Chapter One Hundred and One - Terror in the Air, Part Two

Just as I was racing toward the cockpit, and had nearly crossed the first-class cabin at the front of the plane, I suddenly saw Siya, my sworn sister, trying to calm the enraged passengers. With such a grave accident aboard, the passengers had every reason to be furious. After all, if the plane crashed, not a single soul would survive. So at a time like this, those rich and powerful gentlemen in first class, terrified for their lives, vented their anger on Siya and the other flight attendants.

“What exactly are you people doing for a living? I paid for a first-class ticket, did I buy it just to wait for death? Damn it, why am I so unlucky as to end up on this flight! Your plane is in trouble, and you want to bury us with it? What kind of logic is that!”

The loudest voice came from a fat man, and he had clearly shoved Siya as he shouted. She had not been prepared for it at all, and he actually sent her sprawling.

I hurried forward and helped Siya to her feet. Then I fixed the fat man with a cold look and gave a faint, sharp laugh. “Fat Zhang, long time no see, hasn’t it? I never thought I’d run into you again here. If a plane is going down, it’s useless to curse even the highest heavens. If you’re going to lose your temper, at least aim it in the right place.”

It turned out that this fat man was Zhang, the same one who had once worked with Zhou Zisheng at the bar to drug Zhang Jing.

“It’s you?” Zhang Fatty obviously remembered me as well, and the anger on his face immediately drained away. He had been on good terms with Zhou Zisheng to begin with, so how could he not know about the lesson I had taught the Axe Gang? Seeing me supporting Siya as I spoke, he only grunted a few times in dissatisfaction, then dropped back into his seat.

“Are you all right?” I held Siya in my arms, frowning with concern and urgency. “Sis, take me to your pilots right now. I have to tell them this plane absolutely cannot land yet. Hurry.”

Seeing how anxious I was, Siya swallowed whatever questions she had been about to ask. She did not know what I intended to do, but she still nodded and led me toward the cockpit.

The first-class cabin was right next to the cockpit, so in just a few seconds we had reached the curtain and seen that the cockpit door was locked. Siya and I exchanged a look, and after I nodded firmly, she gritted her teeth and pressed the buzzer. After she identified herself as a flight attendant, one of the copilots inside finally opened the door. But before he could even ask what was going on, I had already rushed in. He lunged to stop me and grabbed my arm, but I knocked him to the floor with a single punch, and he passed out on the spot.

The two pilots turned at once. Seeing the copilot behind them struck down by me, the other copilot flushed with anger and snapped, “Who are you? Who allowed you into the cockpit? Do you know this is against the law?”

“If I can save my life, I’d be happy to break the law!” I shot him a cold glare and lifted my fist with a faint smile. “If you don’t want to end up like him, then shut your mouth and stay quiet!”

Then I turned to the captain, my brow furrowed. “Why is the plane making a forced descent? Why is the engine smoking in the stratosphere? Give me a reasonable explanation, or I’ll send all of you to hell first!”

I glanced around the cockpit, grabbed an iron rod from a rack beside me, and squeezed it hard with both hands until it bent into a ring. “If you think you’re harder than this rod, then come at me.”

Time was running out. I no longer had the leisure to explain anything to them. The only way was to solve everything with force.

When the two pilots saw my astonishing strength, their faces went pale. The captain shouted, “This is hijacking! You’re trying to hijack the plane by violence!”

“I’m hijacking your ass.” Seeing that he was still stubbornly refusing to listen, I kicked him to the floor and knocked him unconscious as well. Amid Siya’s panicked cry and the copilot’s horrified stare, I calmly took the captain’s seat and began handling the controls myself.

“Altitude nine thousand... altitude nine thousand five hundred... hmm? Why won’t it climb?”

As I called out the numbers, I expertly flipped the plane’s various switches. Only then did the copilot finally realize I knew how to fly. Hearing my figures, he frantically shook his head. “No, no, that’s wrong! We need to descend, we need to descend!”

“Descending means death!” I glared at him sharply and said icily, “If the engine is smoking, then descending will only raise the temperature and set it on fire! The only way now is to raise the aircraft to twelve thousand meters, into the stratosphere, where the immense pressure and lack of oxygen can restore normal engine function. Only then can we land safely. Do you understand?”

“I know, I understand, but... but the altimeter is already broken. The engine failure just now wasn’t caused by anything else; it was because the altitude reading was wrong. We thought we were holding at ten thousand meters, but who knew it wasn’t true at all? The engine malfunctioned because it had been running too long in low-altitude air. This kind of failure is usually only internal to the engine and hasn’t reached the fuel tank, so it won’t catch fire in the short term. But if it lasts too long, the plane could catch fire in midair, even explode!” The copilot looked utterly hopeless. “If we force a landing now, we still have a sliver of hope. But if we keep climbing now, then we’ll really have no chance at all...”

“Who told you there’s no chance? If you force a landing like this and the engine catches fire and explodes, won’t that end in a crash anyway?”

Although this fault was a little different from what I had imagined, I still smiled calmly. “A passenger plane’s altimeter often fails because it hasn’t been properly repaired or overhauled for a long time. That’s your company’s responsibility, and we can leave that aside for now. But there is a way to remedy a faulty altimeter. Bring me the plane’s structural repair drawings and let me take a look.”

Even though the copilot could see the confidence on my face, he still shook his head. “There’s no way to fix it. There aren’t any aircraft mechanics on board, and even if there were, no one could repair it in midair. Stop daydreaming. I don’t know who you are, but I can understand how you feel right now. Please go out and don’t interfere with our last chance to survive.”

“Bring me the blueprints. Give me five minutes. If I still can’t fix the altimeter, then you can land the plane.”

I was too lazy to explain why I was so confident. What, was I supposed to tell him I had once been saved by aliens and possessed technology beyond anything his brain could possibly imagine?

Perhaps afraid that I would knock him unconscious too, or perhaps genuinely moved by my determination, the copilot sighed and pulled a stack of drawings from the cabinet beside him. He handed them to me. “These are the plane’s wiring diagrams and the connection maps for all the instruments. I hope they’re useful.”

Without another word, I took the blueprints. I told the copilot to resume control of the aircraft, then sent Siya, who was still stunned beside me, to fetch the toolbox. After that, I lowered my head and began studying the drawings.

With my gift for perfect recall, my eyes raced over one sheet after another, searching for the altimeter circuitry. Before long, I had identified several places on the blueprints most likely to have caused the malfunction because of neglected maintenance, and I began carefully checking each one. Meanwhile, the passengers outside, along with the other flight attendants, still had no idea what was happening in the cockpit. They could only wait for their fate, never imagining that all their lives were now hanging by a thread in the hands of a high school student.