Chapter 3 Big Brother Flies an Airship

Elara nodded, but before she could say anything, Wendy's contemptuous voice came from behind: "You think renting a fancy car makes you an heiress? No matter how you dress up an ugly duckling, it'll never become a swan!"

Elara said nothing. She was actually pretty surprised by the whole display herself.

But she didn't really care whether her birth parents had money or not. She was going back to the countryside for some peace and quiet anyway. With her abilities, she'd get by just fine wherever she ended up.

"Mom, stop picking on Elara — she just has too much pride!" Jasmine let out a snicker and turned to Elara with a sarcastic smile. "Elara, renting all these Maybachs for a day must've cost a fortune. Don't tell me you took out a loan for this?"

A ripple of mocking laughter swept through the crowd. Everyone could tell Elara was stretching thin just to put on a fancy show.

After all, Elara had been kicked out by the West family. If she were really that capable, they would've treated her with respect a long time ago.

James had heard enough. "I thought the West family were decent people," he said sharply, "but I never expected you to humiliate Ms. Shaw like this!"

Wendy crossed her arms, her expression smug. "Nice act your butler's putting on. So tell me — how many properties does the Shaw family own? How many cars? What exactly do you do in Emerald City?"

"That's the Shaw family's confidential business information. I have no obligation to tell you anything," James said, his face cold.

Wendy let out a sharp laugh, tears streaming down her face. "Just admit you've got nothing! Confidential business information? How embarrassing!"

Jasmine was now convinced that James was just an actor Elara had hired, and joined in the mockery. "Elara, I'm just saying — the actor you hired is way too amateur. What would some country bumpkin know about confidential business information? She'd probably do better sorting recycling."

"You people—"

James was about to lose it, but Elara stopped him. "Don't bother. Let's go."

James shot them a furious glare. Good thing he hadn't handed over the two-hundred-million-dollar gift Elara's birth parents had prepared for the West family. With the way they were acting, they didn't deserve a single cent.

Elara got in the car and they pulled away slowly.

James sat in the front passenger seat and glanced back at her. "Ms. Shaw, I'm sorry," he said quietly. "You shouldn't have had to go through that."

"It's fine," Elara replied flatly. She turned to look out the window. "Aren't we heading toward downtown? I thought my birth parents lived in the countryside — this doesn't seem like the right way."

James nodded. "That's right. For your safety, we need to switch vehicles downtown."

"Switch vehicles?" Elara frowned, wondering what the Shaw family had up their sleeve.

About twenty minutes later, the car stopped in an open lot.

Elara had just stepped out when a thunderous roar erupted overhead.

She looked up to see a helicopter descending. The moment it touched down, the roofs of all sixteen Maybachs slid open simultaneously. The car bodies began to transform — panels unfolded on both sides like wings, and connection units rose from the rooftops.

Then all the vehicles moved toward the helicopter and locked together automatically, assembling into a sleek black aircraft.

Elara froze. This car-to-aircraft assembly technology — she had developed it herself.

But the design was anonymous and still in the testing phase. It hadn't been made public yet. How did the Shaw family get their hands on it?

While she was still puzzling over this, the aircraft's hatch opened. An automated staircase extended outward, and a man in a sharp suit stepped down.

He looked to be in his mid-twenties — tall, with striking brows and sharp eyes. Those eyes in particular were almost identical to Elara's, carrying a natural intensity that commanded attention without a word.

James stepped forward immediately, and a dozen bodyguards bowed in unison. "Mr. Shaw!"

The man gave a slight nod and walked over to Elara, looking her up and down. "The resemblance is unreal," he said with quiet amazement.

He smiled at her. "I'm your brother — Ethan Shaw."

Elara nodded in acknowledgment.

"Let's get on board and talk." Ethan headed to the trunk to grab her luggage.

A dozen bodyguards surged forward to help, but Ethan waved them off with a look. "Back off. I'll carry my sister's bags myself."

The bodyguards stepped back.

Ethan gripped the suitcase handle and gave it a casual lift — and it didn't budge.

He paused, then pulled harder. Still nothing.

What on earth was in this thing?

James leaned in and murmured, "Mr. Shaw, it takes two or three of us just to move it."

"You could've told me that earlier!" Ethan shot him a sharp look.

He was already feeling embarrassed in front of Elara and was about to try again when she walked over, reached down, and lifted the suitcase with one easy motion.

Ethan stared for a moment, then broke into a genuine smile. "That's Shaw blood right there — effortlessly extraordinary."

Elara gave a faint smile and carried her luggage onto the aircraft.

The interior was far more spacious than she'd expected. Every seat had its own touchscreen panel — exactly in line with her original design concept.

After she sat down, she asked directly, "How long have you been tracking me?"

If she was right, the Shaw family had known about her identity as an aerospace engineer for some time and had paid a significant sum to acquire the rights to her technology.

Ethan was caught off guard by the question. He smiled and said, "That old man from the West family tampered with your natal chart — rewrote the position of every planet at your hour of birth. Then he cast a concealing hex to bury your life force, and used a custom frequency blocker to hide your biological signature. It took us eighteen years to find you. Only when your grandfather died did the hex finally break, and your star started showing up on our scrying maps again."

Elara studied him. He didn't seem to be lying. Maybe she'd been overthinking it.

She sat back and shifted to a different question. "The design logic behind this aircraft is way ahead of its time. How did your engineering team crack the propulsion balance system in under six months?"

Ethan winced and rubbed his temple. "Don't even get me started. The Shaw family bought this thing from an anonymous underground source overseas — a one-of-a-kind design blueprint that cost us three hundred million dollars. Even after we brought in the best aerospace engineers in the world, all they managed to do was build a rough shell. The core attitude auto-correction algorithm was completely scrambled. This aircraft almost ended up as a very expensive display piece that could never actually fly."

He gave Elara a long look. "The Shaw family was about to scrap the whole project. But two weeks ago, the algorithm key — which had been dormant for three years — suddenly activated on its own. That's the only reason we're doing a test flight today."

Elara's eyes narrowed slightly. It all clicked. That key was the security firewall she had written three years ago to protect her research data from theft. It was designed to unlock automatically once it detected that the data had been transferred to a trusted, high-security device. The Shaw family's aircraft was exactly that kind of trusted system.

"What you bought wasn't a patent," Elara said, her voice unnervingly calm. "It was a stack of useless paper. The base protocol driving the chip is dynamic. Any engineer other than the original developer who tries to touch it will trigger a self-destruct sequence within ten minutes."

Just then, the aircraft lurched violently. Ethan instinctively shielded Elara and shouted toward the cockpit, "What's happening?"

James came running, his face pale. "Mr. Shaw, we've hit severe turbulence! The balance system is compromised — we're going down fast!"