18: Chapter 18 Dubai Welcome Text Message

The seatbelt sign lit up.

The four engines switched from a cruising hum to a decelerating roar, the fuselage tilted forward, and the silhouette of a grey destroyer outside the porthole sank into the clouds.

Li Li withdrew his gaze.

The muffled sound of the landing gear deploying came from the belly of the plane—with a clank, the entire aircraft shook.

Outside the porthole, the ochre faded to earthy yellow, then to greyish-white. Clusters of concrete buildings emerged from the ground, dense and packed, with several reflective glass towers interspersed among them.

Dubai.

In the distance, a needle pierced the skyline. The Burj Khalifa.

That needle grew larger and closer.

The fuselage jolted again.

The tires slammed onto the runway—bang!

The speed brakes popped up, reverse thrust engaged, and the engines roared in reverse, the immense inertia causing the seatbelts to dig tightly into everyone.

The A380 taxied at high speed along the runway, and the terminal building outside the window went from blurry to clear.

Landed.

When the plane came to a complete stop, Li Li's back peeled away from the seatback, and he leaned forward two centimeters.

Whew—

A breath of scorching air rushed out from his nasal cavity; it wasn't relaxation, but pressure relief.

It was like a pressure cooker valve being opened; if he had been stifled for three more seconds, he felt the string in his brain would have snapped.

In seat 1F next to him, Jiang Rumu turned a page of her magazine, seemingly unbothered by his movements, but her fingertips holding the page paused for an extra second.

The cabin door opened, and a heatwave mixed with the smell of asphalt and aviation kerosene poured in instantly.

Forty-one degrees.

Li Li stood up and pulled his black backpack down from the overhead bin.

As soon as he held the bag, it felt heavy.

Energy bars, nuts, biscuits, chocolate, dehydrated fruit slices, plus the five packs of individual tactical rations the system had generated at the bottom—the total weight was estimated to be four kilograms.

He slung the backpack onto his shoulder, the zipper of the bulging bag splitting open, and the corner of a foil biscuit wrapper poked out from inside.

Jiang Rumu walked past with her small suitcase, saying nothing.

Li Li followed.

At the end of the jet bridge, the business class guests were filing out.

Shen Jue rushed out first, his comma-style bangs blown straight back by the hot wind, holding his phone to livestream, shouting excitedly:

"Family! We've landed! Dubai! I feel like my iron-stiff bangs are going to melt in the next second!"

The ten people gathered at the entrance of the connecting corridor.

Shen Jue spotted Li Li at a glance, or more accurately, he spotted the nearly bursting backpack on Li Li's back.

"Brother Li," the 1.87-meter tall guy bent down, tilting his head forty-five degrees to examine the zipper gap, "What do you have in your bag? It wasn't this bulging when we boarded, right?"

Li Li didn't stop walking.

"Food."

"What kind of food?"

"The free snacks on the plane—energy bars, nuts, biscuits, chocolate."

Shen Jue froze, his already not-so-sharp brain crashing for three seconds.

"...You took them all?"

"No, I left two boxes of juice. Too heavy."

Shen Jue opened his mouth, then closed it, finally looking down at his own empty hands.

"I hate this." He said these words for the third time.

Beside them, Yin Ruoying's sunglasses slid down from her head and perched on the bridge of her nose. She scoffed, her volume neither too loud nor too soft, just enough for everyone to hear:

"Yo, did you 'empty out' the first-class supply depot?"

She enunciated the word "empty out" heavily and dragged it out.

Fang Ruowei immediately chimed in, covering her mouth, her round, almond-shaped eyes crinkling into smiles, the book pendant on her clavicle chain swinging:

"Oh my, Brother Li is quite good at managing a household, a good man for the home."

They were singing in harmony, hiding needles in the cotton.

Gu Zeyan turned back from the front, his signature sunny smile on his face, his hand resting on the handle of his suitcase:

"Brother Li is just being practical, not putting on airs. We guys should be like that."

The words were a compliment, but the tone was like he was commenting on an exhibit that had nothing to do with him.

These words drifted through the narrow corridor, and the atmosphere instantly turned awkward.

"Damn it," Cen Ye took off his headphones—his T-shirt had "I eat Hotpot, you eat Hotpot base" printed on the back—and shouted at Li Li, "Is there any of that baklava left? Save me a bite!"

"None left, there was only one serving, and I ate it."

"Tsk." Cen Ye looked pained.

Han Xubai adjusted his glasses and calmly added: "From a legal perspective, this counts as an ancillary benefit of the air ticket service, and passengers have the right to take it within a reasonable range. Although this 'reasonable range' is a bit broad, it's not illegal."

On the other side, Qi Wanyin had been walking quietly in the back. Seeing the backpack deformed by snacks and the half-protruding biscuit wrapper, she suddenly couldn't help but let out a snicker.

