Author note: PAN-PAN: An emergency signal indicating a distress situation without casualties, derived from the French word “panne,” meaning “breakdown.”
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Since that dinner night, Fang Hao hadn’t seen Chen Jiayu at Daxing Airport for a week.
In the days that followed, he was occupied with work and only realized on Friday, after inquiring with Fu Zixiang and Chu Yirou, that no one had seen Chen Jiayu all week. Chu Yirou, noticing Fang Hao’s concern, timidly asked him, “Are you two okay? Did you two…” She was too embarrassed to say the word quarrel.
Fang Hao shook his head and reassured her, “No, we’re fine. We just had dinner together on Monday.”
Chu Yirou offered to check with Zheng Xiaoxu for information, but she quickly dismissed the idea, noting that even Zheng Xiaoxu often couldn’t locate Jia Ge at T1, so it probably wouldn’t be helpful. She couldn’t even check his schedule either.
Fang Hao quickly said, “No need to bother him, I’ll ask myself.”
Apart from Zheng Xiaoxu, he could actually ask Zhou Qichen as well, but Fang Hao felt hesitant because of Lang Feng’s matter. He felt that he had let Zhou Qichen down and decided to wait until matters with Lang Feng were resolved before approaching Zhou Qichen again.
Counting the hours, Fang Hao sent a message to Chen Jiayu that afternoon: “Have you been flying these days?”
Since they got to know each other, Fang Hao usually sees Chen Jiayu every few days. Chen Jiayu worked on a four to two days schedule, with four days on and two days off.
During his workdays, Chen Jiayu mostly worked day shifts from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. and then returned at various times in the afternoon or evening. Departing and arriving twice, unless Fang Hao was working the night shift, he could always catch him at least once or often twice in the same shift, seeing him off and welcoming him back.
A few hours later, he received a reply from Chen Jiayu, who simply wrote: “Ah, I’m not here this week.” A moment later, he added: “I’m on vacation.”
Fang Hao recalled their conversation from Monday night. Chen Jiayu had not mentioned taking a few days off, and he even remembered that they had discussed schedules. The original plan was to fly to Chengdu, and from there the two had talked about Fang Hao’s internship as an air traffic controller at the challenging Panzhihua Airport, known for its treacherous terrain. Fang Hao was certain he hadn’t misremembered.
Sensing Chen Jiayu’s reservation, Fang Hao decided not to pry further and just showed concern by saying, “You’re not sick, are you?” Given the circumstances, the only possibility Fang Hao could guess was that he was ill.
Chen Jiayu replied with a polite: “No, thanks for asking. Just taking a vacation.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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Perhaps sensing that his messages were providing too little information, Chen Jiayu took the initiative to ask Fang Hao, “Let’s have a meal together when I get back next week.” He thought some things couldn’t wait, like the sudden decision to go to Hangzhou with his mother or things with Fang Hao.
Fang Hao thought meeting at his birthday party wouldn’t be bad, but he agreed since Chen Jiayu suggested it. He felt that there were too many ambiguities between them, and talking more might clear things up.
Chen Jiayu started planning his schedule for the following week while in Hangzhou. After a lengthy discussion with Wang Xiang, who was in charge of scheduling, he finally managed to free up Wednesday evening for dinner with Fang Hao and then attend Fang Hao’s birthday party on Friday night. The trade-off was that he was scheduled for a Saturday morning meeting, followed by a flight from Beijing to Shenzhen, with an overnight stay in Shenzhen, only returning to Beijing on Sunday evening.
He was looking forward to having a good chat over dinner with Fang Hao on Wednesday, but when Wednesday came, Fang Hao ended up canceling on him.
However, it wasn’t Fang Hao’s fault. Fang Hao was working a regular shift and about fifteen minutes away from finishing when a PAN-PAN call from Cargo Flight 1025 came through on the frequency, saying that the plane was having control problems.
Upon hearing the words “control problems,” Fang Hao’s blood ran cold.
