"Rumble, rumble."
This was the sound of the aircraft encountering turbulence as it flew over the Bering Strait.
But Lin Yuan could still take a sip of milk inside the plane. The industrial capabilities of the Russians were quite robust.
The cockpit was well-sealed, and the temperature inside was completely different from the outside.
Ahead lay the United States' Alaska, but Lin Yuan wouldn't fly directly there. Instead, he would skirt the coastline and fly to the mainland of the United States.
Although the piloting pressure was immense, if the plane malfunctioned, he could bail out in time.
Below was land, and he could quickly regain combat effectiveness, rather than drifting on the vast, boundless sea.
At this temperature, falling into the sea, even with Lin Yuan's physique, he would last at most five hours before dying from hypothermia.
"How long will this snow last?"
Ahead of the plane was an endless blizzard.
It was sweeping across the entire northern part of the continent.
Maneuvering the plane back and forth along the edge of the blizzard, his thoughts began to wander home.
The winter offensive in China must be starting soon.
He wondered which city would be the first to be completely cleared.
He also wondered how Zi Qi was doing.
Wu Tian and Xiao Jun Hui, where are you? Fortunately, the scenery while flying at low altitude was constantly changing. Although most of it was covered by ice and snow, some additional scenery could still be discerned.
It prevented the entire flight from being too boring.
Five hours had passed, and Lin Yuan's plane was about to cross Canada and reach the northern United States.
He took out the landscape painting that Ying Tian Long had given him and looked at it carefully. It depicted a luxurious manor with a medieval iron gate, a garden, a fountain, and everything else one could imagine, covering a vast area.
Only a small part of the manor was painted. From some details, it could be seen that there was a mountain behind the manor, with some buildings on it.
It looked like an extremely luxurious private estate.
Could it be that they had bought the entire mountain to use as a private estate?
The world of the rich was truly incomprehensible.
Just as he wanted to look closer at the details in the landscape painting, his eyes caught the alarm on the radar.
"What the hell."
On the radar scan, a huge "cloud" was rapidly approaching.
What kind of cloud could move so fast?!
A lightning storm?
How could the United States have such powerful weapons, and use them against his small plane!
Ying Tian Long had also warned him before he left that he might encounter anti-aircraft fire upon entering US airspace, but he hadn't expected it to be this outrageous.
Besides, he hadn't even entered yet!
With no time to ponder, Lin Yuan quickly piloted the plane away from the cloud.
After increasing speed, the cloud couldn't catch up.
He flew for more than ten minutes. Only after the black cloud behind him had disappeared did he begin to slow down.
"It must be a flock of some kind of birds," he thought with relief, and then turned his head.
The plane was hit head-on by several birds lingering in the air.
With a "bang," the left turbofan engine of the plane collided with something. After spinning a few times, it stopped and began to smoke.
The front windshield had also shattered into a spiderweb pattern, leaving only the reinforced glass covers on the sides for visibility.
Losing one engine, the plane's speed dropped significantly and it became even harder to control.
Unable to see the situation ahead, Lin Yuan could only use ground landmarks to understand his position.
He didn't even know his exact location anymore, only roughly judging that he was flying further south.
He had definitely entered the United States, but he didn't know how far. He could only try to land on the ground first.
He leveled the plane slightly, grabbed both supply bags, and punched the ejection button next to him.
"..."
Why wasn't anything happening?!
Lin Yuan waited for two seconds, but the seat under him remained motionless.
Was it broken?
The plane had already begun to descend. In this critical moment, Lin Yuan did not panic.
He picked up a hammer and was about to smash it down, but his body's instinct prevented his arm from moving. Just as he was about to strike.
His sometimes-working, sometimes-not-working sixth sense suddenly felt a great terror, sending chills from the base of his spine to the top of his head.
He remembered Simonov's "Russian-style" method for dealing with malfunctions.
Protecting his face and neck, he pulled out his FN57 and shot at the altimeter's dial.
"Bang!" The cockpit canopy opened, and Lin Yuan was catapulted out.
However, under his buttocks, it wasn't the entire chair but only the backrest that remained.
"Holy crap!"
Lin Yuan quickly grabbed the two bags to prevent them from falling into the sea. His body was uncontrollably sliding down. Fortunately, the safety belt held him, and the parachute tied to the backrest successfully deployed.
The uncontrolled plane plunged straight down and exploded in mid-air.
The explosion's shockwave also helped Lin Yuan, blowing him a considerable distance towards the shore.
But Lin Yuan felt no joy of surviving the disaster.
The plane exploding in mid-air could only mean that someone had planted a bomb on the plane beforehand.
Who was it?
Simonov? Or the man who had been acting drunk with him?
Or someone else, more hidden?
Lin Yuan dared not think further.
Fortunately, among these three paths, there was a way to survive.
Simonov should be unaware. He hoped his journey ahead would be smooth.
There was no time to dwell on fear. Lin Yuan struggled to control the parachute and guide it to an open space on the cliff.
It would be bad if he had an intimate encounter with the cliff face.
Fortunately, the blizzard clouds were still to the north and had not swept over, so the wind was not strong, and Lin Yuan landed safely in the open space.
He began to unbuckle his seatbelt.
"don't"
At the entrance from the cliff to the forest stood a person holding a double-barreled shotgun, wearing a hood and a mask, their face obscured.
Lin Yuan had no experience with such shotguns and was unsure of the model.
However, he did not dare to relax his vigilance. If the gun was loaded with 12-gauge slugs, his combat suit might not withstand them.
"Friend, what do you want?"
The person holding the double-barreled shotgun slowly approached to a safe distance and said.
"Who are you?! What are you doing here?!"
"Me? You can call me Zhu Mingjun. As for what I'm doing here, that's a secret."
In a foreign land, it wasn't strange to borrow the name of an old teammate, right?
"Zhu Mingjun?" The person muttered, lowering his head, then reacted and asked in Chinese, "Are you Chinese?"
Hmm?
Hearing the Chinese spoken with a slightly dialectal accent, Lin Yuan's eyebrows, hidden beneath his gas mask, twitched.
Could it be such a coincidence, to meet a compatriot here?
"I am, are you also Chinese?"
"Pull down your mask and let me see!" The person clearly didn't believe Lin Yuan.
Lin Yuan first showed that his hands were empty and slowly opened his gas mask.
The appearance was fine.
"Sing the national anthem!"
"..." Was this now a method to distinguish Chinese people from other Asians?
Helpless, Lin Yuan stood at attention.
One must be solemn and reverent before singing the national anthem.
"Arise!..."
"Alright, no need to sing anymore, I'm sure."
The person lowered the muzzle of the gun and walked over. At this distance, Lin Yuan could already counterattack, but he certainly wouldn't do so.
"Zhu Mingjun."
"Tristan Lee, you can also call me Li Xiangxin."
The two clasped hands.