The laugh was light. She seemed to find it funny herself, shook her head, and walked away holding her thermos.

Wen Ditang huddled at the back of the crowd, clutching her canvas bag, saying nothing, but when her doe-like eyes swept over the backpack, her lips were tightly pursed.

For a moment, everyone's micro-expressions were precisely captured by their respective livestream cameras.

In Li Li's livestream room, the comments were already in an uproar.

[Holy crap, did he really pack all the free snacks from the plane into his bag?]

[What kind of reincarnated hamster is this! Mumu, look at your partner! It's so embarrassing!]

[The person above knows nothing! This is survival wisdom! It's just the instinct of a poor person, I get it!]

[Honestly, for a grown man to do this, his perspective is a bit small...]

Jiang Rumu walked half a step ahead of Li Li. She heard Yin Ruoying's "empty out," Fang Ruowei's "good at managing a household," and Gu Zeyan's "not putting on airs."

She gripped the handle of her suitcase, her knuckles slightly tense, but said nothing.

The shoulder straps dug painfully into Li Li's shoulders, but his steps were steady.

Perspective?

In his past life, when delivering food during a rainstorm, the customer threw the nine-point-nine yuan meal box, along with his rain-soaked dignity, into the trash right in front of him, cursing, "It's cold, bad review."

Compared to that, this is nothing.

This is survival instinct, it has nothing to do with dignity.

VIP entry channel, twenty minutes, everyone cleared customs.

The Production Team led them into an independent lounge on the side of the terminal, where the air conditioning was set like an ice cellar.

Director Pei Zhao stood in the center of the hall, her bright red nails holding a stack of cards, and three strings of lucky beads on her wrist turning slowly.

"Everyone, welcome to Dubai."

On the whiteboard behind her were four photos—motorcycle, sedan, bus, public bus.

"Your destination is the Burj Al Arab. The means of transportation are these four types. As for which pair gets which vehicle, the next game will decide."

Shen Jue immediately raised his hand: "Director Pei! Is the motorcycle the kind where two people ride one?"

"Yes."

Shen Jue's mind already conjured an image of Wen Ditang sitting in his back seat, her fishtail braid fluttering in the wind, and he immediately declared: "I'll give it my all!"

Director Pei Zhao ignored him, flipped open the cards, and was about to announce the rules.

Buzz, buzz, buzz—

It wasn't one person's phone.

It was everyone's.

The ten guests present, more than twenty staff members, nearly forty phones, all vibrated violently at the exact same second.

Li Li took out his phone.

A push notification occupied the entire screen.

Red border, yellow background, dense Arabic text like a swarm of twisted worms.

The whole room instantly went quiet.

Director Pei Zhao looked down at her phone, and the strings of lucky beads stopped: "What is this? Ghost symbols?"

Han Xubai was about to open a translation app: "Arabic, I don't know a single character. Does anyone know it?"

Shen Jue even held up his phone and shouted at Director Pei Zhao: "Director Pei, is this a welcome message from the Dubai carrier? It's quite unique!"

"Is your welcome message red?" Director Pei Zhao retorted irritably.

Just as everyone was still discussing it in a cacophony, Li Li's expression changed.

The [Arabic Proficiency] given by the system wasn't just for show; those ghost symbols decoded automatically in his mind, as fast as scanning a barcode—

[Emergency Air Defense Alert. This area has been listed within the range of a missile attack warning. Estimated time of strike: 8 minutes. All personnel, please evacuate immediately to the nearest underground shelter. If evacuation is impossible, please find shelter on the spot—]

Eight minutes.

Missile.

Li Li reached out instinctively and yanked the shoulder straps of the heavy backpack on his back.

This action, born from survival instinct, made Jiang Rumu, who had been watching him out of the corner of her eye, feel her heart jump violently.

"Stop talking," Li Li said. His voice wasn't loud, but it was like a cold knife, instantly cutting through all the noise in the lounge, "Quiet, listen to me."

Everyone's gaze fixed squarely on him.

He held up his phone, the screen facing everyone.

"This is not a welcome message."

"It is an official Arabic air defense warning."

He paused, every word like a bullet, precisely shooting into everyone's ears.

"In eight minutes, a missile will hit this area."

The air froze completely at this moment.

The stack of cards in Director Pei Zhao's hands scattered to the floor with a clatter, and she forgot to turn her three strings of lucky beads.

Shen Jue's phone dropped to the ground with a "snap," the screen shattering into pieces.

Han Xubai's hand adjusting his glasses froze on the frame, forgetting to retract.

The perfect sunny smile on Gu Zeyan's face cracked for the first time, then shattered piece by piece and disappeared.

Yin Ruoying's fingers holding her sunglasses stopped in mid-air, her pair of carefully painted phoenix eyes staring wide open.

Jiang Rumu stared at him, all the blood in her body seeming to rush to her brain in that instant.

Seven minutes and fifty seconds.