less furious.

Watching Ruan Suxian stomp off to take the stairs, he actually found the sight somewhat absurd.

Did she really detest him that thoroughly?

Yan An's ex-girlfriend had practically flipped her apartment upside down, yet Ruan Suxian had been able to handle that with smiles and laughter.

Yet because he had merely misunderstood her once in the past, she was harboring a grudge against him straight through to the present?

And she had the nerve to go around telling Yan An that she wasn't a petty person?

So she reserved all her magnanimity for everyone else, while keeping all her pettiness exclusively for him?

Anger flaring through his chest, Fu Mingyu turned on his heel and left.

He figured he must have lost his mind to leave his massive villa sitting empty just to run over and put up with this cramped pigeon coop of under three hundred square meters.

After hoofing it up over a dozen flights of stairs, Ruan Suxian was drenched in sweat and marched straight into the bathroom to scrub off the grime.

The scalding cascade of hot water instantly washed away her fatigue, bringing a wave of pure, unadulterated relief.

Once she finished blow-drying her hair, carefully smoothed on her skincare lotions, and slipped between the sheets smelling like a spring meadow, she found herself completely unable to fall asleep.

Every single time she closed her eyes, Fu Mingyu's face materialized right in front of her, leaning in with his obnoxious, "Was it for you?"

Just who in the world gave him that kind of boundless self-confidence?!

Did living off a lifetime supply of blind flattery rot the man's brain?!

Who did something for you, anyway?!

Who on earth would do it for you!

Tossing and turning restlessly, Ruan Suxian finally gave up, grabbed her phone, and headed straight to the group chat to stir up trouble.

[Ruan Suxian]: @Bian Xuan! @Si Xiaozhen! Get out here right now, all of you!!!

[Bian Xuan]: Ooh, is there juicy gossip? I'm here, I'm here!

[Si Xiaozhen]: [Ear] [Ear] [Ear]

[Ruan Suxian]: It's not gossip, it's a full-scale rant about that total moron of a man, Fu Mingyu!

With everyone accounted for, Ruan Suxian decided typing was far too slow to vent her spleen, so she simply fired off four consecutive one-minute voice messages.

[Bian Xuan]: Too long, didn't listen, bye-bye 886, I've got customers to attend to.

A few minutes later, Si Xiaozhen, who had obediently listened through the entire rant, found herself at a loss for words and dropped a speechless emoticon into the chat.

Left with no choice, Ruan Suxian launched into a one-sided grievance marathon.

Having finished assisting her customers, Bian Xuan noticed the flood of notifications lighting up the group chat—virtually all of them sent by Ruan Suxian alone. Consumed by curiosity, she tapped them open to listen from the start.

[Bian Xuan]: Listening to you go on like this, I'm suddenly so insanely curious about this guy. I honestly regret not taking a closer look at him back in London that year. Does anyone have a picture of him? Hand it over so I can have a look.

[Ruan Suxian]: Nope. Why on earth would I keep photos of him on my phone? Am I trying to cause a system crash?

[Si Xiaozhen]: I know where to find one! Hang on a sec!

[Ruan Suxian]: ?

Moments later, Si Xiaozhen dropped an image right into the group chat.

It was a snapshot from the February issue of a domestic aviation magazine. The feature focused on international treaties regarding aviation environmental protection, and Fu Mingyu, having attended as the representative to sign the treaty on behalf of World Aviation, naturally served as one of the primary interview subjects for the issue.

The inside pages featured a photo capturing the exact moment he signed the agreement.

In the background hung a massive backdrop bearing a simple title outlining the theme, while Fu Mingyu stood right at the center, shaking hands with several foreign delegates.

Aware of the surrounding cameras, he wore an appropriately measured smile that softened his characteristically sharp aura and lent him a touch of gentle approachability.

[Bian Xuan]: I gotta give credit where credit's due—after looking at this photo, I officially declare that he has every right to be narcissistic.

[Bian Xuan]: And this is a totally unedited, raw snapshot straight from the lens, too!

