12: Chapter 12: The Novice in a Romance Game Who Can Fly a Plane

When Jiang Rumu was scooping her seventh wonton, Li Li felt a burning sensation on his left wrist.

It wasn't a "slight warmth." It was the kind of burn as if someone had pressed a piece of iron fresh out of the pot against his skin.

Beneath his cuff, blue text popped out rapidly—

[Ding! Main mission "Team up with the target female guest" completed!]

[Rewards are being distributed...]

[Detecting host's current skill tree: Blank. Specialties: Drawing architectural structural diagrams, bricklaying, welding, food delivery, contract translation.]

[System evaluation: The practicality of the above skills in a Dating Reality Show scenario is—0.]

[Therefore, the system has decided to grant the host a practicality compensation reward—]

[Congratulations to the host for obtaining: Sea, Land, and Air Global Vehicle Driving Mastery (including but not limited to: civil aviation airliners, military fighter jets, helicopters, yachts, speedboats, tanks, armored vehicles, off-road vehicles, motorcycles, jet skis, paragliders...)]

[Friendly reminder: This skill is a permanent skill, non-transferable, and non-refundable.]

Li Li's thumb, which had been scrolling through news, froze on the screen.

Sea, land, and air. Vehicle driving. Mastery.

The blue text kept jumping.

[Bonus sub-skill: Emergency operation under extreme conditions (including single-engine failure, hydraulic system failure, emergency landing procedures...)]

Engine failure. Hydraulic failure. Emergency landing.

He looked up.

Outside the floor-to-ceiling window, that Ala Country Airlines A380 was squatting by the runway, its white fuselage reflecting the light.

A double-decker airliner. Wingspan of seventy-nine meters. Maximum capacity of eight hundred and fifty-three passengers.

Before he boarded a flight to the Middle East, the system stuffed him with a "can fly a plane" skill.

A Dating Reality Show skill.

A Dating Reality Show skill of being able to fly a plane.

His brain rapidly replayed the news he had just scrolled through—a military standoff between Israel and Ala Country in the Strait of Hormuz. The United States publicly supported Israel. The destination was Dubai. The system suggested buying insurance. And then it gifted him "can fly a plane."

Connecting the dots.

Damn.

His back stiffened. His heart rate increased by three beats.

Calm down.

The A380 is standard-equipped with four pilots, two captains and two co-pilots. Long-haul routes even add a backup crew. The probability of four professional pilots becoming incapacitated simultaneously was lower than him winning the lottery in his past life.

He hadn't won the lottery in his past life either.

But he hadn't transmigrated in his past life either.

He forced himself to do a probability problem.

All four captains incapacitated—a script where mechanical failure, hijacking, food poisoning, and heart attacks all erupt simultaneously. This kind of probability was not worth panicking over right now.

If it really got to that point, it meant heaven was determined to take people, and he, a food delivery worker, couldn't change fate.

Just wait to die.

He figured it out. His heartbeat returned to normal.

Beside him, Jiang Rumu put down her spoon. The bowl was empty.

She had drunk two-thirds of her latte, taken two bites of her croissant, and set it aside wrapped in a napkin.

She turned her head and glanced at him.

Li Li stared at his phone—a map of the Middle East filled the screen, his fingers pinching and zooming in on the location of the Strait of Hormuz.

Jiang Rumu withdrew her gaze. She didn't ask.

—

The doors of the VIP Hall were pushed open one after another. The guests returned to their places.

Director Pei Zhao appeared at the door, her bright red nails pinching a stack of boarding passes, while the three strings of fortune beads on her wrist twisted around twice.

"Everyone, tickets."

She handed them out one by one.

Li Li took his.

Ala Country Airlines EK303, Beijing Capital T3 to Dubai DXB. Seat: Upper Deck, 1E.

He glanced at Jiang Rumu's. 1F.

First class. The front row of the upper deck.

After handing out the tickets, Director Pei Zhao added.

"The Production Team has half-chartered this flight, and we've booked the entire upper deck. The first-class area is reserved for the couples who successfully matched. The remaining guests and staff will be in the mid-section business class."

She paused.

"Additionally, no guest teams will accompany this trip. Agents, assistants, makeup artists—all must remain in the country."

Fang Ruowei's smile flickered for a frame. Wen Ditang lowered her head and tugged at the strap of her canvas bag.

Jiang Rumu rested her hands on her lap, her thumb twitching slightly.

No team. For her, it might actually be a relief.

—

The exit formalities went quickly. VIP channel, the border inspection counter was cleared.

In his past life, when he went abroad to Southeast Asia for freelance translation work, he had queued for two and a half hours and was asked about his purpose three extra times by border control. In this life, the border officer scanned his passport, looked up, swiped, and he was through.

Boarding bridge.

Only when approaching the A380 did he feel its true scale—standing on the bridge, he could hear the low hum of the four engines idling.

Shen Jue walked in front, turning back to shout at Cen Ye: "Damn, this is my first time on a double-decker!"

