Earning Tuition as a Mercenary Pilot

Transported to a parallel world, Jiang Cheng is a junior at the Civil Aviation University's flight academy. Training to be a pilot is brutally expensive—over seven hundred thousand yuan a year in fees weighs on him like a crushing burden. To cover his tuition, he has no choice but to head abroad for part-time work over summer break. On the first day back for senior year, paratroopers storm his classroom. "Jiang Cheng, come with us!" they order. Bewildered, he asks what he's done wrong. They press him about his summer activities. He insists he just worked overseas to pay for school. When they ask why he had to go abroad for a job, he explains he doesn't have a domestic license to fly in China. Then the questions turn sharper: "What exactly were you flying?" His casual answers—a J-6, the same model China has exported over a thousand times—lead to a stunning revelation. Yes, he did shoot down a Rafale with a J-6A in Africa. And several Mirage-2000s. And an unknown number of F-16s and MiG-21s. The lead officer takes a long, hard look at him and offers a chance at redemption—if Jiang Cheng agrees to follow him. Jiang Cheng quickly accepts, but asks for one small favor: could he fly a third-generation fighter? The second-gen jets just aren't thrilling enough anymore. The officer flatly refuses—then grins: if he's going to fly, it'll be a fifth-gen fighter. That's where the real excitement lies.