Chapter 132: Calm
Night had fallen over Shanghai. At ten o'clock, Su Can sat in Terminal 1 of Pudong Airport, facing an enormous glass curtain wall. Directly opposite him, a Boeing aircraft with its lights flashing stood at the boarding bridge, its huge, pointed nose aimed at the glass as though it would burst through the next moment. Plenty of American Hollywood films featured scenes like this. Add commercial elements like a superhero saving a beautiful woman, and they would draw audiences around the world as reliably as ever.
This Boeing was a United States United Airlines (United Airlines) flight, the very plane Su Can would take to San Francisco in the United States. In 2002, Rongcheng had yet to open direct routes to San Francisco or New York, so Su Can had left Rongcheng Airport at seven, arrived at the Shanghai terminal around nine, and was waiting for his eleven o'clock flight to the United States.
Shanghai was cold, and Rongcheng was much the same. A cold front had moved inland recently, leaving the weather across China much alike: equally cold. Just a few hours earlier, Su Can had been bundled in a long coat in Rongcheng, packing his luggage. Su Licheng had arranged for his official car to take him to the airport. Once inside, Su Can had gazed at the residential community where Tang Wu lived, a long street away. He had thought the driver might make a detour past it, but unfortunately, they headed in the opposite direction. All he could do was watch as Tang Wu's home grew farther and farther away.
The city lights were soon left behind once they reached the expressway.
Thinking the trip to the United States would not take too much time, Su Can had not made an announcement. He