Blossom through the Cloud - Chapter 71

Chapter 71

Information transmission has a time lag, but the internet age drastically shortened this difference.

Not long after Helan Xiang went upstairs, Ruan Suxian's phone also continuously flooded with messages.

However, before she had the chance to check them one by one, Helan Xiang walked down from the second floor.

Helan Xiang did not walk fast, and as she passed the corner of the stairs, she even straightened a branch of a potted plant on the floor.

After sitting back down, under the restaurant's crystal chandelier, Helan Xiang's expression was calm. She stirred the soup in her bowl with a spoon and asked, "Are you not eating anymore?"

"I've finished eating. Please take your time, Auntie."

Ruan Suxian wiped her mouth with a tissue and raised her hand to look at her wristwatch.

Today's meal was likely coming to an end right here.

"Something came up at work, and it's quite urgent. Mingyu has to rush back to the company in a moment," Helan Xiang said while gesturing for Auntie Luo to bring over a bowl of coconut milk bird's nest. "I'm truly sorry. If you're not in a hurry, have some more dessert, and I'll have my driver take you home later."

Just as her voice trailed off and Ruan Suxian was about to speak, the two men walked leisurely out from upstairs.

Although this villa was large, it did not feel empty. It had every necessary piece of home furnishing, and the female owner was a person with a flair for living, displaying all sorts of decorative items abundantly without making it look crowded.

Yet, the heavy footsteps of Fu Mingyu and Fu Boting seemed to tread heavily upon an empty house.

Fu Boting glanced toward the dining room, reined in his solemn expression, and holding his coat, said, "We're heading to the company. You two take your time eating."

Fu Mingyu didn't say anything, walked straight up to Ruan Suxian, bowed slightly, and said in a low voice, "I'm leaving first. You rest for a bit. My mother arranged for the driver to take you?"

Having spent just over ten minutes in the study, Fu Mingyu's expression no longer possessed its previous relaxed air.

Ruan Suxian squeezed the palm of his hand. "Alright."

After Fu Mingyu left, Ruan Suxian naturally had no mood to stay here and chat idly with Helan Xiang.

Before long, she got into the car Helan Xiang had arranged for her.

When she opened her phone again, the chat history in every work group was already showing "99+".

Barely half an hour had passed, and when she checked Weibo again, the topic "#WorldAviationPassengersKneeling#" had already climbed into the top three trending searches, not to mention all kinds of civil aviation news software pushing these reports.

Under normal circumstances, the discussion volume for this incident might not have been this high, but coinciding with the fact that the buzz surrounding Ruan Suxian's emergency landing hadn't died down yet, and following this afternoon's interview, quite a few people were watching the spectacle due to Li Zhihuai's fans acting foolishly.

With such news breaking at this time, the moment the keyword "World Aviation" appeared, the trending rank immediately soared.

As for what specifically happened, the online information was not entirely accurate, but the work groups had already summarized the overall event.

The cause was a World Aviation international flight taking off from Sydney, Australia, transiting through Singapore, and flying to Jiangcheng.

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

Flight delays were normally routine occurrences, but they were always a tremendous headache for passengers. For airlines, the greatest difficulty in handling delay incidents lay in managing passenger emotions.

Yet during this delay, World Aviation's Singapore branch office explained to the waiting passengers that the delay was caused by heavy rain in Sydney, when in fact it was not raining in Sydney at all.

Once the flight arrived in Singapore, passengers who had already waited idly at the airport for six hours demanded an apology from the airline, and after failing to get one, refused to board the plane.

Meanwhile, the Sydney passengers still on the aircraft were unaware of the situation outside, and after waiting inside the plane for two hours, were informed that today's flight was canceled.

All of this happened this afternoon.

Four hours later, passengers who had waited bitterly for hours specifically went to the ground service counter to inquire, only to find out that the flight had taken off half an hour ago.

Yet the plane unexpectedly carried only a little over a hundred passengers, leaving dozens of passengers behind.

