Blossom through the Cloud - Chapter 28

Chapter 28

The next morning, Ruan Xian woke up to the sound of her alarm.

Opening her eyes, she stared blankly at the ceiling for a long while before she could finally gather her wits.

However, the moment she sat up and got out of bed, she couldn't help cursing Bian Xuan for selling fake, unscrupulous liquor.

Her head felt like it was splitting in two.

When she walked out into the living room, she froze in her tracks, nearly raising her hands in surrender to call the police.

Greeting her eyes were a throw pillow tossed on the floor, shoes scattered helter-skelter, a small blanket draped crookedly off the edge of the coffee table from the sofa, and her handbag flipped upside down with its contents spilled across the floor.

Yet within a few seconds, her sanity returned.

This chaotic state of the living room wasn't the work of a burglar; it was the direct result of her own kicking and flailing last night when Fu Mingyu had forcefully lifted her off the sofa.

Her memory pressed the start button from that exact moment, and Ruan Xian's physical sensations seemed to unconsciously retrace the steps.

Glancing toward the sofa, she recalled how, when Fu Mingyu had picked her up, her body had pressed tightly against his, leaving her utterly unable to break free.

Walking over to the doorway to put on her slippers, she remembered him wrapping his arms around her from behind, pressing his hand over hers with his chin resting near the side of her head, where just a slight turn of her gaze revealed the sharp curve of his jaw.

Turning back to look toward her bedroom, she remembered the way he had leaned over, bracing his arms on either side of her bed, trapping her within the cage of his presence, while his tie dangled and swayed gently back and forth right before her eyes.

Hiss...

Ruan Xian wrapped her arms around herself, looking around her apartment with heightened vigilance.

How was it that every single corner she looked at triggered a frame-by-frame replay of Fu Mingyu in her mind?

How on earth did this jerk manage to plant his shadow in every nook and cranny of her home?

Hurry up and slip into her slippers, Ruan Xian bolted into the bathroom to take a quick shower.

While the hot water washed away her physical fatigue, it also washed away the lingering emotional residue of the past few days.

She had drunk the alcohol last night, thrown her tantrum, and made a fuss; now, it felt as though her chest had been completely unblocked.

The underlying problems still existed, but that suffocating, clogged sensation was entirely gone.

After blow-drying her hair, she returned to the living room to start cleaning up, picking up a pack of cigarettes off the floor.

Picking it up to inspect it, she found that only two or three cigarettes had been pulled out.

Without needing to guess, she knew whose they were.

Ruan Xian tossed the pack into the coffee table drawer. The moment she slid it shut, an image of Fu Mingyu smoking flashed vividly across her mind.

Standing with an effortless, relaxed posture, one hand tucked into his trouser pocket, head tilted slightly, eyes lowered, his profile illuminated and concealed in the flickering fire of the lighter.

He actually looked rather striking.

Huh?

Ruan Xian suddenly froze.

She had never once seen Fu Mingyu smoke in real life; how on earth did her brain conjure up an image like that?

At that moment, the doorbell rang, shattering Ruan Xian's train of thought.

She got up to open the door, revealing a delivery worker holding a bag of food.

"Hello, your breakfast. Please enjoy."

Having had the experience from last time, Ruan Xian wasn't all that surprised.

She checked the receipt, confirmed it bore her name, and accepted the delivery.

Inside was a bowl of vegetable and lean pork congee, a cup of warm soy milk, and two jujube cakes.

Mmm...

It was the exact breakfast she usually loved.

Taking a sip of the soy milk, she let the clean, gentle sweetness linger on the tip of her tongue.

After thinking it over for a moment, she decided she ought to acknowledge it to Fu Mingyu.

So, she flipped open her WeChat and sent a message his way.

[Ruan Xian]: Breakfast received, thank you.

Once sent, she didn't expect the famously busy Fu Mingyu to reply in seconds. She sipped her congee while scrolling through her unread messages.

