UAAG CH49

With a slap, a stinging pain came from the back of his hand.

Zhuo Huan withdrew his hand but wasn’t angry about being hit.

After slapping the man’s hand away, the dark-haired young man lowered his gaze and swept a glance over him. On his elegant and refined face, the expression was indifferent and unwavering.

Fu Cheng’s back was pressed against the marble railing of the balcony, his chest tightly compressed by this person; he was locked in this small space. The excessive proximity made the scents of both parties inevitably intertwine.

“Fu Cheng.”

The husky male voice dragged out his name in a tone that was ambiguous to the extreme.

Fu Cheng looked up.

Zhuo Huan: “For you.” He took a thin card out of his pocket, his eyes staring unblinkingly at the young man before him. At the same time, holding the card in one hand, he slid it along Fu Cheng’s pant leg and gently slipped it into his pocket.

After a moment of silence, Fu Cheng asked, “What is it?”

Zhuo Huan gave an “Oh” and said, “Room card.”

Fu Cheng: “…”

Zhuo Huan stood up. He chuckled lightly, shoved his hands into his pockets, and turned around with great pleasure to walk toward the balcony door.

Behind him, the dark-haired young man’s lips moved; he pressed them together tightly but ultimately failed to utter a single word.

Fu Cheng followed him.

By the time the two returned to the investigation headquarters, Old Joseph and the others had already started reviewing the accident investigation data for Emirates Flight 411. Seeing them return, Lina looked up, somewhat surprised: “Reid, you seem to be in a good mood.”

Zhuo Huan raised an eyebrow slightly: “Do I?”

Lina smiled: “You do.”

Su Fei observed carefully for a long time: “Where? How come I can’t tell RIP is in a good mood? Isn’t it still that same ‘I am the biggest boss in the world’ face?”

When Old Joseph saw Fu Cheng enter the room, he raised his hand and waved vigorously: “Fu, you’re finally back. There’s something I wanted to ask you. When you interviewed that witness—oh right, her name is Betty? When you interviewed that Betty, what exactly did she say, and what was her reaction at the time?”

Fu Cheng strode past Zhuo Huan and walked to Old Joseph’s desk: “Which part do you mean?”

“Just the part where she saw the fragment…”

The brisk walk stirred up a breeze, and Zhuo Huan sniffed: Hah, it’s still the smell of verbena.

Before Zhuo Huan left, he had an argument with the GCAA investigator, Maha, but Maha wasn’t angry. Seeing Zhuo Huan return, he was actually a bit nervous, afraid he would be reprimanded again. Suddenly, seeing Zhuo Huan walking toward him, he held his breath instantly; it felt like a basin of burning charcoal was under his chair, making it impossible to sit still.

But after Zhuo Huan walked up to him and stopped, he said, “It’s fine not to make it public, but the NTSB must be contacted.”

Maha was stunned and looked up: “Mr. Patrick?”

Zhuo Huan looked at him calmly: “The NTSB has been established for over sixty years; their aircraft accident investigation technology and experience far exceed yours. Regarding the Emirates Flight 411 crash twenty-three years ago, it wasn’t so much that the NTSB assisted you in the investigation, but rather that the NTSB was conducting the investigation. What you have are merely the results after they finished investigating. It’s possible that they took away a lot of classified technical data.”

Maha was dumbfounded.

Zhuo Huan: “It doesn’t have to be made public right now, but if no one from the NTSB comes over to assist, there is almost no possibility of finding out the truth about this crash.”

Maha looked troubled: “This isn’t something I can decide alone, Mr. Patrick. It involves a lot of things.”

Zhuo Huan: “You handle it.”

Maha: “…”

Dropping that understated sentence, Zhuo Huan turned and left, leaving behind a conflicted and pained Maha.

The Arab man frowned deeply, his heart heavy, his thick black eyebrows knitted so tightly they could crush a bug. However, not long after, a beautiful blonde woman walked up to him and asked in a melodious voice, “You look very troubled, Maha. Is there anything I can solve for you?”

Maha looked up: “Lina?”

Lina blinked: “Leave the matters regarding the GCAA executives and the government to me; I’ll go with you to solve them. We should do it today without delay, but I’ll need you to lead the way, as I don’t know the route.”

Maha was moved: “Lina, I really don’t know how to thank you.”