[Bian Xuan]: End of statement.

[Si Xiaozhen]: Seconded.

[Ruan Suxian]: I'm leaving the group chat.

Though she didn't actually back out of the chat, Ruan Suxian stopped participating in the conversation.

Instead, she pulled up the photo and stared at it for a good several minutes.

Was it really necessary for these two to simp this hard?

Anyone who didn't know any better would think Fu Mingyu had just landed the cover of GQ or something.

Dwelling on this, Ruan Suxian indignantly fired up her music streaming app and shared a particular song directly to her Moments.

With any luck, listening to this track tomorrow might knock a tiny bit of self-awareness into his thick skull.

However, morning arrived after a restless night.

When Ruan Suxian woke up and checked WeChat, she discovered her Moments post had racked up well over a hundred likes and dozens of comments.

Scrolling through them one by one, she found zero trace of any activity from Fu Mingyu.

She was left with the distinct, frustrating sensation of throwing a heavy punch straight into a pile of cotton wool. Pulling the blanket up over her head, Ruan Suxian stewed in bed for a long while before finally dragging herself up to start the day.

Fu Mingyu had never been one to waste time browsing Moments.

Besides, on his drive back to Lakeside Mansion the previous night, he had received a company call that forced him to turn right back around to handle urgent business, coordinating across the board with the European sales division until he finally cleared his schedule around noon today.

With a subordinate stepping in to take over the remaining tasks, Fu Mingyu headed home to catch up on some sleep.

When he finally blinked his eyes open, the clock read seven in the evening.

Glancing out the floor-to-ceiling bedroom window, the reflection of the setting sun rippled across the center of the lake, shimmering and hazy until a sudden gust of wind fractured the glow, rippling it outward in widening concentric circles.

Reaching for his phone, Fu Mingyu checked the real-time flight monitoring status for the day.

Scanning down the rows of data, his gaze suddenly locked onto a line right in the middle.

World Aviation Flight 1569, aircraft model ACJ31, returned and delayed due to weather conditions, still grounded.

Recalling that Ruan Suxian was rostered onto that very flight, Fu Mingyu let out a vindicated, smug curl of his lips.

Tossing his phone aside, he took a quick shower. Upon returning to his room, he noticed a missed call from Zhu Dong.

Fu Mingyu dialed him back.

"What is it?"

"It's Zheng Shan's birthday tonight. Did you honestly forget?"

Fu Mingyu flipped open his calendar app to check. Sure enough, he had completely forgotten.

Zhu Dong: "You're a real piece of work, you know that? Bai Yang dropped off the gift this morning, so I figured you actually remembered. Turns out it was just your secretary keeping track for you?"

Fu Mingyu: "Alright, fine. I'm on my way."

Since it was a birthday celebration hosted by a close friend's girlfriend, Fu Mingyu simply threw on a casual change of clothes and headed out.

The dinner party was being held at a private club located in the southern suburbs, and Fu Mingyu predictably arrived as the last guest.

As Zhu Dong's girlfriend, Zheng Shan didn't dare voice any complaints against him.

The simple fact that he had shown up was already giving her plenty of face.

The majority of the attendees present tonight were familiar faces, invited by Zhu Dong to celebrate Zheng Shan's birthday.

As Fu Mingyu took his seat, he found Yan An stationed directly across the table.

The moment his eyes landed on Yan An, memories of the previous night's fiasco rushed back, causing Fu Mingyu's expression to darken further.

Meanwhile, Yan An had already shed his outer jacket, loosening the top few buttons of his shirt. His face and the expanse of his neck were flushed a deep, mottled red.

It was clear he had already put away a substantial amount of alcohol as he leaned over to murmur quietly to the person seated beside him.

Fu Mingyu's side of the table remained relatively subdued. To his right sat Zhu Dong, while an unfamiliar woman occupied the seat to his left.