Scanning down her chat list, she noticed Si Xiaozhen had sent her a message twenty minutes ago.

[Si Xiaozhen]: Awake yet? Worried you'd oversleep and feel like crap, so I ordered breakfast for you. Remember to eat it, okay?

Staring at this message, Ruan Xian froze in place for a solid several seconds. ???!!!

It wasn't ordered by Fu Mingyu???

She immediately scrambled back to Fu Mingyu's WeChat chat and hit 'Recall' on her previous message with the speed of life and death.

Yet the very second she lifted her finger from the screen, a reply pinged back from the other end.

[Fu Mingyu]: Wasn't me.

[Fu Mingyu]: Don't overthink it.

Ruan Xian: "..."

Who was overthinking it???

[Ruan Xian]: ???

[Ruan Xian]: I just sent it to the wrong chat, my bad.

[Fu Mingyu]: Oh.

Oh???

Oh!!!

You don't believe me, do you???

Suddenly, Ruan Xian felt like the soy milk had lost its sweetness and the congee had lost its flavor.

Why was Fu Mingyu like this?

Clearly, he was the one reading too much into things yesterday; how did it suddenly turn into her looking like the one overthinking today?

And that condescending tone of disbelief.

The more Ruan Xian thought about it, the angrier she got. Snapping a photo of the breakfast with her phone, she posted it straight to her WeChat Moments.

Meanwhile, over at the hospital, Fu Mingyu stood beside a hospital bed while Helan Xiang fussed over her cousin with solicitous concern.

The two of them chattered away for ages. Fu Mingyu kept his mind detached and wandering, staring idly at a single blossom on a tree branch stretching past the window.

He had no idea how long he stared at it, but when he finally turned his head back, Helan Xiang was still talking nonstop, and her cousin looked in remarkably high spirits—she probably felt ready to rip out her IV and go on a three-day shopping spree in Milan with Helan Xiang right this second.

With his ears flooded by topics of zero interest to him, Fu Mingyu had no choice but to pull out his phone to pass the time.

Opening WeChat, the interface was still lingering on his chat window with Ruan Xian.

Since the other party hadn't replied, he backed out, checked his Moments, and noticed the small notification thumbnail in the top right corner belonged to Ruan Xian's profile picture.

Tapping into it, he saw she had posted a photo half a minute earlier depicting a spread of breakfast food.

[Thanks for the breakfast, baby, love you mua @Si Xiaozhen]

Fu Mingyu understood Ruan Xian's underlying message entirely.

Narrowing his eyes, he looked back out the window, a wave of inexplicable irritation churning in his chest.

His gaze drifted back to his phone.

Fu Mingyu tapped into Ruan Xian's Moments archive, wanting to check if she had posted any passive-aggressive jabs aimed at him over the past couple of days that he might have missed.

However, the moment he entered her profile, her Moments banner background instantly caught his eye.

White background, bold black lettering—a thoroughly arrogant line of text.

"Came to see me again? Admit it, you're just crazy about me."

Fu Mingyu: "..."

He locked his phone screen.

Time-wasting trash like WeChat Moments really shouldn't be browsed after all.

Following the embarrassing incident where she mistakenly assumed the breakfast was from Fu Mingyu, Ruan Xian was certain that man would seize the opportunity to lord it over her and heavily flex his presence.

Yet this time, she guessed wrong—Fu Mingyu remained remarkably quiet.

Of course, it was likely just because he was swamped with work, but in any case, he didn't show up again.

Their next meeting took place five days later, on a crisp morning.

Ruan Xian arrived at World Aviation on schedule, preparing for the final flight before officially stepping into her role as First Officer.

The morning at World Aviation was bustling as usual. Dressed in her full uniform and pulling her flight case, Ruan Xian was passing by the Flight Department's main conference room when the door suddenly swung inward.

Immediately afterward, the sound of footsteps echoed out.

A hunch in Ruan Xian's gut told her it was most likely Fu Mingyu.