Lina smiled gently: “No need to thank me; it was Reid who asked me to help you. I’m not putting in a good word for him this time—he has a terrible temper and is very annoying—but he isn’t really that unreasonable. He did indeed send me a message just now asking me to assist you with this. Actually, if you hadn’t said something like ‘it’s for the witness’s consideration’ earlier, he probably wouldn’t have been so angry. Compared to high-ranking officials who disregard the truth and only seek their own interests, he hates hypocritical liars who use kindness as a cover even more.”

Maha blushed immediately but had nothing to say in response.

Yes, of the three reasons he gave Zhuo Huan earlier, only the first was the true reason.

Who would care about a stowaway about to be extradited back to Yemen? How she would be scolded by the public, or how she would be swallowed by the angry fire of the victims’ families—what did that have to do with those high and mighty officials?

As for the third reason… Maha didn’t even believe it himself. A fragment flying off the outer surface of the plane before the explosion having nothing to do with the crash? If there really was no connection, or if the probability of a connection was low, the GCAA would never have reopened a case from twenty-three years ago.

They reopened this case because everyone was clear that the truth of the Emirates Flight 411 crash was definitely not what was found twenty-three years ago. At least, not only that.

Therefore, not making it public and not contacting the NTSB.

The real reason was simply to preserve the face of the GCAA and protect everyone involved at that time.

Maha was silent for a moment, then stood up: “Let’s go. We might be busy for a long time, so we need to act fast.”

Lina looked at his determined expression and smiled: “I think there’s a saying you might not know?”

“What saying?”

“No matter what happens… trust Lina.”

“July 11, 1998. Emirates Flight 411 took off from Dubai International Airport, heading for Sydney. Five minutes after takeoff, just entering the climb phase, it crashed.” Fu Cheng spoke while looking at the data. “At that time, the plane had just taken off, and the fuel tanks were full of gasoline, a full 12 tons. The weather in Dubai was hot. After firefighters arrived at the scene, they could only try their best to rescue the people on board, but they were unable to extinguish the fire on the fuselage. Consequently, one hour after the crash, Emirates Flight 411 exploded.”

Old Joseph asked, “With 12 tons of aviation fuel, what was the explosive yield?”

Fu Cheng flipped through the subsequent data and looked up to answer him: “I think you don’t want to know the answer. Three minutes before the explosion, all passengers with vital signs had been rescued. But ultimately, there were 38 victims, 6 of whom died from the subsequent blast wave, including a firefighter.”

After being rescued, they had left the burning plane as fast as possible.

But relying solely on the shockwave, this terrible explosion took the lives of six victims.

Old Joseph: “I saw the photos of the wreckage in the file; it’s all blackened. Although the plane didn’t fall into the sea, which made evidence collection much easier—all the wreckage in the desert was found—it was blown up like this. With the accident investigation technology of twenty-three years ago, could anything be detected?”

“Almost nothing could be detected.”

Everyone looked up at Zhuo Huan.

Zhuo Huan sat by the window. Chewing gum and spinning his chair, his voice was cool: “Twenty-three years ago, even the NTSB with the most advanced equipment and technology would have been very limited in what they could find when facing an almost scrapped plane. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have made such a stupid mistake as not discovering that a piece of iron had already peeled off the wing before the plane crashed.”

Su Fei: “What about the black box back then?”

Zhuo Huan raised his eyes and swept a glance at him: “Blown to bits.”

Su Fei: “???”

“No, what do you mean blown to bits?”

Fu Cheng answered this question for him. He opened a record file and handed it to Su Fei: “When the plane hit the ground, the black box was already damaged. The rescue personnel at the time had no time to look for the black box; they went to save people first. And as you know, three minutes after everyone was rescued, the plane exploded. Then, the black box was blown up like this.”

Su Fei lowered his head and looked at the photo in the file: “…”

This pitch-black thing cracked into three pieces is the plane’s black box?

Su Fei still found it incredible. He had never seen such a miserable black box: “Did Boeing really not cut corners? According to regulations, the flight data recorder must have excellent resistance to impact and vibration. Under a three-axis semi-sine wave impact vibration with a peak acceleration of 3400g, it must be able to withstand at least 6.5ms!”

Old Joseph patted his shoulder: “12 tons of aviation fuel, bang, exploded all at once. Feel that.”

Su Fei: “…”

“Maybe Boeing really did cut corners.”

Su Fei whipped his head around: “RIP?!”