"Can you not shout everything out?"

"So what if I'm embarrassing myself? Happiness is the most important thing!"

Stepping into the cabin. Front row of the upper deck, first-class area.

Li Li paused.

It wasn't that he was shocked by the decor—in his past life, his translation company did aviation brochures, and he had seen no fewer than three hundred pictures of first-class cabins.

What shocked him was—it was empty.

Thirty-some seats, wide enough to lie flat, partitions that could rise to the ceiling.

Only two seats had pillows and blankets placed on them.

1E, 1F.

The rest were completely empty.

Shen Jue poked his head out from behind him, scanned the area, and was silent for two seconds.

"I hate this."

Cen Ye whistled.

Gu Zeyan was at the back of the line. His pace slowed by half a beat when passing the first-class area, his smile not breaking even a crack. But his right index finger tapped against the seam of his pants—not the rhythmic tapping on his knee.

It was the kind where his fingernail dug into the fabric.

He walked past.

Li Li stood next to 1E, watching this group file through the first-class cabin toward the business class behind.

A commoner with a monthly salary of 3,200. A first-class cabin with thirty-some empty seats. Beside him was a top-tier actress with 32 million followers.

Not even delivering a 9.9 yuan food order on an e-bike in a rainstorm in his past life was this absurd.

Jiang Rumu had already sat down. 1F. Seatbelt fastened, head against the pillow, eyes closed.

Li Li sat into 1E.

As soon as he sat down, a figure carrying equipment walked over from the business class direction. The sense of world-weariness on his face was fifteen years older than his age, with two machines hanging around his neck.

Old Zhou. The Production Team's cameraman.

He bent over and clipped two miniature cameras onto the top edge of the partition between seats 1E and 1F. The red lights turned on.

"Personal live-streaming camera, connected to your respective TikTok accounts, streaming the whole way. You can also use it handheld after arriving in Dubai."

He patted one of them and left.

The first-class cabin quieted down.

Thirty-some empty seats. Two people. Two live-streaming lenses.

Li Li scanned the TikTok backend on his phone.

Live room online viewers: 217.

He switched to the live stream view for Jiang Rumu.

Online viewers: 5,230,000.

A difference of more than 24,000 times.

Normal.

He swiped away the backend. His wrist burned again.

Blue text popped out, the font size a circle larger than before, with an exclamation mark—

[Ding! Side mission triggered!]

[Mission Name: Follower Growth Battle]

[Mission Content: When the host lands in Dubai, the number of followers on your personal TikTok account will serve as the base for reward calculation.]

[The higher the follower count, the more generous the rewards.]

[Current follower count: 214.]

[Note: Yes, after the live stream started, you lost 3 followers. The system is also shocked.]

Lost followers.

The live stream was on, sitting in first class, and he lost followers.

[Reward tier reference:]

[10,000 followers—Basic Survival Pack]

[50,000 followers—Intermediate Equipment Pack]

[100,000 followers—??? (Surprise Blind Box)]

[Friendly reminder: The host is currently 9,786 followers away from the first reward tier. The flight is about 9 hours. You need to gain an average of 1,087 followers per hour.]

[Judging by the host's current live room popularity—]

The blue text paused for a second.

[Never mind. Saying too much hurts feelings.]

He pulled his sleeve down to cover the blue text.

Outside the window, the guide vehicle lit up its yellow lights, and the tow truck detached from the fuselage. The A380's four engines started one by one, the vibration traveling up from the bottom of the fuselage, passing through the seat, and nailing into his soles.

The cabin door closed.

He turned his head and glanced at 1F.

Jiang Rumu opened her eyes, looking out the window through the porthole. The skyline at the end of the runway was clean and white.

She didn't look at him.

He withdrew his gaze.

The live stream camera's red light was still flashing. Two hundred and fourteen followers. Nine hours. And a 100,000-follower threshold labeled "Surprise Blind Box."

The A380 taxied onto the runway, the fuselage vibrating. Outside the window, the terminal building retreated, and the runway centerline markings swept past one by one from under the wing, faster and faster.

The engine thrust was fully opened.

The nose lifted.

The moment it lifted off the ground, Li Li looked down at his phone.

In the TikTok live room, the online viewer count jumped from 217 to 198.

It dropped again.

He swiped the screen, preparing to close the backend.

His finger froze.

At the very top of the notification bar, a news push notification squeezed in.

Only half the headline was visible, but every word was eye-catching—

"[Breaking] Israel's Fifth Fleet battle group enters the southern waters of the Persian Gulf, Ala Country's Ministry of Defense announces airspace—"

The second half was cut off.

Beneath his feet, the A380's fuselage vibration gradually weakened, the plane passed through the clouds, and outside the window, it was a vast expanse of white.

Li Li stared at that half-headline.

What was after "airspace"?

His left wrist didn't burn. The system didn't pop up any text. It was unnaturally quiet.

He tapped on the push notification.

The page spun twice.

Loading failed.

The signal was cut off.