0097 I can

While Jin Shanshan was still lost in thought, Hou Rui had already inserted two thin iron wires into the keyhole. Then he untied his own bracelet and, with a few precise movements, disassembled it into several metal wires of varying thicknesses, lengths, and intricately patterned curves. He put them to use immediately, launching a dazzling series of operations.

One minute later, a burly European man called out impatiently, “Are you really a mechanical engineer? How have you been fumbling with this for so long and still not gotten it open?”

“Quiet. He needs quiet.” Jin Shanshan, standing nearby, stepped forward at once to defend her husband.

“Done. It’s open.” As he spoke, Hou Rui rose to his feet. He gathered the metal wires into his fist and yanked the door open with a single motion.

A powerful gust of wind roared into the cabin through the newly opened doorway, strong enough to buffet everyone and make them sway. The burly men were all shoved backward several steps.

Hou Rui, standing at the front, reacted swiftly. He gripped the threshold with one hand while clutching Jin Shanshan tightly behind him with the other. Only then did he focus his gaze into the cockpit of Flight 330.

Through the windshield of the pilot’s seat loomed a hole the size of a watermelon, violently sucking wind into the cabin. The two EgyptAir pilots sat motionless, their faces streaked with blood—clearly injured in the collision.

“You hold on tight,” Hou Rui shouted over his shoulder. “I’ll go check.” He pushed against the gale into the cockpit, moving with difficulty for a few meters before placing a hand on the co-pilot’s neck. He quickly discovered the man had no pulse at all and, under the piercing cold wind at ten thousand meters, his body was beginning to stiffen.

He twisted around to check the navigator seated beside him; the result was the same. Then Hou Rui’s eyes fell on a large bird impaled in the navigator’s chest. Judging by its size and plumage, he guessed it was either a swan or some species of goose.

The situation was now clear. The foolish bird had slammed into the plane, killing the two pilots in the cockpit. Combined with the sudden gale and Captain Khaled, the combined forces had claimed all thirty-three-zero crew members and every passenger aboard.

Beep-beep-beep. At that moment the altitude radar began alarming. Hou Rui looked out the windshield and saw an unbroken chain of mountains ahead. Flight 330, now out of control, had exhausted its luck. Its nose dipped lower, shifting from a glide into a direct plunge toward the ground.

At the same time, passengers who felt the plane tilting forward began to scream. Even the senior flight attendant trailing behind Hou Rui, who had witnessed the horror in the cockpit, closed her eyes in despair.

“What are you standing there for? Help!” Seeing the people behind him frozen like statues, Hou Rui grew furious and shouted, “Help!”

“What are you doing?” The senior flight attendant did not understand his intention. She saw him yanking at the stiff corpses of the pilots in an attempt to unbuckle their safety belts.

“Fly the plane!” While battling the gale and moving the pilots’ bodies, this was no small test for Hou Rui. What infuriated him most was that none of those men offered the slightest assistance.

“You can fly a plane?” Jin Shanshan and the senior flight attendant exclaimed almost simultaneously in disbelief. Jin Shanshan’s eyes grew as wide as saucers.

“Stop the nonsense. I can’t do it. You come! Help me quickly.”

“You little brat, can you be responsible for the lives of hundreds of people on this plane?” The burly European man who had followed them into the cockpit seized Hou Rui’s shoulder. In the chaos the man’s immense strength was fully unleashed; Hou Rui’s own power proved insufficient to break free.

No time remained for explanations. Hou Rui turned, met the man’s blue eyes with calm certainty and resolve, and said firmly, “I can.”

The burly man was finally intimidated by Hou Rui’s gaze. He loosened his grip and stepped back.

Beep-beep-beep. The altitude radar now showed Flight 330 was under six thousand meters from the ground. Normally such a height might still be manageable, but the plane had entered highland mountains. They were racing toward a crash at any moment.

“Houzi, this is no joke.” Jin Shanshan continued to complain, but the senior flight attendant, treating a dead horse as a living one, urged the burly man beside her to help. Because when Captain Khaled had gone off with the big-eyed flight attendant, the navigator had taken his place in the captain’s seat.

At this critical juncture, both the senior flight attendant and the European burly man cooperated unconditionally with Hou Rui. In their view, attempting the task was far better than waiting silently to die.