Zhuo Huan tossed the folder aside, letting it slide a few centimeters across the table. He said lazily, “Fragments peeled off the upper surface of the wing, and the cause found afterward was the accidental fracture of the engine fan blade… Ah, right. In ’96, Emirates ordered 35 Boeing 777s from Boeing. Maybe to meet the delivery deadline, they cut corners? It’s not impossible.”

All the investigators in the room: “…”

In this world, probably only Master Zhuo dared to openly slander Boeing for manufacturing shoddy, substandard products in public.

No one dared to continue Zhuo Huan’s line of thought.

Fu Cheng continued reading the data: “The post-accident investigation took a year and a half. It seems that a plane damaged to this extent indeed caused great difficulties for the investigators. Finally, an investigator carefully examined the right engine and found some fan blade fragments in the tail cone. Tests confirmed that these fragments were the culprits that caused the explosion of the plane’s right engine.”

1998, Emirates Flight 411 crash.

The final investigation result: A low-pressure fan blade in the right engine suffered a very accidental, hard-to-replicate sudden metal fracture. This blade was sucked into the tail cone of the plane, leading to the explosion of the right engine and the subsequent crash.

Afterward, the NTSB and Boeing conducted multiple studies but could never find out exactly how that fan blade broke.

They had been blown to smithereens. Trying to do metal material tests was impossible with the technology at the time.

In the end, the official result was: accidental and unreplicable metal fracture, suspected to be caused by inferior materials.

This touched upon the issue of factory quality inspection for engines.

As a top manufacturer in the aircraft engine field, Rolls-Royce was very confident in the quality of its products.

However, when all roads led to dead ends, everyone could only turn back and attribute the cause to quality issues with the Rolls-Royce engine.

That year, Rolls-Royce fought a lawsuit with Boeing over this and eventually paid out 350,000 US dollars. The compensation was very low because the jury ultimately dared not be certain whether it was truly an engine quality issue, and there was significant disagreement within the jury. However, regardless, Rolls-Royce ended up paying a sum of money, which damaged Rolls-Royce’s corporate image that year.

For three consecutive days, everyone was reviewing the data on the Emirates Flight 411 crash.

The more he read, the more Fu Cheng realized that the implications behind this crash were vast.

Boeing, Emirates Airlines, NTSB, Emirates Immigration Department, Rolls-Royce…

If, twenty-three years later, the conclusion was truly reversed, the impact would likely be immeasurable.

Three days later, Lina and Maha successfully persuaded the UAE authorities to contact the NTSB on the condition that the investigation details not be made public. As for how to get the NTSB to keep it a secret, that was a matter for the UAE authorities.

The ninety-six boxes of accident investigation data kept almost all investigators living at the investigation headquarters, with no time to rest.

Until the fourth day, when Lina returned.

As soon as she entered the investigation headquarters, Lina’s expression changed drastically, and she almost suffocated. She held her breath and quickly walked into the UAAG exclusive office. “Phew, phew, I’m alive again.” The blonde woman gasped for air. The next second, she saw Zhuo Huan sitting by the window reading documents and marched over angrily: “Reid, how long has it been since those people outside went home?!”

Zhuo Huan: “Huh? What does that have to do with me? How would I know?”

Su Fei lay on the table, eyelids drooping as he read documents, and said weaky, “Three days.”

Lina asked in disbelief: “Three days?! They haven’t showered for three days?!”

“Because we were ordered to finish reading all these documents in the fastest time possible, there was no time to waste. And Lina…” Old Joseph added, “Actually, we haven’t been back to the hotel for three days either… Of course, we showered; we shower every day! But as for that group outside, I don’t know.”

Lina covered her mouth. She looked at Zhuo Huan and raged: “Reid, you promised me. You guaranteed that your subordinates would shower at least once every two days, even if they had some special religious beliefs!”

Zhuo Huan: “They shower every day.” He pointed his chin at Fu Cheng, Su Fei, and Old Joseph.

Lina: “What about the ones outside?!”

Zhuo Huan: “They aren’t my subordinates.”

Lina: “Right now, they are! I command you, immediately, right now, let them go home! Go shower! Change into clean clothes! Otherwise, Reid · Ivrin · Patrick, you are dead meat!”

Zhuo Huan: “…”

Zhuo Huan’s face darkened: “Lina, you know I don’t like anyone shouting at me in publ…”

“Shut up!” Lina shouted.

