Xie Ran pushed Meng Feixuan onto the stage together. As expected, they immediately attracted the attention of the entire audience, many people paid more attention to the relationship between Meng Feixuan and Xie Ran than to the performance itself.
Meng Yucheng and his wife sighed silently upon seeing that Meng Feixuan brought Xie Ran to such an important occasion.
The senior executives of the Meng family also showed displeasure without surprise. It didn’t matter how intimate Meng Feixuan was with this little internet celebrity in private, but this was a public occasion, related to the Meng family’s public image, with many media present. The Meng family heir openly bringing a little internet celebrity on stage would undoubtedly invite a lot of criticism.
Someone whispered:
“Looks like this accident has had a big impact on Siyun. He wouldn’t have done something so inappropriate before.”
“Young people are always impulsive, but this… really isn’t suitable.”
“What’s suitable or not? Given Siyun’s current condition, does it matter who he brings?” The one who said this was Meng Sien’s father, Meng Yuguan, the current second-in-command of the Meng family.
Meng Yuguan had always been ambitious, clearly intending to compete with Meng Yucheng for power. However, neither Meng Yucheng nor Meng Siyun was easy to deal with, and they always kept Meng Yuguan and his son in check.
Until half a year ago, after Meng Siyun’s car accident, Meng Yucheng lost his most important right-hand man. Meng Yuguan suddenly became dominant within the group and seized the opportunity to let Meng Sien take over the Haimeng project that Meng Siyun had managed.
Now that Meng Siyun had just recovered somewhat, and Meng Yucheng handed the business opening matters back to him, Meng Yuguan naturally felt very unhappy.
He didn’t speak too bluntly, but his meaning was clear.
After Meng Siyun’s car accident, he had been away from the group for a long time and was now disabled in both legs. Naturally, the group’s morale was unsettled, with everyone having their own thoughts.
Meng Yuguan’s words reflected the feelings of many shareholders: Even if Meng Siyun returned to the Meng family, given his current physical condition, it would be good enough for him just to hold a position and manage a company. He certainly couldn’t still be the heir.
Despite this, some still expressed disagreement:
“Especially at times like this, Siyun should be more cautious with his words and actions.”
“Exactly. So many eyes are on Siyun and the Meng family now. If he acts like this, isn’t he just making a fool of himself?”
“If he brought a big-name star, that would be one thing — PR could even issue a decent press release. But bringing an internet celebrity who can’t even stand on stage? What noble son would bring a random internet celebrity to meet the media in such a setting?”
Someone even made an inappropriate joke: “Is this the ‘Beacon Fire to Entice the Lords’?”
“Tsk, but this isn’t Baosi either.”
Meng Sien sat among the executives, not participating in the conversation but exchanged a glance with his father and smirked coldly. Then his gaze fell on the wheelchair-bound young man targeted by the media cameras.
Meng Feixuan didn’t care about the attitudes of the Meng family elders. He had attended many large events with Xie Ran, and as long as he wanted, handling this kind of scene was more than enough.
At this moment, both he and Xie Ran maintained very standard and proper postures, with no faults to pick.
Especially Xie Ran, dressed in a neat and crisp suit, casually resting one hand on the handle of Meng Feixuan’s wheelchair, with a tall and relaxed posture, exuding some aristocratic dignity. Despite the flashing lights, he remained as calm as a mountain, even more composed than many big shots present.
Some uninformed citizens even thought he was a noble son.
All relevant personnel were in place, and the host, following the procedure, began to introduce the details of the performance to the audience.
The opening performance of the Haimeng Shopping Mall was a drone formation show, a trend that had just emerged in the past two years.
Drones were a new technology, and the public’s awareness had only increased in these past two years.
The formation show controlled dozens or even hundreds of drones simultaneously to arrange into specific words or patterns in the sky. It seemed simple but was actually very complex to operate and extremely costly.
A single drone for formation shows cost nearly ten thousand yuan. A performance involving hundreds of drones for ten minutes would cost millions. Therefore, large drone shows were usually held by official agencies or financially strong corporations.
The drone show plan for Haimeng Shopping Mall was set before Meng Siyun’s accident. It was the most talked-about high-tech show, fitting Haimeng’s high-end positioning and helping boost the mall’s fame at once.
Meng Siyun’s decision was bold, deploying 1,500 drones in this performance — unprecedented in Haijing City.
The Meng family’s PR department had already arranged major media in advance to build hype. Before Haimeng’s opening, the drone show news had already gone viral on Haijing citizens’ social media, attracting much attention.
At this moment, a large crowd of citizens gathered at Haimeng Mall and around the city’s central gymnasium to watch the show, while many others waited for a live online broadcast.
This opening show cost an extremely high amount — over ten million yuan in expenses.
But for the Meng family, it was undoubtedly worthwhile, as the drones used were products of a company recently acquired by them.
The Meng family was a long-established enterprise rooted in finance, real estate, entertainment, and other relatively traditional sectors. But over the past decade, the impact from emerging technologies had grown significantly.
Later, when Meng Siyun joined the group, he began efforts to expand into the tech market, finally making up this shortcoming.
This drone company was the one Meng Siyun had led the acquisition of, investing huge funds. Therefore, this performance also carried a more important mission — to showcase the Meng family’s new product line to potential drone customers.
At this moment, the 1,000 drones hovered at the city gym, ready to launch.
After the host finished reading the script, a staff member brought a microphone to Meng Feixuan to announce the start of the performance.