Stopping in her tracks to look, she spotted him right away.

The room behind him was brightly lit, and the meeting attendees sat in absolute silence, watching Fu Mingyu depart.

He seemed to be in a foul mood, one hand shoved into his pocket, brow furrowed slightly as he strode forward with long, decisive strides that dropped the ambient temperature by a solid two degrees.

Ruan Xian was standing less than five meters away from the door, a position that guaranteed they would cross paths.

After taking two or three steps, Fu Mingyu indeed spotted Ruan Xian.

Yet their lines of sight merely brushed past each other for a brief second. Just as Ruan Xian parted her lips to offer a greeting, he turned his head to listen to his assistant speaking and looked away entirely.

The group simply walked straight past Ruan Xian.

When Boyang emerged right behind him, he hesitated for a beat, wanting to greet her. But seeing that Fu Mingyu hadn't reacted at all, he figured the two of them had probably gone at it again last time, and right now they were likely at absolute loggerheads. Better not spark that powder keg, lest it blow up right here and turn them both into the most dazzling fireworks display in the sky.

Once everyone from the conference room had cleared out, silence settled over the corridor once more.

Ruan Xian cast a backward glance at Fu Mingyu's retreating figure, her brow slowly furrowing.

She carefully retraced her steps in her mind: on that night she got drunk, had she forgotten something she did to offend him?

Did she hit Fu Mingyu?

No, she definitely couldn't take him in a fight.

Did she chew him out too harshly?

Probably not. He was the one who insisted on following her inside and lingering, and she had kept her words remarkably polite.

Or did she say something that wounded his male ego?

Wait, Ruan Xian suddenly snapped back to her senses.

Why on earth was she standing here self-reflecting? Fu Mingyu never played by the rules anyway; how could she possibly analyze his behavior patterns using normal human logic?

Besides, whatever he wanted to do was his own business, and she couldn't control him anyway.

Quietly chewing herself out in her head, she grabbed her flight case and marched away.

As luck would have it, today's flight was quite a coincidence.

It was Ruan Xian's very last line-training flight in the right-hand seat, and her flight crew happened to be Captain Fan and First Officer Yu—the exact same crew she had flown with on her very first training flight.

The three of them had been paired up several times during this period, so they were quite familiar with one another.

Once aboard the aircraft, Captain Fan and First Officer Yu took their seats in the cockpit, both wearing relaxed expressions.

Today's route ran from Jiangcheng to Lincheng, featuring a two-leg domestic flight with a familiar flight path, great weather conditions, and absolute perfection all around.

After completing all pre-flight preparations, they took off smoothly. Half an hour later, the aircraft entered standard cruising autopilot mode.

Captain Fan picked up a cup of red date tea and turned around to say, "Xiaoruan, you'll officially be taking the First Officer seat next week. You can give a heads-up to the Flight Department—I'll still be the one to check you out on your first official flight."

"Oh, sounds good."

Ruan Xian nodded, then lapsed back into silence.

"What are you thinking about?" Captain Fan asked abruptly.

Hesitating for a moment, Ruan Xian said, "Do you guys ever think that when a man suddenly..."

Mid-sentence, she glanced over and noticed First Officer Yu's complexion looked rather poor.

"Are you alright?"

First Officer Yu clutched his upper right abdomen, his lips turning progressively paler.

"Hiss... my stomach is acting up."

With that, he turned to Captain Fan and said, "I think I might have a bad stomach bug, I need to hit the lavatory."

Captain Fan nodded, putting on his oxygen mask the moment First Officer Yu stood up.

With one First Officer temporarily absent, Captain Fan stopped casual chatting.

Scarcely a few minutes passed before First Officer Yu returned. Captain Fan removed his oxygen mask and picked up where they left off: "Xiaoruan, what were you saying about a man doing what?"

Ruan Xian didn't answer because she had noticed something off about First Officer Yu the moment he stepped back inside.