Zhuo Huan: “…”

Three minutes later, the GCAA investigators, who hadn’t been home for three days and three nights and had been living in a drunken stupor of work, suddenly received an order: Go home immediately to shower and rest, change clothes, and come back to work in the afternoon. Hearing this order, they initially couldn’t believe it, thinking they were having another sweet dream. It wasn’t until Zhuo Huan repeated it that they cheered and disappeared from the investigation headquarters within seconds.

Lina got the cleaners to thoroughly clean the outer office area, not sparing a single corner. She also opened the windows for ventilation to disperse the smell of men’s sweat in the room.

She really couldn’t believe that she was only gone for three days, and these people could turn into this!

That evening when returning to the hotel, Zhuo Huan was the last to leave.

Master Zhuo was always like this. He seemed busy every day. besides reading the EK411 data, he often received emails and even frequently held phone conferences with others. Whenever he had something come up and found a quiet place to talk, Lina would ask the driver to wait for him so they could all return to the hotel together after he came back.

However, today, after waiting for ten minutes with no sign of him.

Su Fei: “I’m so hungry. I miss the seafood restaurant at the Burj Al Arab, the one you take a submarine to get to. Sigh, waiting for RIP for so long, I’m gonna post on Moments to scold him.”

Old Joseph: “I know your main point isn’t to scold Reid, but to tell your friends that you’re about to go to the seafood restaurant.”

Su Fei chuckled.

Lina: “Then let’s go first.”

Fu Cheng paused and instinctively said, “Lina?”

Lina smiled faintly: “Fu, don’t worry. Reid isn’t a child; doesn’t he know how to get back to the hotel? Maybe he wants to stay at the investigation headquarters for another day.”

Ten minutes later, Zhuo Huan walked out of the main gate while looking at his phone. Arriving at the roadside, he looked up and froze abruptly.

Looking around, the aloof and handsome man opened his phone and found a contact.

[Zhuo Huan: Where are you guys?]

[Lina: Su Fei was hungry, so we left first. Reid, take a taxi back yourself. Remember to keep the receipt; I’ll reimburse your fare.]

Zhuo Huan: “…”

Is he lacking that bit of taxi money?!

Never provoke a woman unless you want to admire the fires of hell.

The next morning, Lina’s anger finally subsided. However, the group waited downstairs for ten minutes but didn’t see Zhuo Huan.

Old Joseph: “Lina, is Reid mad at you?”

Lina furrowed her slender brows, took out her phone, and lowered her head to send a message. After a while, she sighed and looked at Fu Cheng: “Fu, Reid isn’t replying to messages. He might really be angry. You live on the same floor as Reid; can you go check on him for me?”

“Okay.”

The Rolls-Royce waited downstairs. Fu Cheng swiped his card to go upstairs and arrived at Zhuo Huan’s door.

He rang the doorbell and waited quietly for a few seconds, but there was no answer from inside.

Fu Cheng rang the doorbell again, still no reaction. The soundproofing of the hotel room door was excellent; even when Fu Cheng quietly pressed his ear against it, he couldn’t hear a sound. He fell silent, then rang the doorbell again, but there was still no response this time.

He took out his phone and sent a message.

[Fu Cheng: Teacher Zhuo, I am outside your door.]

Three minutes passed, silence.

He sent a voice call directly, but no one answered until the call automatically disconnected after thirty seconds.

After a long silence, Fu Cheng took the room card out of his pocket.

With a beep, the door opened.

Hand on the door handle, thinking for a few seconds, the young man gritted his teeth, pressed down the handle, and pushed the door open to enter.

Upon entering, there was an entry hallway paved with a painted wool carpet, with several Rococo-style oil paintings by famous artists hanging on the walls. Further ahead was the spacious and bright living room. A suitcase was casually thrown there, leaning against the corner, wide open in a very haphazard manner.

Passing the study, Fu Cheng saw a watch out of the corner of his eye. It wasn’t the Patek Philippe they gave, nor the Audemars Piguet Lina gave, but a Vacheron Constantin. It seemed Zhuo Huan was wearing this one yesterday, and now it was casually thrown on the desk.

There were two bedrooms in the suite, but one door was open; only the master bedroom was closed.

Standing before the door for a long time, Fu Cheng pressed the handle.

It wasn’t locked.

A trace of surprise flashed through his mind, and by the time he came back to his senses, he had already pushed the door open.

Dim and gloomy light acted like gray gauze, shrouding everything in the room and casting a hazy mist over it. Two laptops were placed crookedly on the coffee table in the room. The screens were on, but the content wasn’t clear.