Cargo Flight 1025 was an old 747 freighter from China Cargo Airlines, flying from Beijing Daxing to Urumqi in Xinjiang. Fang Hao knew the aircraft mainly carried cargo, with a crew of no more than ten people. But ten people are still people, and any control issue is a serious problem. Whether it was missing parts, structural damage, or hydraulic system failure, any of these could lead to difficulty in controlling the aircraft. Going beyond a simple engine failure emergency forcing a landing. It could lead to the pilot being unable to control the aircraft and carry out any instructions.
The captain’s voice was very calm as he called PAN on the frequency and then focused on troubleshooting and flying the plane. Fang Hao wasted no time in clearing the busy airspace. All aircraft waiting to take off were asked to wait, and all planes preparing to land were instructed to circle at high altitude.
After doing all this, he calmly informed the cargo crew over the frequency: “Cargo Flight 1025, you are cleared to land on any runway at Daxing.” Not knowing the extent of the aircraft’s damage, Fang Hao could only do his best to facilitate a safe landing for them.
At that time, Zhou Qichen was flying a Hainan Airlines A320 from the east for approach. The visibility was good in Beijing that day, and he saw Cargo 1025 going up and down in the air with his own eyes.
“We… seem to have a blockage in the elevator,” he heard the crew update the situation over the frequency. The elevator is a critical control surface on the tail that controls the aircraft's pitch angle. Damage to any part of the tail would have unimaginable consequences.
However, being in the aerospace industry, one learns that unimaginable things can happen. Even if the probability of something happening is one in a million, with 700,000 takeoffs and landings, statistically, it could happen 70 times.
Upon hearing the pilot’s words, Fang Hao and everyone on the radio fell silent. Everyone was sweating for Cargo Flight 1025.
The replacement for his shift had already arrived in the control room. Wang Zhanbo and Fu Zixiang were also there, all watching Fang Hao as Cargo Flight 1025 appeared on the radar screen. It was flashing with an emergency code 7700 and slowly moving towards the airport. Fortunately, although controlling the altitude was difficult, they could still control the direction.
In the end, Flight 1025 managed to align with a runway and began descending, disappearing from the approach radar due to its low height.
Fang Hao couldn’t see it, didn’t know the outcome, and couldn’t leave his post. He had to continue directing the other aircraft that had been circling in the sky, waiting to land.
This was probably the most agonizing wait he had ever experienced in his work. Three minutes later, he faintly felt the ground vibrating. Immediately after, five fire trucks from Daxing Airport were dispatched simultaneously, their sirens blaring. Fang Hao knew that the cargo flight had either landed or crashed, but he didn’t know the outcome as the tower’s phone was unreachable.
Fang Hao asked on the frequency, “Cargo Flight 1025… is there visual confirmation?” But all aircraft close to the ground in the approach frequency had been directed to circle again, none in the 4,000 to 6,000-meter altitude could see it, and no one responded.
He couldn’t see it, but Wang Zhanbo and Fu Zixiang, who were off duty, ran all the way to the tower and watched as the white Cargo Boeing 747-200 landed at the far end of the runway.
In the end, the Cargo flight chose Runway 17 Left, which was skewed but somehow managed to barely line up. At the moment of the hard landing, the landing gear punctured the wing on the spot. The plane slid several hundred meters on its belly, veered off the runway, and caught fire. Immediately after, the emergency evacuation slides were deployed, and the fire trucks surrounded the aircraft and started firefighting and rescue operations.
Fortunately, it had landed.
Fu Zixiang ran back to the approach control room and told Fang Hao that the tower had received evacuation instructions for Flight 1025 and there were no casualties. Fang Hao finally breathed a sigh of relief. Runway 17 Left had a small crater with severe surface damage and would have to be closed for repair. Today’s incident would undoubtedly be included in a major incident report, but Fang Hao didn’t care about that—the important thing was that everyone was safe.