As for these stranded passengers, some knew at the time that the plane was about to depart but still refused to board because their demand for an apology went unmet, while another portion never received the departure notification at all.

Emotions that had already accumulated due to the delay erupted in this single instant. The stranded passengers were filled with righteous indignation, and the conflict intensified. Among them, an elderly person became so angry that their blood pressure spiked and they fainted in the airport, while a pregnant woman experienced threatened miscarriage symptoms due to emotional agitation and disrupted blood flow.

The person in charge who rushed to the scene failed to handle the situation promptly, and their statements carried obvious self-justification, causing the conflict to escalate further.

Because some passengers were anxious to return to Jiangcheng to attend their daughter's wedding—and such a delay would inevitably cause them to miss it—in their desperation, they actually knelt before the person in charge and wept aloud, while angry passengers on the other side hurled the cash compensation provided by the airline right into the face of the person in charge, with other passengers quickly following suit.

These scenes were all filmed by other people at the airport and posted online, sparking heated discussions. Marketing accounts immediately published controversial text to provoke netizens' passion for reposting and commenting, putting World Aviation in the storm center of public opinion in just over an hour.

Seeing these things, Ruan Suxian finally understood why Fu Boting was so angry.

This year, major airlines were eagerly expanding overseas markets. However, with the market itself nearing maturity, service had become the critical point for seizing market share.

Yet the various incidents triggered by this flight delay, ultimately leading to bizarre occurrences such as passengers being hospitalized and kneeling, were a direct challenge to World Aviation's service baseline in overseas markets.

For an airline, delayed departures—whether caused by weather or traffic control—were already a major test of service. Yet at the time the delay occurred, staff members failed to promptly soothe passenger emotions and earnestly resolve their inconveniences. Later, when the situation went completely out of control, the person in charge hurried to the scene yet still failed to resolve the matter.

The progression of this incident from start to finish directly demonstrated poor internal communication and a chaotic transmission mechanism within World Aviation's Singapore branch office.

As for pinning down responsibility, in Fu Boting's eyes, Fu Mingyu bore the brunt.

Since early last year, when Fu Boting handed over the full management of World Aviation to Fu Mingyu, he had shed most of his pressure and devoted himself entirely to the affairs of the aviation financial leasing parent company.

Therefore, for this matter, he would blame no one else, ascribing the fault entirely to Fu Mingyu's lax supervision of the overseas branch offices and excessive delegation of authority, which led to such an outcome.

The occurrence of a single accident represents a thousand hidden dangers. For an airline, experiencing a service accident of this magnitude meant that thousands of hidden dangers existed behind the scenes, and no one could guarantee that no safety hazards lurked among them.

If they truly waited for a safety accident to happen, that was a responsibility no one could bear.

Before even arriving home, Ruan Suxian received messages from many friends, all inquiring about the ins and outs of this matter.

Ruan Suxian only possessed the information obtained from the work groups, and whether it was complete she did not know, so she did not elaborate much.

Now the entire screen was filled with related news. She frowned, unable to imagine how much pressure Fu Mingyu was shouldering right now.

The driver drove the car downstairs.

When Ruan Suxian stepped out, she felt a chilly sensation on her face.

She looked up and saw, beneath the beam of the streetlamp, many tiny snowflakes dancing without any pattern.

It was actually snowing at a time like this.

Ruan Suxian gathered her scarf and headed upstairs with her head down.

By now, over an hour had passed since the incident began fermenting online. Ruan Suxian saw colleagues from other departments saying in the work group that they were rushing back immediately for overtime work, and Fu Boting was personally holding a meeting today.

How long had it been since he last managed World Aviation's affairs? Stepping in at a time like this meant he must be extremely angry.

Therefore, Ruan Suxian originally wanted to ask Fu Mingyu about the situation, but considering the current state of affairs at the company, she decided against it. He surely had no mind to look at private messages.

Returning home while it was still early, Ruan Suxian sat in the study for a while, unable to read even a single page of a book.

The moment her gaze fell upon the book pages, her mind filled with all sorts of messy thoughts.

