Stepdaughter of a wealthy family? The little darling of a Beijing tycoon

The middle-aged man walked behind the curtain, and their eyes met.

The man looked at her, asking about the situation.

The short-haired woman, disguised as a flight attendant, chuckled lightly: "The flight attendants recognized me, but it's alright. I've already knocked them out and locked them in the locker room. What about the rest?"

"They're all in their original positions."

"Okay, let's go out then."

The short-haired woman ripped off her flight attendant uniform, revealing a black, tight-fitting leather jacket and pants underneath, with heavy leather boots on her feet. She took a package from a locker in the corner, and the two of them squatted down and quickly disassembled and reassembled it.

Once the items were assembled, they turned out to be two standard-issue pistols.

The two exchanged a glance, then abruptly ripped open the curtain and strode out.

The economy class passengers were caught off guard and immediately panicked when they saw two men wielding guns. The more timid ones couldn't help but scream in terror, and everyone frantically tried to hide, but the airplane cabin was cramped, and there were no extra partitions between the seats, so there was nowhere to hide.

"Bang!"

The middle-aged man raised his hand and pulled the trigger towards the empty seat next to him.

A piercing gunshot suddenly rang out in the cabin, the loud noise instantly silencing all the panicked cries and screams, and the noisy cabin fell into a deathly silence.

The man's expression was calm, his tone casual, yet his words were filled with a chilling threat: "Ladies and gentlemen, we have no intention of harming you. We hope you will cooperate, put your hands behind your heads, sit quietly in your seats, and refrain from running around or making any noise."

This thing in my hand doesn't discriminate. If you startle it, and my hand shakes, who knows what might happen.

Gunshots echoed in the enclosed cabin, and a faint smell of gunpowder filled the air.

In economy class, Xu Zhixia, Song Ran, and Lin Miaomiao froze, their faces pale, instinctively clutching the lucky charms in their pockets, their bodies trembling slightly.

Shen Jingshu remained calm, her gaze fixed on the two thugs, a subtle spiritual energy flickering in her eyes.

She knew that at 10,000 meters altitude, without outside help, if the situation got out of control, everyone on the plane would be in dire straits.

Just then, two more passengers in business class suddenly stood up from their seats, rushed forward, and grabbed Mr. Xu, who was wearing glasses, from both sides.

"Mr. Xu, I've heard so much about you."

Mr. Xu was typing rapidly on his laptop when he heard the noise. His fingers suddenly stopped, and he slowly raised his head, looking at the people in front of him with a serious expression.

"Who are you people? How dare you commit violence with guns on a passenger plane? What exactly do you want?"

The leader of the thugs chuckled and said, "It's nothing else. We brothers just want something that Mr. Xu has."

Mr. Xu's heart sank, and he instantly understood.

Their goal is the research results they have.

He is a professor at a medical research institute, and his laboratory has just successfully developed an antidote capable of defeating the novel virus. This achievement is currently known only to him and a few key members of his laboratory. He has reported it to the national authorities and is awaiting the handover. His trip to Yunnan was originally intended to attend an important academic lecture, but he never expected the news to leak so quickly.

Mr. Xu's gaze was deep, and he secretly suspected that there must be a mole hiding among his men.

The identity of the other party is unknown, and it is unclear which foreign force they belong to, yet they dared to take such a risk and attempt to kidnap people on a plane at an altitude of 10,000 meters.

Inside the confined cabin, the smell of gunpowder mixed with a tense and suffocating atmosphere permeated the air.

Shen Jingshu, in economy class, took in everything. Activating her divine eye, she saw that Mr. Xu was surrounded by a thick golden light of merit. This research result was related to the lives of thousands of people and must not fall into the hands of evildoers.

She turned her head and whispered to her three trembling roommates beside her, "Stay in your seat and don't move. Don't look up or anything."

Xu Zhixia and the other two clutched their personal safety charms tightly, clenching their teeth, not daring to make a sound.

The assailant slightly turned the gun in his hand, aiming it at Mr. Xu, his tone laced with unyielding threat: "Hand over that document, and we might let you go. If you refuse to cooperate, don't blame us for being impolite."

"Do you think I would carry something so important with me? I've already put it in a safe place." Mr. Xu's expression was calm, without the slightest hint of panic.

"Oh? Is that so?" The blond, mixed-race man smirked, his fluent Mandarin tinged with a faint exotic accent. "In that case, we'll have to trouble Mr. Xu to come with us and personally take us to pick it up."

He turned to look at the man beside him and ordered in a deep voice, "Scorpion, tie him up."

"Roger that, boss." The man codenamed Scorpion stepped forward, took out restraints, and tightly bound Mr. Xu's hands and feet. He then searched Mr. Xu's backpack. After a thorough search, he found nothing related to the antidote for the virus, except for a laptop, identification, and a few changes of clothes.

Scorpion looked up at the blond man and gently shook his head.

The blond man, codenamed Viper, was the leader of this overseas mercenary squad. A cold glint flashed in his eyes as he looked at the scene: "Looks like we'll have to activate the second plan."

They had already prepared a plan when they accepted the mission. If Mr. Xu had the documents with him, they could simply seize them on the spot and call it a day; if he didn't have the documents, they would kidnap him and force him to hand them over.

"There's a third option," Viper added in a low voice. "Even if we don't get the data in the end, as long as we take Mr. Xu away, we can force him to re-derive the experimental data while he's alive. How much result he gets is entirely up to us."

Scorpion nodded in agreement, slightly raising the pistol in his hand and pressing it against Mr. Xu's shoulder.

From the economy class side, Shen Jingshu could see everything clearly with her Heavenly Eye. The venomous snake was shrouded in a thick, murderous aura, its hands stained with more than one life; the scorpion's blood-red aura was equally surging. This group of mercenaries was ruthless and didn't care about the lives of the other passengers on board.

She secretly pinched an invisibility talisman between her fingers, slowly infusing it with spiritual energy to temporarily conceal the presence of herself and the three people beside her, Xu Zhixia. She lowered her voice and whispered, "No matter what happens, keep your head down and don't look them in the eye."

Xu Zhixia and the other two kept their heads down, their shoulders trembling slightly, and they pressed tightly to the amulets on their chests, even breathing very softly.

Viper raised his eyes and scanned the entire cabin, shouting, "Everyone, keep your heads down and don't try to contact the outside world. We're in control of the plane now. Anyone who tries anything funny will be in for a world of hurt."

The cabin was deathly silent, save for the passengers' suppressed breathing. Ten thousand meters in the air, isolated and helpless, the mercenaries had already taken control of the situation.