# 231
Chapter 231 – The Cabin
Lin Qiye’s pupils shrank to pinpricks. Lightning-fast, he shot out a hand and clawed at the smooth fuselage. At the same time a burst of darkness erupted from his body, denting the metal just enough for his fingers to hook in.
Only after anchoring himself did he steady his balance. With his free hand he swept the air and sent the unconscious A Zhu straight back to the asylum.
“This little guy’s kind of unreliable—nearly got me killed.” Lin Qiye glanced downward; cold sweat had already soaked his back.
He’d lived this long without ever setting foot on a plane, and now his first intimate contact with one turned out to be the life-threatening kind!
He sucked in a breath, forcing himself to calm.
The aircraft had already taken off. Cangnan City wasn’t large—at this speed they’d cross the ritual zone in under a minute. If nothing had gone wrong, the pilots were now under the bar-owner’s control; once the plane entered the zone it would circle in the sky until the ceremony ended.
He had to locate An Qingyu and get into the cabin—fast.
Lin Qiye stretched out his left hand again, sketching a summoning array in mid-air. A silver Rubik’s cube materialized and rotated slowly.
“Counting on you this time—don’t be as flaky as A Zhu.” He murmured, eyes shutting.
The next instant the cube blazed silver; space around him twisted. Three consecutive displacements carried him from the tail to the belly of the aircraft.
When he popped into existence beside An Qingyu, the latter blinked, about to speak—only for Lin Qiye to grab his collar and scramble space again.
By the time An Qingyu regained his bearings, the two of them were standing inside the lavatory.
He looked around blankly, astonished. “You can teleport? Some relic on you?”
He never considered any other possibility; in his mind Lin Qiye didn’t possess a spatial-type Forbidden Ruin, so the distortion had to be a relic.
Lin Qiye ignored the question, switching on his earpiece.
“I’ve boarded the target aircraft.”
“Nice work, Qiye!” Hongying’s voice crackled through. “We couldn’t make it—we’re tailing you by road.”
On an empty street a black van screamed along. Hongying gripped the wheel, gaze fixed on the plane overhead, then flung the van into a sharp drift down an alley.
In the passenger seat Wu Xiangnan wore the expression of a man marching to his execution, knuckles white on the ceiling handle as though it were the last lifeline keeping him earthbound.
Si Xiaonan sat in back, eyes shut, doll-like, surrendering to every jolt.
“Qiye, you’re the only one up there,” Chen Muye said gravely. “Saving Wen Qimo and the passengers falls to you. I know it’s too much for a rookie fresh out of training, but we have no choice…”
The aircraft was too high; even if Team 136 wanted to help, they couldn’t. And with a hundred lives aboard, any mishap meant a fireball in the sky—and flaming wreckage raining onto apartment blocks below.
“Copy that.”
Lin Qiye’s calm reply came through the comm.
On the ground Hongying’s grip on the wheel tightened until her knuckles blanched, eyes never leaving the aircraft. Everyone in 136 felt their hearts in their throats.
After all, Lin Qiye was only a newly graduated “Pool”-realm rookie; facing this alone was perilous.
Then, as though remembering something, his voice returned:
“Oh, never got the chance to mention it… I graduated top of the training camp.”
With that he pulled out the earpiece and pocketed it.
He looked up to find An Qingyu staring at him oddly.
“What?”
“Do you always show off like that?” An Qingyu asked, dead serious. “Honestly, it felt kind of forced.”
Lin Qiye: …
Ignoring the jab, he pushed open the lavatory door and stepped out.
His mental perception had already mapped the surroundings. Entering the passenger cabin, he saw no panic—instead excited children’s voices filled the air; the atmosphere was livelier than expected. Only a few adults glanced out the windows, puzzled why the plane hadn’t climbed yet.
Lin Qiye studied the scene, thoughtful.
So the bar owner hadn’t hijacked the passengers outright; he’d covertly seized the cockpit crew.
An Qingyu followed. Noticing the odd looks from passengers at two men exiting the lavatory together, he ignored them. “Cockpit?”
“Likely.” Lin Qiye nodded and strode toward the nose.
As they walked he glanced outside; the aircraft was seconds from the ritual zone.
“Flight attendants must be controlled too,” An Qingyu observed. “We’ve walked half the plane—normally we’d have been told to sit, but no one’s appeared.”
Lin Qiye agreed; his senses detected no crew.
They passed through first class to the forward bulkhead. A blue-grey curtain separated the galley from view. A handful of first-class passengers dozed in their seats.
An Qingyu didn’t yank the curtain; he looked to Lin Qiye, who narrowed his eyes.
“Attendants are controlled, right behind this curtain. But the cockpit… there’s more than the bar owner. Two mysteries are with him. One looks like the Ten-Slice Demon Child; the other’s sealed in crystal, half-dead.”