Meng Feixuan took the microphone but hesitated for a moment. He looked up at Xie Ran with burning eyes: “Sir, you announce it.”
The Meng family’s senior executives: “……” King You of Zhou! It must be King You of Zhou!
Xie Ran smiled but said nothing. Strangely, he could guess Meng Feixuan’s mindset.
In many worlds they had experienced together, Meng Feixuan had accompanied Xie Ran to countless events. Xie Ran controlled the rhythm, and Meng Feixuan was always his most loyal support — an unspoken tacit understanding.
Even now that Meng Feixuan was human, this was ingrained in his core programming.
“You and I are inseparable.”
“Alright.” Xie Ran ignored the strange looks from the sidelines, took the microphone, faced the crowd, and calmly announced the official start of the performance to everyone’s eager eyes.
This was Haijing City’s first thousand-drone show.
As Xie Ran’s voice fell, under the distant sky screen, the gym’s airspace filled with dense drones flashing LED lights, gradually rising into view.
“Wow—”
“So spectacular.”
The crowd erupted in thunderous cheers, all craning their necks, raising their phones high, ready to capture this rare sight of a thousand drones forming patterns.
Seeing the citizens so excited, the crowd around Haimeng Mall surged with energy. Their videos would spread further on social media, reigniting the buzz. The Meng family executives finally nodded in satisfaction.
“Looks like the publicity effect will be good.”
“If it goes smoothly, this drone market can open up too.”
“Siyun really is talented. If it weren’t for this accident, no one would be better suited to lead the group.”
…
Meanwhile, Meng Feixuan and Xie Ran also looked toward the sky. Unlike the Meng family executives, although Meng Feixuan was now human, he still kept AI-level sensitivity to navigation and positioning.
As the drones rose, Meng Feixuan frowned and said to Xie Ran: “Sir, the drone route is wrong.”
“Hm.” Xie Ran said calmly: “There’s a problem with the formation program. Tell the engineers to pause and return immediately.”
Contrary to many people’s assumptions that each drone had a remote pilot, drone formation shows involved large numbers controlled by computers.
These large shows usually used centralized control. Each drone had to know all formation info and communicate attitude, speed, and position data to all other drones.
Months before the show, the control team had to program the flight control system and ground station, carefully calculating and simulating the formation positions repeatedly.
At the show site, the program was closely monitored. The control team was in a corner of the plaza where a temporary control console was set up.
Meng Feixuan never questioned Xie Ran’s orders. If he were still AI, he would have controlled the program himself, but now he was Meng Siyun.
“I hate being human!” Meng Feixuan cursed, immediately grabbing the microphone and shouting toward the control console: “You all, return immediately.”
His voice, transmitted through the microphone, sounded very abrupt among the excited crowd eagerly watching the show.
The Meng family executives frowned immediately: “What is Siyun doing?”
“Ordering a return now? Isn’t that reckless?”
“What’s going on?” Meng Yucheng frowned as well.
Before he finished speaking, the drone formation suddenly encountered an accident. Several drones lost control and started wildly crashing about.
The formation signals interfered with each other, and the crashing drones scattered the entire group.
This accident caught everyone off guard. The crowd gasped with nervousness and slight disappointment.
“Return! Return immediately!” Meng Yucheng realized the severity and shouted toward the control console.
The engineers in charge scrambled anxiously, sweating profusely: “No… program error…”
Upon hearing this, Meng Yucheng and the others went black in their minds. They had known some technical requirements of the show and knew how catastrophic a program error with a thousand drones in the air would be.
Sure enough, right after the engineer spoke, two drones collided and fell. Luckily, the drones had not flown far from the gym and crashed inside, where no one was present.
The crowd’s noise grew even louder.
Meng Yucheng rubbed his forehead as others nearby cursed angrily: “What the hell is Siyun doing?!”
At that moment, a tall figure quickly left the stage and reached the control console.
Xie Ran looked steadily at the engineer and said: “Let me.”
“What are you messing with…” The engineer, already flustered, cursed impatiently. Before he finished, a colleague suddenly shouted: “Watch out!”
The engineer looked up in shock and saw the Meng heir, who should have been cared for, fiercely charging forward in his wheelchair.
Meng Feixuan’s wheelchair control was comparable to an F1 racer. He zoomed wildly, drifting on the spot in front of the engineer and shoved him aside: “Get out of my way!”
Engineer: ????
The engineer almost fell. As he barely steadied himself, the computer was taken over by Xie Ran.
The engineer yelled angrily: “What are you trying to do?”
Not only the control team but Meng Yucheng and the senior executives were stunned by the scene. Especially seeing Meng Feixuan stylishly crash the engineer with his wheelchair made them think they were hallucinating.
Outside the plaza fence, citizens lucky enough to witness this clicked their tongues in amazement.
The media furiously flashed their cameras and whispered: “Wow, wheelchair warrior!!!”
The Meng family shareholders snapped back to reality first, urgently shouting: “Siyun, stop this now!”
Others pointed at Xie Ran and scolded: “Are you crazy? Let this guy mess things up!”
“Is this the occasion to amuse your little lover?!”
Meng Yucheng also quickly tried to call people to pull Xie Ran away.
In the chaos, Xie Ran calmly stood straight, glanced coldly at them, lightly pressed Enter on the keyboard, and said in a calm voice: “Done.”
With his action, the more than a thousand drones in the gym’s airspace, which had been chaotic, began to return along the original route and slowly descend.
The night sky returned to calm.
The angry engineer and Meng family people all froze, dumbfounded.