Fu Cheng withdrew his gaze and looked at the bed in the center of the room.

The duvet rose slightly in a small mound; Zhuo Huan was still sleeping.

Standing at the doorway in deep thought for a long time, Fu Cheng walked into the room with a calm expression, tiptoeing to the bedside. He called out softly, “Teacher Zhuo.”

No response.

Zhuo Huan had pulled the duvet over his head; not a single hair could be seen.

Fu Cheng raised his voice a bit: “Teacher Zhuo.”

A moment later.

“Teacher Zhuo!”

Rustling sounds rang out instantly. Fu Cheng was stunned, and before he could react, his wrist was grabbed. The next second, the world spun. His knee hit the edge of the soft bed, and losing his balance, Fu Cheng fell onto the bed. He looked up, his gaze falling into a pair of drowsy, bewildered eyes.

His eyes widened, and his voice stopped abruptly.

The second hand of the clock hanging on the living room wall moved, making a ticking sound.

Zhuo Huan looked at the young man separated by a duvet and pressed under him. His eyes slowly focused. He gradually woke up, turned his head, and looked at Fu Cheng. The next moment, a low laugh came from his nasal cavity, carrying the huskiness of sleep. He whispered, “You’re here.”

Leaning down, he lowered his head and kissed the young man’s lips.

Then, he kissed the palm of Fu Cheng’s hand.

With this kiss, Zhuo Huan was truly fully awake. He frowned, propped one hand beside Fu Cheng, and raised an eyebrow at him.

Lying on the bed, Fu Cheng withdrew his hand. His eyes were calm, his voice indifferent: “Teacher Zhuo, it’s already the next morning. It is 10:30 now; Lina asked me to come up and call you.”

Zhuo Huan frowned: “Oh.”

He released the hand pressing down on Fu Cheng, straightened his upper body, and reached for clothes, seemingly about to get dressed.

Fu Cheng pursed his lips and propped himself up. Before he could get off the bed, he heard a laptop on the coffee table beside the bed start pinging. Zhuo Huan threw away the T-shirt he had just grabbed, lay prone on the edge of the bed, stretched out his arm to grab the laptop, and dragged it to the edge of the coffee table.

From Fu Cheng’s angle, he only saw the man’s smooth, beautiful back suspended off the bed, the duvet covering him from the waist down, revealing a sliver of dim light.

His heart didn’t fluctuate much. He shifted his body to the edge of the bed, wanting to stand up.

“Fu Cheng, haven’t you always wanted to know what I’m doing?”

His movements paused. Fu Cheng lowered his head to look at this man.

“No, you misunderstood.”

Zhuo Huan laughed. Without looking up, he reached out a hand, grabbed Fu Cheng’s arm, and pulled him to his side, making him lie prone on the edge of the bed as well. Fu Cheng was startled, but Zhuo Huan pointed at the computer screen: “Do you know what this is?”

Fu Cheng turned his head, followed the direction of his finger, and looked at the computer screen.

Instantly, complex and massive numbers and symbols, as well as various graphs and curves that were impossible to understand, filled his vision. The entire computer screen was packed with various mathematical calculations and physics formulas.

Fu Cheng opened his mouth: “…I don’t understand.”

Zhuo Huan gave a soft “Oh”. One arm around Fu Cheng’s shoulder, his slightly long hair brushed past Fu Cheng’s eyes.

“Fluid dynamic analysis of the wreckage of Rogue 318.”

His heart trembled violently. Fu Cheng turned his head to look at the man beside him.

Zhuo Huan looked at the computer screen and said in a very casual tone, “Including seawater flow, ocean current movement, marine meteorology, weather changes in Canadian waters over the past four and a half years, etc… Laplace said that as long as the exact position and momentum of every atom in the universe is known, the entire process of cosmic events can be revealed through calculation—deducing the past and predicting the future. Everything in the world can be calculated.”

His voice paused, and he turned to look at Fu Cheng: “Do you understand?”

Fu Cheng’s throat was dry, his clear eyes staring blankly at him.

Zhuo Huan: “In short, simply put, I want to calculate… where Rogue 318 is.”

A long silence, requiring almost all his strength to suppress his rapid breathing. Fu Cheng didn’t know what to say, and didn’t even dare to meet this man’s eyes. his gaze shifted downward, and then…

Fu Cheng: “…”

“Teacher Zhuo, do you like sleeping naked?”

Zhuo Huan paused, then laughed: “Yeah.”

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