“Trust me. Your husband is omnipotent.” With those words Hou Rui dropped into the captain’s seat and seized the control stick, yanking it with all his strength to pull Flight 330 out of its fatal dive.

“Ah!” He roared as he strained. To increase the force on his arms he planted his foot against the instrument panel of Flight 330, exerting every ounce of his power with both body and stick.

“Keep going!”

“God bless!”

“Young man, keep going!”

“Today you saved the plane. Once we land, I’ll marry you!”

Passengers across the entire aircraft cheered for Hou Rui. Slowly, Flight 330 turned from its plunging descent. It recovered to level flight and then began to climb. Once the immediate danger had passed, Hou Rui removed the communication headset from the navigator’s body and began contacting the ground tower. With both hands he adjusted the instruments, checking whether Flight 330 had suffered any additional damage from the collision.

“Yes! Thank God I don’t have to die!” Hundreds aboard Flight 330 erupted in cheers. Many wept with joy. The two men who had been fighting over each other’s throats moments earlier now embraced in close intimacy.

Jin Shanshan, standing behind Hou Rui the entire time, could not hold back her tears of excitement. Yet in the midst of her elation she suddenly felt a strange sensation. She did not know why, but it occurred to her that she had never truly known this man Hou Rui.

This guy can shoot. Let’s say he learned it on the job.

This guy can fight. At best, it’s because boys are born strong and quick.

This guy can pick locks. We’ll call that luck catching a dead mouse.

But this skill was now far too exaggerated! How had this guy learned to fly a plane at his age? Most boys his age only knew how to fly kites. How had he learned it? Where? Was he really just an ordinary photography student at Beijing Media University?

Jin Shanshan stared at Hou Rui’s back, her mind swirling with questions. Before she could find the words, a group of flight attendants and female passengers, too excited to restrain themselves, surged forward. They first shoved the obstructing Jin Shanshan aside and then crowded around Hou Rui, grabbing his face and showering it with kisses that ranged wildly over his eyes, neck, and mouth.

Seeing this, Jin Shanshan grew angry again. Just as she prepared to intervene, Hou Rui spoke first: “Ladies, the plane’s condition is still unstable. I need to focus on flying. Why don’t you leave for now? Once we land we can celebrate properly.”

“Oh God, we owe you everything.”

“Work hard, Eastern handsome.”

“I live in the presidential suite at the Ganges Hotel. You can come anytime—”

Before the voluptuous blonde could finish, the exasperated Jin Shanshan dragged her out of the cockpit.

The danger had passed. Flight 330 slowly returned to normal.

According to EgyptAir regulations, no one was allowed to remain alone in the cockpit. Under the senior flight attendant’s insistence, Hou Rui could only seat her in the co-pilot’s former position. Although she could offer no real assistance, she still accompanied him in piloting to maintain appearances.

When the senior flight attendant gazed at Hou Rui’s profile with open admiration, Hou Rui’s heart churned with turmoil. After a quick inspection he confirmed that the bird-induced damage was not severe. He had already restarted Flight 330’s control computer. In effect, even without his hands on the controls, EgyptAir’s tower could remotely guide the plane to its destination on autopilot.

Once the plane problem was solved, the far greater challenge remained: how to deal with Jin Shanshan and the enormous trouble that came with becoming a hero.

This unexpected act of flying the plane had forced Hou Rui to reveal his abilities a second time before Jin Shanshan. Last time, in the Tomorrow Shooting Gallery, he had inadvertently exposed his shooting and tactical skills, yet he still had not decided how to explain them. Now, in her presence, he had flown a plane. He realized he could no longer evade her with vague stories.

Moreover, while worrying about Jin Shanshan, he feared the organization’s reaction more than anything else.

From past experience he knew the organization disliked media figures. Yet this time he had saved his own life while also rescuing hundreds of foreigners. When he returned home, would everything simply fade away? Would the relentless reporters and tabloids leave him alone? Once his face and the title of hero appeared on television and newspapers, the organization would surely activate the biological chip.

After thinking it over until his head ached, Hou Rui could think of no practical way to survive. In the end he decided not to think about it at all. Everything could wait until the plane landed and until the end of this pirate-kingdom mission. After all, he was now in the state where one more troublesome matter made no difference.