"Are you feeling sick somewhere?" Ruan Xian leaned forward to ask. "Your complexion is terrible, you're sweating through your forehead."

Hearing this, Captain Fan immediately turned to check on First Officer Yu as well.

What Ruan Xian described as mild was actually severe; First Officer Yu could no longer sit up straight, gripping his upper right abdomen with both hands, his face completely bloodless as fat beads of sweat poured from his temples down his neck.

"What's wrong with you?" Captain Fan asked in shock.

First Officer Yu's lips were entirely drained of color. He parted them, taking quite a while to squeeze out a voice: "I-I don't know, a sharp pain suddenly flared up right here. I don't think I'll make it to Lin... Lincheng."

"Are you sure?" Captain Fan pressed further. "Severe enough that you can't make it to Lincheng?"

First Officer Yu tried to gauge his own condition.

Yet the next second, another wave of stabbing pain struck his upper right abdomen, causing his entire body to break out in violent shivers.

"I don't think I can hold on..."

Ruan Xian grabbed a tissue to wipe the sweat from First Officer Yu's face while checking his forehead with the back of her hand.

"Captain, he's running a fever!"

Captain Fan stared at First Officer Yu for a few seconds before letting out a harsh curse.

"Damn it, sounds like acute cholecystitis. My wife had that before."

Because his wife had suffered from the condition, Captain Fan knew all too well that when it flared up severely, this thing could be life-threatening.

Seconds later, he ordered, "Xiaoruan, swap seats with him. Sit in the First Officer's seat, then call Flight Attendant Number Three in to look after him, have the Air Marshal take Number Three's jumpseat, and instruct the Purser to check if there are any medical professionals among the passengers."

Ruan Xian executed the instructions without missing a beat. A short while later, Flight Attendant Number Three entered the cockpit, bringing back a message from the Purser.

"There are no medical personnel on this flight."

Beside her, First Officer Yu was still groaning in agony. Captain Fan frowned deeply as he studied him for a few moments, finally reaching a decision.

"Xiaoruan, have the Purser notify the cabin. We are diverting to Fudu Airport immediately."

"Understood."

Moments later, the cabin announcement chime rang out.

Simultaneously, Ruan Xian donned her headset and sunglasses, checked the instrument panel, and stated, "We are currently about thirty minutes away from Fudu Airport. Estimated landing weight will exceed maximum landing weight by 1.5 tons."

With that, she looked over at Captain Fan, waiting for his call.

"Right, we can land," Captain Fan said. "Prepare for diversion."

Ruan Xian raised no objections to this.

Whether judged by First Officer Yu's current physical condition or standard airworthiness guidelines, she felt an overweight landing was entirely feasible.

If she were sitting in the left seat, she would have made the exact same call.

However, First Officer Yu in the back, who could barely speak a coherent sentence anymore, raised an objection.

"N-No, landing overweight triggers a safety incident, we can't..."

"Shut your mouth!" Captain Fan snapped angrily. "I'm the captain, I know what I'm doing! We're already below maximum takeoff weight; as long as the descent rate is controlled below 360 feet per minute, why can't we land safely? If anything goes wrong, I take full responsibility!"

Even after that outburst, First Officer Yu still disagreed, arguing that he could grit his teeth and hold on until fuel burn brought the aircraft below maximum landing weight.

In short, he opposed an overweight landing.

Captain Fan was usually mild-mannered, but at a time like this, his tone carried an ironclad firmness Ruan Xian had never heard before.

Seeing that a dispute was about to break out between the two, Ruan Xian chimed in softly, "Captain, let's burn some fuel first."

It was a compromise solution.

Captain Fan let out a reluctant sigh. "Fine, since you insist on holding out."

However, the aircraft lacked a fuel-dumping system, leaving them with no choice but to actively burn through fuel.

Ruan Xian kept her eyes glued to the instrument panel. Once the aircraft descended to 15,000 feet, she asked, "Captain, should we lower the landing gear now?"