Since Fu Mingyu took his seat without offering a word, everyone could tell he wasn't in much of a socializing mood. Aside from exceptionally close friends like Zhu Dong, no one else dared to proactively strike up a conversation with him.

Three rounds of drinks later, the table chatter droned on endlessly, looping without a pause.

Finding the atmosphere increasingly grating, Fu Mingyu toyed with the idea of making an early exit.

Just as he was quietly searching for an appropriate opening to excuse himself, someone across the table lifted their chin in Yan An's direction.

"Hey, President Yan, what happened to that female pilot you were talking about the other day? It's been ages—did you manage to lock it down and win her over?"

Fu Mingyu spared Yan An a glance before lifting his own wine glass, raising it to his lips to take a single, delicate sip.

"Total bust! It's completely over!"

Yan An hadn't actually consumed an unmanageable amount of alcohol, but a heartbroken man could easily magnify three parts of genuine sorrow into seven parts of drunken woe. With inhibitions cast to the wind, he voiced the frustration gnawing at his chest.

"You can blame it all on that bastard Chang Xiaoyi for charging over to make a scene at her apartment the other morning and scaring the wits out of her. She straight-up told me goodbye last night!"

"She just dumped you like that?"

"No kidding. She made sure I went down in flames crystal-clear last night."

Fu Mingyu lowered his wine glass, lifting a napkin to dab at the nonexistent droplets of wine at the corner of his mouth.

Though it was hardly polite to gloat, Fu Mingyu knew he was feeling remarkably pleased right now.

The stifled ball of gloom that had been clogging his chest all day long dissipated completely at that precise declaration.

If he didn't actively clamp down on his expression to keep from looking like he was reveling in someone else's misery, he might have been accused of schadenfreude.

The exchange across the table pressed on.

"Are you really just gonna let it go like that? Come on, women need to be coaxed half the time. If she says it's over and you just roll over and accept it, what kind of pursuit is that? Why don't you try again?"

"Honestly, when I went home last night, I was actually thinking about waiting until she cooled down so I could sweet-talk my way back into her good graces."

At this point, Yan An paused. The entire table's attention instantly converged on him, hanging on his every word waiting for the continuation.

Naturally, that included Fu Mingyu.

It was just that Fu Mingyu maintained a cool, unbothered facade, sipping his wine with measured grace so as not to appear overly invested.

Looking somewhat conflicted, Yan An hadn't originally planned to air his dirty laundry in front of so many people.

However, with everyone staring at him and the alcohol working its magic in his veins, he stopped caring altogether.

"She actually shared a song on her WeChat Moments last night. I clicked on it and listened, and I'm pretty damn sure she was using it to curse me out. Forget it, I'm genuinely calling it quits. If she looks down on me that badly, why bother sticking around to make a fool of myself?"

When someone pressed him to name the track, he stubbornly refused to budge, swearing up and down that he wouldn't utter another word about it.

Meanwhile, maintaining a completely nonchalant exterior, Fu Mingyu fished out his smartphone, navigated to Ruan Suxian's Moments feed, and promptly located the song she had shared the previous night.

Two seconds later, a fiercely distinct, wildly idiosyncratic vocal track blasted out of his phone speaker.

The cabin of the car was dead silent, rendering every single note of the music piercingly clear to Fu Mingyu's ears.

—Every single English word rang out with crystal-clear precision.

"Stop wasting my time..."

"Even on a cover of GQ..."

"I ain't ever going home with you..."

"I'm kinda different to the girl next door..."

"I'm looking for something more..."

"You're barking up the wrong tree..."

The music chopped off abruptly.

Through the rearview mirror, the driver glanced at Fu Mingyu's profoundly twisted expression and wisely chose to keep his mouth shut, not daring to utter a single syllable.

Clutching his phone tightly, Fu Mingyu stared out the side window with a face as dark as a thunderstorm.

It wasn't that he was prone to overthinking things—it was that he had serious, deeply grounded suspicions as to whether Ruan Suxian had actually been cursing out Yan An with that song, or if she had been aiming it squarely at him.