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Chen Jiayu arrived and waited at 7 o’clock as agreed, but Fang Hao didn’t show up. He waited in the parking lot for nearly an hour, during which he heard the distant sound of fire trucks, which was not unusual at the airport. He tried messaging and calling Fang Hao multiple times but received no reply. Unsure of Fang Hao’s intentions, he decided to drive home feeling disappointed. Knowing Fang Hao was a reliable person and wouldn’t flake out without reason, Chen Jiayu concluded there must have been something important causing Fang Hao’s absence.
On his way home, he kept replaying the events in his mind, and suddenly, it seemed like a circuit was connected in his brain, especially after recalling the loud sirens of the fire trucks. Even though he was driving on the highway, he couldn’t wait and pulled over on the emergency lane on the South Third Ring Road Expressway and started searching for keywords like “Daxing Airport,” “control tower,” and “aircraft accident,” but found no relevant results.
Chen Jiayu sighed and left another voice chat for Fang Hao: “Did something happen today? Can you call me back when you get off work?”
Before Fang Hao could call back, Chen Jiayu found out through the captain’s group chat after he got home – China Cargo Flight 1025 had encountered elevator control issues after takeoff and was forced to make an emergency landing at Daxing Airport. The plane smashed a hole in the Daxing runway and was completely destroyed, but thankfully, all crew members were safe.
Zhou Qichen vividly described the harrowing experience in the group chat, with added drama, making Chen Jiayu frown with worry.
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When Fang Hao left the control tower at eleven o’clock, the incident had already been classified as the “11.10 special incident,” with media reports beginning to emerge. It was then that Fang Hao realized he had completely forgotten about his dinner appointment with Chen Jiayu.
In fact, after he had completed his shift, he could have checked his phone despite the ongoing post-incident procedures. However, at that time, he was still in a period of calming down after the crisis; his heart was still racing, and he had completely forgotten about the dinner appointment. Feeling guilty, Fang Hao called Chen Jiayu on his way home to explain the situation and apologize. He suggested making it up to him another time, but unfortunately, Chen Jiayu was scheduled to fly out early morning the next day to Hong Kong. So the two of them agreed to meet on the day of the birthday party instead.
Chen Jiayu, on the other end of the call, was very understanding when he heard about the situation. He didn’t dwell on Fang Hao missing their appointment but instead gently reassured him. “As long as everyone is safe, everything else is secondary. We have plenty of time.” – With a voice that naturally sounded a bit husky. Chen Jiayu doesn’t smoke, but he was born with a smooth, natural smoker voice that was both low and raspy. It might not be the most pleasant voice, but it’s very unique.
Now, that same voice was coming through the Bluetooth in the car, drifting with the autumn wind of Beijing, soothing and tingling, flowing right into Fang Hao’s heart.
Translator Notes: Next chapter: birthday! 😀 Have a good weekend everyone. 
Runway 17 Left is definitely a star in this novel. 😂 It got me curious. Anyway, this is how Daxing Airport looks. It opened in 2019 with a futuristic starfish design and I think it cost around $11 billion. Runway 17L is the one circled in red.
Anyway. I got a convinced to get a Ko-Fi now. Never tried this before, but thanks in advanced to anyone that’ll be buying me coffee and supporting the translation. 😂💜 I’m just happy people like this novel too and continue reading. 🙂
I was holding my breath during the accident, I’m glad the author spared us all and there were no casualties.
Thank you for the chapter!
hahaha. YES! She was nice to spare us the casualties! I also love how much she researched on the aviation topics. O.O
After reading this novel I will never feel the same when flying. Folks working in the aviation industry are truly heroes.
On a lighter note: is Fang Hao a voicecon? hahaha
You know what… you might be onto something!
Remember how Fang Hao is more physically expressive? Maybe a good voice is like a warm blanket covering his whole body. Hahahaha
Can they have a one nice day?
Thank You for the new chapter（♥￫ｏ￩♥）
Good days will be coming soon. The further we are in the novel, the more I love it. (✿˵ ꒡3꒡˵)