Captain Fan nodded. "Lower it."

Deploying the landing gear wasn't preparation for an immediate landing; they simply wanted to increase aerodynamic drag and burn through fuel faster, bringing the weight down below the maximum landing limit as quickly as possible.

Flight altitude descended gradually, while First Officer Yu in the back was reduced to whimpering rather than moaning.

Ruan Xian offered a soft word of comfort: "Senior Yu, hang in there just a bit longer, we're almost there."

No response came from behind.

Captain Fan drew a deep breath. "Xiaoruan, prepare to deploy speedbrakes to further increase fuel consumption."

Just as Ruan Xian was about to say "copy that," the man in the back who barely had the strength to groan piped up again: "N-No way!"

Ignoring First Officer Yu entirely, Captain Fan listened to him panting frantically in the back, sounding on the verge of tears.

World Aviation regulations dictated that utilizing speedbrakes while engine thrust exceeded 66% constituted a QAR Level 3 incident. If such an event occurred, it would severely damage First Officer Yu's future promotional prospects, upgrades, bonuses, and income.

Though Ruan Xian felt like cursing these garbage regulations herself, she couldn't simply turn a blind eye, nor could she countermand Captain Fan.

After all, inside an aircraft, the captain held absolute authority.

True to form, First Officer Yu began forcing out breathless protests: "Any more reduction... any more reduction and it'll trigger a QA..."

Before he could finish, Captain Fan cut him off: "Shut your damn mouth! I'm saving your life right now! Is your life more important or is a QAR report more important?!"

Whether First Officer Yu simply lacked the breath to speak anymore or had finally yielded, the rear of the cockpit fell silent.

Nearly an hour later, the aircraft touched down smoothly at Fudu Airport.

As the plane taxied gracefully toward the jet bridge under ground marshalling guidance, Ruan Xian glanced back at First Officer Yu.

His clothes were completely soaked through with sweat, eyes closed, lips parted slightly as he breathed with agonizing difficulty.

The moment the aircraft came to a complete halt, an ambulance parked on the tarmac rushed over, and medical personnel boarded the flight deck to wheel First Officer Yu out.

Just as he reached the cabin door, he suddenly turned his head back to look at Ruan Xian. "F-Favor, do me a favor."

"What is it?"

First Officer Yu: "My phone password is six eights... please text my girlfriend for me later and let her know I'm safe."

Ruan Xian nodded and agreed, and only then was First Officer Yu carried down.

From previous flights together, Ruan Xian already knew this quirk of his—he made it a strict rule to message his girlfriend to report his safe arrival every single time they landed.

Captain Fan walked out, watching First Officer Yu being loaded into the ambulance while muttering a few final curses under his breath.

Still, having landed safely, Ruan Xian let out a long breath of relief and went to look for First Officer Yu's phone.

After calling his girlfriend to brief her on the situation, Ruan Xian checked her own phone.

As soon as she reconnected to the cellular network, a call rang in.

The number wasn't saved in her contacts, but she knew whose it was.

Whenever a World Aviation flight suffered an emergency diversion, the Flight Department was notified immediately. The only person who could calculate her exact landing time with such precision and call her right away was him.

Yet thinking back to his frosty demeanor that very morning, Ruan Xian felt very little desire to pick up.

After letting the ringtone play for a good long while, Ruan Xian finally swiped to answer.

"Hello, President Fu."

"Landed?"

"Mmm..."

Silence hung over the line for a moment.

Fu Mingyu probably didn't know which specific pilot had suffered the medical emergency yet, which was likely why he was calling.

Lowering her gaze to her fingers, Ruan Xian gently tapped her thumbnail against her index finger, thinking of saying, "Don't worry, your double annual salary is completely safe," when she heard him state: "Then head straight back for debriefing."

"...???"

Thinking Fu Mingyu was calling out of genuine concern was giving him way too much credit.