The snow outside the window fell heavier and heavier, rustling down, making the indoor space exceptionally quiet.

It was not even nine o'clock when Ruan Suxian came out after taking a shower. She leaned over the balcony, looking out through the window. Quite a few children had run out to play in the snow, and a few young women wearing hats were out taking pictures.

Although there wasn't much snow, they were all very happy.

Yet Ruan Suxian felt deeply troubled.

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

She did not know what Fu Mingyu was doing right now, what his current predicament was, while she could do nothing at all.

After thinking for a moment, she sent a message to Fu Mingyu.

[Ruan Suxian]: I'm going to sleep. Tomorrow morning I have to go to the aviation medical center for a check-up. If my physical and psychological condition are both fine, I'll be returning to flight duties soon.

Just as she expected, until she closed her eyes, the other person did not reply.

However, Ruan Suxian was not entirely asleep.

Though her consciousness was somewhat hazy, amidst the drowsiness she could still hear the sound of falling snow outside.

I do not know how much time passed, but in her half-asleep state, Ruan Suxian felt a slight movement inside the room.

She thought the living room window hadn't been closed, so she paid it no mind.

Suddenly, a pair of ice-cold lips covered hers, kissing her densely and meticulously, prying open her teeth and turning inward.

Ruan Suxian's mind was not yet clear; a soft moan was swallowed down, and her oral cavity was instantly invaded.

Damn it!

Her body woke up faster than her brain. The instant she opened her eyes, before she could even clearly see the person in front of her, a slap had already swung out.

With a crisp "crack," the sound echoed throughout the room.

The icy sensation on her palm from the strike was quickly masked by a burning pain.

It was right at this moment that Ruan Suxian froze.

After a long silence, his extremely exasperated and helpless voice came from the darkness.

"You hit me again."

In the pitch-black room, with only the faint light filtering through the curtains, Fu Mingyu's face was half-concealed and unclear.

Realizing it was him happened because she smelled the familiar fir fragrance on him.

—And felt that familiar touch.

"No..." Ruan Suxian's hand remained suspended 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'd be put in a pig cage for this."

Fu Mingyu let out a cold chuckle.

"Steal a kiss? You're my girlfriend, do I need to steal a kiss?"

And "sneaking in"—did she forget that she had given him her home password?

Ruan Suxian had nothing to say. Without dropping her hand, she naturally reached out to touch his cheek.

"Does it hurt?"

"Don't you know how much strength you have?"

"Oh..."

As she withdrew her hand, Ruan Suxian brushed against his shoulder and touched some icy-cold objects.

It was snowflakes.

She casually brushed them off for him.

"How is everything?"

Fu Mingyu did not speak, but the atmospheric pressure around him was very heavy.

In the hazy halo of light, he stared unblinkingly at Ruan Suxian.

"In three hours, I have to go to Singapore."

Ruan Suxian had long anticipated this. With such an incident occurring, Fu Mingyu would definitely have to go over personally.

"Mhm, when are you coming back?"

"I can't give you a definitive answer," he said. "President Hu will temporarily manage World Aviation matters on this end. I will personally go to Singapore to overhaul the branch office. When it can be wrapped up will depend on understanding the specific situation over there once I arrive."

He paused, then added, "After that, I'll also randomly inspect the conditions of other overseas branch offices. It will probably take a month or two."

Ruan Suxian uttered an "oh," lowering her head, not knowing what she was thinking.

Fu Mingyu's phone rang once, and without looking, he knew it was Bai Yang calling.

He didn't answer the call, instead saying softly, "Wait for me to come back."

"Could I run away?" Ruan Suxian muttered. "The contract still has a few years left."

Fu Mingyu smiled, still looking somewhat helpless.

Even at a time like this, she still wouldn't say anything pleasant.

"Sleep early."

As his voice fell, Fu Mingyu stood up, preparing to leave.

Suddenly, his tie was grabbed and pulled forward, dragging him into a semi-kneeling position on the bed.

Ruan Suxian lifted her chin and planted a kiss on his lips.

"I'll wait for you to come back."